Night Game (15 page)

“What do you think?”
Alvarez asked.

“Sit tight, and I’m going to kill a few minutes here before getting on the highway.”

Marquez paid for the gas, bought a newspaper, a bag of roasted almonds, and coffee, then walked slowly back to his truck and tried Petroni’s cell phone after getting into the cab. No answer. Tried it again and left a message this time. He drank a little of the coffee and pulled onto the highway westbound toward Sacramento, nerves humming, Alvarez following five minutes later.

Where the road flattened before Sacramento the car showed up again, hanging well behind Marquez but staying with him, and he still thought it might be Kendall putting a tail on him. He slowed as he entered Sacramento city limits, and Alvarez closed the gap, got the plates, ran registration, and the name Marion Stuart came back.

Alvarez read off 141 Valero. “Recognize that, Lieutenant?”

“Durham’s home address.”

“You got it.”

“Is that him at the wheel?”

“It’s hard to tell. The driver is slouched down and I can’t read him well enough from here. Looks like him but I can’t say for sure. Do you want me to get closer?”

“Yeah, try to get a look.”

Alvarez never got the chance. The TransAm dropped down the Tenth Street exit into Sacramento, and they decided not to chase him. Marquez continued past Sacramento, crossed the causeway, drove through Davis, and Alvarez broke off.

“I’ll go back through Sacramento and check Durham’s house for the TransAm,” Alvarez said. “I’ll call you from there.”

“Run the name Marion Stuart every way you can. I’m headed to Keeler’s.”

“I’ll call if I learn something.”

Five miles outside Davis, Marquez turned down the long driveway that ran through an almond orchard to ex-chief Keeler’s house. He saw the unused decaying barn first, then the greenhouse where Keeler spent his days with orchids. Sally, the spaniel, charged out to meet him. The kitchen door was open, Keeler sitting at his table, fingernails dark from working the greenhouse soil, wearing an old sweater and pants that hung too loosely on him now. The room smelled of cigar smoke, and Marquez saw the stub lying on the table.

At the retirement party held here in the spring, Keeler and his wife of forty years, Clara, stood holding hands like a teenage couple, before raising their champagne glasses in a toast to the friends gathered in the yard. He’d given such a soft-spoken sentimental speech that the officers used to his gruffness and sharp temper had joked about it for days afterward. He and Clara were going to travel the national parks. He’d do a lot of fishing and they’d see
the country together, which they hadn’t done since their honeymoon.

He pointed at a greenhouse he was restoring, and when he said he was going to grow orchids and win competitions the crowd laughed, Keeler, the flower grower. Smoke from pork ribs barbecuing had drifted across the gathering. White almond blossoms swirled and drifted onto the patio as the party continued into the dusk. Two weeks later Clara complained of a pain in her abdomen, lay down on their living room couch, and died of a burst aneurism.

“Bill Petroni’s wife has been murdered,” Marquez said, taking a chair at the table. “They’re looking for Bill to question him.”

He told Keeler about Stella’s murder, then took the call from Alvarez confirming the TransAm was parked up near Durham’s house. He asked Alvarez to get a hold of Roberts, let her know what had happened, tell her he wanted to focus on Durham’s background. Then to Keeler he described his last meeting with Petroni and the Sunday morning at the sheriff’s office where Bell and Charlotte Floyd had been present. Keeler listened and got awkwardly to his feet, a hip bothering him. He went to the refrigerator.

“That’s very, very sad about Stella,” he said, and pulled two Coors cans. “I know it’s early for a beer.” Keeler handed him a can. “And no one can find Bill this morning?”

“I looked for him. The county is looking hard.”

“He was here with Stella at our retirement party,” Keeler said.

“I remember them dancing, but you’re saying he was already with this other woman.”

“Chief, I really don’t know what’s going on with his life. He doesn’t seem to be going out with the younger woman anymore.”

“Is he part of your operation?”

“The truth is I haven’t had much communication with Petroni.”

Keeler took a drink of beer, looked through the open door at the sunlight on the yard, and asked, “What is it I can do to help you?”

Marquez told him what they had going on, including Sweeney. They came to the question of whether Keeler was willing to drive his camper up to Ice House Lake.

“I haven’t gone anywhere in it,” Keeler said.

“Maybe it’s time. It’s cold in the morning, clear, most of the people gone.”

Keeler’s eyes crinkled with dry humor. “Like going on vacation?”

“I trust you, chief, and I’m in a situation I’m not sure about.”

“All right, let me think it over today.”

