by Kirk Russell
Marquez didn’t yell Fish and Game because he didn’t want them to dump the evidence. He called Muller, who said they’d get a boat in the water, but what they really needed was a helicopter and all he could do now was follow the boat from the highway. He drove out of Brennan and the steel frame of the Rio Vista Bridge came into view as SOU recruited a fisherman’s boat. Two SOU wardens got on-board and Marquez stopped at the Rio Vista Bridge.
He jogged out the pedestrian walkway and saw the boat with the pike upriver and read the uncertainty of the two men in it. Their boat slowed and he talked with Muller and said, ‘I’m standing on the rio part. I can see the SOU wardens on a fisherman’s boat and they’re trying to hail the guys with the coolers right now.’
The pair with the coolers were probably expecting a call with directions on where to empty the coolers, how close to shore, how far apart. Maybe that call would have come from Peason, but they were on their own now and in trouble. When they saw the boat with the two wardens coming toward them they turned and accelerated downstream. Marquez read that as they were giving up and running back to their truck.
He ran back to his own truck, shoes clanging on the metal bridge and traffic slowing as a driver or two turned to watch him. Before he reached his pickup the boat passed beneath him. When he got to the Brannan Island Recreation Area he was ahead of Muller and any of the SOU and the two men were already out of the water.
One was unhitching the boat trailer and the other in the driver’s seat starting the engine. He had them easily, but the boat was still in the water and he saw they had freed the ties holding the coolers and guessed their plan was to empty the coolers and then let them float off before dragging the boat out.
But he was wrong. They were leaving the boat behind. One man ran back to it just ahead of Marquez. He shoved the stick in reverse and jumped out of the boat into the water and made his way out as his buddy backed up to pick him up.
Now the boat was thirty yards offshore and drifting with the river as it spun circles in reverse. Stern heavy, it was taking on water and moving toward shoreline trees. Marquez ran down the shoreline, pulling his coat off. He kicked off his shoes and was in the cold water and swimming as the right rear of the boat tipped up against a snag. The engines whined as they tried to push the boat and it was heavy with water when he got there. He pulled himself onboard just before the props swung and caught him as the boat came free of the snag.
He climbed over the coolers, knocked the stick into neutral, reached for the bilge pump switch as one engine died. He needed to back out of the willow branches and now, and when the remaining engine coughed he went to full power and as the water-filled boat churned in reverse he thought there’s no other way, I’ve got to bring it around.
He knew if the engine died here it was over but the boat came around and he got the bow pointed back toward the boat launch ramp. He made slow forward progress and the boat with SOU wardens closed in. He tied the line they threw to the bow just before the engine died.
The fisherman’s boat had a lone Evinrude engine without much horsepower but it was enough to slowly drag the pike boat back to the launch. Then they used the trailer the two men had left behind. Marquez stayed with the boat as it was pulled out and under his hand resting on a cooler he felt the pike moving. He felt their force and the vibration of their movement, but it was a thing again to see them as they cleared the water and parked and opened the cooler lids. Thousands of pike fingerlings writhed over each other, and he stared and then looked at the warden on the phone with Muller who signaled now with a fist pump that the two men had been apprehended.
Now there was a debate about transporting the fish and Marquez cut it off. They had videotape and they could take samples. They had all the evidence they needed. He pointed.
‘Over there in the grass.’ He picked up one handle on one end of the cooler nearest him as one of the SOU grabbed the other handle and they dumped the first cooler in the grass. With everybody hauling the rest, sixteen coolers were empty in ten minutes. The pike fingerlings flopped in the grass and one of the wardens moved his truck closer and put his headlights on as the dusk came on.
Marquez stood in the cold in his wet clothes waiting for the last one to die. But there was no righteousness in that. There was only relief and when they were dead they shoveled them back into the coolers and the coolers were loaded onto the area warden’s truck with jokes about the smell.
He walked back to his truck and found a dry sweatshirt and jeans and changed standing in the darkness. He started the engine and got the heater going, but he didn’t leave yet. He pulled his phone and read the emails he’d forwarded from Peason’s phone then went back over the text messages and sat there a long time thinking about Hauser and Peason and Colson and Barbara Jones and the sheriff. He thought about everything that had happened with Colson and it hit him. There was only one answer that fit.
FIFTY-THREE
A call came from Voight the next morning as Marquez got into Weaverville and drove past a huge stack of logs that steamed in the early sun. Voight was huffing but his breathing slowed as he talked, so maybe he was coming off one of his morning walks.
‘I won’t string you out. We don’t have enough to charge Harknell yet, but we’re going in the right direction.’
‘What did you find on the boat?’
They had found a locked waterproof first-aid cabinet with a box of ammunition in it, two folding combat knives, a disassembled Glock hand gun, fifteen hundred dollars in cash, a Droid X cell phone minus its battery and very water damaged. The cell phone’s serial number did not match Sarah Steiner’s missing phone and Harknell wouldn’t say why it was there. In the cabinet was also a short club made of black walnut with a leather wrist band and a piece of steel inset into the fire-hardened head of the club. There was blood on the head of the club, enough to pull DNA samples.
