Die-Off

by Kirk Russell

  ‘You’re still on the river?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A different voice came over the radio, somebody higher up, a supervisor, he guessed.

  ‘Are you trying to stop this from happening, Lieutenant? Get your ass out of there.’

  ‘You got it.’

  Marquez figured he needed five minutes, maybe less, to climb up from here to the road. He swung the detector again, got the ping, and then narrowed down where to dig. He marked the spot, turned off the metal detector and pulled the folding shovel out of the pack, tightened it, and started digging.

  The riverbank was wet and the sandy mud heavy but easy to get through. He widened the hole and knew it could be anything down here, a piece of rusted iron, anything. The hole was two feet wide and a foot and a half deep when his cell rang. It was Kinsell.

  ‘Are you on your way up?’

  ‘I got a hit on the metal detector. I’m digging and then I’m on my way up and out.’

  ‘I don’t want to drive away until you’re out.’

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘Didn’t they call you?’

  He broke the connection and the shovel scraped on what felt and sounded like metal. He cleaned off the top and found the lid of a metal box with a handle and tape sealing it shut. He dug around it and then lifted the handle and pulled hard. Now he was looking at an aluminum tackle box of a style he hadn’t seen in years. Sturdy and more a box you would leave in garage with the ties and lures you weren’t taking to the river that day. The kind of box a fisherman could hand down to a son or daughter.

  He packed up the folding shovel and picked up the tackle box and metal detector and started out. All of the seams and the hinges on the backside were taped with what looked like waterproof tape. There was some weight in there, not a lot but enough, and something slid around as he climbed. He gripped the metal detector in his left hand, along with the tackle box, and with his right he used tree branches again, this time to help pull himself up the steep slope. As he reached the asphalt he called Kinsell.

  ‘I’m out.’

  ‘Stay where you are.’

  He heard the word ‘asshole’ before she broke the connection and then caught his breath looking back down at the gorge of the White Salmon. It wouldn’t be long now. He looked down at the river at the quiet water and tried to picture the change coming.

  Kinsell came in close alongside him, her passenger-side mirror not more than six inches away from him and a steady stream of cars going around her and on toward the dam. He laid the metal detector in the pickup bed and put his pack alongside it in a way that would keep the detector from sliding around, then unzipped a pocket on the pack and felt around for a knife. The tackle box would ride with them and he wanted to cut the tape free and get a look at what was inside.

  Marquez put the tackle box on the floor of the passenger foot well and got in. ‘Thanks for waiting.’

  ‘I was never going to leave you here.’ She stared down at the tackle box. ‘That probably belongs to some fisherman.’

  ‘Do you know a lot of fishermen who bury their tackle boxes along the river?’

  Instead of answering, she radioed that she had him and they were on their way. She made it sound as if she was bringing a suspect in. He unfolded the knife, leaned over the tackle box, and cut and peeled back the waterproof tape. He tried the lid now and it was free. Kinsell looked down as he lifted the lid. She saw the trout flies and line and crimpers and floats and said, ‘There you go. You just stole some guy’s fishing box, or maybe the guy who called you buried it there for you to find. Today would have been my day off. I had plans my husband and I made two months ago. If my captain wasn’t such a jerk he would have sent somebody else. He says you’ve known each other a long time.’

  ‘We have. Look, I’m sorry you missed whatever you had planned.’

  ‘You’re really good at apologizing.’

  Marquez studied the upper tray of the tackle box before using the knife blade to test lifting it out. He listened to the radio chatter. The Secretary of Interior was inbound with a police escort and was late but didn’t need to worry. No one was holding their breath for his speech. The headliner was the dam. He lifted the tray now and found himself looking at a box of ammunition; with the knife blade he opened the box and confirmed they were nine-millimeter bullets. Using the knife he peeled back white cotton cloth wrapped around the object alongside the ammo and stared at the grip of a hand gun.

  Kinsell was probably expecting more fishing line or weights and was ready to comment. Seeing the gun changed everything for her. Marquez put the tray back in and shut the box and as they reached the dam and parked a klaxon horn sounded. Seven hundred pounds of dynamite were packed yesterday. Guards were stationed last night. As a second warning horn started, Marquez moved the tackle box to the trunk of his rental car and then like everyone else he focused on the base of Condit Dam.

  When the blast came the sound enveloped them. At the base of the dam dirt and sediment and concrete blew out and upward in a boil of dark black smoke. Chunks of concrete rained down and with a roar water surged from under the dam. People nearby cried out as the flow became a churning torrent, rolling and boiling downstream.

  Marquez kept an eye on his car but stood transfixed along with everyone else. Then near him, an older guy who looked like an engineer, possibly an employee of PacifiCorp, owner of the dam, lowered his cell phone with tears streaking his face. He looked at Marquez and said, ‘Twelve thirty-five.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That’s when the first wave reached the Columbia River. I just got the call.’

  He touched his phone as if confirming it again with his fingertips and Marquez nodded that he understood. For the first time since 1913 the White Salmon River was running free. He moved away as his phone screen lit with Rich Voight’s name, but with the roar he couldn’t hear Voight so he got in his car to take the call.

