Die-Off

by Kirk Russell

  ‘You’d have to ask Rich Voight at the Sheriff’s Office in Yreka that question.’

  She smiled. She touched his wrist.

  ‘You’re not a great liar but you’re a pretty good one. I know that because I’m a little like you. He was in my kitchen when I woke up that morning. I don’t even know how he got in and it scared the shit out of me to walk in and find him there. I go into my kitchen and he’s sitting in a chair with a Starbucks coffee in one hand and one on the table for me, smiling like crazy, like it was such a wonderful surprise. I hadn’t seen him in five years, though he called every so often.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To say hello, to make sure something in his world was still tied down.’

  ‘You made the call to me for him. Why didn’t you call back when you were alone? Why didn’t you come forward?’

  ‘The short answer is I didn’t want to get involved. The longer answer involves wondering how he knew where to dig for a gun. When I started thinking about that I decided it was time to come up here for a while.’

  Marquez nodded. He took another sip of beer and waited. She’d already said enough to put herself in an interview room with Voight and she had to know it was going to lead to many more questions.

  ‘Do you know why I’m looking for him?’

  ‘Yes, and I don’t know how he got into the animal thing, but he’s way into it.’

  ‘Do you call him Rider?’

  ‘I’ll never use that name but I know it the same as you.’

  ‘How much do you know about his trafficking?’

  ‘I know he does it and he’s bragged to me about the money he’s made.’

  ‘How much money?’

  ‘Enough to retire and never worry.’

  ‘Have you ever thought about calling us?’

  She took a long drink of her beer and put the can down and came out of her chair to roll two smoldering logs so they burst into flame again. Kneeling and facing the fire with her back to him she started talking.

  ‘Of course, I’ve thought about doing that, but I don’t really trust cops. They promise you they won’t use your name and then they do and Jim would figure it out and I wouldn’t be able to give you anything to arrest him with. I don’t even know where he lives, so eventually he would come for me. He can be very cruel when he wants to be.’

  ‘Why not tell me where to look for him and give me your phone number and a way to start a conversation with you.’

  ‘You must really want to get him. Let’s find out how much.’

  She moved her chair closer to his and undid the top button of her shirt.

  ‘It’s hot by the fire. You want him and he’s looking over his shoulder for you, yet talks like he wants you to keep looking for him, which I wouldn’t do if I were you. I really wouldn’t. There’s a lot of money in the business he has and he can hire people to do what he needs done.’

  ‘I’m building a case.’

  She leaned against him slowly and breathed in his ear, ‘That’s so cop.’

  ‘I need your help.’

  ‘Then what are you willing to do?’

  She pulled back from him and when he didn’t answer, took her shoes off and slipped out of her pants and underwear and pulled off two shirts and a bra then stood with her back to the fire, her long legs and lovely hips facing him.

  ‘You’re married, aren’t you, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Love her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She had a beautiful body.

  ‘What if I said I want you here and now in front of this fire? I want your clothes off and when we’re done I’ll give you a way to find him. That’s my offer. You’re right on the edge of getting him and I’m sure your wife will understand. I’m sure she’s very supportive. What do you think?’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  A light rain started before Marquez left the cabin. The rock of the chimney was wet and dark and droplets pattered into the duff beneath the trees as he came off the steep slope and picked up the trail out. Low fog lay over the river and strands moved through the trees. If he hadn’t been close to the river and still near enough to her cabin he wouldn’t have seen the boat.

  He saw two men, twin outboards, an aluminum-hulled boat working its way slowly along this bank as if searching for where to put in. He heard the engines rev before losing sight of it in fog and decided to get a better look. He moved back toward the small beach below the cabin and heard the aluminum hull grate over rocks and sand as the boat landed. When two men climbed out, Marquez climbed quickly back up to the cabin and rapped on the door.

  ‘I’m back. Two guys are getting out of a boat at your beach right now. At least one has an assault rifle. Let’s get you out of here.’

  She had opened the door with her grandfather’s gun in her hand and now asked him, ‘What are you carrying?’

  ‘A Glock .40 and it doesn’t matter. We’re not looking for a shoot-out. I’ll deal with these guys later.’

  ‘I thought you never ran away from anything, but that’s twice today and I only just met you.’

  ‘Stow it. Let’s go.’

  She threw water on the fire and pushed the hearth screen tight around it, turned off an electric lantern, slipped a pack over one shoulder and snapped a Master lock over an iron hoop and clasp at the front door. Without another word she went off the steep back slope fast, the only sound her pack and her coat rustling ahead of him. That told him more about her. They moved down through the trees off the backside of the bluff and circled around under the men who were now climbing the steep switchbacks to the cabin. Marquez and Sorzak were close enough to hear them talking though they couldn’t make out the words.

  But Marquez didn’t need to. Both carried assault rifles. One had a backpack. He motioned her to get down lower and closer to him, then whispered, ‘We’ll let them get closer to the cabin before we go to their boat.’

