Night Game jm-2

by Kirk Russell

  Marquez nodded agreement. “It’s about bear and Petroni’s role.

  If he was taking bribes and that was all going along as planned, why would this happen?”

  “He asked for more money, got in an argument,” Kendall offered.

  “But kill him and a new warden gets assigned. This is a statement.”

  Marquez down at Petroni again. “It’s the man who threatened us and took the shots at me. This guy is buying from us so he can take our money so he can burn us, prove he’s better than us, and he hates us so much he’ll risk trying to make good on his threats.”

  Marquez looked away from Petroni’s body, glancing at the barn as he tried to make sense of it. Durham’s leasing under a different name. If Petroni was taking bribes, was it for a different reason? He remembered Petroni’s comment that he had money but didn’t. His thoughts came in a jumble, not connected yet. Could bitterness over having a Michigan game park shut down cause something like this? Was it Nyland as Kendall speculated, evening the score with Petroni? Like gutting one of them, as Sophie had talked about in the motel room.

  Marquez stepped back, was quiet as he watched how they handled the body, electing to transport it still sewed into the hide, a final degradation. He waited until the county had finished searching the bottom of the well and then with Shauf drove Bell back to his car. In his rearview mirror as they drove away he saw Bell talking to one of the TV people.

  Later, he sat with Shauf in Placerville and tried to fight off the shock, piece together their next moves. Everything they did at Johengen’s would need to be coordinated through Kendall. He wanted to go back there as soon as possible, but they’d have to stay clear until the county finished. Tomorrow would be the earliest they’d be allowed back into the barn, so tomorrow they’d go back and catalog everything. They’d continue to focus on finding Nyland and Durham. He figured they’d start with Bobby Broussard today.

  That was his plan when he left Shauf. Then Maria called and everything changed.

  41

  “What does this man want?” he asked Maria.

  “He’s checking something in the back. There’s like a right away, or whatever, a land thing that’s in the back, only Grandma didn’t know about it.”

  “He’s back there now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s your grandma?”

  “She’s with him. He asked Grandma if he could walk around the back of the property because they’re putting in a line of new pipe or something like that. He has to check on some survey stakes. Does that seem right, Dad?”

  “He’s a surveyor?”

  “He’s working for somebody marking where they’re going to put cable for TV in a trench, but it’s weird. He’s all sketchy and he’s got like sunglasses on and a cap and trying hide his face. His coat is turned up.”

  Her voice was rushed. She paused, waited for him answer.

  “Is it cold?”

  “It’s windy, so, yeah, it’s cold. He could just have his coat turned up because it’s cold, and there’s a lot of cable getting installed everywhere. So I’m just being way paranoid?”

  She told him a man in a dull yellow pickup with a surveying company logo on his truck had driven into the yard about twenty minutes ago. He’d sat in the truck for what Maria had thought was too long, then got out, knocked on the front door, and stared at Maria standing at the window, watching her while he talked with her grandmother. Her imagination had run with the threat they’d sent her down there to avoid, and Marquez knew he hadn’t done enough to reassure her how safe she almost certainly was. But a cable company with a right-of-way at the rear of Lillian’s property did seem odd and from what Maria was saying, Lillian had gone back there with him, so Lillian had questions too. The house was miles outside Bishop and backed up to the alluvial plain of the White Mountains, nothing but sagebrush behind it before the dry canyons of the Whites. Still, for the last couple of years the cable companies had been doing massive rollouts.

  “He’s back there now?”

  “Yes. He like hung around the front door after Grandma said it was okay to go around back, but then he went back.”

  “Describe him again. Black, white, Asian, what is he?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t see a lot of his face. Sort of official-talking like he’s used to ordering people around.”

  “How tall is he?”

  “Average, maybe a little taller. Sort of like average.”

  “What color hair?”

  “I don’t know.” Marquez heard frustration, the edge of fear.

