Redback kr-4

by Kirk Russell

  ‘Let’s get everybody there we can.’

  ‘That’ll blow the operation, Lieutenant.’

  ‘It will. Get everybody and let’s get help from the county.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  County officers and wardens worked a grid across the slope and a helicopter sat over an area just north of Brad’s truck. A K-9 unit was on its way. Inside the house, Carl Talbot repeated his story to Marquez, complaining that he had already told it to both the county and the girl wardens. He’d eaten breakfast at the casino – where he always ate – then came home and started work. A two foot deep trench lined with black filter cloth ran along one side of the house foundation. A plastic perforated pipe ran down the center of the trench. Marquez looked at it before going in to talk to Talbot. Talbot claimed his whole day was breakfast and working on the drainage trench.

  Marquez looked through the window at the helicopter hovering over the slope, and then at Talbot. Streaks of dried sweat ran along the sides of his face. An angry looking boil sat low on the left side of his neck and he kept touching it. His hair was greasy, clothes dirty, one sideburn lower than the other. He was young and underneath the attitude, nervous and scared. He had to be worried that the search would find whatever he and Holsing had up on the slope. But he was sticking to his story that he didn’t know anybody named Jeff Holsing, never heard of anybody named Holsing.

  Talbot answered questions in a monotone as though he was a prisoner of war reciting name, rank, and serial number. He slouched on a couch, a TV remote in his right hand. When Marquez walked in he’d turned on a NASCAR race and then muted it but wanted to leave it on as he answered questions because he’d waited for the race all week. He turned it back on now and Marquez walked over and unplugged the TV.

  ‘You can’t do that, man, this is my house.’

  Marquez sat down next to him. He held his cell phone so Talbot could read the screen. ‘I’m going to show you a text a warden on our undercover team sent this morning.’

  He smelled the mud on Talbot’s boots and the sweat that had dried in his shirt. At the shoulders his shirt was wrinkled and sweat-stained where the backpack straps had rubbed. He hadn’t thought to change his shirt, or maybe he had no idea that Brad was on the slope and that the police would show up. Could be he had no clue about the sturgeon.

  Roberts had forwarded the text to him. Talbot glanced over long enough to read it. Then his gaze returned to the blank TV screen.

  ‘I told the warden chick everything I know.’

  ‘Before Brad Alvarez sent that message he described Holsing and you hiking up there. We’ve had surveillance on Holsing for weeks.’ He let a beat pass and added, ‘There’s no way around that for you.’

  Marquez pointed at the dark blue backpack in the corner of the room.

  ‘You were carrying that, so before this goes to the next level, I want to make sure you understand that everyone here knows you’re lying. If you stick with that lie, it could make things much worse for you later.’

  ‘I’m going to watch the race.’

  A Yolo County deputy poked his head in the front door now and said, ‘They’ve spotted two guys up there moving across the slope away from the dogs.’

  That hit Marquez hard. It touched his worst fear and he stood. He asked Talbot, ‘Who’s trying to get away?’

  ‘Probably some fucking illegals working on a farm around here and living in the hills.’

  Marquez pointed through the window.

  ‘Those are SWAT team officers they’re lowering out of the helicopter. The pair trying to get away won’t get much farther.’

  ‘Whatever, man, if they shoot them that’s OK with me. They ought to kill those guys at the border or build that fence they keep dicking with.’

  Marquez looked through the window as he talked now. He looked for movement on the slope below the helicopter.

  ‘I was in the DEA for a decade before I came to Fish and Game and if it’s a grow field up there and the two men trying to get away were tending it, you’re completely fucked, because when the Feds put you and Holsing in separate rooms Holsing will have something to trade and you won’t. You’re just another guy hired to watch the farm. Holsing will trade names. He’ll trade his way to a minor sentence and they’ll hang the grow field around your neck. You’ll do the real time. I’ve been there; I know how it works.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Talbot got up and plugged in the TV. Marquez watched him sit back down, pick up the remote, and click the NASCAR race on. He left Talbot as Chief Blakely called. He took her call outside. Everyone at Fish and Game headquarters was focused on what was happening here.