  The men climbed and when fog hid them Marquez and Sorzak hurried down the trail to the beach. At the beach they heard a hollow pounding above them and then a burst of gunfire as Marquez boarded the boat. He turned to her.

  ‘They just broke into your cabin. What are they looking for?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘I have no fucking idea but I’m angry.’

  Now there was a deep whooshing concussive roar and a rush of flame and glass tinkling as the cabin windows exploded onto the surrounding rocks. They saw flames and what smelled to Marquez like high-octane fuel.

  ‘Fuck! They just torched my cabin.’

  ‘Push the bow around. We’re leaving.’ She moved the bow and climbed on as he touched the ignition wires together. The engines kicked over and caught. With the fire he didn’t think the men would hear, but they must have already started back toward the boat because one yelled. Then they started shooting, shots zipping into the water, but nothing came close and Marquez drove the boat into fog. As he did, she reached to take the wheel.

  ‘I grew up on the river. I know the river. I’ll steer.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Don’t be a dumb-ass.’

  She took the wheel and there were more shots but they were around the first bend and couldn’t even see the fire anymore and the pair couldn’t see them.

  ‘Why do you think they were here, Lisa?’

  ‘To rape and kill me and lose the evidence by burning the cabin. I don’t know why they’re here and they just took out something I loved. I don’t feel much like talking about it right now.’

  It was slow and a little iffy in the fog but she seemed to know the river and inside twenty minutes they were at a boat access point and tied off. There were four boat trailers and a narrow dirt road leading up to the highway. After they tied off Lisa went from one boat trailer to the next.

  ‘I know that one and that one. He lives here and the other man is from over in Weaverville and has a cabin like me or like I had.’

  Marquez listened then s
aid, ‘I’m going to hike up to the road and see if I can get cell reception there.’

  The phone worked and he got through to the local warden, Logan, who reported the fire and started toward them. Marquez walked back down and found Lisa.

  ‘Show me the vehicles you don’t recognize.’

  She did that and told him she wouldn’t need a ride anywhere. She had a friend she could call.

  ‘You can’t leave yet, Lisa, you’re the victim here. You need to make a statement.’

  ‘I don’t have anything to say except I want to kill them.’

  ‘You’re not leaving yet.’

  Marquez disabled the boat so if the men showed up it wouldn’t start. Then he and Lisa got out of the rain and waited under trees. He could feel how anxious she was to get away and didn’t read it as fear of the men showing up. He tried to talk to her.

  ‘You’re alive. You could have been in the cabin.’

  She moved away from him when he said that and sat on a fallen log staring out at the river fog. He gave her a few minutes then sat down alongside her.

  ‘They were looking for something.’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘And what else? They searched inside before burning the cabin.’

  ‘Leave it alone today, okay?’

  ‘I heard them before they went in.’

  ‘There was nothing in there. You were inside. You know that.’

  ‘Where is Colson from?’

  ‘From hell, and why are you asking about him?’

  ‘Lila Philbrick said he sounded like he came out of the south. She guessed he was from along the Arkansas-Texas border.’

  ‘Lila was stoned, drunk, or high on drugs for the two and a half years I worked there. It’s amazing she still remembers what her name is. She used to do a line of coke on the bar top and chase it with two double cappuccinos laced with vodka every morning. She doesn’t know shit about where he was from.’

  ‘How close were you and Jim Colson?’

  ‘Look, my cabin just got torched and I’m not really in the mood to talk more about Colson. I already told you everything I know and I was never close to him. Yeah, we slept together and we looked out for each other for a little while, but that was a long time ago.’

  She turned. ‘Colson has serious fucking issues and they’re not mine. He once told me that he left everything behind and I don’t know about that but he definitely left his soul back wherever he came from. When he got here he didn’t care about anything and he didn’t believe in anything.’ She paused on that and added, ‘That’s what we had in common.’

  ‘What about now?’

  ‘Now I’m cold and sitting down along a river thinking somebody tried to kill me today and I need to do something about it.’

  She was quiet now but he knew she wasn’t through talking about Colson.

  ‘Jim might have been a cop somewhere. Sometimes we’d pass a cop parked on the side of the road writing a report or whatever and he’d say I know what that feels like. Or we’d see a cop eating alone in a diner and he’d make some comment. He’d talked about going someplace warmer, Hawaii, or Mexico, even though his Spanish sucked. He was always talking about getting the money he needed to go somewhere else. That’s how he got into the animal thing, to make that money to go somewhere beautiful and warm where he could be anybody.’

  ‘You must have asked him about the gun when the call got made to me.’

  ‘I did and it was one of the answers he uses, that someone told him one night when he was bartending. You know, late at night and close to closing and he’s the only bartender and no one is at the bar until this guy comes in and orders a Jim Beam or something and then tells him he killed two girls and the gun is buried in a fishing tackle box three quarters of a mile from the Condit Dam up in Washington.’

  The tackle box was very much a police secret and it was the first thing she had told him that confirmed everything. She was sending him a message telling him that, but he wasn’t sure what the message was yet or how to read it.

