Night Game jm-2

by Kirk Russell

  Marquez argued his way toward the front where Kendall was crouched down behind a police door. A marksman had moved into a position where he could shoot either Sophie or Durham, but he had just reported that Durham was either unconscious or dead.

  Kendall talked to Marquez with his eyes still on the pickup.

  “She’s armed. She showed us a handgun. Durham may be dead. They’re saying it looks like his head is taped to the headrest.”

  “She killed him?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  Sophie sat straight-backed in the pickup. There was another bullhorn attempt to reach her, and her head didn’t move.

  “Anybody try walking up?” Marquez asked.

  “She held a gun out the window and fired into the woods. She almost got herself shot.”

  “I’ve been out at Johengen’s this morning. I was thinking about Nyland’s hunting shack last night, the watch and ring.

  There’s a ladder in the barn, and I worked along each wall checking the top of the wall between each truss. I found a bloodstained towel with a knife in it. It’s out there sitting on top of the wall above the bear cages.” Now Kendall took his eyes from the truck and looked at Marquez. “I left it and drove here from the barn.”

  “On the wall above the cages?”

  “Yeah, and I also found a mark that could be one of the truck skids they rolled the Honda down.” He didn’t add that he thought they loaded the bear cages at the same time. Let Kendall come to that on his own. “How long has she been sitting there?”

  “Forty minutes. Her father’s on the way.”

  “Whose idea was that?”

  “He volunteered and no one had a better one. Someone monitoring the police band got a hold of him.”

  He listened as Kendall called for a county unit to block off and guard the entrance to Johengen’s. Ten minutes, a bullhorn warned her, they were going to shoot her tires out and she still had time to get away from the truck. She didn’t move, and a marksman shot her rear tires out. The pickup sagged, then Sophie’s door swung open and she got out holding a rifle that must have been behind the passenger seat. She kept the barrel pointed at the road, though ordered by bullhorn to drop the weapon. Officers scrambled for better cover, but she didn’t move.

  “I’ll go out there,” Marquez said, because she stood paralyzed as though guarding the road from intruders. “Troy’s the wrong guy, keep him back.”

  “You’re a fucking nut,” Kendall said and picked up a bullhorn. “This is Detective Kendall, Sophie. I understand your situation and want to help you. But you need to put the rifle down.”

  Instead, the rifle barrel rose slightly and Sophie stared in his direction. Officers near Marquez sighted on her, fingers on triggers.

  “Do not lift the rifle any farther,” Kendall ordered, and clicking the bullhorn off said, “Oh, fuck.”

  But it wasn’t Kendall she was looking at. Troy was coming up from behind them. He passed Marquez, muttering, “Goddamn her,” and with his booted pigeon-toed steps strode away from the deputy escorting him and toward her as though nothing could happen. “She’s mine, I’ll take care of it,” was all he said and stopped only when she ordered him to a second time. The steel and anger in her voice carried to where they were, and Marquez heard weapons adjusted again.

  Troy raised a hand perhaps to try to convince or reassure her, and maybe she saw the hand that had struck her as a child or maybe she knew the bullhorn promises were lies. Her gun rose abruptly and Marquez stood and yelled across the police line, “Don’t shoot her.” He yelled to Sophie, “Wait,” and stepped out in front of the cruiser onto the road. He raised his hands shoulder high to show Sophie and turned back at the police vehicles and lights, calling, “Don’t shoot her.”

  Her eyes were on Marquez, watching his slow advance toward where Troy stood frozen. “Sophie,” Marquez said. “It won’t make anything better. It won’t change anything.”

  He thought he heard her say, “It’s already over.” Her eyes returned to Troy, and Marquez heard her say, “I should kill you, you bastard.”

  “Put the goddamn gun down,” Troy said.

  “Shut up!” Her yell carried down through the police lines, the fierce anger in it unmistakable. Marquez saw it happening but before he could reach her she kicked the shoe off of one foot, dropped the rifle stock on the other foot, and put her mouth over the barrel. With the shoeless toe she found the trigger.