  ‘The CHP just found Holsing’s van on the side of an eastbound freeway onramp in Auburn Ravine,’ she said. ‘Sturgeon are inside and the California Highway Patrol is asking what we want to do. I can get a warden there to watch the truck or they can impound it.’

  ‘Let’s get a warden there.’ As he said that it hit him and he reversed himself. ‘No, check that, let’s impound it. He abandoned the van. Somebody met him, picked him up, and he’s on the run. He’s scared.’ Fear for Brad ran hard in him again. ‘Chief, can you text me a message that reads, Holsing stopped on 80 and arrested. He’s in Sacramento and has told investigators about the grow field and that it’s Talbot’s deal.’

  She repeated the message he wanted sent and then hung up. When the text came through Marquez was back in the room with Talbot. Talbot turned slightly as Marquez’s phone chimed. He flinched when Marquez put the Blackberry screen where he couldn’t avoid it.

  ‘This is about you. They got Holsing.’

  Talbot muted the sound and Marquez shook his head no and pulled the phone back.

  ‘Turn it off.’

  Talbot clicked the TV off. He read the text and without saying a word turned the TV back on and the sound way up.

  ‘No sweat, Talbot, we don’t need you anymore. Let me know who wins the race.’

  Marquez walked out but it didn’t surprise him that Talbot caught up to him as he crossed the pasture.

  ‘I didn’t even know it was up there. They didn’t tell me until I got here. I don’t even smoke the shit.’

  ‘What do you get out of it?’

  ‘Ten grand for keeping the Mexicans supplied with their fart food.’

  ‘Did you see our warden this morning?’

  ‘No, I didn’t even see the Mexicans this morning. I left their stuff for them while Jeff checked the plants.’

  ‘Show me. Let’s go.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  A county deputy walked with them. Behind Marquez, the deputy’s equipment jangled with each step. The trail twisted as the slope steepened and brush went from waist to chest high. He didn’t question Talbot as they climbed over fallen trees and pushed through the brush. He waited until they were well up the slope and following footprints, but all he could think about was Holsing abandoning his van, the sturgeon, everything, and fleeing. Higher up, the ground became muddy from seepage. Marquez smelled marijuana. He saw the edge of a grow field and stopped at a deep set of boot prints.

  ‘Lift yours,’ he said to Talbot. When Talbot lifted his boot and showed the sole, Marquez said, ‘OK, so this is your print here, but who is this walking next to yours?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not like a tracker.’

  ‘Was Holsing wearing boots?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘When did you talk to him last?’

  ‘He took off after we were up here.’

  ‘Where was he going?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘Didn’t tell you anything?’

  ‘He doesn’t talk to me, dude.’

  ‘Our warden said you were slow opening the door this morning. That’s because you needed to call Holsing first, right?’

  Talbot wouldn’t answer, but Marquez knew that’s what had happened. Talbot called Holsing and warned him, and Holsing told Talbot just play it cool, don’t admit anything and tel
l them you don’t know me. Then he decided to make a run for it. That’s why he left his van on the side of an onramp.

  ‘Where do the Mexicans camp?’

  ‘Higher up somewhere. They drink the creek water and crap in the weeds. They aren’t allowed to come down. I just leave their food by a tree and let them beat the animals to it. When they brought me in to work on the house, I didn’t know about any of this. My old man was a contractor. I’m a carpenter.’

  He kept talking about himself and Marquez heard dogs baying. The K-9 team had arrived and gone straight to Brad’s truck. They ran the dogs from there and the dogs were on the slope above and to their left. He couldn’t see them but knew from the baying the dogs were coming this way. Marquez looked at the deputy’s solemn face. The deputy knew something bad happened up here.

  Marquez led now. He took in the grow field, the stacked bags of fertilizer, irrigation lines, the dam, and the damage to the land the growers always walked away from.