‘Do any of those items mean anything to you?’
‘Are Ellis’ and Steiner’s names in the notebook?’
‘They are and so are half a dozen groups and organizations that focus on water.’
‘Send me a photo of the club.’
The photo came through a few minutes later but he didn’t look at it yet. He parked. From here he could see the green metal roof of Sorzak’s bar and the lot out front. There were no cars in the lot yet. It was early and cold and the air smelled of wood smoke. Now he opened the photo of the club head and thought about Harknell, who didn’t keep this club as a defensive weapon, but rather as something to wield control. He enlarged the photo, studied the rounded head and saw the dried blood Voight talked about.
He remembered Colson leaning over, showing him the back of his skull. The rounded curve of the dark walnut was a good match for the wound. He stared at it and called Voight.
‘It’s going to be Colson’s blood on the club.’
‘That’s what I think too, but why did Harknell do it?’
‘Colson wouldn’t pay him anymore. Colson wanted out. He wanted to quit his business and disappear.’
‘Who killed him?’
‘Whoever plans to take over his business.’
‘And who’s that?’
‘I have a pretty good guess, but that’s all, right now. I’ll call you later.’
The slump-shouldered bartender’s green Chevy Tahoe pulled in now and Marquez watched him get out, unlock, and go inside. He looked eager to get out of the cold. A few minutes later a white panel van pulled up and parked alongside the bartender’s rig. Two men got out and one knocked on a service door and the other moved down along the side of the building as if looking for somebody hiding. Marquez put that down to caution. He reached in the glove compartment for binoculars.
Now he watched a third car pull in and as Lisa Sorzak and two men got out he started his engine. He moved closer and with binoculars studied the two men who arrived with her. He recognized both, no doubt about either. He got out now and walked down through trees to the backside of the bar buildin
g.
From here he had enough of a view to see into the white-panel van as they opened it. He wasn’t quite close enough to make out their words but he didn’t really have to. He saw the two doors at the back of the white-paneled van opened and Lisa got in and inspected as the pair who had arrived in the van stood to the side, one on his phone.
Now the two that came with her and the bartender backed her up as she negotiated, their voices rising, cash showing, the one who had been on his cell phone off it now, brandishing it like a weapon as he argued with her.
Marquez held the binoculars up and studied her face. It was hard, holding tough with these guys, hundred dollar bills in her right hand, the bartender with a big gun in his coat that was making the pocket hang outward. His hand kept going to it. This was not a done deal yet but she was taking over. They opened the second of the two doors at the back of the paneled van and he saw furs, bone, and cages. He watched the exchange of cash, the slow counting and recounting of hundred dollar bills, one of the two men who brought the product sitting on the back of the van counting bills to his left side in the sunlight as Sorzak stood with her hands on her hips and looked past the man at the product behind him.
When the counting was done one of the men got on his phone again. A few minutes later a Chevy Malibu with tinted windows pulled in and in jumped the pair who had delivered the white-panel van and just got paid. As that happened Marquez took a photo of the Malibu and sent it with a text to Muller, though he doubted Muller needed it. Muller’s team was close already.
The return text read, ‘We’re on him.’
Now the two that arrived with Sorzak moved toward the car and Marquez texted the plates to Voight and a message: ‘The tall black-haired one shot Colson. Looks like they’re leaving.’
They were. There got in the car and Sorzak wasn’t going with them. She closed up the panel van and went back inside with the bartender and Marquez called Voight.
‘These guys are pulling out.’
‘No problem, the Weaverville Police are working with us. You certain about the taller guy?’
‘Yes, and the other one was there too.’
‘And Sorzak arrived with them?’
Voight was putting it together.
‘That’s right, and they need to be very careful when they pull these guys over. How many units have they got?’
‘There are Trinity sheriffs helping too.’
‘Good.’
Twenty minutes later the bartender came out and left. When that happened Marquez was tempted to go knock on the bar door, but he didn’t. He waited but without the excitement he felt on his first animal trafficking bust years ago. He felt now like he was dealing with something inexorable and thought about the man sitting on the back of the panel van in the sun counting bills like a small shopkeeper readying the day.
What do you do about that? And what do you do about Ugandan military helicopters entering Garamba National Park on an elephant hunting expedition, or a Chinese restaurant that only serves endangered species?
His phone buzzed and his thoughts shifted. It was Voight sounding excited and happy. ‘They’re in custody, no one got hurt, and we’re getting another bonus out of this. One of the guys connects to your stepdaughter’s ex-friend, Kevin. He’s driven loads for him and is eager to trade.’
‘Good. I want to be there.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m still at the bar but working my way back to my truck and waiting for her to move.’
‘Maybe she’s there for the day.’