Marquez talked with Bell as he drove into Mill Valley. There’d been phone calls from several TV stations and newspapers about Petroni. There’d been several calls from Kendall. The department was preparing a statement along the line of being very saddened by the murder and wishing the best for the family. No comment would be made on Petroni’s status, though his suspension and the fact police sought him for questioning were already in the news.

They talked about Sweeney, who, if he stuck to his itinerary, would leave for Tahoe tonight. Bell wanted to know they were ready, and he listened quietly, asking an occasional question. Two wardens in the Tahoe area would assist. Another they’d worked with before and liked the style of would drive up tonight from Kern County. Marquez told the chief he had visited Ed Keeler and was now in the Bay Area and wouldn’t return to the mountains until later tonight. He didn’t tell Bell about the TransAm, was still mulling that over. They discussed the latest call from the bear farmer, the offer to drop off the galls.

Marquez didn’t hang up with Bell until after he’d parked in Mill Valley. He watched Maria walk toward him, jeans low on her hips, belly exposed. She’d talked with Katherine months ago about piercing her navel, and Katherine had told her absolutely no. Her
walk now, though teenage awkward, was that of a young woman.

They were nearing the point where they could still advise her and exert influence, but not so easily control her.
Nor should we,
he thought. She smiled at him as she got in the truck.

“Hey,” she said. “How long are you here?”

“I’ve got one other stop in the Bay Area and then I’ll head back up. We’ve got a lot of action right now. Tell me about this new call you got while we drive.”

“Okay, well, this guy called last night and had a kind of a twangy voice. He wanted you.”

“Twangy like an accent from somewhere.”

“More like he was pretending to be.”

“What else?”

“About his voice?”

“Anything that comes to mind.”

“That was all he said. Mom blew it all out of proportion.”

“I thought she was going to field all the unknown calls.”

“My friend was calling back. I thought it was him. If I had a cell phone, then none of this would be a problem. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

“We’re going to get you one today.”

“Really?”

“This afternoon.”

“No way!” “But your mom is only willing if you stop talking about piercing your navel or anything else, like your nose.”

“I would never pierce my nose.”

“Well, you can think about whether you want to agree to those conditions while we check out where this guy followed you.”

They drove to the street where she’d first noticed the minivan behind her. Retracing the route she remembered more about the caller with the southern accent.

“He didn’t want to leave his phone number, and he called me ‘little girl.’ What a freak! He said he was your hunting friend.”

“My hunting friend?”

“Right.”

This morning Marquez had talked with Katherine about pulling Maria out of school to go visit her grandmother for a week. Katherine would also move out of the Mount Tam house and stay in San Francisco with her best friend. It was giving into the fear and worry, but Kath said she’d rather do it this way, though it was obvious now that she hadn’t talked to Maria yet. And there was nothing that said a week would make a difference, but if they were going to take precautions, now was the time. He’d called Matt Fong and suggested he do the same, and he’d had the same conversation with his team. The phone call Maria had fielded last night had only reinforced that feeling.

As he drove the route Maria had taken through Mill Valley he remembered two men in a dark blue Chevy Suburban driving slowly down a residential street in Phoenix twelve years ago. They’d bounced two wheels up on the sidewalk and run over an eight-year-old boy on his bicycle, then backed up over his skull, dropped back down onto the street, and slowly drove away. The slow drive away was meant to convey power, not the killing. The killing of the boy was the lesson, the slow drive said they weren’t worried about the justice system. Cartels had no problem going after families of law enforcement officers.

“I was watching the guy following me like you taught me to do, but I got scared,” Maria said. “I know you and Mom don’t believe me. I know it sounds like the perfect story.”

“It doesn’t sound perfect to me.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“No.”

She showed him where the cop had pulled her over and how she’d turned and watched the other car go by. She craned her
neck looking behind, and he pictured the cop’s description of her crying as he’d told her he was going to give her a ticket. Marquez doubted she’d been very focused on the vehicle following or that it had been anywhere nearby at the point the cop walked up, but he felt she was telling the truth about thinking she was being followed.

“How would you feel about missing a week or so of school and going down to stay with your grandmother?”

“Missing school would suck.”

“Let’s go get a cell phone for you.”

She picked out an inexpensive phone, and they went through the deal of signing up for a phone plan, the salesman talking as though they were buying a house. She got to choose her phone number from a list, and Marquez had no doubt she’d go over her monthly limit, or plan, as the phone company called it. The “plan” was to take all your money. As they left the store, Maria high on her new phone, he took the conversation back to visiting her grandmother and how unsure he was about the suspect they were trying to find. He tried to give her the information in a balanced way.