  ‘I know a lot about him and I can tell you it was better before he got comfortable here. When he stopped worrying so much that he was going to get found he started to bully people. He likes making people afraid of him. He made this Mexican girl who wasn’t legal and was cleaning the Methuselah bar at night give him blow jobs. He didn’t care about the sex. He was getting plenty of that anyway. He just wanted to break her down and make her obey him. He’d call me over to watch.’

  ‘And you’d watch?’

  ‘I was curious and frightened of him. I’m more frightened now that he has money. He did a smart thing up here. He figured out how to move things quietly. He moves plenty of dope grown here in Humboldt, but you would never know that because he doesn’t deal in it. The same guys that carry the animal parts move the dope.’

  ‘He probably learned that from the Mexican cartel he works with.’

  Marquez saw her flinch at that and she turned her face quickly and changed the subject just as fast.

  ‘You got me out of the cabin and I’m going to help you, but you really missed a chance with me this afternoon. I would have made you feel so good it would have stayed with you the rest of your life.’

  She pointed.

  ‘Here come the cops.’

  Lisa Sorzak made her statement to the police and didn’t give her name as Lisa X. She said Sorzak and also said she had no idea why she was targeted. She wondered aloud if they were actually after Marquez and added that she was still naked when Marquez returned and knocked on the door, so she just made it out in time.

  The two men were arrested at gunpoint as they made their way back to the river bridge. They had no other way across but claimed they were returning from scouting fishing sites for next season and their boat was stolen when they were on foot along the shoreline.

  That story changed after they were separated and were asked for more details. Marquez listened to that questioning and about an hour later it came out that one was a parole violator wanted for an armed robbery and murder in Nebraska. The other didn’t have any criminal record and neither knew anything about a cabin that had been burned. Marquez was never close enough to them to identify either in a line-up so he didn’t try. The Fed who stopped by after the Nebraska felon was identified summed it up.

  ‘The asshole going back to a murder trial and prison may want to trade on what he knows later, but admitting to burning a cabin and trying to name who hired him isn’t going to get him anything. If he goes down for the Nebraska murder he’s looking at a life sentence already. Your best chance is the other man if you can track him after they kick him loose.’

  And they had to kick him loose. He was out the next day and by then Lisa Sorzak had disappeared and Marquez got a call from Voight that took him south.

  THIRTY-SIX

  When her cell rang Maria debated answering. She really didn’t want to talk to Voight again. She let it ring twice more and walked outside so no one at work would overhear.

  ‘I’ve got just a few questions about Kevin Witmer, and they won’t take long.’

  ‘They can’t.’

  ‘We’re on the same side, Maria. Give me some help here. How long have you known Witmer?’

  ‘Since grade school but we didn’t really become friends until high school. Same with Ridley and the three of us were buds for awhile, but that ended when I moved here and started this job. Part of it ending was about Kevin’s dope business.’

  ‘How long has Kevin been dealing?’

  ‘It depends what you call dealing.’

  ‘How long has he been seriously at it?’

  ‘In high school he sold a little and always had some to sell and now I think he’s got a lot more sources.’

  ‘And the sources are up north?’

  ‘Not where you are, mostly from Humboldt, maybe some from farther north, and I don’t know anything except rumor. Have you talked to Ridley Daniels?’

  ‘I’ve left messages. Do you know people wh
o buy from him now?’

  ‘No, and I’m not protecting him or anything like that. I just don’t know, but what’s up with him selling dope? Do you think a dope grower might have killed them?’

  That idea had circulated right after they were killed and she knew from talking to Voight he was totally tuned into that, which was why she was surprised he was on it today.

  ‘Until a few days ago Kevin hadn’t seen me in years. He’s not going to talk to me about his dope business if that’s what you’re thinking. Besides, selling dope is still illegal.’

  ‘Don’t tell that to people around here.’

  Voight cleared his throat. He was getting to the reason why he called and Maria could tell.

  ‘Sarah and Terry may have visited someone who supplies him and then gone to a party that individual invited them to and when that happened a man at the party got very angry they were there. He may have threatened the individual who invited them. And it’s not the same as what you’re remembering from Facebook about their murders being related to visiting grow fields. Did either ever say anything to you about that?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe?’

  ‘I called Sarah and I don’t remember what day it was because I called them every day. I was supposed to be on the trip, so if I didn’t call them they called me. That was our way of making up for me not being there. This was a morning when they were at a place on the river where the cell reception was lousy and we didn’t talk long. But she said the night before they had been to a weird party. It could have been that party.’

  ‘That’s all she said about it?’

  ‘Yes. I think it was two days after they left Crescent City.’

  ‘Maria, I need your help finding out if they were at a party where the person who invited them got cut on the arm with a knife.’

  ‘It’s weird this is coming up now.’

  ‘I know it’s weird and I’m trying to get to the name of who got hurt. If I can get to that person, maybe I can get to who killed them.’