Kirk Russell - Dead Game

Raburn looked past him at some spot above the river.

“When did Ludovna last call you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“In the last few days?”

Raburn didn’t answer. Marquez studied him and the paint all over the Astroturf. He thought about Raburn shooting out his own windows. Beaudry was scornful of Raburn. Ludovna called him a drunk and a goof. Even Crey looked down on him, yet Raburn had managed to work with everybody, including the SOU. The guy was more clever than anyone gave him credit for.

“He called you, but you don’t want to talk to me about it. Is that because you’ve played it both ways ever since we made the offer to you?”

“I’ve done everything you asked. I’ve taken you out to people I’ve bought from, I’ve cleaned sturgeon and made caviar. I’ve driven you around-”

“Yeah, and you helped load Anna’s car in the middle of the night so she could deliver caviar. You help everybody. Tell your brother and sister-in-law I’m going to come see them tomorrow morning and have a talk with them about the canning room before they see charges filed. And I don’t know if you know this, but in California, if they both go down on felonies the judge has the right to place the kids in foster homes. That’s what you’ve got them into.”

“There’s something wrong with you.”

“You’re so sure you’re going to beat us at this, you’re willing to let them take big risks. Tell them I’m going to talk very frankly tomorrow and I’d advise them to do the same. I’m advising you not to talk to anyone else about any of this. Something is going down now that I don’t think you want to be a part of.”

He left Raburn standing near his sawhorses, then he met Crey at the Bighorn in Rio Vista and drank several beers. Afterward they walked the ten blocks back to the bait shop, and Crey unlocked the door and fired up a joint that he smoked alone as he showed Marquez his sport boat schedule and pored over a navigational map, pointing out sturgeon holes. He got a bottle of Jack Daniels from the back room and two short glasses.

“That girl that works for me is coming back here in an hour.” He winked at Marquez. “I’ve got a bunk on the boat, and she’s bringing Chinese food.”

“How long have you known her?”

“She just about came with the place.”

They drank to the new partnership, and he should have realized then how hard Crey was working to find out where he’d be later tonight.

The next morning Marquez met Shauf at Mel’s in Walnut Grove, where they got coffee and sat in his truck and talked before heading toward Raburn Orchards. They drove slowly up the river road.

“Think anyone will be there?” she asked.

“Sure, they’ll be there and we may get another confession out of Raburn as he throws himself on the tracks to try to save his brother.”

“You really think he cares that much about his brother?”

“I do.”

When they turned off the road and came down the steep drop to Raburn Orchards Marquez spotted Abe’s truck under the high gable of the packing shed, so they went there first. The driver’s door was open, the truck parked at an odd angle, but no lights were on in back and they couldn’t find Raburn.

“His keys are in the ignition,” Shauf said.

“Let’s drive down to the house. They must be waiting down there.”

Isaac’s big dark blue Ford F-350 and Cindy’s Volvo were there. Marquez pulled in alongside the Ford.

“Cold this morning,” Shauf said as they got up on the porch of the main house and knocked.

The sky was white, and the lights glowing from inside the house gave the porch a feeling of dusk, though it was just 10:30. The kids would be at school. They knocked on the door again and waited for the sound of creaking boards as someone came to answer. Shauf’s breath clouded the air in front of her as they talked.

“Beautiful old house, but it sure needs work. Almost easier to tear it down,” she said, then asked, “Do you think he’s blowing us off?”

They checked the outbuildings and the rows of trees, looking for Isaac through the bare limbs. They checked the equipment shed because they’d seen day laborers come and go out of there. They drove down to the canning building, and the door was closed but the deadbolt not thrown. Marquez knocked and then pushed on the door. Behind him, Shauf spoke quietly.

“We ought to be careful how far we take it. We don’t have an active warrant anymore.”

The canning room door swung open, and Shauf’s questions died in her throat when she saw what he was looking at.

“Why the children?” was all that came from her.

Marquez reached and stopped Shauf and then walked over to their bodies. He didn’t really need to. He could see they were dead, but leaned over and touched Isaac’s throat and then the girl. He went back for a flashlight and shone it into the pupils of the boy and then Cindy. They lay side by side, lined up, he thought, made to lie that way. Blood had dried, crusted in their hair. He moved the flashlight from one to the other, then turned it off.

Abe had several high wounds on his back as if he’d ignored an order and started to rise after they’d all been made to lie down. His brother had a wound at the temple in addition to two in the back of the head. All five of them had been shot in the back of the head. He moved toward the door, went to the truck and the radio, then changed his mind and flipped open his cell phone. He found Selke’s number.

“Great minds think alike,” Selke said as he heard “It’s John Marquez.”

“I was going to call you this morning. We’ve ID’d the body in the refrigerator. Her name is Sherri La Belle. I want to meet with you this morning, and I’ll come to you. Just tell me where you are. Where did Torp and Perry lose her car? Was that at the chop shop where the bust went down?”

“Selke, hang on, I’m at Raburn Orchards. Do you know where that is?”

“Sure.”

“One of the outbuildings here has a canning room. One of my team, Carol Shauf, is with me. We arrived at approximately 10:30 expecting to meet with Raburn, his brother, Isaac, and Isaac’s wife, Cindy.” He felt compelled to give Selke facts he could start with, some framework. “But we’ve just found their bodies as well as those of the two children in an outbuilding where they do canning. They’ve all been shot twice in the back of the head.”

There was a quiet, a rustling like leaves, and then a much quieter Selke.

“Are you absolutely certain they’re gone?”

“They’re gone.”

“Have you touched anything?”

“Isaac’s throat and the girl’s, feeling for a pulse. The door was ajar. I pushed it open, saw them and walked over to make sure.” He did not want to stay on the phone. “We’ll be out front.”

It felt much colder than it had earlier. He stood near his truck looking out across the bare orchards, and Shauf tapped him on the arm, said, “I’m going to let everyone know.”

Don’t assume the killing is about sturgeon, he thought. It could be an old debt, anything. He could not comprehend killing the children if it was about sturgeon. The boy was older, fourteen is what Raburn had said, wearing the same clothes he’d probably gone to school in yesterday, jeans and baggy T-shirt, but no shoes, no heavy sneakers. They were used to seeing him with his iPod, and he guessed now it happened last night before the kids had gone to bed. The girl was no more than eight or nine, long straight hair blown back alongside her head into pooled blood.

Marquez turned and looked at the door he’d pushed open. He saw the girl lying inside and knew the door had been open long enough after she was killed for her hair to blow into the pooled blood. The girl wore a sweatshirt. Someone at her school would remember what she’d worn yesterday. Someone had seen them yesterday.