“What, like I drive down to Grandma’s?”

“Your Mom would ride with you.”

“This is insane.”

He turned and looked at her. “Yeah, you’re right, Maria, this is insane. But I think it’s what we’ve got to do.”

He dropped her at her car in the center of town and wished he could drive up the mountain behind her. That he had to worry about her safety stirred a much deeper anger inside, and he drove away with that. When he reached the freeway he called an old friend at U.S. Fish and Wildlife. Though they’d already talked to Fish and Wildlife about Durham, he asked a favor, asked her to check again to see if there was anything anywhere in their system with Durham’s name on it, and also the name Marion Stuart.

Pulling Maria from school might be an overreaction. He held the phone in his hand, second-guessing himself, debating calling Katherine and changing plans. Instead, he punched in Vandemere Sr.’s number. When he answered, Marquez told him he’d be in Orinda in forty minutes.

Marquez hadn’t been in the town
of Orinda in a long time, but it didn’t seem much different. He followed a residential street into hills surrounding a golf course, drove past tennis courts and a country club, then around a small lake where the slopes above the driveways were grown over with ivy. The Vandemeres’, a three-story Spanish-style stucco house, had a black iron gate left open this afternoon to let him in. A tall white-haired man came out, walked over, and offered his hand as Marquez got out of the truck.

“Pete Vandemere,” he said.

Marquez liked the man immediately but couldn’t have said why. Upstairs in Jed’s room he looked at the posters on the walls, a lacrosse trophy, framed photographs, the things in the room that bore some stamp of Jed’s personality, though Pete told him Jed hadn’t lived at home for five years. Pete had wanted him to see the room, perhaps to get a sense of his son. Now he led him down to a
room where a TV played. A young girl got up from the couch and clicked the TV off as soon as they came in.

“My daughter,” Pete said, after she’d left. “She’s the one who has had the hardest time of all. We still find her in his room asleep on the floor some mornings. She idolized him.”

Marquez sat in a stuffed chair and read the emails of Jed’s that Pete had printed for him. He felt Pete watching him and read two that were just bantering with a college friend, then one that started with “I’ve met a girl named Sophie that I like a lot. She knows every trail up here and has been showing me places.” He read on, then looked up at Pete’s eyes. “Does Kendall have copies of these?”

“I gave him copies the day I filled out the missing persons report. He asked for more recently. I think he lost the others.”

There were several emails mentioning bear poachers, a reference to high school, the Bear Initiative he’d worked on, one to his dad, suggesting he might be in the area poachers were working and had talked to the local warden about it.

“He went up to support the Bear Initiative in Idaho when he was in high school. Saved all his money and rode a bus up there but came home a little disillusioned, didn’t feel like he’d really accomplished anything but spent all his money. I told the detective this the first time we met.”

“He mentioned it to me.”

“I didn’t know he wrote it down. Didn’t seem like he wanted to listen at all when we first reported Jed missing, and I know all kinds of people go missing. But he didn’t acknowledge that we knew our son, and, of course, it was in the wilderness area, not his territory.”

“But it’s his case now.”

“It is, and it wouldn’t have made any difference.” His voice quavered. “My son was already gone.”

“I’m very sorry.”

Pete raised a hand, didn’t say anything, then, “I’m not doing well with this.” He picked up a manila envelope off his desk. “These are copies for you. All the emails he sent this past summer. He was an enthusiastic young man, had a great life ahead of him.”

He looked up and stopped talking about his son. “Do you know this Sophie Broussard?” he asked.

“I know who she is and I’ve met her. Has Detective Kendall talked to you about her?”

“No, he won’t talk to us about the case. He says he’ll keep us apprised of real progress. Well, you should know this, he got angry with me because I tried to do my own investigating when I didn’t feel anything was happening. I asked the wrong questions too early, before Jed’s body was found.”

“Did you talk to Sophie?”

“Yes, I talked to her and another young man named Eric Nyland. He was quite helpful and she was unfriendly. She works at a bar in Placerville and wasn’t the person I expected at all.” He paused, studying Marquez’s eyes. “The detective has told me not to speak to anyone about this, but I’m going to tell you. She told me she had a short fling with my son and it didn’t mean anything to her, said she could barely remember his name.”

“When did you have that conversation with her?”

“In late August. That’s hardly three weeks after that email in your hand where he’s talking about what they’re doing together. So you can imagine the things that have gone through my head. I know from emails that he met her in June and the relationship went on longer than she claimed. Jed wouldn’t lie about something like that, or anything else. Whether she wanted to shock me or cover something up, I don’t know.”

