Authors: Kirk Russell
“A friend I hunt with. His girlfriend came by and picked them up a couple weeks ago. He wanted to borrow them, and she brought them back to me the day before they were stolen.”
After Delano had confirmed the rifles were registered to Smith, they’d asked that he not inform Smith yet. Delano had no problem sitting on the information, and Kendall didn’t care about it because neither gun matched his Vandemere bullet.
“Did Nyland keep your guns because you owed him money?”
Smith flinched at the sound of Nyland’s name.
“She brought them back.”
“The guns have been found.”
Smith looked down again.
Probably was promised by Nyland that they wouldn’t be sold or found by anyone.
“How much were your dogs insured for?” Marquez asked.
“What?”
“We know they were insured, same as the guns,” Shauf said.
“We know you contacted the insurance company the same day you found them, and they contacted the police and asked for a report.”
Smith nodded, his eyes on Marquez. Marquez measured him, then taking a gamble, asked, “How much money did you owe Nyland?” He watched Smith string it together now, tying it to last night and making the assumption that Bobby had told them. The connection showed just for a fraction of a second in his eyes, and then he was slow to answer. He reached for the bottle of NyQuil and chugged a big swallow.
“Five grand,” Smith said.
“And you didn’t have a way to pay it.”
“I’ve been working it off with the guide company.”
“Sierra Guides.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We were there today and we saw your name in the records, but they haven’t done many guided hunts. You could say business has been slow, or you could call the business a shell.” Marquez reached over and tapped one of the survivalist magazines. “You know all about conspiracies, Eli. If we sit Sophie down and swear her in, is she going to testify she brought the guns back? What do you think? How far do you think she’d lie for Nyland now? Is she going to testify in court that she brought the guns back to you?”
“She did and they were here.”
“How much were the dogs insured for?”
“I loved my dogs. I wouldn’t do something like that.”
Marquez waited and Shauf shifted in her chair, stared hard at Smith.
“Ten grand,” Smith said.
“They pay out?”
“They’re still investigating.”
“Who came up with the idea?”
“What idea?” He looked baffled. He shook his head as though that would make it all go away. But nothing would ever make it go away.
“You owed Nyland five thousand,” Marquez said.
“I’ve been working it off.”
“Did Nyland get the guns as a down payment? Sold them cheap, filed the number so it would look like they’d been stolen? Not wanting to mess up your insurance claim, expecting to be paid from it. I’m pretty sure he sold them for what he could get, and it was on you to come up with the rest of the five thousand.”
Was Sophie set to get part of the money?
Marquez remembered Petroni’s saying Nyland owed her money and that’s why he was fixing her truck.
Maybe she took part in the scheme because of that. Had Smith poisoned his own dogs? If not him, who else? Neither Nyland nor Sophie would have had a reason to come out here that night.
“I loved my dogs,” Smith repeated, and Marquez didn’t even want to know how he’d balled up hamburger meat and walked out and fed them. He wanted to know something else though.
“This is the last question I’m going to ask you.”
Smith had started to cry and his head was bowed.
“Whose idea was it?”
Smith didn’t answer and his head swayed slowly from side to side. Shauf got up and had to leave. She moved to the door and left it open as she walked out. Then as the air hit him Smith looked up, his eyes teary.
“Hers.”
“Sophie’s?”
He nodded and tears streaked his cheeks. He covered his face, and Marquez left him there at the table.
As they got in the van and drove away, Shauf asked, “Why is it that a scuzz like him will live to be ninety?” She didn’t say, didn’t have to, and my sister will die.
Sophie hurried out of work early
and picked up Nyland after he posted bail. Marquez watched her lean over from the driver’s seat, wrap her arms tight around his neck, and kiss him hard while the lawyer stood impatiently outside Nyland’s window. From the courthouse they drove straight to a bar in Pollock Pines, and with the GPS unit in place it was unnecessary to follow closely. Marquez and Roberts hung back, waited, and it was almost two hours later in dusty gold late afternoon light that Nyland and Sophie walked side by side across the parking lot to her pickup. As Nyland looked around, Marquez spoke to Roberts. “He knows he’s not alone, but let’s hope he leads us to Durham.”
When Sophie’s pickup pulled away Marquez parked alongside Roberts. She had a laptop balanced on the edge her passenger seat and read the progress of the GPS unit on Sophie’s pickup. The readout put them at a rest stop up the road.
