Die-Off (10 page)

This was starting to feel odd but the beer tasted good and he listened as Geoff drifted back to how they started the tavern It was clear that he and Lila were looking for more traffic, but would they ever see that this high on the north coast in this rugged country? It was a journey just to get here.

‘What were you before you got into the tavern business?’

‘A musician and Lila trained as a chef. What were you told about us?’

‘Nothing about you and Lila, other than you’ve got a great place here and that if somebody worked for you, you’d probably remember them.’

That last was something Marquez tagged on, but Philbrick was good with it. He nodded. He was still nervous about whatever the connection was and asked more. All Marquez could tell him was that he was reaching out to every contact and had been for a while as he tried to find a man he believed once lived in the area.

‘If he doesn’t live here anymore, he may still come through here. I only know the one-word name he uses, and there’s nothing that says he’s the bartender that used to work for you. I’m chasing every lead I get.’

‘Let me go see what’s taking Lila so long. What’s the name you know him by?’

‘Let me hear what Lila has to say first. He may have had a girlfriend who was seven or eight years younger. Does Lisa Sorzak fit that description?’

Geoff frowned and stood up. Marquez watched him stop at the fireplace and add a piece of wood before continuing back to the bar and the kitchen. He took another sip of beer and allowed himself to hope. Then his thoughts drifted back to Voight and his own surprise and shock. He pushed that aside as Lila and Geoff walked toward him. Lila slid into a chair close to him. She smelled like grilled pork.

‘We had a bartender,’ she said, ‘who worked three and four days a week for the first couple of years we were open—’

‘Was that Jim Colson?’

‘So Geoff already told you.’

‘He told me you hired a Jim Colson and a Lisa Sorzak when you were getting started.’

Marquez caught Lila’s glance at her husband and then she started in on Colson.

‘He was secretive but hard working and people liked him as a bartender because he let them talk and never talked about himself. Sorzak was dishonest and cunning and used people in every way she could. She had Colson wrapped around her finger.’

Geoff reacted like he had just sat on something sharp. ‘Lila, it’s been ten years, and you’re making her sound terrible. Come on, they were both fine and we were inexperienced. Jim was fine. He was a good guy. Everyone liked him but we couldn’t employ him full time.’

Lila turned on him and said, ‘I can’t believe you just said she was fine.’

She shook her head and looked like she was getting ready to leave.

‘Was his last named spelled C-O-L-S-O-N?’ Marquez asked Lila, but it was Geoff who answered.

‘That’s right, or I think it is. I’ll check. He liked to be called James not Jim. He was James with everyone and she changed her name. Lila, didn’t you tell me she changed her name?’

‘Lisa was a bitch,’ Lila said, and Geoff repeated, ‘James was fine. He was a good guy.’

‘He must have filled out an application and I’m interested in her too if they were close.’

Lila stared at her husband and then nodded at Marquez.

‘I’ll make you a copy. I keep the records. In fact, I’ll go find it now and if I don’t give it to you tonight I will in the morning. I understand you’re staying with us. I know you’re leaving early but I’m up early as well.’

Marquez thought a moment and said, ‘I will stay the night.’

‘I’ll give you a copy of their employment applications and—’

Geoff cut her off. ‘We’re not allowed to do that.’

‘Well, we’re going to this time and if anyone asks you can tell them
I
gave them to you, not Geoff. Colson had this way of writing in very neat block letters. I used to think he had trained as an architect or something, but he told me once it was from writing reports though he would never tell me what kind of reports, which is weird to me but fine with my husband. He never listed any former addresses on his application and put down a Crescent City motel as his current address.’

Geoff scoffed. ‘You don’t remember that.’

‘I remember even more about her.’ She stared at her husband. ‘Not as much as you, of course.’

Geoff shook his head, said softly, ‘The lieutenant isn’t here about her.’

She ignored him and continued with Marquez.