Marquez nodded in sympathy at Vandemere’s frustration that this woman his son had been so enthusiastic about was so cold
to him. The date of the last email was August 6 and in all this, what Kendall hadn’t told him, what he learned now, was that Jed Vandemere’s birthday was August 7 and it was understood that he was going to call his parents.

“In the last few years have you talked to him on his birthday?”

“Always on his birthday, but forgetting us, he knew Caitlin would be waiting for the phone to ring.”

“Was that Caitlin who left as we came in?”

“Yes.” Vandemere was quiet a moment. “Caitlin had made him a card and a present. There’s no way he would have missed that call and no doubt in my mind that he was killed in that twentyfourhour period.”

“He mentions seeing two men at the end of July that were looking around his campsite—” “I know the email you mean.”

“He doesn’t describe the men in the email. Did he ever mention them over the phone?”

“Yes, but he never gave a physical description, just that they were acting funny. Oh, he did say one was an older man.”

“Did he ever meet Sophie’s family?”

“He told me she wanted nothing to do with them. So I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

“Sophie’s father did time for trafficking in bear products.”

“Detective Kendall never told us that.”

“He may not have known, and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

Marquez said good-bye, thanked him, and promised to pass on anything he learned. He saw Caitlin in the window as he drove away. On the road east he told Alvarez he’d be back in time to help cover Sweeney. During the ride back to Placerville he reread several of the emails. He thought about Nyland’s pretending sympathy when Vandemere talked to him.

Marquez arrived in Placerville a little after 4:00, just before Sweeney left Sacramento. If Sweeney stuck with his itinerary he’d continue up the highway fifty miles beyond Placerville to the South Lake Tahoe casino where he’d spend the night.

When the budgets were larger, Marquez’s team had been ten wardens, twice what it was today. With ten undercover officers it was much easier to follow a suspect over this kind of distance. A larger team could spread out, float ahead and behind, but with only five it was more of a hopscotch and handoff game. Sweeney’s driver sat in the fast lane and rode the accelerator. Most of the SOU was strung out along the highway ahead of Sweeney. They communicated using their four-digit call numbers, calling out just the last two numbers for ID. They’d assigned a number to Sweeney as well—the number twenty-one because his first destination was a casino and their informant had told Bell that Sweeney was a big blackjack player. It was also, Marquez had decided, a number that most juries might associate with good luck, one that a defense attorney would have trouble twisting into a politically malicious symbol.

Sweeney’s car rolled through successive green lights as the highway cut through Placerville. Marquez picked him up there, reading nothing through the tinted windows of the black car as it passed. He called out each exit sign Sweeney’s vehicle passed.

Then it was beyond Placerville and starting the long climb.

“In number one at seventy-five,” he said, giving the lane number and speed. A few minutes later, “Passing Apple Hill, still lane one at seventy.”

Near Pollock Pines, he saw its headlights come on, relayed that on. Sweeney’s car moved steadily up the highway and everything was calm enough that he made a quick call to Katherine to check on her and Maria. He knew they’d left the Bay Area about the same time Sweeney left Sacramento, heading south to Katherine’s mother’s house outside Bishop in the Owens Valley.

“We’re on Highway 5 almost down to the cutoff to Yosemite.”

Her voice was light, enjoying her time with Maria despite the reason for the trip. “She’s driven the speed limit the whole way,” Kath added, and he chuckled. “She wants to drive the whole way. Here, I’ll hold the phone to her ear.”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Hey, Maria.”

“So what are you doing?”

“Checking out a tip. How’s the drive?”

“It’s empty out here. I’m listening to music. Mom fell asleep right away.”

“Maybe it’s your music.”

“Very funny.”

Up ahead, Sweeney’s car changed lanes, and Marquez knew he’d have to hang up.

“When you get tired you hand the wheel to your mom, okay?”

“What if she’s asleep?”

He smiled, said good-bye, and then relayed Sweeney’s position ahead to Roberts, who had the next leg. Roberts started ahead of Pollock Pines—running a reverse point, watching Sweeney’s car in her rearview mirror. She continued up the river canyon ahead of Sweeney’s car as Marquez trailed and then broke off, heading toward Wright’s Lake, winding out through forest and meadow, driving past a county cruiser hiding near Chimney Flats, knowing that Petroni would spot the cruiser just as easily.

Kendall was in Petroni’s Wright’s Lake cabin with Hawse. They’d separated Petroni’s belongings, spread them out on the couch and floor.

