Redback kr-4

by Kirk Russell

  ‘I want to talk face-to-face,’ Desault said. ‘I’ve got an offer I’d like to make you. I think you’ll like what we’re doing.’

  Marquez looked out at the ocean and said, ‘Give me a number where I can reach you.’

  ‘When can we meet?’

  ‘I’ll call you. We’re in the middle of something, right now.’

  But Desault knew that. He’d heard Shauf. As he hung up, Marquez thought of the passive distrust in Desault’s eyes the day of the lie detector test. He got only a few seconds to think about it before Shauf’s voice crackled over the radio.

  ‘Hey, they’re back at the first harbor. I’m betting they left a dive ring down there full of ab and will bring it up now.’

  ‘Can you see the driver?’

  ‘I’m looking at him.’

  ‘Has he got a tatt on the right side of his neck?’

  ‘If he does the wetsuit collar is hiding it. He’s got a buzz cut. He’s big. No, he’s fat. Black wetsuit, bright blue stripes on the arms. Why are you asking?’

  ‘I recognize him.’ Marquez had found the page with the notes from 2003 on a poacher named Greg Lahzouras. Images from long ago, Billy Takado’s face, buzzed in his head, but he made himself focus. ‘If it’s who I think it is he’s got a tatt that’s supposed to be a dragon, but looks like a red lizard on his neck.’

  ‘You might be right. This looks like a guy we busted in Shelter Cove in ’03 or 4. Remember, he got off with almost no fine? What was his name?’

  ‘Lahzouras.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, you’re right, it is him.’ Her voice speeded up. ‘OK we’ve got some more action, the backpacker we saw out on the road earlier is walking back up like he’s carrying a dead body on his back. I think they filled his pack with ab. If I’m right they’ll pick him up when he reaches the road, unload what he’s carrying, and do it again at the other places they dove.’

  And that’s what happened. The backpacker let other cars go by and then stuck his thumb out as the Chevy with the divers approached. They put his pack in the trunk alongside a big cooler and he got in. At the next beach lot the divers went down to the water, leaving the backpacker to transfer the abalone from the backpack to a big cooler in the trunk. When he finished he strolled down to the beach with the empty pack. Not the most sophisticated method, but it was getting the job done.

  They watched this routine three times before the divers left the coast, drove east through coastal mountains, and north on 101 forty miles to a convenience store lot, where in about sixty seconds they moved two big coolers from the Chevy into a white minivan. The Chevy with the divers headed south back down 101 and Marquez sent three of the SOU with it. Shauf and the others stayed with him and trailed the minivan to a small airport way up in Yreka.

  As he drove he thought about Desault’s call and the time that had passed. His face showed the years of wind and sun. He was gray at the temples now. Gray was the color when he shaved and washed the razor, but he still had the rangy broad-shouldered strength and lankiness. Wildlife enforcement had been the right decision long ago, but he knew also that his role as patrol lieutenant of the SOU was going to end in the next few years. Chief Blakely, who headed the law enforcement end of the California Department of Fish and Game, wanted him to accept a promotion, move up the ladder, and bring his experience into one of the regional offices.

  He’d floated a different idea with Blakely, that she create a new job in the field for him as he left the SOU. Her bemused smile told him how ridiculous that was. Thirty-eight warden positions were currently unfilled because the salary was so low. There was absolutely no way she could create a new position. How much of that did Desault know, and where did Desault get his cell number if not from Blakely? It would be easy to ask her.

  Marquez had married Katherine and helped raise his stepdaughter, Maria, from age five and a half to adulthood. He was a legend among the commercial market poachers, but he took fewer risks nowadays. Poachers who had tried to track the team told stories and speculated that the SOU had secret airplanes and helicopters because they seemed to disappear and then arrive impossibly fast on the other end of the state. But that was the art of casting a long shadow, and that’s what they were up to again tonight. Half the team was with him and the rest working a sturgeon operation in the delta.

