Die-Off

by Kirk Russell

  ‘Do you have any other evidence it was?’

  ‘No, I’ve just been thinking about it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you have a full name or a photo of him, or any kind of likeness?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you’re sure he exists.’

  ‘He exists.’

  ‘Has anyone ever questioned whether he really does exist?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Who?’

  Marquez smiled. He wasn’t getting it, Voight thought.

  ‘The captain I report to.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  He got ready to write it and Marquez watched that and said, ‘Captain Waller. He oversees the SOU and I told him you’d be calling.’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Every question you ask is headed that way.’

  ‘Then we’ll just go there now and get to it.’

  ‘That’s fine, but before we leave this, Rider is why I’m here. I don’t think you have anything to offer me or would if you did, and that goes double for you, Sheriff. I don’t even have a full name on this guy calling himself Rider and it took me a long time to believe he exists because I’m like you, Rich; most of the time I have to see things to believe them. But I’ve heard the name too many different places and their trafficking operation is large.’

  Voight let Marquez talk his wildlife going away thing and his fantastical pursuit of a ghost named Rider. It made him wonder if Marquez was delusional. He was either one hundred percent the real deal or way out there and it was good to get this on tape. Jesus Christ, the taxpayer was funding this guy.

  When Marquez finished his explanation for being here and tied it to the search for the gun, Voight made his move. He started it with a lie and though he was good at this with suspects it was still the delicate part.

  ‘We know you questioned the same people we were talking to after the girls were attacked. It’s not in the files you looked through because I took it out. I took it out along with the rest of the evidence that points toward you as a person of interest.’

  Voight paused. He read Marquez’s face and saw Marquez wasn’t making any effort to hide what he felt. He looked disappointed and saddened though everyone in the room knew this conversation was coming and probably the real reason Marquez got an early start was he couldn’t sleep.

  ‘There was never anyone you were going to meet to do a buy. You tricked your SOU into believing it and used them for cover. The meeting didn’t go down with your animal parts dealer. There was no buy and the undercover team pulled back and you went to the high school where Steiner and Ellis had been invited to sit on a panel and debate. Did you follow them when they left there? We have a witness who says you did and I’ve got more than that. I’ve been piecing things together and you can wave your arms in shock, outrage, and feigned disgust, but it won’t change the facts.

  ‘You didn’t get the crime scene location from anything we put out to other law enforcement, yet you showed up at the scene within an hour of our BOLO. At some point as an investigator the facts stare you down and later you ask yourself, why didn’t I see that sooner? This is one of those times for me.’

  ‘You’re making a bad mistake, Rich.’

  ‘Then convince me, because I see a Fish and Game officer who shows up at just the right time in an enormous county and asks to see the bodies of two young women he went out of his way to meet fourteen hours before they were killed. I’ve heard your explanations but you still need to convince me. I don’t feel like I’m getting the whole story. Do you remember sitting in my car and talking after we looked at Ellis’s body?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘She was half submerged in the water. Whoever killed her took the time to stack rocks on her chest and head to make sure she stayed under. I took you down to see her and you said it looked like a cairn, a grave marker, or that her killer may have worried that the river would rise before she was found and pull her body in. You talked like someone who had thought about it. You had a number of ideas and thoughts you wanted to communicate. You didn’t mention a meeting gone bad with an animal trafficker, but you had all kinds of ideas that day about the murders. Then for a month or two after, you returned my calls. After that it got sporadic. It’s all coming together, John.’

  Marquez nodded as if that got through to him and Voight thought, we’re getting somewhere. He’s been carrying this. It’s why he went up and retrieved the gun. He can’t let it rest. He’s going to talk. He softened his voice to show sympathy for the burden of guilt.

  ‘Why was it so important to you to see the body, John? Why didn’t you just get a long way away, fast?’