‘He listed other bars he had worked at on the application and when I called he had worked at one of them and they were fine with him except that he told them he was moving to Miami and had a job waiting. That’s like a million miles from here, right? But he had some explanation for that. He also worked in Seattle at a place called Tock’s and I left messages but no one ever called back. The other bar was in Phoenix and had burned down and was closed and he claimed he didn’t know that. I never got a single reference, but Geoff had a good feeling, especially about her, so we hired them. We were pretty naive in those days.’

Geoff was about to repeat that Jim Colson was a good guy, but she held up her hand and stopped him.

‘Where did Colson say he was from?’

‘Never said and joked that he was from everywhere but it always sounded to me like Texas. I had a friend from the Texas/Arkansas border and Colson had a little bit of that but less accent. But he did have a California driver’s license. I always thought he came from somewhere in the south, not Georgia or Alabama, not that kind of slow talking, but from somewhere down there.’

‘Do you have any photos of either of them?’

‘We took a lot of photos in the months right after we opened. I’m sure he’s in several but I’d have to go through them.’

She stared hard at Geoff.

‘Those boxes are in the closet in the office. Why don’t you get them down and I’ll go through them later? I’ve got to get back to the kitchen now.’

There was an awkward moment after that where Geoff wasn’t sure whether he was going to stay or follow his wife and get the boxes. He decided to do that and left Marquez with his beer. When he returned he brought Marquez’s dinner and sat and talked as he ate. Then he went to get the boxes out of the closet, adding before he left: ‘James Colson was a good guy and maybe he didn’t talk about his past because there wasn’t that much there for him.’

‘What about Lisa Sorzak?’

Geoff didn’t answer. An hour later Marquez had Jim Colson’s employment application and a photo of Colson leaning over the bar to talk with a young woman who looked like she was in her mid-twenties.

Geoff smiled as he handed Marquez the photo. ‘Here they are, though I doubt James is who you’re looking for. No matter what Lila says he was a good guy. If there’s anything more I’ll get it to you in the morning.’

‘I’m leaving early. If I can get it tonight that would be better.’

‘I’ll look and if there’s anything I’ll slide it under your door late tonight or give it to you in the morning. I’ll see you then for sure.’

But he didn’t and Marquez left in the morning with the photo and the copies of the employment applications. He placed the photo on the passenger seat and had time to look at it as he drove up the river canyon. He would remember both faces.

I
n 2007 when California Fish and Game attempted to eradicate the northern pike colonies in Plumas County’s Lake Davis, Marquez was still head of the Special Operations Unit. He was in Portola after a judge gave the go-ahead to dump powdered rotenone and trichloroethylene into the lake. On a fall morning, despite emotional candlelight vigils in the days before and protestors chained to buoys, it got done.

The risk of northern pike escaping was just too great. If enough escaped into the Feather River the whole Sacramento River system was open to a predator capable of eradicating all of the native keystone species. And it was hard to downplay northern pike. One study Marquez read estimated that the number of duck eaten yearly by northern pike in Michigan was a million and a half.

They were a fighting fish and quick on bait or anything that moved. Once hooked, they fought hard and Marquez believed that over drinks or over several drinks a couple of sport fishermen hatched the idea of starting a colony in a California lake.

Maybe they envisioned a protected reserve where they could battle a two-foot pike on the line. Maybe they didn’t think about the possible consequences or maybe they thought it would all work out fine eventually and the pike would coexist with salmon and trout. Or more likely they didn’t worry about the consequences, and either way, it didn’t start with Lake Davis. It started in 1988 at Frenchman Reservoir when pike were discovered and nothing done about them for three years. In that time as debate and bureaucracy slowed a decision on what to do, a couple of fishing buddies probably caught and moved enough to jump-start the Lake Davis colony.

That was the way Marquez guessed it happened. When he heard any pike story in those days he wrote the date, time, and place in the green log book that traveled with him in the years he was patrol lieutenant of the SOU. He went back through those log books after the first call from Hauser three weeks ago and retrieved phone numbers and the names of fishermen he had enlisted then and phoned now as he left Siskiyou County and drove south. One of those fishermen, Tony Galruda, picked up on the second ring.

‘Tony, it’s John Marquez.’

‘Hey, where you been? I see these other wardens but I don’t ever see you anymore.’