  They could have busted the abalone poachers at the little airport in Yreka, but instead videotaped the coolers getting loaded into a Cessna. An hour and a half later, Oregon game wardens arrested three men, including a well-known Portland restaurateur as he came out to meet the plane when it landed. Meanwhile, Marquez and the team followed the minivan driver back out to the coast and arrested him and his companion outside a Crescent City bar.

  Crescent City is way up on the north coast of California and Marquez didn’t get out of there until late. He never found the time to call Desault back and he didn’t get as far south that night as he’d hoped to. He slept four hours in a motel in Ukiah and at first light was on the road south again. He was late and as a consequence didn’t meet up with one of the ten wardens on his SOU team in time. An investigation would later determine fault, but for Marquez the results of the investigation would never matter. He believed that if he hadn’t slept in Ukiah, if he’d just pushed on, it would have gone down differently. He would always blame himself.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The sturgeon poacher, Jeff Holsing, parked in the lot outside the Cache Creek Casino and went inside. As he did, SOU warden Brad Alvarez eased his truck into a parking slot where he had a good view of both the casino and Holsing’s van. He flipped open his cell phone and called the warden he was working the operation with, Melinda Roberts.

  ‘Holsing just went into the Cache Creek Casino. How far away are you?’

  ‘An hour and a half, unless there’s traffic.’

  ‘I’m going in.’

  ‘Keep your distance.’

  That went without saying and Alvarez passed over it. He glanced at the glass doors leading into the casino. He’s got to be meeting somebody in there.

  ‘Look for me at a blackjack table,’ Alvarez said. ‘Or maybe slots. Text me when you get close and I’ll order you a drink. What do you want?’

  ‘Margarita, no salt.’

  ‘You got it.’

  She laughed and Alvarez, sitting in his truck, smiled. Truth was they’d both been up most of the night, and what he would do in the casino if he got the chance was get coffee and food.

  ‘I talked to the lieutenant,’ she said. ‘He said to tell you he’s on his way but still two hours out.’

  ‘I got a message.’

  The real message was Marquez wanted them to be very careful. Marquez thought Holsing was already looking over his shoulder before they started tracking him. He thought Holsing was too jumpy and likely to be carrying a gun. But Alvarez wasn’t worried about whether Marquez got here in two hours or three. What mattered was that they didn’t lose Holsing as he delivered the sturgeon. They left it that Roberts would text when she was ten minutes away, and if Holsing moved before that he’d be back on the phone with her.

  He saw rows of slot machines as he walked in. Even at this early hour Cache Creek was crowded with players. But Holsing wasn’t here for slots. He was at a cafe table eating breakfast with Carl Talbot, a twenty-four year old carpenter that Holsing had met with last week. The SOU didn’t know Talbot’s role yet, though it was Alvarez’s guess that they’d find out today.

  When he was confident they weren’t moving soon, Alvarez checked out the food court and bought a mocha and a bagel. He sat where he could still see their table and ate the bagel, but left the mocha alone. He wanted the mocha to last, because who knows where it was going from here. Following Holsing was like watching a bad reality show. This one had started at 4:30 this morning when Holsing loaded five sturgeon into his van and then drove around in circles until meeting up with a middle-aged white male in a black Hummer at a Chevron station in Fairfield. He figured Hummer man was th
eir buyer, but the sturgeon stayed in Holsing’s van.

  When a waitress arrived with their check, Alvarez moved back outside and then to his truck, thinking, come on, Holsing, you can’t drive around with the fish on ice forever. He watched both come out of the casino. Holsing crossed the parking lot to his van, a tall skinny nervous guy with enough opportunistic charm to get by. He was also cruel. They’d watched how he beat his dog. He was in his van and backing up when Alvarez updated Roberts.

  ‘Holsing is rolling and it looks like Talbot is leading him into the Capay Valley. Where are you at?’

  ‘Stuck in traffic.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Forty minutes.’