  “He’s wearing a cap like I said. Grandma’s in the garden watching him because we saw him looking at the house really closely when he walked back. The back door was open and he went over to it, but when Grandma came out he pretended he wasn’t doing anything.

  It creeped me out.”

  “And you can see the logo on his truck?”

  “Not anymore. I can’t read it from here. Should I walk out, get the number, and call it to see if he’s supposed to be here?”

  “No, stay on the phone with me, but why don’t you go back there and describe him.”

  He heard her footsteps now as she walked back, and her breath was rushed as she told him what she was seeing. Her voice rose quickly.

  “Omigod, omigod, he just knocked her down! He hit her, he’s dragging her.”

  Marquez reached for his other cell phone, punched 911, and held the phone to one ear as he kept talking with her.

  “Listen to me, Maria, do you know where Lillian keeps the gun in her room?”

  “Omigod.”

  He could barely keep his voice calm. “Go to her bedroom and get the gun.”

  “He’s dragging her toward the house.”

  “Stop looking out the window and go get the gun. Do you remember how to slide the clip in?”

  Her voice quavered. He thought he heard “Yes.” He heard her moving.

  “Do you remember how to rack the slide?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She ran down the hallway and he kept talking to her, trying to calm her as his own heart pounded. He spoke to a dispatcher as the 911 call picked up. He gave the address outside Bishop and said it was an emergency, an assailant, his daughter on the other line. He heard Maria get the gun out, drop it, and told her to slow down. He hung up with the 911 dispatcher.

  “It won’t fit.”

  “Turn the clip around and shove it in.”

  Now he heard it slide into place and then the banging of a door slamming open and a frightened sound from Maria.

  “He’s in the house,” she whispered. “He’s in the kitchen, he’s in the kitchen.”

  “Take the safety off.” She didn’t answer. “Maria, is the safety off?”

  “I can’t find it.”

  “Along the side.”

  He heard her tremulous “Like it clicks up,” and he knew her hands were shaking.

  “That’s right. Okay, you’ve got to listen to me and you’ve got to think. He wants you to panic and you have to think. Remember what Lillian taught you about two hands.” She didn’t answer. “Stay with me, Maria.”

  “Two hands,” she repeated, and, “he’s coming, he’s coming down the hallway. I hear him on the stairs.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In Grandma’s bedroom.”

  “Then you can see down the hallway. Don’t let him get past the other bedroom and don’t let him see the gun until you’re ready. Aim for his torso.”

  “He sees me, he sees me, he knows I’m on the phone,” and Marquez heard the man order her to come out of the room. He must have seen her face.

  “Put the phone down, two hands and aim for his torso. If he sees the gun and keeps coming, pull the trigger.”

  He heard a sharp noise that he knew was the phone being placed on the dresser near the door to Lillian’s room, and his heart hammered as he heard fragments of a man’s voice, soft tones, quiet, someone taking pleasure in this.

&
nbsp; “I see you, sweetie. Come here, if you don’t want her to get hurt even worse you’d better.”

  Marquez heard Maria’s scream and then two booming shots and the man yelled and a third shot came a few seconds later.

  Then running, furniture getting knocked over, sounds coming from somewhere else in the house and he waited and couldn’t breath. Come on, Maria, pick up the phone, please, God, let her pick up the phone, let her be okay, and then the phone scraped as someone fumbled with it. Don’t let it be him, and it was Maria breathless, her voice quaking.

  “I shot him.”

  “You hit him.”

  “He screamed and he ran out of the house, Dad. He got in his truck and drove away.”

  She started to sob uncontrollably and Marquez kept talking to her, asked her to check the driveway again while he dialed 911 again.

  “I’m going to Grandma.”

  “Stay on the phone with me.”

  Then Maria was crying, asking him what to do because Lillian was lying on the kitchen floor and not moving.

  “Is she breathing?”

  “Yes, and I can feel her pulse.”