  ‘What kind of weapons do the guys tending the field have?’

  ‘I didn’t have anything to do with that. Jeff gave them those.’

  ‘What do they have?’

  ‘AK-47s.’

  ‘Did you hear any gunfire today?’

  This time Talbot’s answer came very fast.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Did you climb any higher than this today?’

  Talbot shook his head. He pointed at where he’d left the food. It looked as if he’d just turned the pack upside down and dumped the supplies out. He licked his lips and Marquez left him with the deputy and called Brad’s name as he climbed higher.

  Above the small dam he picked up a trail and found a fresh mark that could be Brad’s. He recognized the Vibram pattern and followed the boot prints. They continued up through brush and out on to a grassy open slope, and then he saw blood on the grass. He heard the dogs and their handler. The dogs were closing. The dogs smelled the blood, he guessed.

  ‘Hold up, there,’ he called out to the handler, his voice suddenly hoarse.

  The handler answered and then Shauf.

  ‘Is that you, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Yeah, Carol, it’s me, come on over alone. The dogs shouldn’t come any closer.’

  When she pushed through the brush, Marquez was kneeling. A droning sound like a cloud of locusts buzzed in his head as he picked up Brad’s badge and saw a bloodstained trail of crushed grass. Without speaking they followed it to where a shovel had been discarded. He saw a mound of newly turned earth with rocks heaped on top, and went forward alone. On his knees he lifted away rocks. He brushed away soil. He dug with his fingers until he reached a dark blue collar and then skin. As he cleared dirt from Brad’s face a terrible grief flooded him. He stared, brushed more dirt, and then had to turn away. He looked at Shauf but couldn’t find words. He knelt again and his knee sank in the soft newly turned soil. Shot him, dragged him up here, and tried to hide his body. Shauf’s voice was leaden, dead. Her hand touched his shoulder.

  ‘Lieutenant, we shouldn’t touch anything. We shouldn’t be this close.’

  Marquez understood that and stood and backed away. He lifted his radio, hesitated, lowered the radio to his side, as if he could change the truth. When he raised the radio again, he keyed the mike, drew a deep breath, and called it in.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The two men trying to escape across the slope surrendered less than half an hour later. Turned out they were Mexican illegals and didn’t speak any English. There was radio chatter as they were taken into custody. Marquez watched it from way up on the slope and far away in his head.

  After the county helicopter flew away it was quiet. He waited with Shauf. He waited thinking Sheryl Javits had warned him that the cartels were smuggling in farmers from rural areas of Mexico, paying them fifty dollars a day to tend the crops, and arming them with the warning that if anything happened to the marijuana, their relatives were in danger. Drug cartels had figured out that some of the remote areas of California’s parks and wildernesses made ideal grow locations. They were treating the land as their own and like everything they touched they left it damaged or ruined when they were through.

  Brad was dead. A good friend dead. One of his team dead, murdered, a family left behind. Brad with his love of the job killed like this. Marquez couldn’t get his head around it. He looked out at the mountains and hills across the valley as an FBI Evidence Response Team climbed the trail toward them. When they arrived he introduced himself and Shauf and took them in with a numb awareness. He showed two AK-47Ns to the FBI. He showed them the shovels thrown down in the grass and tracks the men left, and where he’d knelt near Brad’s body. None of it would change anything. If he had made the bust earlier and not chased the ab poachers out to the coast last night, none of this would have happened.

  The ERT leader wanted to hear Marquez’s full account and Marquez went through it with him, and then watched as they ran tape, set up a perimeter of tape and a second ring beyond that. They placed markers, collected bloody grass, bagged the shovel and guns, and found a spot on the slope for what the ERT leader called his field station, a Nikon NPL-821 that projected a grid they mapped the evidence on. Marquez recorded all of this in silence, watching as if his presence here helped them get it right.

  At dusk as the FBI finished and packed up, Chief Blakely arrived at the ranch house. She radioed Marquez from there.