  ‘OK, I’m going with them.’

  Ahead, Talbot’s pickup turned left off the one two-lane road running through the Capay. Holsing followed closely on to a gravel road running across the valley floor toward the base of the mountains. When Talbot turned off that road it was on to a dirt and grass road leading up to a property that backed up to the base of the mountains. Pasture land and a ranch house. A big piece of land and he got the address as he rolled slowly past.

  He gave Roberts the address and said, ‘I’ll go up that Forest Service road. I should have a view from there. Do you know where I mean?’

  She did, and now Alvarez unlocked the Forest Service gate. He drove up to a bend where he could look down over the trees and see the house, Holsing’s van, and Talbot’s blue Ford pickup. He got out of the truck with his binoculars and phone and what was left of the mocha.

  Below, and across the valley, the land was green with spring, though on the south and west slopes the grass had already gone brown. Ground fog lay in thin strands in pockets in the fields, but it would disappear soon. The light rain that fell in the late night had left the land damp, but the sky was clear now and the morning warming. After the night and the cold in the delta, the sun on his face felt great. He finished the mocha and checked out the house again with the binoculars before deciding to move up the road to the next bend.

  When he did, the cell reception sucked. The conversation with Roberts broke up, but that could be where she was driving through so he didn’t move again. They weren’t doing too well with the radio today either, some problem with a repeater this morning. Still, with the radio he was able to communicate to her where he was.

  Now Holsing and Talbot came out of the house. Talbot shouldered a pack he didn’t look happy to be carrying. He tossed his cigarette in the grass and they started across the pasture toward brush at the base of the mountains and Alvarez tracked them with binoculars until they disappeared into the brush. Then he walked around the truck, reached in for the radio, and felt a rush of excitement as he got Roberts.

  ‘They’ve hiked into the hills with Talbot carrying a backpack.’

  ‘What’s that about? A backpack? Meth lab,’ she guessed.

  ‘I’m going to walk out and across the slope and try to get a look at where they’re headed.’

  ‘Brad, I think you should wait.’

  ‘I’ll be well above them and I’ll call you. I’m not going far, I just don’t want to lose them.’

  He locked the truck and followed a deer trail into the trees and then across the slope a quarter mile through brush, scrub oak, and dry grass. Farther than he’d planned to go, but he could still get back to the truck pretty easily if Holsing popped back out. Up ahead, the slope dipped into a ravine and then the terrain looked rougher, but it was worth it. Holsing and Talbot weren’t up here on a nature walk.

  He climbed down into another ravine, then up steeply through brush on the other side. He started to sweat. He should have left the extra shirt in the truck. The slope was humid as last night’s rain evaporated and it was tougher than he’d expected. It was slow going until he spotted a deer trail. Once on it, he found footprints and followed those down and across to a small stream, moving quietly now, watching everything. A stream would fit with a meth lab. They’d need water.

  He worked his way down and kept an eye on the pasture because he was a ways from his truck and if Holsing headed for his van, he’d have to really move to avoid losing him. Then suddenly it was worst case. He caught sight of them coming out of the brush back into the pasture. Talbot still had the pack on. Holsing led and Alvarez watched him stop near his truck. If he got in it, there was no way to get back across the slope, down there and follow him. They’d been up here twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes, and he saw Holsing was going to leave. He stood near his truck talking to Talbot and Alvarez tried reaching Roberts.

  ‘Come on, Melinda, answer,’ but the call kept dropping after one ring. Marquez would be all over him for going out here alone, especially with drugs possibly in the picture. Marquez was getting more conservative and as he thought it over it made sense to search for whatever they had visited up here. If it was a meth lab, Holsing could do serious time, much more than he’d get for poaching sturgeon. I’m going for it, he thought.