  ‘Where was the gun?’

  ‘Buried near the two rocks the caller described.’

  ‘I’ve asked a detective from Portland to come get it from you.’

  ‘I’m leaving here inside an hour. I can drop it off with the Portland Police.’

  ‘He’s already on his way.’

  Marquez thought about that a moment before asking, ‘Did you get any of my messages yesterday afternoon?’

  ‘I got all of them, but I was tied up with a new homicide.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call me back last night?’

  ‘I just didn’t get to it. If the gun checks out we’ll talk about everything. Thanks for searching for it.’

  The Siskiyou County Sheriff was in an ongoing war with the Department of Fish and Game – and indeed all government except his own branch, Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office. He viewed himself as essential to Siskiyou County and his attitude rippled through the department.

  When Voight started in on why an anonymous call to Fish and Game didn’t make his list yesterday, Marquez cut him off.

  ‘Tell the Portland detective I’ve got a white Toyota Camry.’

  He killed the call and dropped the phone in his pocket. Then he walked down to get a better view of the river.

  THREE

  The estimated time to drain the reservoir was five hours and Marquez watched more of it than he expected to. When the Portland detective finally arrived it was with a Washington State Patrol car leading him, its light bar flashing. The detective was genial and after looking at the water surging into the gorge revealed that he was a fisherman, though with mixed feelings about dam removal.

  ‘This dam has been here a long time. I hope they know what they’re doing.’

  ‘Why would they start now?’

  That got a smile and then they were onto the tip and tackle box and why Marquez, after getting a call yesterday afternoon, made the decision to fly to Portland then drive here and search for the gun.

  ‘There’s a tie to a Fish and Game investigation I’ve been working f
or a year. Didn’t Voight tell you that?’

  ‘I’m not sure he did.’

  ‘I’m sure he didn’t.’

  The detective didn’t react to that. Instead, as Marquez pulled the tackle box out of the trunk, he said, ‘Rich Voight told me you were there when the girls’ bodies were found.’

  ‘I was in the area on an undercover operation and when Siskiyou County put out a BOLO on a vehicle the next day I went to where they were killed to see if I could help.’

  ‘You were that close by?’

  ‘I was.’

  The detective nodded then stared down at the white water boiling from under the dam and asked, ‘What are we going to do for electricity if we knock down all the dams? We’ll be back in the Stone Age. Isn’t there a group in California trying to tear down the Hetch Hetchy dam? What the hell is that about? What would San Francisco do for water and how many billions beyond the initial estimate would it cost to do it? Some of the ideas that come out of your state I can’t get my head around.’

  ‘Can you get your head around me leaving four or five messages for your friend Voight yesterday that I got a tip call saying the murder weapon was buried here and then not hearing back from him?’

  ‘It sounds as if you two haven’t always gotten along, and Rich can be difficult.’

  ‘Maybe I’m just tired but it gets under my skin that he’s got time to call you and ask you to probe for whatever you can find out as you take the tackle box from me. Why did I go by the murder scene and offer to help? I went because my daughter knew Terry Ellis and Sarah Steiner and I had just met them the day before. They struck me as two well-meaning young women who cared enough to try to help solve a big problem. Voight asked the same questions that day. We sat in his car and talked.’

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘Told you what, that he had suspicions then?’

  ‘Don’t you think this tip call coming to you and you finding the gun should provoke some questions?’

  ‘Listen to the tape of the call and then see what you think. We got a copy out to Voight this afternoon. Ask him to email you the file. If he won’t, I will.’

  Marquez handed him a card and looked at the tackle box in the detective’s hand. The box was crusted with river mud and it was quite possible this was nothing more than a hoax. Terry Ellis and Sarah Steiner as he remembered them were warm and light-hearted and on a summer road trip in addition to bringing their idealism to the Klamath water debate. He took in the detective’s balding gray head and tired face, the detective just doing his part.

  ‘Voight doesn’t think much of Fish and Game. He thinks we should issue hunting licenses, help clean up road kill, and generally stay out of the way of real cops like him. But that isn’t your problem. Thanks for making the drive here to pick this up.’

  ‘The Washington warden here says you were alone when you found the tackle box.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Time ran out and you refused to pull back from the river.’

  ‘That’s right. She kept her word and went up to the road. I stayed because the call to leave came early and the rocks up at the next bend up ahead looked like what was described to me.’

  ‘You dug in just the right spot.’

  Marquez was done with this. He leaned forward and in a confessional voice said, ‘You know how it is, you bury your gun along a river and then go back years later and try to find it. It’s not so easy to find anymore and the warden made me carry the pack and the shovel and the metal detector and that slowed me down. Then I had to wait for her to leave so I could retrieve it and get on with my scheme. Now you’ve got it and if it checks out, Rich Voight, who is already spread too thin in that giant county, can put more energy into investigating me. That’s my secret plan, to have Voight on my ass.’

  ‘How deep was it buried?’

  ‘About two feet down.’

  ‘Could you find the spot again?’

  Marquez was unsure if the detective was serious and then decided he was and pointed at the churning white foam below the dam.

