Night Game (7 page)

After parking outside
the sheriff’s office Marquez walked over to a small black Mercedes and looked through the windows, confirming what he’d already assumed. Bell’s wife’s car. In the slot next to it was a state car, an old Crown Vic with a soft black leatherbound book on the passenger seat, a Bible belonging to Charlotte Floyd, one of the department’s two internal affairs officers. He doubted Petroni knew that either she or Bell would be here.

Inside, Marquez asked where the meeting was, and they held him there until Kendall came out. “This is complicated enough already,” Kendall said. “You don’t need to be here.”

“We had breakfast together. He asked me to come.”

“Right.”

They stood close to each other, Marquez looking down in his eyes. He could feel Kendall debating whether he could trade it for
something later. Kendall pointed. “If, and only if, you don’t say a word.”

The room held a long, scarred linoleum table and metal folding chairs. Hawse adjusted a video camera resting on a tripod in the corner of the room. A small tape recorder stood on end like a gravestone miniature in the middle of the table, Floyd and Bell sat next to each other on the right-hand side, next to them chairs for Hawse and Kendall, and across the table, Petroni sitting, with his palms on the table top, a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“Lieutenant Marquez,” Kendall said, “take the chair at the end of the table.”

Marquez looked from Petroni to Charlotte Floyd, smelled the perfume she favored and watched her jaw tighten as she acknowledged him, remembered how her hands had trembled as she’d leafed through pages of her Bible to prove him wrong when he’d questioned the accuracy of her quote from Ecclesiastes. She’d been right about the quote but wrong about him.

In a quiet voice Kendall explained his problem. He hoped the meeting would be brief, the confusion quickly cleared up. He paid Petroni a compliment as the area warden around here that everyone knew on sight, adding, “It’s Sunday morning, all of us have better things to do. My partner here has a football game he doesn’t want to miss.”

No one so much as smiled. Petroni’s eyes found a spot high on the wall behind Bell’s head, his face set as he waited for Kendall to finish listening to himself talk.

“Put bluntly, we have overwhelming evidence Warden Petroni lied to us and impeded a murder investigation.”

Kendall flipped through notes sequentially recapping interviews and misleading statements. He addressed Petroni directly for the first time.

“Do you understand that we’re going to ask some questions this morning that may later be incriminating?”

“Yes.”

“You can request that a lawyer be present—” “I’ve been in law enforcement twenty-two years, Kendall.”

Kendall listed the individuals in the room as the videotape started. He asked Petroni if he was uncomfortable with the format or felt coerced. Petroni looked across the table at Bell, as if for support, though at breakfast he’d referred to him as “No Balls Bell,” said he was the worst he’d ever worked under, an administrative hire, a climber who’d never spent a single day in the field.

“Did you have any contact with Jed Vandemere in June or July of this year?” Kendall asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you aware that you’ve previously answered ‘no’ multiple times to the same question?”

“I ran into him in the Crystal Basin several times in the early summer.”

Petroni had brought in his logbook. He opened it and they waited, watching him slowly flip the pages.

“Union Valley Reservoir is where I first talked to him. I also saw him at Ice House Lake, Loon and Barrett Lakes.”

“Do you remember me asking you if you’d met with Jed Vandemere at Barrett Lake?”

“Yes.”

“So are you saying you previously lied to me?”

“Yes,” and it came out easily, as if it were normal in the course of a day that he’d lie to Kendall, or that anyone in their right mind would. Marquez read quiet satisfaction on Kendall’s face, caught the gleam in his eyes, victory over a liar after all the denials.

Kendall repeated the dates, reconfirming chronologically the times and places of Petroni’s meetings. Forty-five minutes later Kendall
flipped the cassette in the recorder and asked if anyone wanted to take a break. No one did.

“Let’s go to early August,” Kendall said. “Did you see him on the first of August?”

“August third.”

“Where?”

“Ice House Resort. He’d approached me once before about gunshots he’d heard at night. He was concerned they were shots fired by poachers, and we talked about that. I investigated and didn’t find anything to go on, but I asked him to keep an eye out.”

“Did you like him?”

Petroni frowned at the question, said, “I didn’t like or dislike him. He was a college kid with a big imagination. He wanted to find something. There were men in and out of Barrett that he was sure were poachers, but when I questioned him he didn’t have anything I could work with.”

“People he thought were poaching bear?”

Petroni forced a big false grin, said, “I think that’s what we’re talking about.”

“Do you have dates on all your conversations with him regarding poachers?”

“You’re welcome to copy my log.”

Bell nodded approval, and Hawse slid his chair back, got heavily to his feet. He took the log and left the room.

“You were on a first-name basis with Jed Vandemere?”

“I barely knew him.”

“How many times over the summer would you say you talked with him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Make a guess.”

“Ten.”

“Are they all in your log?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you ever speak with him outside the Crystal Basin area?”

“Yes.”

“And where were those conversations?”

“In Placerville.”

“Do you remember denying you ever saw or talked to him in Placerville?”

“It really doesn’t matter.”

That got a stir out of the room, a shifting, but nothing from Kendall. He was cool with that. There was no hurry, no place left for Petroni to run.

“Did he say anything to you about arguing with bear hunters?”

“No.”

“Are you certain?”

“Look, Kendall, I heard the same story you did, so don’t make it sound like you’re trying to discover something.” Petroni’s voice hardened. “You talked to March Baylor, the same as I did. Bear hunters were out running their hounds, and Vandemere followed them. They got angry when he honked his horn and messed with them teaching their dogs. March was there, that’s what he told me, and I know for a fact that’s what he told you.”

“When did this incident take place?”

