Kirk Russell - Dead Game

“You said she speaks Russian and that’s important in this investigation of yours.”

“Some of the people we’re looking at are Russian immigrants.”

“Was this photo taken in Russia?”

“I’ve never seen the photo before, but I know Anna left Russia and came here with her mother when she was a kid.”

Marquez studied the photo again. In it Anna looked nineteen or twenty. If it was Russia she must have gone back when she was older.

“Do you recognize the man?”

“No.”

“What about the boy?”

“No.”

He watched Selke walk back over and talk to the dog handlers. Earlier, when Selke had refused to do anything about August yet, Marquez had called Shauf at the safehouse and she’d driven to San Francisco. A few minutes ago she’d called to say she was down the street from August’s apartment. He’d told Selke that, and Selke had asked for Shauf’s phone number.

Now Selke walked back to where Marquez waited. He picked up the photo again, held it steady, studying the black-haired man with a mustache, wearing a shirt open at the collar, older than Anna in the photo by at least a decade, black leather coat down to his thighs, smiling down at the kid who looked a little like Anna. No other photos but more receipts, and an old W-2 from Adventure USA and another plastic card in Cyrillic that Marquez guessed was a Russian ID of some sort.

“Let’s go talk in my car,” Selke said.

After they got in his car Marquez listened to Selke go back and forth on the radio, and he was still having a hard time understanding Selke not going out with an APB on August’s car, or getting the warrant application going, getting in touch with the on-call judge in San Francisco. He watched Selke type into a Blackberry, his thumbs thick on the small pad. He couldn’t watch this much longer.

“What business is this Don August in?”

“He owns three specialty-food stores, one in Seattle, one in LA, one in SF, all named August Foods.”

“So what’s he going to tell me when I ask why he was in the delta today?”

“He buys product from small producers, artisanal food products. We’re pretty sure he also buys sturgeon roe that’s been processed to caviar out here and gets that repackaged as Caspian beluga. The eggs are similar in size and color, gray and about like a little glass bead. All his labels have the proper stamp, but we think they’re either forged or bought.”

“What do Customs and U.S. Fish and Wildlife think?”

“Everything appears legit.”

Selke surprised him. “But you’ve checked DNA and it’s not?”

“What we’ve checked is legit, all from the Caspian.”

Selke’s cell rang. The radio crackled at the same time. He answered the radio call, which was to tell him a vehicle stop was in progress-two white males in a black Lincoln sedan just north of Patterson, about fifty miles from here. They waited, talking about August until more information came in. The officer who’d made the stop had run the driver’s license and then called for backup. The individual was wanted on a felony drug charge. Marquez listened to the names spit out of the radio and shook his head. He didn’t know them. Then his cell rang.

“August is home,” Shauf said. “The lights just came on; I can see him through the window. There’s a woman with him. Where are you?”

“Still at the fishing access but about to leave here.” He saw Selke react to that. “Hang on a minute.”

He turned to Selke. “August is home.”

Selke was quiet, looking through the windshield, watching the dog getting loaded back into the K-9 car. Half the officers standing around were gossiping. There was nothing left to do here.

“All right, Lieutenant, we’ll go knock on his door.”

Shauf slumped back against the driver’s door, blond curls flattened from the headrest, a Diet Coke resting on her left thigh. Selke and a San Francisco homicide inspector were up on August’s porch. Two SFPD patrol units were on the street, their light bars reflecting off the white-painted stairs. Getting to the on-call judge and getting a warrant had delayed Selke’s arrival, and lights were no longer on in the front rooms of the apartment. Through binoculars Marquez watched Selke hit the bell a second time.

“Selke called me on his way here,” Shauf said. She took a sip of Coke. “He wanted to know if you and Anna have something going on.”

“He’s got to ask.”

“Not the way he does it.”

The front door opened, and August moved onto the threshold, silhouetted by the light from behind him. Selke badged him, showed him the warrant, and August handed it back to him. He stroked his goatee and smiled.

“Why does he remind me of the devil?” Shauf asked as August stepped aside and ushered the detectives in. “The woman he came home with is also in there. She looks like a kid, but he had his arm around her when they went up the stairs, and I think I’ve seen her in his store here. I’m pretty sure she works there. She’s got a little ruby stud in her nose.” After a pause, Shauf added, “The guy is a scuzzball.”

The door closed and Marquez laid the binoculars down. The street was mostly commercial buildings, shops, boutiques, a Tully’s Coffee at the corner. Two blocks down the street was August Foods, the neon script with the store name not unlike the neon over his wife’s two coffee bars, Presto on Union and Presto on Spear, a third about to open down near the wharf.

“Did you talk to Chief Bell?” Shauf asked.

“Yeah, after the BOLO went out.”

“How’d he take it?”

Bell had immediately assumed it was their fault, that the be on the lookout for going out meant the SOU had somehow screwed up. But Marquez didn’t volunteer that yet. It was the kind of information Shauf was fishing for, and he didn’t want to get into that with her tonight.

“He wants me in his office tomorrow morning.”

“He’s going to say the operation is blown.”

He’d all but said it tonight.

The front door opened and they watched Selke come back outside alone. He held his cell phone under the porch light to punch in numbers. Seconds later Marquez’s phone rang.

“Does Anna Burdovsky have a cat?” Selke asked.

“She does.”

“Could you describe it?”

Marquez pictured the cat. He’d been to her apartment here in San Francisco after she’d called CalTIP saying she might have information on sturgeon poachers. But that was about four months ago.

“It’s black and white, a male, it looks a little like a Holstein cow. The name is Jim or Pete, something like that.”

“Bob.”

“That’s right, it’s Bob. What does the cat have to do with anything?”

Selke turned to face the street. He seemed to like delivering the bombshell.

“Mr. August says Burdovsky and her cat have stayed here for the last week. He told her she could stay with him a week or two and showed us the room she’s been staying in. The cat is part of the deal and I don’t know what else is, though August’s friend here is sure she knows and she wants to leave, but we’re holding her because we want to get a statement, otherwise you’d see her stomp down the stairs. Have you ever been up here?”

“No.”

“Do you know, he’s got four bedrooms? How much money is this guy making? This place has to be worth a couple million bucks minimum. It looks like a magazine and I can see why Burdovsky would want to stay here. There are clothes and items he says belong to her and we’re welcome to take. He also admits talking to her today but it was closer to noon and they argued because he told her he wanted her stuff and the cat out today. He told me the cat’s next home is the Humane Society if she doesn’t show up by tomorrow. Is any of this making sense to you?”