  ‘It’s the way I’m wired. It’s what I said earlier. I need to see things. I told you about my stepdaughter checking Facebook and finding Sarah writing about camping along the river. When Siskiyou County asked for help watching for their vehicle I called Maria and that was after your county put out a BOLO. Maria said she’d get on Facebook and see if she could learn anything there. She called me back fifteen minutes later and said based on what they had posted they probably stayed close to the river. Is this why you wanted me to come up, so you could tape this and tell me you’re looking at me?’

  ‘I am looking at you. I’m close to naming you as a person of interest if not a suspect.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that yet. It would do me harm in the long term, and I know that’s fine with the sheriff here, but it wouldn’t do you any good ultimately because I’m not who you’re looking for. But ask your questions, ask all of them. Go ahead.’

  For two hours he asked Marquez questions and pushed him, needled him, threatened him, went and got the printed-out copy of Marquez’s bullshit investigation file and Marquez walked him through the hieroglyphic notes. The notations, the abbreviations, the initials, they did tie together, but a psychopath will create an alternative reality. Still, he got the same twinge, the same questioning of himself he had earlier this morning.

  ‘I work alone a lot,’ Marquez said. ‘My notes are shorthand to myself and I take a lot of heat from my captain for it. He can’t read them either. When you talk with Captain Waller ask him about that.’

  Voight recovered his balance and pushed on. He believed Marquez was close at one point and wanted to get back there. He wanted to strike at this presumptuous fuck in the news for finding the gun, Lieutenant John Marquez, a game warden responding to a tip digging up the murder weapon just before the dam was blown and breathing new life into the murder investigation.

  ‘I’ve got a timeline,’ Voight said, ‘and you keep popping up on it. You’re like the beat cop who discovers the body of the little girl then solves the crime and gets promoted to detective.’

  ‘And later turns out to be the killer.’

  ‘Exactly like that. You have a penchant for being in the right place at the right time and you’re in it again today, only you don’t seem to realize it. If you talk to us now, everything that comes after will go better for you. Nothing is better than a voluntary confession because it says you know it was wrong and you want to make it right.’

  Marquez said nothing but shifted in his chair and stared at him.

  ‘There won’t be any turning back if you do this,’ Marquez said. ‘The media will run with it and you’ll get me suspended during the investigation and probably eased out after it’s over. But I won’t forget or forgive, and some whiny explanation about how the District Attorney didn’t understand the evidence and you’re withdrawing charges against me isn’t going to cover it. I’ll be in your life from then on.’

  ‘That’s very much a threat.’

  ‘It is and I’m putting you on notice: you don’t get to wreck my life and walk away. You know I’ve been trying to help. I went to Condit Dam because it was clear no one else was going to search. You sure as hell weren’t. I called you four or five times and didn’t get a call back. I called the FBI—’

  ‘We know all this and I’ve looked at e
verything and I’m offering you a chance to come forward.’

  Marquez turned to the sheriff.

  ‘You’ve got the run-off, the special election next Tuesday; I know what you want.’

  He turned back to Voight.

  ‘Take what you have to your District Attorney before you do this. I’m leaving now.’

  Voight watched Marquez stand and said, ‘Sit down, you’re not leaving. I’ll get deputies if I have to.’

  Marquez sat as Voight met with the sheriff. They conferenced in with the district attorney but she didn’t have the balls it took. The DA sounded like Marquez and still Voight kept at it. He heard the pleading weakness in his own voice.

  ‘Let me put him in a cell and we’ll get a confession. Let me charge him and hold him.’

  The DA spoke first. She said, ‘Sheriff, I’m hanging up, and from what I’ve heard in the last hour, there’s no case.’ After a pause and perhaps to be generous she added, ‘Yet.’

  Voight heard her phone click and the line went dead. Harknell reached and ended the call on his end. He looked at Voight. ‘Release him.’

  ‘You do it.’

  ‘All right, I will.’