  Blood and brain blew across the wet road.

  49

  When she crumpled Marquez went to her, but Troy, for reasons only he could explain, spat on the ground near his feet and walked back toward the police cruisers. A piece of skull with hair attached lay in the mud ten feet away, and Marquez gripped the arm of a deputy who simply didn’t see it and almost stepped on it in the hurry to get to the truck. Marquez moved back to Sophie, knelt near her, curiously unsure of himself, stunned by what she’d done. He heard Kendall backing people off and asking him to get away from her body.

  Marquez backed away, walked to the truck where Hawse and several others were cutting the duct tape wrapped around Durham’s neck and the headrest. Someone called out “He’s alive.

  We’ve got a pulse,” and paramedics rushed forward. Marquez watched them extract him. He’d been gutshot. His shirt, coat, and pants were soaked with blood, a lot of it already dry and black.

  Turning back to Sophie’s body, he saw Kendall leaning over, pulling a handgun from her waist. He removed the clip, bagged the gun, and looked at Marquez. “Insane. All of this is insane. You tell me why she did that.”

  Because she couldn’t face what came next. Because of the things she’d done and what she’d become, what there was no returning from. Because she’d probably showed Nyland where Vandemere was doing his research and may have been there when he was shot. “I want to get them to check Durham’s arms for wounds,” Marquez said.

  “He’s just barely hanging on,” Kendall said. “You know that’s Vandemere’s truck she’s driving. They painted it, put different plates on it.”

  Marquez nodded. He’d figured it out a few minutes ago. He walked over to one of the paramedics, a husky bald man, leaned near him to say, “There may be another bullet wound on one of his arms.”

  Durham wore an expensive-looking down parka, North Face logo on it. The paramedics slit each arm down the inseam, cut his shirt off. There weren’t any wounds on his arms, only the one shot to his lower abdomen.

  One of them glanced up at Marquez, said, “You owe him a coat.”

  “Will he need it?”

  They were pumping fluid into him, Durham ghostly, his face slack. Hard to believe he’d make it. Marquez watched as they started moving him, looked in the truck again, and then straightened as it started to rain. Sophie’s body was getting photographed. Her hair glistened.

  “She must have shot him before taping his head,” Kendall said.

  “He’s got a good-sized lump on his temple.”

  “Doesn’t matter, he isn’t going to make it.” Marquez saw Troy starting to drift back, heard Kendall mutter, “He looks like he knows something.”

  “Are you going to try to do anything out here with the truck?”

  Marquez asked.

  “Not with the rain. We’ll close it up and tow it in.” Kendall nodded toward Sophie and asked, “Did you know that was coming?”

  “No, but I have a sense of what she was missing inside.”

  “I’ll tell you what Durham is missing inside, a couple of quarts of blood.”

  They both turned as Troy argued with a deputy, Troy trying to get through.

  “You’ll have to wait to see her, Mr. Broussard.”

  “I don’t care about seeing her. I want to talk to him.”

  He’d looked their direction so Kendall walked over, said, “What is it?”

  “Not you. Him.”

  Marquez walked over, and Troy spoke as though he’d rehearsed what he had to say.

  “I don’t car
e much for you or any of you people, but I know what you’re after and I’ll lead you out there. God didn’t put bear on earth to be in cages.”

  “Where is it you’re going to lead me?”

  “Nevada.”

  “Give me an address.”

  Marquez wanted to phone ahead. He wanted to secure the area around the ranch, enlist the help of anybody they could get in Nevada.

  “I know where it is, that’s all.”

  Marquez and the team followed Troy’s old truck down a long dry desert road outside Minden, Nevada. Well short of the ranch, Troy pulled over and parked. His truck canted steeply, two wheels in a dusty ditch. He lowered his window but didn’t get out.

  “Those buildings up ahead. He’s there. That’s his car and you’d better be damn careful.”

  “What’s your role here, Troy?”

  “If I had any part of it, would I bring you out here? Let’s just say he’s asked me to, but the law says I can’t trap or hunt.”