She wasn’t. The bar didn’t open until five and she wasn’t going to leave this van in the lot. He had the other thought again and came close to telling Voight but didn’t. Half of Muller’s SOU team would follow the pair back to wherever they came from and Marquez planned to stay with Sorzak.
He climbed quickly up through the trees to his truck and when he got a look again Sorzak was out of the building and moving to the van. She headed east out of town, crossed the river and then took the narrow highway toward Hayfork and the Mad River. So the rumor was probably true. She had a place there somewhere.
He called Muller, gave his position and within thirty minutes three of the SOU were alongside and ahead of him, and they gave her a long lead. For miles ahead there were few places to turn off this road as it wound through forested range, climbing and falling and then climbing again. An hour and a half later Sorzak stopped at the converted trailer that was Mad River Burger. It was one of the better burgers places Marquez knew of though he had no appetite today and watched her order and eat and then backtrack toward Ruth Lake.
He let the SOU wardens know. ‘We’re getting close so let’s tighten it up.’
And if they hadn’t closed they might have missed her turn onto the dirt road. Marquez switched to radio when he lost cell reception following her onto the dirt road. He guessed out on this road was a house or a cabin she owned. The road followed a creek for a mile and then climbed through oak and into the hills. Two and half miles in he saw the house and moments later she parked. Now the white-paneled van and a jeep were side-by-side in front of a small modern house.
Maybe the jeep was hers or maybe someone else was there as well. They could sit on the house and wait and keep following the van as it moved again. Or they could approach. She ended that debate for him by unloading the birdcages and doing it alone which suggested no one else was there.
If they drove straight in she would see them coming and Marquez decided to do it that way, but not until she had a bird cage in either hand. Then they came fast and she turned as she heard the engines and opened the door but couldn’t get back inside before Marquez reached her. She looked shocked, then fine. The recovery was liquid and quick and she smiled.
‘I was hoping I’d see you again.’
‘Well, you got your wish except that I’m here to arrest you.’
‘That doesn’t work for me.’
‘I didn’t think it would.’
She took in the three SOU wardens, and Marquez pointed toward the panel van.
‘Do you want to show us what else is in there?
She shook her head.
‘There’s not much in the van and I want to talk alone with you first.’
‘We can do that, but put the birds down first.’
‘They need water and food and that’s inside. Do you mind carrying them in and I’ll get the food and water?’
‘This is bigger than what’s in the van, Lisa.’
‘I know it is.’
He carried the cages in but not before holding his hand up for the SOU wardens to say, if I’m not out in five minutes, come in. He put the cages down on a counter and instead of coming back to the cages with food she came at him with a gun.
‘If you pull the trigger they’ll come in shooting.’ ‘I want you to take the gun out of your shoulder harness with your index finger and thumb. Pull it out by the grip and lower it to the floor and do the same with the one at your ankle.’
He did that.
‘Now tell me what you’ve figured out.’
‘The wardens are just a couple of minutes from coming through the door.’
‘You and I may be dead by then.’
‘You made a deal with Harknell and then you took out Colson. One of the men who arrived with you this morning was the shooter. He’s in custody.’
She leveled the gun at his head. ‘We’re going to take your truck and drive away.’
‘There’s nowhere to go, Lisa.’
The SOU wardens saw the gun at his head and radioed for help and trailed Marquez’s truck as it slowly drove past. Sorzak sat across from him with a two-handed grip.
‘You got fifty thousand dollars from the sheriff for Terry Ellis and Sarah Steiner. What did you get for Barbara Jones?’
‘I didn’t kill her. Harknell must have shot her. And I got a hundred thousand for the girls, not fifty. I did it for the money and so Harknell and I could start working together before I took the
operation away from Colson. I was sorry for the girls. They really didn’t want to die, but they had chances I never got and they shouldn’t have been where they were anyway.
‘You and I could still make a deal, Lieutenant. There’s no proof about these other things. We could make a deal and both of us will make a lot of money when I take over. It could be worth half a million dollars a year to you.’
‘That’s not going to happen.’
They came around another turn and were looking at a green California Fish and Game truck blocking the road. Marquez slowed to a stop. He didn’t see the warden.
‘Get out. We’ll take his truck.’
When it didn’t look like that was going to work she leveled her gun, aimed at his head, and the first round came from the hill above and caught her in the chest. She still managed to get off a shot before a second round tore into her throat and the gun fell from her hand as she tumbled. Marquez reached her in seconds and saw she was dying. He knelt and took her hand and couldn’t have said why.
He laid her hand down after she died and sat in sunlight wrapping gauze around his right arm where the shot she got off grazed him. They reported her death and a pair of wardens and Marquez searched the house and van.
Trinity County deputies arrived and it was late afternoon before Marquez left there. The four birds in cages rode with him. He propped their cages so they didn’t move much in the curves and the birds seemed fine with the drive. They chirped and fluttered and talked and were good companions on the long ride home.