‘I’m still around. I’m just harder to find. Remember that pike you claimed you caught in the delta?’

‘I did catch one. I took a picture and sent it to you.’

‘You could have taken that anywhere.’

Galruda laughed but knew why he was calling. He’d heard. Anyone who fished the Sacramento had heard and Marquez was asking for help, asking him to call people, post on the boards, network. Talk to all of his fishing buddies.

‘So it’s real.’

‘Very real; we’re looking for three hidden hatcheries and they could be anywhere. They could be in a warehouse or even the backyard of a secluded house. They could be in Oakland in an industrial building or out on a leased farm or even in a rental house with plastic tanks in the bedrooms.’

‘I need your help getting the word out.’

‘Yeah, okay, I’ll get on the phone. Talking is all I’m good for now anyway.’

Galruda was a retired welder, a widower who cut into his loneliness by fishing as much as he could. He knew all of the side roads and the hidden campsites. He knew the American, Feather, Sacramento, and the Mokelumne rivers as well as countless lakes. He towed an old skiff on a rickety trailer that jumped with every pothole and he carried more gear than a survivalist.

‘I’m looking for anything unusual.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like a story of someone buying two hundred pounds of fish pellets or scouting out a section of river where you don’t usually see people. Call me with anything you hear about that seems odd to you.’

Next Marquez called an angler who had once reported pike at Lake Oroville and another at Lake Almanor. He worked the list for an hour and a half and was charging his cell when Captain Waller called and, typical Waller, there was no hello, no greeting, nothing. Someone once asked about that in an SOU meeting and Waller’s answer was, ‘When your screen lights up with my phone number consider that me saying hello.’

‘What’s going on in Siskiyou? Why are they looking at you so closely, John?’

‘I don’t really know yet. Voight and I have a bad history but that doesn’t cover it. He’s good at what he does yet he’s talked himself into me as a suspect.’

‘Well, you need to come in. We need to talk. The chief is asking.’

‘What have you heard?’

‘That there’s too much coincidence. Also, a reporter has called and asked for information on you. Do you have a problem with the sheriff as well as Voight?’

‘I do now. I never had much contact with him before this but he’s right in there in Voight’s investigation. I took a ride with him and he told me no matter how the investigation goes I’d better not to show my face in Siskiyou County, said he’d have his guys watch for me.’ Marquez paused and added, ‘For about twenty minutes yesterday Voight was looking for a confession.’

‘Based on what?’

‘I’ll go through it with you when I come in.’

‘Make that tomorrow.’

Marquez drew a slow breath. It felt as if he was being asked to come in and prove himself.

‘Voight tried to bluff me into a confession and held up going any farther because he doesn’t have any hard evidence. Then Harknell asked me to take a ride with him. While we were out a GPS tracker got tagged onto my car. I think they’ve got a source talking to them and that person fed them some story that convinced them I’m their guy.’

If Waller heard that he gave no sign.

‘Where were you last night?’

‘In Crescent City chasing a lead on Rider.’

‘Get anything?’

‘Maybe.’

‘That’s a long drive for a maybe.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’

Now Waller went quiet, and Waller had no problem with long silences on a phone. He was a bright guy and not easy to fool. He could end up chief someday. He had what it took. After what must have been thirty seconds of silence, Marquez heard him clear his throat.

‘You broadsided me with this.’

‘Yeah, you’re right, I’ve known about it. But I didn’t know Voight and the sheriff were this serious, and I didn’t see Voight ever focusing on me. I’m floored by it. I can’t get my head around it.’

Waller was quiet again, then he punched through, he got it.

‘Rider and the woman got you to the White Salmon. Is it possible Rider is feeding information to the sheriff or Voight? Is that what you’re wondering?’

‘It is.’

There was another long silence as Waller thought about that then asked, ‘How good is Voight?’

‘He’s good but the sheriff is on him and Voight needs a win.’

‘Let’s say it really is this Rider pushing them. If that’s true he’s not trying to avoid you. He’s coming after you and us. Where are you headed tonight?’