  Voight felt everything hanging in the balance. He felt rage and betrayal and a wild courage to not let this happen to him anymore. He went back to his desk. The sheriff walked out with Marquez and he watched the videotape of the interview and after watching left the SCSO. He didn’t know where to go now. He felt despair and the awareness he was someone he had never been before.

  THIRTEEN

  Sheriff Harknell put his hands on his hips and looked as if he had swallowed something that was close to making him vomit.

  ‘No hard feelings, Warden, and you’re free to leave for now. Who knows? Someday pigs might fly and we might owe you an apology.’

  ‘Where’s Voight?’

  ‘He wanted to charge you or at the least let the media know we’ve got someone we’re looking at. I’m more cautious. But don’t get the idea this is over.’

  ‘Then you and I need to talk some more.’

  ‘If you want to do that, get in the car with me. I’ve got to run out to a ranch near Weed. Round trip will take an hour and a half. Come on, let’s do it and we’ll talk on the drive. Maybe Rich just made a series of mistakes and you can set me straight. And if we run out of things to say about the investigation we can talk about water rights. Everyone in your department seems to be an authority on that and I’m still learning.’

  From the flat look in the sheriff’s eyes, Marquez knew Harknell only saw today as a delayed arrest. He weighed that and then got in Harknell’s SUV. Five miles out of Yreka, Harknell laid it bare.

  ‘The district attorney is uncomfortable with Rich’s conclusions. Conjecture was the word she used.’

  ‘That’s the right word.’

  ‘Rich argued hard with her and he’s got more on you than you know. He was offering you an opportunity earlier and you didn’t take it. That’s a mistake you could still reverse.’

  ‘That you’re doing this, Sheriff, I can understand, but not Voight, not coming from his homicide background.’

  ‘You know, if you weren’t a law enforcement officer you would have found your life turned upside down today. And I’ll tell you another thing, the district attorney doesn’t make decisions for my department. I make them. I made the decision to cut you loose, but it’s temporary. The way I see it, Rich just has more work to do before we go again. He got angry but he’ll get past that and continue his investigation and it won’t be long before we come for you.’

  ‘Investigation is the wrong word, Harknell. He’ll need to fabricate something and even with your help that won’t be easy.’

  Harknell’s neck tightened and an artery along the side of his forehead stood out as it pulsed.

  ‘It’s hard to build a case out of nothing even if you’re wearing sheriff’s boots. I believe Voight is sure he’s on to something with me, but he’s the type that turns things over and over in his head. He’ll keep thinking and that’s a problem for you. From here I think it’ll be harder for you to control Voight even if you threaten to move him into a patrol car and a graveyard shift. You humiliated him today, not once but twice, and I can tell you from experience he takes things personally.’

  ‘Handcuffing and charging you will cheer him up.’

  ‘That’ll never happen.’

  ‘If it doesn’t I don’t want to see your face in this county ever again and if charges are brought I’ll be there when you’re arrested, and I’ll be there arguing for the death penalty after a jury convicts you.’

  Marquez was close to really getting into it with Harknell, yet it made no sense to. He regretted getting in the car and turned back to the windshield and the road ahead. When they got out to the ranch Harknell told him to stay in the car and Marquez got out and called the local warden he had talked to earlier today.

  ‘Tom, I’m outside of Weed, are you anywhere close?’

  ‘I’m way north of you.’

  ‘Then I’ll catch you next time I come through.’

  The sheriff came striding back and he and the rancher argued and Marquez guessed Harknell got some of the anger out of his system. He and Voight must have been wound up and confident to try what they did today. He wouldn’t have said a word to Harknell on the ride back but Harknell picked up the conversation again.

  ‘I’ll call your chief this afternoon and let him know we’re looking at one of his wardens as a possible murder suspect.’

  ‘Do it.’

  He smiled at Marquez and adjusted his sunglasses.