  ‘I think you should be there with me when I go out to the Alvarezs’ house.’

  ‘I’ll follow after Brad is off this slope. I won’t be far behind you.’

  Near sunset Marquez helped strap Brad’s body into a basket lowered from a helicopter. After Brad was in a coroner’s wagon and the wagon was moving, Marquez left the Capay. He drove toward the Alvarezes’ house with Shauf following, though later he wouldn’t even remember the drive.

  Brad’s wife, Cindy, looked both bewildered and in pain. Chief Blakely was there as were other friends of the family, but Cindy couldn’t accept what they were telling her. She’d been waiting for Marquez.

  Brad’s six year old son, Shane, asked Marquez, ‘Is Daddy dead?’ and Cindy answered, ‘No, Daddy will be home soon.’ She looked at Marquez and asked, ‘Who was it that got killed? I’m so glad you’re here.’ Her face flushed bright red. Tears sprang from her eyes. ‘Chief Blakely thought it was Brad, but who was it really?’

  Then, as she studied Marquez’s face, hers crumpled.

  ‘John, you know Brad is magic. You know it better than anyone. You know how he is. Nothing can happen to him. He always makes it home. You know that. Please, no, please don’t say that it’s him.’

  She reached and gripped his arm, eyes lit with fear, and then welling again with tears.

  ‘Please, John, if he’s been shot and he’s hurt, I’ll make him well. I’ll take care of him. I can make him well again. Where is he?’

  Marquez took her hand and racking sobs started from deep inside. He held her. She sank down and he got her over the couch as her son started to cry. He understood what she meant about Brad being magic. He knew exactly what she meant.

  After her family arrived, he moved outside with Cindy’s father, who trembled as he stood on the porch and smoked, his voice gravelly and sad as he spoke.

  ‘I remember the day she met him and I don’t know what she’s going to do without him. What’s the boy going to do without a father?’

  There was no answer for that either.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Late that night word came that the men had confessed to shooting and burying Brad Alvarez. Marquez and Roberts were at Holsing’s van pulling the sturgeon when the call came. They laid the sturgeon out and measured and videotaped. Holsing had modified the van, removing the backseat and attaching a metal pan with sides high enough to hold fish this big on ice. The pan was six feet long and stainless steel. It conjured autopsies. The bed of ice had melted and drained through a copper tube that dripped out under the van and Marquez shined a flashlight underne
ath and looked at where it was dripping still.

  Two of the sturgeon were just over five feet long, so ju veniles somewhere around twenty years old. The life span of a sturgeon was close to that of a human being. They lived a little longer than us, and they’d been around a lot longer, close to two hundred fifty million years, here with the dinosaurs, but unlikely to survive us. Ten pounds of roe got you twelve hundred black market dollars and the meat three bucks a pound. Marquez weighed, measured, and wrote mechanically. None of this was for tonight. They slid the sturgeon into garbage bags, double-wrapped them, and then put them in Roberts’ van. She’d drive them to Sacramento and cold storage. They wouldn’t be kept long. He watched her drive away and then searched the van again, finding three joints and some pills they’d missed.

  When he’d started at the DEA, the HIDTA, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area teams, had just come into being and were focused on the Caribbean and Florida. They had some success, but with a predictable twist: as the balloon got squeezed, it popped out somewhere else. Cartels moved their shipping lanes to Mexico. They dug tunnels, floated dope on the Rio Grande, modified boats, trucks, and cars, and flew over the border in small planes that they sometimes abandoned after unloading.

  Marquez had fought trafficking for a decade. He knew how the stings, the busts, the hype and press conferences worked, but the only real measure of whether the law enforcement efforts were working was answered with a question, are drugs cheaper now or more expensive? They’re cheaper. Paradoxically, law enforcement had gotten better at intercepting shipments, and in response cartels reduced shipping and bribery costs by moving operations into the United States. That was what happened today. The SOU ran into that change today and Brad died, he thought.