  ‘The rocks should still be there. I think they’re big enough to take this, but I wouldn’t spend a lot of time looking for the sandbar.’

  ‘Did the warden here watch you open the tackle box?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘Did you touch the gun?’

  ‘No. I used a knife to push back the cloth it was wrapped in. I’m going to head out now. Have a nice drive back.’

  Before Marquez could turn away the detective said, ‘Rich Voight is a good man and a persistent investigator. Persistence is how cases get solved.’

  ‘Tell him Terry Ellis and Sarah Steiner were young and energetic in the way you can be when you still think everybody cares at least a little. And they were fighters. They would have done some good. Sarah Steiner managed to make a 911 call and couldn’t say much but gave the dispatcher the river road. No one got out there to check until near dawn. Why don’t you ask Voight why he hasn’t looked into that?’

  ‘Maybe he has.’

  ‘Ask him.’

  Marquez left soon after the detective and his phone started ringing about an hour later, more or less when he thought it would. It was Voight and he called three times in quick succession. He didn’t leave a message until his fourth call. The message was he wanted to debrief with Marquez at the sheriff’s office in Yreka tomorrow.

  Marquez might have done that just to get clear with Voight if something else hadn’t happened first. He returned the car, flew from Portland to Oakland, and drove home. Late that night a pickup carrying four eighty-gallon coolers loaded with fingerling fish rolled and pinned the driver near an abandoned boat landing off a dirt road along the Sacramento River. Marquez got a call from the warden whose area it was in. He recognized Grace’s voice immediately.

  ‘John, I’ve got something that may be what you’ve been looking for, a pickup truck that was loaded with fingerlings. The driver was backing down to the water and rolled his truck. I don’t think he had his lights on and I don’t think these are fish we want in the Sacramento River. Do you want to come take a look?’

  ‘I do. Where’s the driver?’

  ‘He’s still trapped and he’s in a bad way. They’re trying to get him out, but the truck is wedged between trees and his arm is pinned under it. He had his window down and was probably leaning out trying to see in the dark as he backed off the slope. When the truck rolled his left arm and shoulder got caught under the driver’s door. He also took a bad hit to the head. Paramedics are working on him and a tow truck is on its way here to try to get the pickup off him.’

  ‘Who found him?’

  ‘Someone made an anonymous call to 911.’

  ‘Text me how to get there. I’m on my way.’

  FOUR

  A late-model white Ford 150 lay on its left side and brightly lit by lights powered by a generator. Marquez heard the voices of the first responders trying to get the driver freed above the sound of the diesel generator. He saw the pickup’s windshield was out and they were working on him through the opening. Their breath showed in the glare of the lights. It was cold and still an hour to dawn. A low fog lay over the river and Grace Headley, the area warden, stood with him and gave him her take, which seemed to be the right one.

  The driver had tried to back down to the river with his lights off using only brake lights and moonlight. The truck slid in mud from the recent rain and the right rear tire ran up on a rock. Marquez’s flashlight beam illuminated muddy tire prints on the rock and he saw how as that tire rode up on the rock the other rear tire dropped into a rut. Then the truck rolled. The weight of the fish and water-filled coolers didn’t help.

  Fish and water flowed out of the upended coolers and the truck, now on its side, slid down into a stand of trees and got wedged there. Getting it back onto four tires meant pulling it free with a tow cable. But that meant dragging it along its side and with the man’s arm pinned under the driver’s door they couldn’t do that.

/>   He saw where they had cut five or six saplings down so they could get enough access to dig around his trapped arm. He watched as a tow driver repositioned his truck and ran a wench cable down.

  Headley shook her head and touched Marquez’s back.

  ‘They found his wallet and I’ve run him. I’ll give you what I’ve got so far. Do you want to go down there first?’

  ‘Yeah, let’s go take a look.’

  They followed the pickup’s tracks down the steep slope to where it rolled and fish flowed into the brush as the coolers spilled. That flood of water carried fingerlings almost to the river. Marquez shined his light on a red plastic cooler lid caught in a young bay tree and beneath saw hundreds of three-inch fingerlings. The smell was strong.

  ‘Over here, John, and you’ve got to walk around to the right. You’re not going to believe how many of them almost made it. They must have sloshed out in one big wave. What was he thinking, trying to back all the way down here?’

  Marquez thought he had a pretty good idea of what the driver was thinking. Each cooler weighed somewhere around 650 pounds. Two orange-colored five-gallon buckets were downslope from the nose of the truck and were probably thrown out when the windshield popped loose. Good chance he was supposed to park and ferry the fingerlings down to the water two buckets at a time, more or less ten trips per cooler, and he figured it would be a lot easier to back down the overgrown dirt track to the edge of the river.

  He brought his light back to the fish lodged in the brush and then worked his way over to Headley, where the fish had washed out and over rocks. He took in the flow of fish and estimated there were more than a thousand, and he didn’t have any doubt about what they were.

  When he looked up Headley asked, ‘Ready to wake up a biologist?’

  He was. He squatted down close to the water with the flashlight and picked up the largest of the fingerlings nearest him and laid it in his palm.

  ‘What’s going on with those fins?’ Headley asked.