“Alcohol,” Roberts said. “Maybe she needs to use the rest room.”
But they were there too long, and at the half-hour mark Marquez decided he’d drive by and make sure they hadn’t switched vehicles or, worst case, been picked up by Durham. He drove up there, didn’t see the pickup, and phoned Roberts.
“The readout is coming from there still,” she said, and Marquez cruised back past again, checked for anyone positioned to watch the rest stop, then brought Roberts up. Took them another hour to determine that the twenty-thousand-dollar GPS unit had been dropped in one of the chemical toilets. Frustration boiled up in him. It was his mistake. They could have stayed with them and shouldn’t have lost Nyland, shouldn’t have lost their best lead to Durham.
Nyland and Sophie could have driven any direction. Marquez checked out Six Mile Road and drove through Placerville and Pollock Pines, past the place Sophie was house-sitting before finally giving up. Roberts drove down to the Sacramento safehouse, and Marquez returned to the room at the Gold Nugget in Placerville. He talked a long time to Kath and left another message for Maria on her grandmother’s answering machine. He went into town and picked up half a roast chicken, some string beans, and potatoes. After he ate, he checked Nyland’s trailers again and drove back to Placerville, sat in the Creekview, drank a beer, and asked the bartender if he’d seen Sophie that night. He was still at the Creekview when Kendall called and he let it ring, then phoned Kendall back after he was outside in the cold wind.
“We lost Nyland,” Marquez said. “Are you tracking him?”
“No.”
“Petroni turn up?”
“No, but I got the report back on Stella Petroni today. Her face was kicked in after she was on the floor of the kitchen. Repeatedly kicked. Over and Over. Probably with steel-toed boots of the same
type we found in Petroni’s duffel bag. I remember a murder in LA where a young Latina was killed by her ex-boyfriend. He stabbed her one hundred fourteen times in the abdomen. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. He’s going to hike out of the woods somewhere with a big sad question mark on his face about what’s happened to his lovely Stella. He didn’t need any money from you that afternoon because he already had a plan.”
“I don’t need this tonight. Why don’t you tell it to your girlfriend or Hawse?”
When Marquez hung up he drove back to the motel. It was 10:30. He couldn’t understand Kendall hammering at the same theme without any more evidence unless it was personal.
Or maybe he does have more and still thinks I know where Petroni is, trying to get under my skin.
The thought only aggravated him more. He tried turning on the TV, couldn’t begin to watch it or sit in the small room. He left the motel and drove back to the rest stop where the transponder was lost, cruised slowly past there, and drove into the Crystal Basin, parked near the edge of Weber Mill, and after ten minutes sitting there, drove up to Big Top, where he had a broad view of the basin. He looked out at the flat, nearoily blackness of Union Valley Reservoir and the dark forests beyond. Whoever had shot at him escaped into the basin. Late that afternoon, Durham had communicated with Fish and Game via his lawyer. At the appropriate time Durham would make himself available for questioning, but because he hadn’t been charged with anything he’d pick the date and time. His lawyer made it clear that his client broke no laws, did nothing wrong. In a written statement the lawyer faxed, Durham denied any involvement in poaching and pointed to his long-standing record with Ducks Unlimited and other organizations. If his young partner in Placerville had broken the law, then Durham was willing to voluntarily shut down Sierra Guides. He’d be the first to agree the business
should be closed down and the appropriate fines paid. The lawyer reported Durham was willing to pay double the maximum penalty, up to two thousand dollars a bear, to make restitution, a total of four thousand dollars.
Marquez thought of taking Maria out of school, hurting her college chances, Katherine’s making the best of a guest bedroom in the house an old college friend rented from her, and for what? A system that let Sweeney walk and would slap Durham’s wrists before turning to thank him for his cooperation. He couldn’t get around it tonight the way he usually could. He left Big Top and drove the dark forested roads past Union Valley, heading out the back route, then stopping on the graveled road near the bar where the Broussards drank.
As soon as he pulled into the parking lot he knew he should leave. Instead, he took a place standing alone at the bar and was ignored by the bartender, a smirking pimply-faced kid, basking in the approval of the men gathered at the far end. Troy Broussard was there, wearing a dirty canvas jacket and standing with his back to him, a whiskey in his right hand, holding court. Alongside Troy a stout man with a black beard stood and glowered at Marquez.
