Night Game (22 page)

They slowly dug the stakes out,
no one saying much, and with a county deputy and Shauf on one side and Marquez and Kendall on the other, they lifted away the heavy plywood cover. Two sheets of three-quarter-inch plywood screwed together formed the cap, and as they lifted it away Marquez saw that fresh concrete had been poured around the rim to bed the plywood.

It had formed a kind of seal that was broken now, and the odor flowing up from the well was horrific. He caught a finger where a screw poked through the plywood, and his blood dripped on the weeds as they maneuvered the cap over and put it down.

The odor, the release of gasses was gagging, and they fell back, had to give the well a few minutes to vent, Kendall going to his car to get something to dull the smell. Marquez covered his mouth, didn’t breath, leaned over with a flashlight. Near the bottom, roughly thirty feet down, was dark fur. He moved the beam along the fur, then straightened, stepped back, and watched
Kendall take a look while thinking about what he’d just seen.

Then they shined both lights in, Marquez talking.

“Here.” Marquez moved the flashlight beam to a place where the hide met unevenly. “Looks like a bear hide but it’s been sewed together.”

Kendall turned to Hawse. “We’ll need a backhoe.” To Marquez, “How deep would you guess?”

“Thirty feet.”

Kendall turned back to Hawse. “Tell the operator we need to get down at least twenty feet, maybe more. No, at twenty we can lower someone. Tell the operator we need a deep trench. He’ll know what to bring.”

“Might be easier to lower someone,” Hawse said, and Marquez stepped away from their debate. He saw Bell working his way through the officers on the driveway, Bell handing over a card rather than showing a badge. Marquez raised a hand so Bell knew where he was. Three TV vans were parked out on Howell, and Bell had waded through volleys of questions from the media but didn’t seem displeased about it. Marquez showed him the well, the carcass in the orchard, looked in the barn with him while they waited for a backhoe.

When the backhoe operator fired up his machine, diesel smoke plumed into the cool air, a curling black cloud rising against the white sky. The teeth of the hoe pulled at the concrete rim, lifted one edge, flipped and dragged it away from the well. It looked like a concrete donut lying there. The hoe repositioned and began to dig a trough, the bucket arm unfolding, teeth chattering as they scraped over stones. A pile of earth and loose rocks built alongside the backhoe, and a trench formed and deepened.

The operator worked steadily without looking long at any of those watching. Kendall stood with his hands on his hips, his eyes periodically surveying the overall scene, directing the work like a
construction superintendent, while Marquez walked back out into the orchard and then looked in the house, the one bedroom painted, carpeted, much cleaner than the rest of the place. There was a dresser but no belongings in the drawers.

His gut tightened as they waited. He had trouble focusing on Bell’s questions but brought him up to speed on the search for Durham and Nyland, told him that he’d had another call from Ungar, one he hadn’t answered yet, and that it was Ungar who’d visited Keeler at Ice House.

When a Fish and Game truck arrived with a bear trap chained down in the bed there was more waiting to confirm that all plaster castings of tire impressions had been taken. They’d share castings with the county. When the crime techs finished, the DFG truck backed into the barn. Marquez figured they could coax the bear with food into the trap, but the warden had a plan of his own and more experience. He was also quick to say he doubted the bear could be saved, had lost too much of its undercoat.

“We’re going to try anyway,” Marquez said.

More diesel smoke plumed upward as the hoe engine pulled against a rock and reached a point where it couldn’t dig any lower without risking a cave-in. The operator climbed down, shaking his head, saying he needed more shoring, more steel plate. Phone calls got made, and they waited for shoring to arrive, Kendall fuming because he’d made it clear how deep they needed to go before the operator came out.

Then a call came from Roberts. She’d heard from the lawyer for the Johengen estate. He’d looked at the faxed photo and recognized Durham’s face.

“He’s positive,” she said. “Durham or Marion Stuart is three years into a five-year lease.”

“The photo faxed through clear enough for him to be certain?”

Marquez asked, knowing the faxed quality wasn’t that good.

“Remembers Durham’s bad cheek. He’s sure. Said his checks are always on time. What’s going on in the background behind you?”

“A backhoe digging out a well.”

“What’s that about?”

“Something down there, not sure what it is yet, but dead.”

She was quiet a moment, moved back to Durham.

“Sac police will assist on a stakeout of Durham’s house.”

“Thank them for us.”

“I did.”

