Night Game (13 page)

Not long after dropping Petroni off,
Marquez took an unexpected call from his old friend, former SOU member Sue Petersen. Her voice was as clean and clear as the dark blue sky over the mountains and carried him away from the Petroni conversation.

She’d retired from the SOU team and from the department, but for a lot of years they had worked together and there’d never been anybody before or after he’d liked working with as much. They chatted and he sketched out the operation they were on, some of the frustration and difficulties, in part, perhaps, because she might have an idea or see into it a way he didn’t.

But that was only hope. Sue was away from this life and laughingly told him she’d gotten back into surveillance work lately herself, trying to catch a contractor who’d done some work on her house but not finished what he’d promised to do. Hearing the light roll of her laughter was like being there with her and he hung up, smiling.

Two hours later Alvarez called and said Nyland had just called his cell and suggested having a drink together at the Creekview that night.

“I told him I’d call him back.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“I’m okay with it.”

Alvarez sounded confident and they decided he would go. They’d wire him up and Alvarez would buy all the drinks, tell Nyland next time around was his buy.

When Marquez hung up with Alvarez he drove to meet Shauf and Roberts. He climbed the winding Crystal Basin Road, then broke from that onto Weber Mill Road, a dirt road cut into the canyon face high above the highway and river. About a mile down Weber Mill, they were waiting for him. He read their upbeat expressions as he slowed to a stop, Roberts with her hands jammed in the pockets of her coat, hair floating off her shoulders in the wind, and Shauf in a T-shirt, oblivious to the ridges of goose bumps along her arms, her solid face loosened with pleasure.

Driving along Weber Mill, Shauf had spotted a sun-faded Budweiser can sitting on the whitened stump of a pine tree maybe twenty yards below the road. Roberts hit the brakes, and Shauf hiked down the steep slope to the beer can. When she picked it up she found it was filled with sand and then started looking around, guessing the can had been left as a bait pile marker. Sometimes it would be a strip of cloth tied to a limb or a slash in the bark of a tree.

“I saw it sitting on the stump and thought about Nyland making all those beer runs to 7-Eleven before driving home at night.”

She turned. “Do you want to walk down there?”

Roberts stayed behind to watch the road. They might have to hustle back up the slope if she spotted someone, but they could clear the area before anyone drove up. Shauf had found a path of sorts, and they followed that down through dry grass and brush. It
was slick and steep and then the brush was chest high, and through the trees Marquez could see the highway and the whitewater of the river running shallow in October. He heard a truck downshifting, each gear shift carrying easily in the steep canyon. They wouldn’t tell anyone about this bait pile. He thought about where they would bury cameras as they got closer, and he saw the makeshift blind. Shauf pointed out a route at least one bear took coming up through the alder and gooseberry.

“We found tracks of four different bears.”

The bait-pile smells were rotted fish and the winey vinegar of old apples. From debris and paper trash and bear scat, he saw enough of everything that it told him whoever serviced this bait pile had been at it a while.

“Waiting for bear season to open,” he speculated. “Three days from now no one will notice the rifle fire.”

Shauf pointed to a shirt and an old leather boot, meaning whoever kept this bait pile was trying to familiarize bears with human smell.

“So I was thinking one camera here,” she said, and Marquez looked up the slope to where they’d walked past a fallen oak and the trench dug behind it where the hunter would wait.

“Yeah, that seems right,” he said.

They hiked back up the steep slope to the road and drove on farther down Weber Mill, winding along, tracing ravines and folds, driving through stands of pine, darker there, and then out across the open face until the dirt road hooked up with the second paved access road climbing from the highway east of Kyburz.

“Melinda is going to make the run down to Sacramento to get more cameras,” Shauf said. “Then we’ll bury them later this afternoon.”

After Roberts drove off, Shauf lingered and Marquez leaned back in the open passenger window of her van to talk to her. Her question was simple. “Did Petroni screw up?”

“I don’t know.”

“The rumor is bribes. One of the dispatchers down at the Region IV office asked me about it.”

“It’s out?”

“Big time.”

“Kendall is passing on rumors, but he’s getting them from more than one spot.”

“I wouldn’t trust Kendall to park my car, so that doesn’t go far with me. Have any of these people come in and signed anything?”

“I don’t think so, but he put me on the phone with one of them.”

“No kidding?”

“A man who said he’d heard about a warden who was getting paid to be scarce and had warned about an undercover team working in the area.”

“When was this?”

“A few days ago.”

“How come you haven’t said anything?”

“I’m not sure I believe it.”

She was quiet, then said, “Coming from Kendall, I don’t either, but that’s worrisome.”

“Yeah, it is. I’ll see Bell this afternoon about the tip on the politico hunt and if there’s a chance to talk about Petroni with him, I’ll ask what’s new. I know Kendall is talking to him.”

“Think he’ll tell you anything?”

“He might. Do you want to get a cup of coffee before I take off?”

They bought a couple of lattes in Pollock Pines and sat in her van. Two hours later Marquez was in Sacramento sitting across the desk as Bell cheerfully told of the second meeting he’d just had with the senator’s assistant.