  He followed the stream down and when it happened, it was like, bang. He came around a tree and there it was, a little dam, a grow field, and a bunch of trash. He was looking at maybe two hundred marijuana plants. He got his phone out, took pictures, and wouldn’t need to hang out here long. He could easily find his way back. He’d bring Marquez, Roberts, and whoever the DEA or county sheriff sent.

  He got photos of the dam and where they’d channeled the overflow down into the plants. Black plastic irrigation hose ran down between the rows. Bags of fertilizer were stacked along one side. He took a picture of a pump and a generator and a five gallon gas can resting on a dirt bench cut into the slope, then started back up, hurrying, because who knows, maybe he’d still make it back in time to follow Holsing or give Roberts a heads-up as Holsing drove out.

  Several years ago a warden had been shot and wounded at a grow field in Palo Alto, but he figured the footprints on the deer trail were Talbot’s, though the pack Talbot carried could be supplies for someone taking care of the plants. He watched ahead, didn’t expect anybody, but watched anyway and still hurried. He made more noise than when he came down. He took another careful look upslope before climbing on to an open grassy patch, and there he stopped long enough to text Roberts. Sometimes a text message went through when you couldn’t make a phone call work. we’ve got Holsing nailed. he got

  Alvarez never finished the message but he did press Send as he spotted a man up the steep slope thirty yards standing between two trees. He reached for his badge instead of his gun, and he got the badge up and heard a shot as he felt a blow and a burning in his chest. When he tried to breathe he couldn’t and the sharp burning spread rapidly under his ribs as he sat down. His badge dropped and he fell back and tried to roll on his side, getting some air, not much, and feeling for the wound, knowing it was bad and scared. His kids were at home. Didn’t want to die over a grow field. He pressed against the wound with his left hand and tried to get his gun loose, but couldn’t seem to do it, couldn’t make his fingers work.

  His hand slipped off the holster as a man leaned over him and blocked the sun. Alvarez saw the man’s face and then the barrel of a rifle. He tried to speak, tried to reach his badge. He moved bloody fingers across the grass trying to find his badge, and then saw the barrel adjusting and cried out and moved his hand through sunlight toward the rifle barrel as the finger on the trigger gently squeezed.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘ Lieutenant, I’ve lost contact with Brad.’

  Marquez knew that Roberts would have tried everything before calling him to report that. Yet Brad was likely fine. Good chance the problem was cell or radio reception in the Capay Valley.

  ‘You at his truck, right now?’

  ‘I just came down from there. It’s up on a Forest Service road above me. He walked from his truck across the slope above Talbot’s house when they hiked up into the brush.’

  She explained that and Marquez got a clearer picture. He hadn’t known about Holsing, Talbot, and the backpack.

>   ‘Is Holsing still at the house with Talbot?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it, but I can’t say for sure. His van is gone, so he’s probably gone. Talbot’s truck is there.’

  ‘And you’re sure Brad didn’t have any contact with Holsing at the house or on the slope?’

  ‘He drove past the house and then took a position on the Forest Service road above them. When they started up he hiked out across the slope above them.’

  ‘Rough terrain.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘So maybe he’s up working his way back.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Marquez heard it in her answer. She didn’t believe Alvarez was up there working his way back. She was scared. He went over the timeline with Roberts again, and then asked, ‘Was the Forest Service gate locked when you got there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK, read the text message again.’

  Marquez pressed the cell closer to his ear and accelerated away from the truck alongside him. Roberts spoke slowly.

  ‘“ we’ve got holsing nailed. he got ”, and that’s where it stops.’

  ‘How long ago was the text sent?’

  ‘Forty-eight minutes.’

  And she’d walked out and looked for him, and didn’t find him and couldn’t get him on his cell. Forty-eight minutes and Holsing’s van gone. No way would Brad let that happen without communicating, so he was up on that slope. But maybe it was a badly sprained ankle and he was sitting in a ravine or working his way slowly back. But if Brad was anything, he was tough and this long out of communication he’d be worried about the operation. He would have found his way back to his truck.