The bartender finally came down, sloppily opened a beer bottle, and slid it over. Marquez laid a bill down and drank, his throat tickling with the cold wash of beer.
Have a beer and leave. There are no answers here tonight, no value in confronting Troy. Fall back, take it to another day. Durham isn’t here. Let it go.
But instead, he ordered another beer and looked at the bearded man, nodded in a way that said, stare somewhere else, you malevolent fuck. He watched the bartender bring his change and toss it down, a coin rolling and falling, and the bearded man started toward him.
“Troy says you’re with Fish and Game.”
“He does all the thinking around here. What’ll happen when
he dies?”
“Last night we had a couple of niggers come in here and now you.”
“Shove it up your ass.”
The man backhanded the beer, and the bottle blew foam as it went end over end and bounced hard on the floor. A big hand gripped Marquez’s shirt.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
But the words came from a great distance and the roaring in his ears was like breakers rolling in. The man’s face haloed with red light, and Marquez felt a hard blow to his shoulder, a stinging blow at his chin that knocked him back and stunned him. Then he stepped forward and drove his fist through, felt chin hair mat against his knuckles and the man’s head snap back. Hit him again and the man staggered, his fist deep into soft gut. When the man fell Marquez stood over him, catching his breath, waiting to see if anyone else moved. Then he walked out.
He didn’t see anyone pull out behind him. But a set of headlights sat behind him now, hung there past Georgetown, and shadowed him as he drove through Placerville toward the motel.
Let them come,
he thought,
let them try.
A gentle knock on the motel door
woke him and he listened without moving. Another knock, soft, insistent, and Marquez rolled to his feet, the bed creaking as he stood. He eased the curtain back and saw Sophie Broussard standing under the pale yellow corridor light. The dark hood of a sweatshirt surrounded her face. She turned toward the window, her eyes meeting his. He opened the door.
“I have to talk to you,” she said.
“How’d you find me?”
“I followed you.”
“I didn’t see your truck.”
“I hid it. I was waiting for Eric to show up.”
“You didn’t want him to know you were there?”
“I was thinking about killing him.”
Her eyes were shiny and unreadable. He tried to guess at why she was here.
“Can I come in?”
He stepped aside, shut the door, and she took a seat on the corner of bed. He smelled tequila and lilac. Her fingers turned like worms in her lap.
“Look,” she said, and slid her hood back. Her left eye was swollen nearly shut, the white of the eye crimson, the bruising a purple-green darkness around the eye. “Eric thinks I’m helping you and that’s how you found the bait pile and busted the hunt. He says he’s going to kill you. He really flipped out because you took his truck and guns.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s gone.” She touched her eye and winced.
“Let me have a look in the light.” He guided her over and looked at the bad eye. “You need a doctor.”
“I can’t afford a doctor.”
“A blow like this can detach the retina. It ought to be looked at. I can drive you to the clinic.”
He remembered Eli Smith sobbing, saying it was Sophie’s idea to poison his dogs. She was much brighter than Smith and probably knew the insurance claim would never be collected. She pointed up at the overhead light.
“Can we turn that off?”
Marquez turned on the nightstand light and turned off the overhead. Drinking tequila might have blunted the pain but she had to hurt. He went to the coffeemaker and offered again to take her to a clinic. He asked again where she thought Eric was tonight and didn’t get an answer.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“I’d rather have something to drink.”
“I don’t have anything.”
“Don’t you want me to talk?” Said that almost coyly, if that was possible after being beaten as she had.
“Were you really thinking of killing him?”
“He’s lucky he didn’t show up there. What do you want to know about? Ask me anything you want.”
“Are you here to get even?”
“Seems like you’d want me to talk.”
“Okay, tell me about Durham.”
“He likes to sleep with me and I pretend to like him. He loaned Eric money so Eric could be a partner, and all Eric has done since is work to pay it back.”
“So why sleep with him.”
“He’s taking off part of the debt. That shocks you, doesn’t it? Well, I don’t really care.”
“You’re doing it for the guy who just beat you?”
The smell of coffee battled the other odors now. He washed a cup, asked when Durham had entered their lives.