  “Okay, stay, lock all the doors. There are going to be Bishop police and maybe Highway Patrol on their way to you in a few minutes. Stay with me, but I’m going to use my other phone for a minute, okay.”

  “Grandma is starting to move.”

  “Talk to her.”

  “I hear sirens.”

  “Hang in there.”

  Marquez scrolled through to the Highway Patrol number he wanted and called, gave the location and description of the truck.

  If the man stayed on a highway, then they’d get him because it was all open country and not easy to hide in. When he spoke to Maria again he could hear sirens clearly, then Maria went to get the officers. Marquez spoke with a groggy Lillian. She’d gotten to her feet and the paramedics made her lie down again.

  “They’re putting her in an ambulance,” Maria said. “The officer wants to talk to you.”

  “Put him on.”

  Lillian had a pretty good lump on her head but didn’t want to go to a hospital and was arguing with the paramedics, the cop said. He told Marquez there were a few blood splatters outside on the dirt, and Marquez told him briefly about the threats and who he thought they were looking for. He repeated Durham’s name and the name Marion Stuart. He read off license plates for three vehicles registered to the Stuart name, none of which was a truck, but maybe he’d dump the truck and pick up his Mercedes.

  “Do you know it’s him?” the cop asked.

  “No, I know he disappeared and we’re looking for him, and it could have been his voice. But I’m not certain at all.”

  “We’re going to take this young lady next to me back to the station with us. She’s going to teach us how to keep our cool under fire.”

  “I’m headed your way but it’ll take me five hours.”

  “Your daughter is safe with us.”

  There’d been no delay getting the word out on the truck, but it was open desert country and the few police available were spread out. Marquez told Maria he was on the way and then called Katherine and told her what had happened. The normally pacifist Katherine was quick.

  “I hope he bleeds to death on the side of the road somewhere.”

  If it was Durham, how had he found his way to Bishop and did that mean he’d followed Katherine when she drove Maria down? Marquez drove hard as he tracked alongside the eastern side of the Sierras down to Bishop, on the phone to the different police municipalities along the route, and back and forth with the CHP. He watched the traffic across the highway and when he dropped down on Mono Lake and was making the run into Lee Vining, he wheeled around and chased a truck that turned out to be a couple of middle-aged women.

  The hospital wanted Lillian to stay overnight for observation, and Lillian argued against it, which didn’t surprise Katherine. But Lillian had a concussion and was mildly disoriented, a bad headache, and the hospital prevailed. When Marquez arrived she was in a hospital bed, her face pale, several of her network of friends standing in the room joking with her.

  “If he comes back it’ll be his last mistake,” Lillian said to Marquez. She looked at the photo of Durham that Marquez had and said that it might not be him. Then he drove to Lillian’s house with Maria and she showed how she’d crouched and aimed. He studied where they’d taken dirt samples trying to recover enough of the blood splatters to get a DNA sample. When Maria said she knew she’d hit him she started crying, and Marquez put an arm around her shoulder and held her close. Later, as they were driving north heading home he handed her the picture of Durham and saw the same uncertainty in her face he’d seen in Lillian’s.

  “It could be him,” she said.

  He looked over at Maria’s profile in the darkness, reached, and touched her. “I’m really proud of you.”

  “Do you really think he would he have killed us?”

  What was the truest answer to give her? They couldn’t know, of course, and he didn’t want to leave her with nightmares, but she’d also stood her ground and had the poise when it mattered.

  She’d earned his permanent respect.

  “I think he was there to do that, and you did the only thing you could and you did it well.”

  42

  They had the choice of going home to Mount Tamalpais or to the small house in Bernal Heights in San Francisco that Katherine still owned and where she’d stayed last night with her best friend, Janet, who leased it from her. Bernal Heights was where Maria had lived her first eight years, and he wondered if there wouldn’t be a certain comfort going there. Then he learned from Bell that state police were already en route to Mount Tam and would guard his house.