When he hung up he told Bell the lawyer had ID’d Durham, then watched a young deputy get lowered into the newly shored trench. He fumbled with a rope and after a couple of unsuccessful tries were made, vomited, and readjusted the rope and the harness they were trying to slide under it. Then the carcass began to slowly rise. The chain extending from the hoe arm to wrap around it pulled taut, and the hide with whatever was sewed inside bumped against the sides of the well as it rose. Kendall directed the hoe operator to a wide sheet of clear plastic and the operator placed it nearly in the center. The chain hooked to the ropes got unclipped, and the hoe arm swung clear.

Marquez moved in closer, trying to make sense of the stitching.

He brushed away the arm of a deputy trying to hold him back. It appeared a bear hide had been sewed with fishing line. He knelt with Kendall, their knees on the plastic sheeting as they studied the rough stitching. Kendall cut through with a knife and opened a small section. He repositioned Hawse, who was videotaping, and backed Marquez up and took another look himself, then motioned Marquez forward while holding off Bell.

“There’s a body inside the bear hide,” Kendall said. “I’m going to open more of it and I want you to take a look at the face with me.” He added, “If there is one.”

The hide made a sucking ripping sound as it pulled apart, and Marquez could see hands and it was funny but he knew from the hands alone. He saw a gaping wound under the ribs and then Petroni’s face as Kendall reached and lifted more of the hide. As he saw Bill’s face anguish gripped him, a hard wave of sadness.

“I’m sorry,” Kendall said very quietly, and then talking to himself, “and I really did think he killed his wife, may have, I still don’t know. If not, someone tried to make it look like he did. Those were his boot prints in her blood in the house. We found brochures and asked the Mexican authorities to watch for the Honda. I was sure we’d find him in Mexico.”

Marquez thought of a time when the SOU was new and he and Petroni each headed a team. He remembered in the first days after they’d met each other, driving along Highway 1 in a former drug dealer’s car they’d bought off a police lot on their way to sell abalone to a black market dealer they planned to sting. They’d stopped for a beer afterward and met another guy in the bar who wanted in on the abalone action. The guy had insisted on buying their beer and they’d laughed about that later and it had seemed then that the new undercover units were going to make a real difference.

All these years later and he found himself wondering if he was making a difference.

“We’ll check to see if they threw anything else in the well,” Kendall said. “We’ll be out here a while, and I’ll need to be able to get a hold of you. We will find who did this, Marquez. I promise you that.”

Kendall’s words meant little to him. Kendall had been looking hard for Petroni, and his theories were all upside down as near as Marquez could tell. How had Petroni gotten here? That was a question to get answered. He had another and turned to Kendall with it.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?”

Kendall seemed to consider the question. When he spoke it was quietly as though the conversation was strictly between them, though Hawse hung at his elbow.

“I’ve seen bodies discarded like trash. Rape-murders where the body is dumped on a road shoulder. This is what it reminds me of. Take the warden, wrap him in a bear skin, and throw him down a hole.”

Marquez nodded agreement. “It’s about bear and Petroni’s role.

If he was taking bribes and that was all going along as planned, why would this happen?”

“He asked for more money, got in an argument,” Kendall offered.

“But kill him and a new warden gets assigned. This is a statement.”

Marquez down at Petroni again. “It’s the man who threatened us and took the shots at me. This guy is buying from us so he can take our money so he can burn us, prove he’s better than us, and he hates us so much he’ll risk trying to make good on his threats.”

Marquez looked away from Petroni’s body, glancing at the barn as he tried to make sense of it.
Durham’s leasing under a different name. If Petroni was taking bribes, was it for a different reason?
He remembered Petroni’s comment that he had money but didn’t. His thoughts came in a jumble, not connected yet.
Could bitterness over having a Michigan game park shut down cause something like this? Was it Nyland as Kendall speculated, evening the score with Petroni? Like gutting one of them, as Sophie had talked about in the motel room.

Marquez stepped back, was quiet as he watched how they handled the body, electing to transport it still sewed into the hide, a final degradation. He waited until the county had finished searching the bottom of the well and then with Shauf drove Bell back to his car. In his rearview mirror as they drove away he saw Bell talking to one of the TV people.

Later, he sat with Shauf in Placerville and tried to fight off the shock, piece together their next moves. Everything they did at Johengen’s would need to be coordinated through Kendall. He wanted to go back there as soon as possible, but they’d have to stay clear until the county finished. Tomorrow would be the earliest they’d be allowed back into the barn, so tomorrow they’d go back and catalog everything. They’d continue to focus on finding Nyland and Durham. He figured they’d start with Bobby Broussard today.

That was his plan when he left Shauf. Then Maria called and everything changed.

“What does this man want?”
he asked Maria.

“He’s checking something in the back. There’s like a right away, or whatever, a land thing that’s in the back, only Grandma didn’t know about it.”