“Eric met him at a gun swap in Reno. You know what he told Eric after he got arrested this time?”
“What?”
“He said the partnership is over if the charges stick and he’ll want the money he put up for Eric’s truck and some of his guns.”
“Even though he was in on it.”
“See you know everything already.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“That’s right, I forgot, that’s what you said when you came into the Creekview that night, that you don’t know anything.”
“Did I put it like that?”
“No, you pretended.”
“So my cover has been blown for a while.”
“Well, yeah.”
Marquez poured coffee, showing little reaction. He offered her a cup.
“Durham also told Eric that if he did everything right he would take care of him afterwards. They’d start all over again somewhere else.”
“What’s ‘doing everything right’ mean?”
“Leaving him out of it.”
“Will Eric do that?”
“I don’t really care what happens.”
He caught her looking at him, studying him as he poured more coffee, an almost feral look of cunning, assessing him, and he realized despite everything she might be here to try to get Nyland’s truck freed. The idea blew him away, but it was possible Nyland had sent her. The only thing he’d heard so far that he didn’t doubt was that his cover was blown.
“Does Durham ever hunt?” he asked.
“Haven’t you seen all his big boy photos?”
“Does he hunt now?”
“He’s not even a good shot.”
“How good a shot is Eric?”
“Very good.”
“Durham’s lawyer contacted us. He’s working another angle, wants to help us prosecute Eric. It’ll get Eric away from you for a long time, but do you think we can trust Durham?”
“Did a lawyer really call?”
“This afternoon.”
“I knew it.”
He let her think about that and asked, “Where would I find Durham tonight?”
“I don’t know where he stays when he’s here. Some old rundown place is what Eric told me.”
“You’ve never been there?”
“When I meet him it’s at a motel or his office.” She touched her eye. “Eric is talking about killing one of you, taking you out in the woods somewhere and gutting you, field dressing you and leaving you hanging from a tree. He talks about it with Troy. I really am warning you.”
“Has he ever killed anyone?”
“Now we’re getting really heavy and I need a drink. Do you think the night manager has a bottle? Can we go wake him up?”
“I don’t think we should.”
“We could go somewhere.”
“Will it help you remember?”
“Maybe. One time Durham put his finger on my eye, right on my eye, not the eyelid, and he said he’d killed a man once and felt the life go out of him through his eyes. He said he could feel the energy and it made him kind of high. He told Eric it made him stronger, and now Eric does these bullshit ritual things like burning bones. He has a fire pit and he gets old bones. It’s all supposed to make him stronger so he’s a better hunter. He drinks blood. He drank some of my blood once.” The one eye stared. “If he killed you, he’d probably drink some of your blood.”
Marquez smiled, couldn’t help himself. He had a lot of images of Nyland but none as a vampire. Neither did he believe her, though there was something chilling in her account of Durham’s touching her eye. That had the ring of truth. He decided to give the Durham questions a rest for a moment and come back to them.
“No one has seen Bill Petroni,” he said.
“I’m sorry if I hurt Billy, but he was the one who wanted to keep it going. I’m not really sorry about his wife though. She came into the Creekview looking for me, and it was pretty raw. She wanted to blame me for her marriage so I told her she could have him back.”
“Where do you think Petroni is?”
“Everybody is asking me and people are blaming me, but Billy was freaked out over the money and because of the detective. He probably just split.”
“Did he ever say anything that made you think he might hurt her?”
“He was real angry because she was screwing him out of his money. She was trying to take his house.”
Car lights swept into the motel lot, and he heard an engine outside the window. He motioned to her to stay out of view and pulled the curtain back after she went into the bathroom. He saw Kendall and Hawse get out of the car, and opened the door before they could knock.
“You’re working late tonight,” Marquez said to Kendall.
“You know how I like the early morning.”
They looked past him at Sophie, who’d opened the bathroom door and was wrapped in a towel. She walked across the carpet to them and touched Marquez on the shoulder as she opened the towel. She was naked and there were welts along her lower back and side that she turned to show him.
“This is what Eric did to me today.”
She kept her eyes on Marquez until Kendall cleared his throat.
“Okay, Sophie, cover up,” Kendall said, “and we’ll take you down and get you checked, and we’d love to press charges against your boyfriend.” When she went back into the bathroom, Kendall said, “I can’t believe this.”