Kirk Russell - Redback

They weren’t gone forty minutes. It didn’t affect the party. It didn’t affect anyone at it except the hostess, but it was the first real connection with his stepdaughter and the start of a conversation that was still going on today. He knew something of how she thought. He knew she had said she was going to Yosemite to get away and clear from her head the tag of being labeled the former girlfriend of an ecoterrorist. Maria was stubborn, independent, and smart. She went somewhere last night with her friends where no one would find them. Still, his heart pounded and his voice was a croak as he swerved off the road and answered the phone. And his body suffused with an almost chemical relief when he learned from Desault that the victim in Rayman’s Hummer was not Maria.

Marquez took in her face, the widow’s peak, dark thick brown hair, dark eyes, and straight nose. The victim was similar in age to Maria. She wasn’t much older. The bullet was large caliber to do the damage it did to her throat. Marquez’s gaze went from her destroyed trachea to the manicured nails on her left hand and two rings, then back at her young face again. He had just left the victim and stepped away from the county detective when Maria called.

‘We’re on our way home. I’m really sorry I didn’t call back. We were up near the Fourth Recess last night and there was no cell reception. I’m staying with friends the next few days. I won’t be at my house, but I’ll have my phone.’

He heard her friends in the background. He heard laughing and relief swept over him again, and sadness for the victim. Maria signed off as he took a call from Desault. He told Desault he had just talked with Maria and that he was en route from Bishop to Los Angeles.

‘I’ll fly down and meet you,’ Desault said. ‘This may tie to Stoval.’

When Marquez reached the LA Basin it was near dusk. Desault flew in and they ate dinner together. The FBI had picked up on a rumor relayed through the DEA in El Paso that Zeta assassins had been hired to take out the guy who blew the pumps in California. Hired through a third party for big cash, this from a DEA informant considered reliable.

‘What do you make of that?’ Desault asked.

Marquez didn’t make anything of it yet. It was odd. He checked into a motel and the next morning he and Desault sat down with Rayman and his lawyer. When Rayman saw Marquez he said, ‘He took my Hummer.’

‘Who did?’

‘I gave him your message and he took my Hummer, said he was going to borrow it.’

The lawyer tried to shut it down but Rayman kept talking and in twenty minutes they had an account of the meeting with Stoval. Obviously, Stoval knew the police would beeline to Rayman, and so there was some message, some as yet uncovered reason. With the lawyer there he didn’t want to question Rayman much about that. The lawyer was no doubt a cartel lawyer, there to listen as well as advise, and Desault had been told there was a tentative ID on the victim, possibly to be confirmed this afternoon.

They left Rayman, and then Marquez left for San Diego.

‘This is about Sheryl Javits,’ he told Desault. ‘I’ve got to go see a guy I knew as an ATF agent years ago.’

Pete Phelps had a belly he didn’t used to have. He had a wife, a big white stucco house in San Diego with a pool, and a couple of little Phelps who looked like they were eight to ten years old. They looked like sweet kids so maybe they had their mother’s genes. Marquez watched Phelps leave the house, drop the kids at school, and then stop and pick up coffee before going into the office. It turned out Phelps was a mortgage broker not a real estate broker. He specialized in subprime loans. Business was off lately.

Using binoculars he watched Phelps in his office flirting with his receptionist. Watching him was boring, but toward the end of the afternoon he saw him lean over and give the receptionist a long kiss. He cupped the back of her head with his hand. He held her face to his and glanced outside as he let her go. That wasn’t much leverage, probably would get a laugh out of Phelps, but maybe he could work with it. He called the private investigator friend he’d worked for years ago as he was trying to figure out a career post DEA.

‘You’re anxious to move on this?’ his friend asked.

‘Yeah, I can’t sit in a car in San Diego much longer and watch this guy.’

‘He’s married, got a wife, two kids in school?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then he’ll have it down to a routine. Give him twenty-four hours more. That’s my advice.’

Marquez followed as Phelps picked up the kids and brought them home. His wife arrived and unloaded a Suburban, and it was one of those warm nights where you walk your dog and think you’re lucky to live in a place like this. Lights went off in several rooms at around 10:30 and then Phelps left the house and went grocery shopping. Could be that was his deal, shop when the store was quiet. Except that the real estate firm’s receptionist pulled into the store lot as he went through the checkout line.

Phelps carried two bags of groceries to his car. Then he followed her out of the lot, talking on his cell phone, probably to her, and Marquez trailed them to the driveway of a house for sale. She pulled in and parked where her minivan didn’t show. Phelps parked down the street and walked back. He got in the minivan.

Marquez figured Phelps was working with a window of time and that he wouldn’t waste any now. He gave him five minutes and then walked down the driveway and rapped on the door. He pulled out his badge, held it at window level and said, ‘FBI, open up.’

He knew it would be Phelps who slid the door open and, from working joint operations with the ATF in Baja, that Phelps wouldn’t be intimidated. Not only that, he’d probably recognize the voice. Phelps slid the door open, looked at Marquez and the badge, and then asked with genuine curiosity, ‘How did you end up working for those dipshits?’

‘Get your shoes on and let’s talk.’

Phelps slid the door mostly shut and put his shoes back on and their voices murmured. When Phelps got out she slipped into the driver’s seat, but not before Marquez took a few candid photos. That got everybody angry.

As his girlfriend pulled away, Phelps asked, ‘Is this Sheryl’s bullshit? Is that why you’re here?’

‘Let’s talk in my car.’

‘I’ve got a better idea, how about if you just fuck off.’

‘I can talk to you or talk to your wife, it’s up to you.’

‘When did you turn into a sleaze bag?’

‘Look, Phelps, I’m not here because I want to be. But I’ll do whatever it takes to get the truth out of you.’

‘About what?’

‘You’re not listening.’

Marquez was back in his car before Phelps came up the sidewalk. When Phelps got in on the passenger side and before the door shut, he told Marquez, ‘I showed them canceled checks. I told them her other story was a crock, so what do you want?’

‘I believe Sheryl.’ He waited a beat and lied to Phelps. ‘I don’t care where the money came from and she’s going to lose her career out of this either way, but if you gave her part of the divorce settlement money at the back door, she shouldn’t be going to prison for life.’

‘What are you talking about, prison for life?’

‘They’ve built a case against her that says she took bribes and set Jim Osiers up to get killed. She fed information to the Salazar Cartel and they paid her through a bank account in La Paz. Not only that, but over her career she’s worked any number of joint operations with the FBI and the theory goes she was leaking information for money paid by Emrahain Stoval. She used the money you gave her as an unexplained payment on her house in San Francisco. That money is the bottom brick in their case and they’re searching for the rest. You might hate her, but this isn’t right.’