  Marquez looked at him, thinking, You did anyway, didn’t you. He looked out across the sage and tumbleweed and knew they’d never nail Troy for it. If there was any chance of that, Troy wouldn’t have led them out here, and the question now was why had he. Must see Bearman as a competitor or has some other grudge against him.

  From here it was roughly three-quarters of a mile to the house.

  He saw the car Troy meant but couldn’t tell the make from here, amazing that Troy could. The nose of a car was visible around the back of the main building.

  “The boy you killed up in the mountains brought me out here.”

  “Nyland?”

  “Yes.”

  Funny, Nyland had said the opposite, but it could wait. Marquez glanced at Troy again, wondering if the old man was hoping they’d get killed approaching the buildings.

  “Are there bears in those Quonset huts?”

  “There are. Those aluminum buildings have bear in cages all lined up. I figure you and I are even now.”

  “Do you feel anything for her?”

  “I lost my little girl a long time ago.”

  “And around town they say you know how you did it.”

  “Sophie was a born liar, no different than her mother.”

  Marquez watched him drive away and four Nevada police approach, dust roostering up behind them. He put on a flak jacket and briefed the Nevada officers on what he thought they were going to find. Another attempt was made to contact the ranch by phone and after that failed, someone spotted a man standing out in front of the house.

  “That’s Ungar,” Marquez said, after lifting binoculars. “That’s who we’re looking for and he sees us.” Ungar didn’t move, stood frozen facing their direction. “He’s not sure what to do now. I think we can drive down there.”

  Marquez rode in the lead vehicle. The Nevada officers took over as they parked near Ungar, asking Ungar if he was armed and Ungar shaking his head no, turning around, raising his arms so they could check him.

  “I solved it for you,” Ungar said as Marquez walked up.

  “What did you solve?”

  “What you’re looking for is in those aluminum Quonset huts. My cousin called, gave this address, and I decided to check it out before calling you. There are twenty bears in there. I counted.

  There’s a little Chinese man in feeding them. He doesn’t speak a word of English. I was just about to drive somewhere my phone will work and call you. How’d you find this place?”

  Marquez let Ungar walk with him to the Quonset huts. A crowd of officers flanked them, two Nevada wildlife officers close behind Ungar. Sunlight reflected brightly off metal roofs ahead, and yet, the day was cold, the rain over the mountains to the west approaching, wind blowing hard. He watched Ungar’s black hair whip across his forehead, no cap this afternoon, no sunglasses, a shiny black leather coat. As they reached the first hut a small man in black baggy pants, black shirt, sandals, showed briefly at the door before retreating.

  “What’s his name?” Marquez asked Ungar.

  “Han.”

  Marquez swung the door open, called to Han. He was maybe seventy, didn’t seem to speak any English, spoke rapid Cantonese that Ungar responded to.

  “I barely know any Chinese,” Ungar said. “But I told him not to move, that you’re the police.”

  “Don’t say anything else to him.”

  Marquez left him with the state troopers and Nevada Wildlife, left him explaining how he’d helped California Fish and Game solve this case.

  Marquez walked through the thick bear smells. It was so different from the cold sage-laden wind outside. The metal walls and roof creaked in the wind as he counted. Twenty, same as Ungar had claimed. Heavy stainless cages, thick, the same water trough system, same cages as Johengen’s. He looked at each bear, the catheters, eyes staring at him, then walked back.

  “Troy Broussard trap the young bears?” he asked Ungar, taking in his mocking expression, not getting any answer, just a blank face.

  Ungar grinned, said, “Do you want to play this game again?”

  Ungar turned and as an aside explained to one of the Nevada wildlife officers that he’d been under suspicion ever since coming forward to help.

  “But why would I have anything to do with undercover wildlife officers if I was engaged in something like this.”

  To keep track of us, Marquez thought, and because you’re driven by hate so strong you have trouble controlling it. You found a like spirit in Durham. U.S. Fish and Wildlife shut Durham down in Michigan, and somehow you two found each other out here. Thing is, Durham didn’t have quite your ambition and he also had another successful business life. “Do you know Joe Durham?” Marquez asked.