“Her name is Dianne,” Bell said. “Or that’s the name we’re going to use. She gave me a copy of a travel itinerary for the senator, bookings that she did for him. When she asked if he had a permit, a bear tag, he told her he didn’t need one. So she did her own
research and found out you do need one.”

“What made her do the research?”

“Said it was just curiosity about how it all works with bear hunting. Then she started thinking about it and got upset. Someone I met at a fund-raiser gave her my card.”

“What fund-raiser was that, chief?”

“I don’t know. But does it matter?”

Bell drummed on his desk as he described her certainty and his own confidence that she was telling the truth. He envisioned the publicity that might come from the case and dismissed the idea that they’d be accused of targeting this senator for political reasons, not entirely dismissing it but explaining he would handle that part. He leaned to slide Marquez a printout of the senator’s itinerary, dates and times over a three-day period.

Marquez stared at the dates. They would hardly have time to get ready, and they had their hands full already.

“I’ll get you more wardens. We’ll transfer people in,” Bell said.

The itinerary showed Senator Sweeney staying at a South Lake Tahoe casino the first night and the next day coming down from Tahoe to a refurbished boutique hotel in Placerville called the Lexington. Marquez knew the hotel, checked the dates again, saw Sweeney had reserved at the Lexington the night before opening day of bear season.

“I’m not even certain your team should know his name,” Bell said. “This could leak very easily.” He stared earnestly. “It’ll be a bombshell if we bust him. We could see CNN coverage.”

“If this assistant is correct and he does take a bear illegally and we arrest him, her name will come out. Does she know that?”

Marquez asked.

“It won’t come from us.”

“We probably should tell her.”

If Bell heard that, he didn’t give any sign. He started talking about Sweeney, where he’d come from, how he’d gotten elected.
Sweeney still owned a car dealership in Bakersfield, was partnered with a former sports figure, baseball or football player, Bell couldn’t remember which. But Marquez knew Sweeney’s face, had driven past a billboard on Highway 99, Sweeney, the guy who’d grandstanded by suing the governor over the budget, smiling down at the highway. A short guy with a big head, a lot of hair and attitude.

“Why does he want to risk hunting without a bear tag?”

“He thinks he’s above the law.”

Every intuition said it wasn’t that simple, not with a guy who had so much to lose. Marquez knew Bell was waiting for him to show more enthusiasm, mildly frustrated that he hadn’t. But he didn’t feel any enthusiasm and wondered if it wouldn’t be better to take this Sweeney aside and tell him he just got lucky; they were too busy to set up, bust him, and take down his political career. See you next time. He could also visualize the shit storm after they busted this guy, and, Bell must see it as well. But Bell pressed the point now, his voice uncharacteristically emotional.

“She’s doing this because she cares and it offends her that he’d take a bear without a permit. And, yes, because I know you’re wondering, she’s got other issues with him, but I told her those wouldn’t go any farther than me. He’s going bear hunting and the question is whether we’ll be ready in time.” Bell tapped his desk again and said, “I’ve never asked you how you vote, but I have to ask here if it affects your approach to this.”

“What political party I vote?”

“Yes.”

“I vote for the candidate I like, not the party. If you’re asking about my hesitation, I’m just wondering if we can take this on right now and whether we know enough.”

“This will go national, Lieutenant. If you want to throw a bigger shadow with your team, this is the biggest chance you’ve ever had. If he takes a bear and we take him down, that makes a dramatic statement about poaching and about our prosecution of the
game laws, about the priority we put on saving wildlife. I’m amazed I have to convince you. This is the most significant opportunity to come across my desk in a long time, if ever.”

“Taking down a state senator.”

“Showing no one is above the game laws. It’s about integrity in times that want integrity.”

“What’s the name of the guide Sweeney is meeting at the hotel?” Marquez asked.

“She doesn’t know. She only booked the travel.”

“I think you ought to go see him, chief, and tell him not to go bear hunting. Tell him we’ve been looking closely at the different guide services operating out of that part of the Sierras, and we have a problem with a few of them that he could get caught up in. We’re spread thin, and I’d rather keep our focus on what brought us into the area in the first place.”

“We’re going forward with it, Lieutenant. Figure out what help you need and call me by 5:00 this afternoon.”

“Then I’d like to ask Chief Keeler if he’s willing to help. We can use him under the retired annuitants program.”

“Why would he want to do that?” Bell looked past Marquez, speaking to the wall or the problems he saw with letting Keeler get involved. “There are other wardens we can bring in.”

“We’ll need them too.”

“What would ex-chief Keeler do?”

“Camp at Ice House Lake and scout for us. It’s as simple as driving a road and then being there when we need him to check somebody out. When they see a white-haired older man they don’t get suspicious.”

“Let me think about that one.” But Bell looked like he already had. “Call me at 5:00.”

Marquez never made the 5:00 call
to Bell. Cairo slow-cooked pumpkin soup in a Crock-Pot he said was perfect for long surveillances, and Marquez ate an early dinner at the safehouse with the team. They toasted the bait-pile find with a Zinfandel that Roberts had brought from home. She had the wine interest and every now and then would bring something to the table. Good as the wine was, Marquez drank next to nothing. After dinner he passed out copies of Sweeney’s itinerary, briefed them on the meeting with Bell. The team had the same questions he’d had about the reliability of the information and how they would manage everything if they heard from their seller while they were trying to track Sweeney.