  They got in near midnight, and Marquez talked to the state cops parked out on the street. He listened to what they had for a description and debated bringing Maria out to talk to them, then decided against it, doubted the wounded man would come here. He offered food and coffee, which the officers declined.

  Katherine scrambled eggs, fried chicken-apple sausage, and they ate while Maria numbly told the story of what happened. Her hands trembled, and she said she was going to take a shower and call one of her friends who she knew would still be awake. She wanted to go to school tomorrow, insisted she’d drive herself.

  Listening closely to her, Marquez knew she’d be okay. Then just before going to bed she came back out and asked if he thought there was any chance the man would come here tonight. He shook his head, said no as he had several times during the long drive home, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her. After Maria was in her room he talked more frankly with Katherine about the possibilities.

  “How badly is he hurt?” she asked.

  “He lost some blood outside on the gravel, and they think the way it was flung suggests his arm was hit.”

  “So it might not be a bad wound.”

  “Hard to say.”

  “But they did get samples?”

  “Yeah, they’ll be able to type it and compare DNA.”

  “Then if they catch him they can hold him.”

  “DNA results will take weeks to come back, and the case doesn’t have the components that would bump it up the list. Lillian is okay, Maria is unhurt, so most likely they’d hold him as long they could, then set a very high bail while waiting for DNA results. I talked to Maria on the way home, and it’s anybody’s guess whether she’d have a shot at picking him out of a lineup. He came in the house with a mask on, and you can bet if caught he’ll say he only meant to talk to Maria, not hurt her.”

  “But he’s wounded.”

  “Yeah, he’s wounded. Two slugs got pulled from the woodwork; the third hit him.”

  “How did he get away on those desert roads they can fly a plane along?”

  “Probably by switching vehicles. My best guess is he followed you when you drove down, but that means he was here and may have had other plans the day you drove Maria away. He may
have been casing this house.”

  Later, Marquez walked out the gravel drive and talked to the state cop. He felt agitated and worried, and though he believed tonight was safe, he felt uncomfortable. He walked the perimeter of the house, returned to the back deck, and locked the slider, something he rarely did. He showered with Katherine, felt her water-slicked skin against him, steam clouding around them, her dark hair wet, and then Katherine pressing against him, lips finding his with fear-driven urgency. Her hand slid down his abdomen, and he traced the curve of her spine and hip with his fingers, touched the smooth skin of her inner thigh as she reached to arouse him. He didn’t know where the desire came from tonight, but when he lifted her, pressed her back against the tile and entered her, he thought of nothing else. She felt very light in his arms, and afterward she held him tighter still and wept.

  Toward 4:00 in the morning he lay awake with a hand on the warm skin of her back and a tightness like a clenched fist in his chest. He listened to Katherine’s quiet breathing, remembered the emotion in her face as Maria walked in the door tonight. He dozed, woke again, before dawn made coffee, and took a mug up to the state cop, who said the only thing he’d seen were deer and maybe a bear, though he asked Marquez not to tell anyone that last part. They’d never stop laughing at him.

  “You’re not crazy,” Marquez answered. “The first black bear sighting in a hundred years in West Marin was this last spring. That bear is an adolescent and still around here somewhere. He got into garbage and then beehives in Green Gulch near Muir Beach, then showed up at the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge near Kirby Cove. He may be on the mountain here somewhere.”

  On the back deck he sat with his notes in front of him and talked to Shauf, Alvarez, Cairo, Roberts as a plan formed. When Katherine came out they sat in the cold dawn and he talked it over with her. He believed that if it was Durham who’d made the assault, the way he figured it, Durham had good reason to try to find Nyland next. He told Kath what he’d learned this morning.

  “There’s a report that Nyland was spotted in the Crystal Basin last night and that makes sense to me. I think he’ll take to the woods. But he probably has a way to contact his partner, Durham, and some prearranged escape plan. I’m going back up there to try to find Nyland because I think he’s the key to Durham.”