  “No.”

  The Nevada wildlife officers began to question him. They’d take him in, start there. Before leaving here they’d ask him to remove his coat, check his arms for a wound. He’d have to provide the cousin’s name, whereabouts.

  Cairo and Roberts went back for camcorders, notebooks, what they needed to start documenting. The first thing was to find a legitimate way to hold Ungar more than overnight. Marquez listened to the wildlife officers start with Ungar again, their patience infinitely greater than his own, and he walked out and down to the second Quonset hut. No bears were inside, but the cages were set up, the trough, the systems in place. He looked around outside again, the desert, neighbors far away, plenty of room. When he walked back into the first building he heard one of the Nevada officers liken the Quonset hut to a hog farm, the most apt description yet.

  After everything had been recorded, but before the bears were moved, Marquez walked the cages alone, looking at each bear again, counting the yearlings, eight of them. He walked farther into the hut, empty cages stacked in a dark corner, the smell of bear excrement thick down here, despite the roof fans whirring overhead. Then he saw what he’d missed, a cage with a crumpled blanket, what looked like a pet bowl with dried spaghetti strands. He smelled urine, heard Nyland talking in his head, knew it was true.

  He brought the wildlife officers down. They called a detective, handed the phone to Marquez, and he related what Nyland had told him and gave the detective Kendall’s phone number, said he’d wait here for him.

  The SOU began documenting, and Marquez went to Ungar.

  They were getting ready to arrest him because he’d refused to produce a way to reach his cousin.

  “I have nothing to do with this,” Ungar repeated. “You’re incompetent. You’re fools. You’re the same as he is.” He indicated Marquez.

  An officer moved in, and Ungar struggled against the handcuffing, fought three officers, but it was Marquez who reached over and gripped the bicep he’d seen Ungar favor. Lifted him by it and a cry of pain came out of Ungar. Cuffs went on, his coat got stripped, an officer explaining they wanted to make sure they hadn’t hurt him.

  The bandage wrapping his right bicep was exposed.

  “Is that a bullet wound?” Marquez asked.

  “A hunt
ing accident,” Ungar said. “A kill I haven’t finished yet.”

  “I don’t think you ever will.”

  “Oh, you can bet I will,” he said, as they walked him toward the door.

  50

  Nevada held Ungar while they tried to sort out the situation with the help of the California SOU. The ranch was owned by a Marion Stuart aka Durham, and Durham couldn’t answer questions, might not ever be able to. He had yet to regain consciousness and according to doctors attending him, suffered an as yet undetermined degree of brain damage due to oxygen deprivation. One doctor suggested in private to Marquez that Durham’s future, if he had one, was in a vegetative state in a nursing home. He was, the doctor added, perhaps unlucky to have been rescued.

  Marquez returned home, asked Bell for a week’s vacation, and worked on the case against Ungar from there. Without testimony from any of those directly involved it was particularly difficult, and they had yet to obtain a warrant to search Ungar’s apartment.

  Nothing had been found in his car or on his person.

  Alvarez and Shauf also requested a week off, and for the same reason, one Marquez had yet to inform Bell of. Then a call he’d waited two days for came from Kendall. His voice was hoarse, said he’d been battling a fever.

  “The knife you found in the barn was used to kill Petroni. The fingerprints on it are Ungar’s, but the DA doesn’t like the chain of evidence. He’s got a problem with you finding it alone after we’d already made two thorough searches of the barn. He sees a defense attorney tearing into us, you on the stand.” He coughed and added, “They’d come after you personally.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “That’s what I say too.” Kendall coughed again, apologized for having a cold, then said, “But you see the problem.”

  “Sure, but aren’t there enough other pieces?”

  “The problem is Ungar will claim he didn’t do the actual killing. In fact, he didn’t even know what the knife was. He saw the dried blood on it, picked it up, asked Durham or Nyland, and got told it was used on a bear. With those two out of the picture he’s free to say whatever he wants.”