“Tonight’s the only night we’ll refer to Sweeney by name,” Marquez said. “So we’ll need a name. And nothing political. We’re going as far away from politics as we can get.”

“Call him ‘Unlucky,’” Cairo said.

That got a couple of laughs, and there was still an air of disbelief in the room. They all needed to absorb the idea, then see some proof Sweeney intended to follow this itinerary. Still, it wasn’t the first time they’d been short-noticed with a tip that had proved out, so if the poacher turned out to be a state senator they’d make the adjustment, and Marquez could feel the change already starting.

He listened to the joking names they came up with as monikers, names that didn’t show any respect for the intensity of scrutiny that could come their way. The moniker needed to be benign, unprejudiced, and dispassionate.

Marquez’s cell rang and it was Bell. Bell didn’t say anything about his failing to call at 5:00 and after Marquez walked outside and took a seat on one of the cold lawn chairs, they talked over his concern that busting Sweeney would tip their bear farmer an undercover team was in the area. They talked about ex-chief Keeler, and Bell okayed using him, if Keeler was amenable.

When Marquez hung up and walked back inside he saw that another bottle of wine had been opened. It was good to see the team relax. He went to a back bedroom, slept a couple of hours, then drank a cup of black tea and got ready to leave at 10:30.

While he’d been asleep Nyland had called Alvarez and postponed having a drink until tomorrow. Alvarez was in Placerville and watching the GPS readout from Nyland’s truck.

“Looks like he’s heading home,” Alvarez said.

“What about Sophie?”

“At work. She’s behind the bar.”

“I’m going by to talk to her.”

“I’ll keep track of Nyland. Call me on the other side.”

When Marquez got to the Creekview he found it fairly empty. No music tonight. A few people drinking, young guys mostly.

There were two bartenders, and he took a seat on Sophie’s side of the horseshoe. He was sure she recognized him, though she didn’t say anything when he ordered a beer. She slid a paper napkin in
front of him, put the glass down on it. He watched her draw another beer off tap, her face softer, more feminine in this light.

“You’re Billy’s friend,” she said, coming over now. “You broke up the fight that night.”

“Yeah, how’s he doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“No one I talk to knows anything tonight.”

“You broke up the fight. Then Billy and I broke up.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It was the morning you called.”

She had her hair pinned up tonight, a diamond stud in her right earlobe. She leaned toward him, her face level with his.

“Since you’re his friend, I’ll tell you that Billy and I were definitely not meant for each other. More than just age difference because I happen to like older men.”

“Did he move out?”

“In about twenty minutes.”

“Know where he went?”

“He said he might camp at a lake for a couple of weeks, someplace he goes to fish.”

“Late in the season for fishing.”

“I can’t think of anything more boring to do anyway.”

“You don’t fish.”

“I eat them but I don’t chase them around.”

He watched her eyes drift toward another customer. She didn’t want to hear anything more about Petroni. She didn’t want to talk about him.

He watched her take drink orders from two young men, asking for an ID from one of them, then looking at his face not his ID. She gave them their drinks and flirted with them after bringing their change. Now she came back and leaned over the bar again close enough to where he could see gold flecks in her brown irises.

“How’s your beer?” she asked.

“It’s good.”

“Cold enough.”

“Plenty cold.”

“Always filling.”

“Always.”

“That’s what I like.”

There was the beer commercial, tastes great, always filling, or something like that, but that wasn’t what she was talking about. Sophie wore a tight black sweater and when she leaned on the bar the sweater pulled up and the curve of her upper hip showed. He could feel sexuality radiate off her. He took a drink of beer, leaned back, and gave her a little space.

“So did you come in to talk to me?” she asked.

“I came in looking for Bill. I know he’s going through a hard time with the divorce.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

Marquez shrugged.

“Do you want to know why Billy and I broke up?”

“If you want to tell me.”

“He got real angry because I slept with someone else this summer.”

She watched him intently. “Did you read about the guy who got murdered?”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, he just disappeared in August.”

“Jed something.”

“Vandemere.”

“You had an affair with him.”

She laughed. “They don’t call it that around here. Anyway, now I’m sort of back with my old boyfriend.”

“Sort of?”

“Let’s just say he wants to get back together.” She smiled and made a quick hand gesture toward the other two men at the bar. “But I’m done with all these guys.” She reached and touched his
hand, her fingers long and cool, one finger touching his wedding ring. “I’ve got to get these people at the end of the bar another drink. Do you want another one?”

“I’ve got to go meet a friend.”

“Then come back and see me sometime soon.”

“I will.”

When he got outside he pulled his phone from his coat. It had started vibrating in the bar and he saw there’d been three calls from Alvarez, called him back now.

“Show time,” Alvarez said. “He picked up some restaurant scraps behind that Italian place below town. Bobby Broussard’s Chevy is about a half mile behind him and they just went into the basin. Where are you?”

“On my way to you.”

“See you here.”