“What are you looking for?” Marquez asked.

“A key to a storage unit,” Kendall said.

“Who told you to look for it?”

“The dark angel,” Hawse said. “Sophie.”

“She ever been to it?”

Neither answered that, but Kendall elaborated. Sophie was pretty sure that’s where most of his belongings had gone after he’d moved out of Georgetown. Though they hadn’t found the key, they had found his logbook and were puzzling over Petroni’s leaving it here. Or maybe not puzzling, possibly baiting him? “What do you make of him leaving it here?” Kendall asked.

“He may really believe his career is over.”

“There are all kinds of names in it. We found a name that he’s entered twice very recently. Did he say anything to you about Howell Road?”

“No.”

“Take a look.”

Kendall handed the log over. “Howell Road,” was written in pencil, underlined, and near it was written “Johengen.”

“We found it here too,” Kendall said, showing him the inside cover of a paperback book they’d spotted “Johengen” written in as they’d opened it. It was finding it in the paperback that provoked their interest.

“So who’s Johengen?” Hawse asked, his round face a moon of innocence.

Marquez stared at Petroni’s handwriting, thinking about it. He had nothing to offer, though all of his team knew Howell Road.

“A bear hunter, a poacher, someone Petroni had a beef with, a friend he might be staying with?” Hawse prompted, then smiled at his next idea. “Yet another girlfriend? So far we can’t find a Johengen who lives on Howell.”

“I get it, Hawse, but I don’t know of a Johengen.”

Howell was a long road that ran forever out into backcountry. Once you got out a few miles it turned rural real fast. Some of the marginal people Petroni complained about had set up shop out there. Could be that he’d seen something out there and was paying attention to it. Marquez flipped through other pages of the log.

“Nothing clicks for you?” Kendall asked.

“No, though I’d bet Johengen’s is out Howell Road.”

Petroni had his own code for noting things. He’d written another entry that had a capital J and the note “needs looking at.”

They talked about that, and Kendall gestured around the cabin, said that they were in touch with the owner and that it was as Petroni had claimed. The owner was a friend and had loaned Petroni the cabin for as long as he needed it. In the light of the single pale bulb overhead the cabin looked particularly spartan, the walls with pine paneling, cold in the October twilight.

“Have you eaten?” Kendall asked.

“Not yet,” Marquez said.

“Why don’t we grab a bite and talk a little more. Let’s see if we can get around our recent snag.”

“We’ve got a surveillance running, but I’ll meet you for an hour.”

On the drive to Pollock Pines to have dinner with Kendall and Hawse, Marquez checked with his team. Cairo had the last leg. He called out Sweeney’s position coming into South Lake Tahoe. The black car was just pulling up to the casino.

“I may play a little blackjack,” Cairo said.

“If you lose your money, don’t lose him.”

“I’m lucky at the tables, Lieutenant.”

“Talk to you in a couple of hours.”

Kendall and Hawse ordered hamburgers, onion rings, beer, Hawse making the remark it wasn’t going to do much for his diet.

Marquez picked at the night’s special, turkey meatloaf with mashed potatoes, a mistake that brought a little humor to Kendall’s eyes.

“I need to understand why Petroni called you,” Kendall said.

“The very first time we interviewed him after Vandemere’s remains were found, Petroni said I should be talking to you and your team, not him. He was disparaging when I asked who you were, said they’d drummed you out of the DEA after you were the only sur
vivor on an undercover operation and the DEA was no longer sure which side you were on. Then through connections you got a job at Fish and Game.”

“The first part of that is true, but not the second, and either way, Petroni got that story from me.”

“How many died on this DEA operation?”

“Eight, but five of those were Mexican nationals and at the time the DEA wasn’t counting Mexicans.”

“You’re bitter.”

“I lost some good friends.”

“So why did he confide in you? Why did he bring you to his Sunday confession?”

“I volunteered he might want me there. He said no at first.”

Kendall took a pull of beer, his face serious as he closed his eyes with the bottle tipped. When he put the bottle down he said, “Petroni’s name has come up too much.”

“And you think I know more about that.”

“You knew about Wright’s Lake, but I don’t know why he told you. Petroni is the type of guy who’s always up against the whole world. Everyone is always backstabbing and screwing him. He’s always getting fucked by a superior. Right now, it’s your Chief Bell. He’s the type of guy it happens to all life long and from the way he talked, you did it to him also. So why come to you unless it fits into a bigger plan, a way to get even, for instance.”