“End of the first week of August, and I tried to find Vandemere after I heard about it, but I couldn’t find him. I thought he’d left the basin.”

Kendall turned to Bell and explained, “Baylor is an old coot, a hunter who’s been here forever. He knows everybody.” He turned back toward Petroni, then paused purposefully before asking his next question.

“Are you saying you lied to me because you thought I’d heard the story somewhere else already?”

“I’m saying I know for a fact you’d already talked to March Baylor. You didn’t need me. You’d already heard the story.”

“So it was okay to lie?”

Petroni stared at Bell, said, “Goddamn you, Kendall.”

Kendall pushed his chair back. He got slowly to his feet and walked to the empty end of the table as if contemplating something and unaffected by Petroni’s emotion.

“Let’s get something clear,” Kendall said, “because we’re straying from it. You’re not a suspect in a murder investigation. You’re not even, what is that horseshit phrase the Feds use, ‘a person of interest.’ In fact, we could shorten this interview if you’d just tell us why you lied to me. I know there’s a good reason. I’m going to find out what it is.”

Petroni lifted a hand from the table, glanced at Marquez, and shook his head. Kendall walked back to his chair.

“Was it because of Sophie?”

Petroni hesitated a long time before nodding.

“I’m sorry, warden, we need a verbal response.”

“Yes, it was.”

“You wanted to keep her out of it?”

“I know how you operate.”

“Is that why you wanted to minimize her involvement?”

“I knew you were after me.”

“You didn’t want me questioning her about Jed Vandemere because you think it’s personal between you and me?”

Petroni didn’t answer and Kendall didn’t press him, saying instead, “What I’m going to ask next may make you uncomfortable.”

He paused. “Did Vandemere take an interest in your girlfriend?”

Petroni was slow to answer. He stared hard at Kendall, said, “Not one she wanted. He came on to her but she didn’t have any interest.”

“Because she was already going out with you?”

“Because she wasn’t interested.”

“Did he harass her?”

“In a way.”

“Threaten her?”

“No.”

“Stalk her?”

“No.”

“Did she ask you to do something about him?”

“She asked me to talk to him.”

“Did you?”

“I did.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him she was frightened by the way he wouldn’t leave her alone.”

“Did you warn him not to go near her?”

“Not really.”

“Does that mean you didn’t warn him, or that you did?”

“It means what I just told you. I asked him to leave her alone.”

“Not show up where she works?”

“Yes.”

“What did you tell him would happen if he showed up there?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Try.”

Petroni said nothing.

“Did Sophie stay with you last night?”

“No.”

“Do you know where we could find her this morning?”

“She’ll be at work later.”

“Do you know where she stayed last night?”

“No.”

“All right, let me ask something else, and please understand I have to ask this, so don’t be offended. We’ve talked to people who think the attraction between her and Jed Vandemere was mutual. Is it possible she told you one thing and felt another?”

“You don’t know her, Kendall. You think you do, but you don’t.” Marquez, watching Petroni’s face as he said that, no longer
doubted that Petroni loved her. “She made the mistake of telling the Vandemere kid that she worked at the Creekview Saloon in Placerville. After that he wouldn’t leave her alone. She couldn’t kick him out, and she didn’t want to lose her job by making it an issue with the manager. She and her manager have had problems anyway. She asked me to talk to him in early August, so I did, but there was nothing too personal about it and the conversation was friendly. I never threatened him.” He frowned. “Why would I?”

“Because he was in love with your girlfriend.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, we’re not going to find it in your log, are we?”

It was the first sarcastic comment Kendall had made, and Marquez knew Kendall wished he could pull it back.

“You know,” Petroni said, “I fell in love with a younger woman and my wife is divorcing me. I’ve made a mess of my personal life, but you don’t have the right, you’ve got the mouth, but you don’t have the right to say what you’re saying.”

Kendall raised a palm to stop Petroni’s retort. “How did Vandemere answer when you told him to back off Sophie?”

Petroni seemed to turn inward. When he spoke his voice was leaden.

“He waited for her after work the next night. He was standing near her truck.”

“When was that?”

“She’ll know the date.”

“How did he respond to you?”

“Said it was none of my business.”

“Did you tell him she was your girlfriend?”

“He already knew.”

“How did he know?”

“I don’t know and I never saw him again.”

Questioning went on another hour. Kendall made a show of thanking him for coming in, and then it was over. Petroni walked
out without a glance at anyone. Marquez was the last out. He watched Charlotte back out of her slot and drive away, then stood talking to Bell.

“How much of this did you know about?” Bell asked.

“I knew about the problems with his marriage, and Kendall came to Sacramento looking for a way to get Bill to talk to him about Vandemere.”

“The day he came to see you?” Bell asked. “He didn’t say a word to me about it.”

“He’s doing it his way.”

“I’m sure the union will file a complaint on Petroni’s behalf and provide a defense, but I’m suspending him while this is investigated.

There’s nothing that can excuse what he’s done, and it’s very, very disturbing to me. He has intentionally obstructed a murder investigation.”

Marquez could easily picture one idea any homicide detective would tease out after this interview—a handsome grad student comes after Petroni’s new young girlfriend, and Petroni tells him to back off. The grad student tells Petroni he’ll go out with her if he wants, and not only that, she wants him too. The warden becomes enraged. Already on edge because of his divorce, he loses it and goes hunting. He knows about Vandemere’s problem with the bear hunters so he uses a bear rifle. Marquez looked at Bell’s sober face. It wasn’t that much of a leap.

“Is he involved yet in your operation?” Bell asked.

“No.”

Bell got in his car, lowered the window, and added, “I don’t want your team to have any contact whatsoever with him until this is resolved.”

Marquez nodded, then watched him drive away.