Kirk Russell - Redback

‘On my way,’ Muller said.

‘Come in slow and park so he can’t back out. Get out with your camcorder in your hand and we’ll try to bluff him. I’m walking down now.’

Marquez threaded through the sage. He walked up as Thompson’s back was to him and Thompson lifted a small suitcase over on to the passenger seat.

‘Planning a trip?’ Marquez asked, and Thompson jumped then quickly recovered and said matter-of-factly, ‘This is private property, warden.’

‘Yeah, and that’s a zoological preserve up on Mount Williamson.’

Muller pulled up now and eased up behind Thompson’s bumper. He got out with one hand holding his camcorder and the other resting on his gun holster.

‘Game over, Nate,’ Marquez said. ‘We videotaped you getting the horns out of the trunk.’

Thompson looked from Marquez to Muller. His face said Marquez was right. His plea was to Muller.

‘Warden, you know that my sister died of cancer last winter. It’s her boy I’ve got to raise. Everyone knows that.’

‘Then, if you care at all about the boy,’ Marquez said, ‘get the horns out right now.’

If not for his nephew, Marquez doubted Thompson would have done it. He unfolded the blanket on his truck hood.

‘I was going to sell them and put the money in a college account for the boy.’

They were white-yellow with the half-moon curve and striations of bighorn. Marquez ran his finger along the horn. ‘What did you cut them off with?’

‘A battery-powered surgical saw he had. It’s for amputating in wars.’

‘Who is he, your client?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Marquez turned one of the horns in his hands. He felt the weight of it. Thompson confessed that his plan was to take the horns to Los Angeles where he knew a broker who could sell them. But neither the horns nor his confession got them any closer to identifying Thompson’s client, and it soon became obvious that Thompson wasn’t just trying to protect the man.

‘He didn’t tell me anything,’ Thompson said. ‘I was just a mule to him.’

‘When he left here where did he go?’

Thompson pointed toward Nevada. ‘Drove off that way.’

‘I’m going to show you an old photo,’ Marquez said, and then borrowed Muller’s keys and retrieved the charcoal sketch the Round Valley artist made and the faxed photo Anderson had sent. He studied the photo again and felt heat rise to his face and saw Billy Takado in the late afternoon in the bull ring. If Thompson recognized the photo his decision to join Desault’s task force would be made.

‘Where did you get that?’ Thompson asked after picking it up and squinting at it.

‘Is that him?’

Thompson nodded. He stared at Marquez.

‘Oh, yeah, that’s Maitland.’

When they left Thompson they drove back to Alice Durrell’s house. They found her in the studio. She didn’t look at the photo for more than a second before saying, ‘That’s him, and you’re better off not looking for him.’

‘Don’t worry, Alice, we can handle him,’ Muller said.

‘Of course, you can.’

She studied Marquez’s eyes, smiled a sad smile, touched his arm, and then turned back to her studio.

Marquez pulled off on to the road shoulder near Mammoth Lakes Airport. He called Desault.

‘Stoval was here and he may be in Vegas now. It’s worth checking.’

‘Why Vegas?’

Marquez recounted Terri Delgado’s story of being invited along on the hunt that would end with a long weekend in Las Vegas. He went slowly through the chain of events with Desault.

‘Where are you?’ Desault asked.

‘North of Bishop at Mammoth Lakes. I’m on my way home. Stoval is traveling under an alias. Patrick Maitland. M-A-I-T-L-A-N-D.’

‘OK, I got it.’

‘He hired a local guide down here named Nate Thompson and shot two bighorn sheep on the Mount Williamson Zoological Preserve. He used the name Patrick Maitland with both the guide and the woman that tipped us. Anderson faxed me a photo I showed them and both ID’ed him.’

‘If he’s traveling under an alias I can hold him. If I can prove it, I can keep him out of the country. How do I reach the woman with the Vegas story?’

Marquez pulled his logbook and then read off Delgado’s cell number.

‘When he left Thompson’s house he had a bighorn head with him. I’ve called Nevada’s Department of Wildlife as well as US Fish and Wildlife, so they’re looking for him, too.’

‘I wish you hadn’t done that.’

‘Well, Ted, this is about wildlife. I don’t know what plans he has for the head, but he can’t carry it around indefinitely and there are only a handful of taxidermists in that area, so between Nevada’s and Fish and Wildlife they should know where to look. Let me give you the names and numbers of who I talked to in those departments.’

He heard Desault’s pen scratching. Then a question came.

‘What made you show this guide a photo of Stoval?’

‘A bunch of small things I’ll run through with you later. If Nevada Wildlife can tie him to the horns then they can make an arrest and the guide here will testify against him.’

‘I’ll call the Field Office in Vegas and talk to you later.’

When he hung up with Desault he pulled back on to the road and started to believe they had a real chance to take Stoval down. He drove north up 395 and then over Monitor Pass and on into the Tahoe Basin. After he was out of the mountains and just a couple of hours from home, Muller called and said, ‘I found it. Coyote dragged it away from where Alice saw them dump it, but it’s bighorn. There’s something else that’s bizarre and with it. I’ll have to drive back out and ask Alice Durrell about it.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A postcard with a skewer through it, like a shish kebab skewer. When I look at the drag marks I can tell it was near where they dropped the head. The postcard was skewered into the ground between two sage bushes. I haven’t touched it yet and I’ve got an evidence bag in my truck. I’ll get it and bring it back.’

‘You’re saying it was stuck in the ground near where the head was before the coyotes got it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘OK, what’s on the postcard?’

‘You want me to handle it? I bagged it as evidence.’

‘Go ahead and take a look at it.’

Marquez listened as Muller opened the plastic evidence bag. He could tell Muller was holding his cell to his ear with his shoulder.

‘The picture is mountains, ocean, and boats. It’s torn though.’ He laughed. ‘Looks like one of the coyotes bit through it.’

Marquez heard him muttering to himself and then wind gusting was loud and made Muller hard to hear as he said, ‘It’s a town in Alaska. I thought it was Alaska. What do you make of that, a bighorn head and a postcard from Seward, Alaska?’

‘I don’t make anything of it yet, but my sister lives there.’

‘Then you ought to see this. It’s a weird thing.’

‘Has your cell phone got a camera?’

‘You want me to email a photo?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ll do it right now.’

Marquez emailed the photo to Desault and got ready to call him. He punched in Desault’s number, then erased it and called Darcey instead.

The next day Marquez drove to Sacramento so they didn’t have to do it over the phone. The morning was already hot and the lawns around the capitol building humid as he and Chief Blakely walked to a place on J Street she liked. They took an outdoor table in the shade of a plane tree and the chief ordered a mineral water, Marquez black coffee.

‘They’re calling it a failure at the supervisory level,’ she said, ‘but it’s not as bad as it sounds. They acknowledge that you were pulled away by an ongoing operation, and that Brad disobeyed a standing order that would have kept him from crossing the slope without backup in place.’