  ‘I’m telling you as a courtesy and I’ll also tell him what I’ve told you, that I don’t want to see you in Siskiyou County again. Of course, your department will make that decision, but I’ll make clear what I’ve said to you. Anytime we find you here we’ll bring you in and question you. In my eyes you’re a suspect in two brutal murders.’

  ‘And what will you do when you find out that you and Voight are wrong?’

  ‘Apologize, but tell my deputies to keep an eye out for you and harass you in any way they can.’

  ‘And what if the voters decide they’re not going to finance your political ambitions and let you use the sheriff’s office as a stepping stone to running for Congress?’

  ‘I won’t dignify that with an answer.’

  The sheriff put his blinker on, exited into Yreka, and said, ‘Your vehicle was searched while we were gone. I’ll take you to the yard. If there’s any damage bill us.’

  ‘You are the guy I thought you were.’

  ‘I am tougher than you, Marquez.’

  ‘Keep telling yourself that.’

  When he got his car back Marquez drove to a tire and alignment shop he remembered seeing on Fairlane Road. He described a squeak in the right front wheel that was driving him crazy and offered fifty dollars if they would put the car up on a rack and try to find it. They took him up on that and as they played with the wheel he found the GPS device he was looking for. It was held on with a magnet and clip ties. He glanced at the tire shop owner and then used a pen knife to cut the ties and pry the tracker free.

  When the owner didn’t find the squeak he tried to give Marquez his money back and Marquez said, ‘No, keep it.’

  GPS devices weren’t cheap and Siskiyou County didn’t have money to throw around, and though the temptation was to destroy it Marquez backtracked to where he’d seen a FedEx store. He packaged it, scrolled through his phone and found the lawyer’s address he was looking for and asked at the counter what time the pickup was. The kid behind the counter pointed at a FedEx truck that had just pulled up. He paid, watched it loaded onto the truck and then called the Oakland lawyer.

  ‘Danny, it’s John Marquez, do you still owe me a favor?’

  ‘I owe you something.’

  ‘You’ll like this. I just FedExed you a tracking device the Siskiyou County sheriff put on my car. He’s way over the line doing that but I wan
t them to get the tracker back. Just get something in return first.’

  ‘I’ve dealt with him.’

  ‘I know you have. That’s why I’m sending it to you.’

  Marquez stayed close to the FedEx truck, following it onto I-5 and south a few miles before taking the next off ramp. Then he drove north on his way to the Klamath River cut-off and a meeting with owners of a boutique hotel in Crescent City who thought they might have what he was looking for.

  FOURTEEN

  The Methuselah Tavern was a two-story building four blocks off the Redwood Highway in Crescent City. It wasn’t hard to find at night; in fact, it was easy. It was the only business on the block with lights on. Rain slanting in off the ocean was caught by a white neon sign. The town’s population was 7,643 if you counted the inmates of Pelican Bay Prison and smaller if you didn’t, but it looked like they did okay at the Methuselah.

  Marquez counted eleven people eating dinner and it was pleasant and warm inside. Logs burned in a fireplace in the dining area and the bar had windows that looked out and in daylight probably caught a glimpse of the ocean.

  The concept was a modern tavern with a clean stocked bar and a restaurant serving organic food with a seasonal menu. On the second floor were a handful of rooms if you wanted to stay. He read a restaurant review framed and hanging on a wall near the bar restroom and then met the owners, a married couple named Geoff and Lila Philbrick, Geoff in black jeans and a sweater greeting guests and Lila, his wife, and the one who had called, was working in the kitchen.

  Geoff introduced him to Lila who wiped her hands on her apron before shaking his hand. Her face was worn, her eyes friendly. Geoff was a harder read. His dark hair was combed back and he sported a thin mustache and goatee that made him look like a descendant of a Spanish conquistador who had shipwrecked along the coast of California hundreds of years ago. In truth he was from New York City and Lila from up on the Hudson. It was money that she inherited which rebuilt the former hardware store in 2001. Marquez learned this from Geoff after they took a table and waited for Lila to join them.