“He’s back there now?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your grandma?”

“She’s with him. He asked Grandma if he could walk around the back of the property because they’re putting in a line of new pipe or something like that. He has to check on some survey stakes. Does that seem right, Dad?”

“He’s a surveyor?”

“He’s working for somebody marking where they’re going to put cable for TV in a trench, but it’s weird. He’s all sketchy and he’s got like sunglasses on and a cap and trying hide his face. His coat is turned up.”

Her voice was rushed. She paused, waited for him answer.

“Is it cold?”

“It’s windy, so, yeah, it’s cold. He could just have his coat turned up because it’s cold, and there’s a lot of cable getting installed everywhere. So I’m just being way paranoid?”

She told him a man in a dull yellow pickup with a surveying company logo on his truck had driven into the yard about twenty minutes ago. He’d sat in the truck for what Maria had thought was too long, then got out, knocked on the front door, and stared at Maria standing at the window, watching her while he talked with her grandmother. Her imagination had run with the threat they’d sent her down there to avoid, and Marquez knew he hadn’t done enough to reassure her how safe she almost certainly was. But a cable company with a right-of-way at the rear of Lillian’s property did seem odd and from what Maria was saying, Lillian had gone back there with him, so Lillian had questions too. The house was miles outside Bishop and backed up to the alluvial plain of the White Mountains, nothing but sagebrush behind it before the dry canyons of the Whites. Still, for the last couple of years the cable companies had been doing massive rollouts.

“He’s back there now?”

“Yes. He like hung around the front door after Grandma said it was okay to go around back, but then he went back.”

“Describe him again. Black, white, Asian, what is he?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see a lot of his face. Sort of official-talking like he’s used to ordering people around.”

“How tall is he?”

“Average, maybe a little taller. Sort of like average.”

“What color hair?”

“I don’t know.” Marquez heard frustration, the edge of fear.

“He’s wearing a cap like I said. Grandma’s in the garden watching him because we saw him looking at the house really closely when he walked back. The back door was open and he went over to it,
but when Grandma came out he pretended he wasn’t doing anything.

It creeped me out.”

“And you can see the logo on his truck?”

“Not anymore. I can’t read it from here. Should I walk out, get the number, and call it to see if he’s supposed to be here?”

“No, stay on the phone with me, but why don’t you go back there and describe him.”

He heard her footsteps now as she walked back, and her breath was rushed as she told him what she was seeing. Her voice rose quickly.

“Omigod, omigod, he just knocked her down! He hit her, he’s dragging her.”

Marquez reached for his other cell phone, punched 911, and held the phone to one ear as he kept talking with her.

“Listen to me, Maria, do you know where Lillian keeps the gun in her room?”

“Omigod.”

He could barely keep his voice calm. “Go to her bedroom and get the gun.”

“He’s dragging her toward the house.”

“Stop looking out the window and go get the gun. Do you remember how to slide the clip in?”

Her voice quavered. He thought he heard “Yes.” He heard her moving.

“Do you remember how to rack the slide?”

“I don’t know.”

She ran down the hallway and he kept talking to her, trying to calm her as his own heart pounded. He spoke to a dispatcher as the 911 call picked up. He gave the address outside Bishop and said it was an emergency, an assailant, his daughter on the other line. He heard Maria get the gun out, drop it, and told her to slow down. He hung up with the 911 dispatcher.

“It won’t fit.”

“Turn the clip around and shove it in.”

Now he heard it slide into place and then the banging of a door slamming open and a frightened sound from Maria.

“He’s in the house,” she whispered. “He’s in the kitchen, he’s in the kitchen.”

“Take the safety off.” She didn’t answer. “Maria, is the safety off?”

“I can’t find it.”

“Along the side.”

He heard her tremulous “Like it clicks up,” and he knew her hands were shaking.

“That’s right. Okay, you’ve got to listen to me and you’ve got to think. He wants you to panic and you have to think. Remember what Lillian taught you about two hands.” She didn’t answer. “Stay with me, Maria.”

“Two hands,” she repeated, and, “he’s coming, he’s coming down the hallway. I hear him on the stairs.”

“Where are you?”

“In Grandma’s bedroom.”

“Then you can see down the hallway. Don’t let him get past the other bedroom and don’t let him see the gun until you’re ready. Aim for his torso.”

“He sees me, he sees me, he knows I’m on the phone,” and Marquez heard the man order her to come out of the room. He must have seen her face.

“Put the phone down, two hands and aim for his torso. If he sees the gun and keeps coming, pull the trigger.”

He heard a sharp noise that he knew was the phone being placed on the dresser near the door to Lillian’s room, and his heart hammered as he heard fragments of a man’s voice, soft tones, quiet, someone taking pleasure in this.

“I see you, sweetie. Come here, if you don’t want her to get hurt even worse you’d better.”

Marquez heard Maria’s scream and then two booming shots and the man yelled and a third shot came a few seconds later.

Then running, furniture getting knocked over, sounds coming from somewhere else in the house and he waited and couldn’t breath.
Come on, Maria, pick up the phone, please, God, let her pick up the phone, let her be okay,
and then the phone scraped as someone fumbled with it.
Don’t let it be him,
and it was Maria breathless, her voice quaking.

“I shot him.”

“You hit him.”

“He screamed and he ran out of the house, Dad. He got in his truck and drove away.”

She started to sob uncontrollably and Marquez kept talking to her, asked her to check the driveway again while he dialed 911 again.

“I’m going to Grandma.”

“Stay on the phone with me.”

Then Maria was crying, asking him what to do because Lillian was lying on the kitchen floor and not moving.

“Is she breathing?”

“Yes, and I can feel her pulse.”

“Okay, stay, lock all the doors. There are going to be Bishop police and maybe Highway Patrol on their way to you in a few minutes. Stay with me, but I’m going to use my other phone for a minute, okay.”

“Grandma is starting to move.”

“Talk to her.”

“I hear sirens.”

“Hang in there.”

Marquez scrolled through to the Highway Patrol number he wanted and called, gave the location and description of the truck.

If the man stayed on a highway, then they’d get him because it was all open country and not easy to hide in. When he spoke to
Maria again he could hear sirens clearly, then Maria went to get the officers. Marquez spoke with a groggy Lillian. She’d gotten to her feet and the paramedics made her lie down again.

“They’re putting her in an ambulance,” Maria said. “The officer wants to talk to you.”

“Put him on.”

Lillian had a pretty good lump on her head but didn’t want to go to a hospital and was arguing with the paramedics, the cop said. He told Marquez there were a few blood splatters outside on the dirt, and Marquez told him briefly about the threats and who he thought they were looking for. He repeated Durham’s name and the name Marion Stuart. He read off license plates for three vehicles registered to the Stuart name, none of which was a truck, but maybe he’d dump the truck and pick up his Mercedes.

“Do you know it’s him?” the cop asked.

“No, I know he disappeared and we’re looking for him, and it could have been his voice. But I’m not certain at all.”

“We’re going to take this young lady next to me back to the station with us. She’s going to teach us how to keep our cool under fire.”

“I’m headed your way but it’ll take me five hours.”

“Your daughter is safe with us.”

There’d been no delay getting the word out on the truck, but it was open desert country and the few police available were spread out. Marquez told Maria he was on the way and then called Katherine and told her what had happened. The normally pacifist Katherine was quick.

“I hope he bleeds to death on the side of the road somewhere.”

If it was Durham, how had he found his way to Bishop and did that mean he’d followed Katherine when she drove Maria down? Marquez drove hard as he tracked alongside the eastern side of the Sierras down to Bishop, on the phone to the different police municipalities along the route, and back and forth with the
CHP. He watched the traffic across the highway and when he dropped down on Mono Lake and was making the run into Lee Vining, he wheeled around and chased a truck that turned out to be a couple of middle-aged women.

The hospital wanted Lillian to stay overnight for observation, and Lillian argued against it, which didn’t surprise Katherine. But Lillian had a concussion and was mildly disoriented, a bad headache, and the hospital prevailed. When Marquez arrived she was in a hospital bed, her face pale, several of her network of friends standing in the room joking with her.

“If he comes back it’ll be his last mistake,” Lillian said to Marquez. She looked at the photo of Durham that Marquez had and said that it might not be him. Then he drove to Lillian’s house with Maria and she showed how she’d crouched and aimed. He studied where they’d taken dirt samples trying to recover enough of the blood splatters to get a DNA sample. When Maria said she knew she’d hit him she started crying, and Marquez put an arm around her shoulder and held her close. Later, as they were driving north heading home he handed her the picture of Durham and saw the same uncertainty in her face he’d seen in Lillian’s.

“It could be him,” she said.

He looked over at Maria’s profile in the darkness, reached, and touched her. “I’m really proud of you.”

“Do you really think he would he have killed us?”

What was the truest answer to give her?
They couldn’t know, of course, and he didn’t want to leave her with nightmares, but she’d also stood her ground and had the poise when it mattered.

She’d earned his permanent respect.

“I think he was there to do that, and you did the only thing you could and you did it well.”