Kirk Russell - Dead Game

“Lieutenant, do I look that bad?”

“You look like you’re carrying it all. You couldn’t have known.”

“They moved those two vehicles every day. I made an assumption I shouldn’t have made about why they were there. We could have gotten someone in the night before to check them out. Those agents are dead because of my failure, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about today, and I don’t want to talk about it. There are several people who are going to sit in with us, and I’d like you to take us through it, including any theories you might have of your own about the Raburn murders.”

They moved to a conference room, and Marquez recounted his conversation with Raburn the day before. He gave them the approximate time of that meeting and knew they’d gather Raburn’s phone records and go through his computer and determine who, if anyone, he contacted after Marquez had left. Then he related driving out there the next day with Shauf and finding the bodies.

“They would have done them in the house,” Ehrmann said, “if it was a straight execution. They wouldn’t have walked them down there without a reason.”

“The door wasn’t locked or latched, but it binds on the jamb and was closed enough to be stuck shut. I pushed it open. But I’m saying this because the wind was out of the east that night, and one thing that struck me was that Cindy Raburn and her daughter, who both had long hair, had pools of blood around their heads and must have bled before the wind blew their hair into the blood.”

“What’s that mean to you?”

“Only that whoever killed them didn’t just walk in, shoot them, and leave. Makes me think there was questioning going on, and if the killings had to do with sturgeon poaching, then it’s very possible it all comes back to Raburn’s working with us. If it looks like an organized crime-style killing to you, could that mean it was somehow retribution for the Weisson’s bust? What I’m wondering is if someone thought Raburn knew something, had information they could get out of him. Since we did connect sturgeon traffic through Weisson’s, it’s possible that Raburn let slip that he was working for us, and they tied the bust to him and killed him out of retribution.”

“Highly unlikely.”

Something Marquez had said caught the FBI’s attention. It didn’t matter whether they told him or not. All that matters is that they find who killed them. He pulled out his photos, had planned to show them only to Ehrmann, but what difference did it make? He kept them face down and then slid the lone shot of Anna’s car across the table to Ehrmann.

“Where did you get this?” Ehrmann asked.

“Off Raburn’s computer yesterday. I met the county detective there. Someone I know was able to improve the quality. That’s Anna Burdovsky in the fishing access lot she staged her disappearance from. This next photo seems to have been taken after another car pulled in alongside her.”

Marquez slowly flipped over the photo with both the BMW and Anna’s Honda. The cars were side by side. With a magnifying glass you could now read the license plates.

“The BMW is registered to a Sandy Michaels, which as near as the county detective can tell may be a fictitious name. We followed Nikolai Ludovna in a Cadillac with the same registered owner. The Cadillac was allegedly stolen and burned. I say allegedly because we think he had it stolen. The point is both are registered to Sandy Michaels.”

He waited. The first two photos were slid around the table. It was obvious they’d already seen them, and no one looked surprised. Instead, they watched him as he flipped over the next one. Again, he slid it to Ehrmann.

“I think the photos are sequential. This is after the BMW pulled in and they both got out of their cars.”

“Okay,” Ehrmann said. “Any others?”

“One. I asked a photographer friend what he could do with the profile of the man and then to compare it to Karsov.”

Now he had their attention. He slid the enhanced headshot and the computer profile comparisons onto the table for everyone to see. “Who’s this photographer?” someone asked, not Ehrmann, but one of the others.

“With our Fish and Game surveillances we’re often taking photos from a long distance, so I’ve paid attention to the advances in improving the quality of photos, particularly digital.”

Marquez did not give the name of his friend in Oakland. Nor did he get asked again.

“My friend seems to think that’s a match. He downloaded Karsov off your Most Wanted List on the Field Office website.”

“It is a match,” Ehrmann said.

“I’d like to ask a couple of questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“Did the FBI ever have any contact with Abe Raburn?”

“No.”

“Did you take over from the county because you suspect the Raburn killings were an organized crime hit?”

“It has those earmarks, but that’s as far as it goes right now.”

“Okay, then let me ask it this way, could this in any way be connected to Karsov smuggling arms?”

“It could.”

“Then I have a question about Nick Ludovna.”

“Go ahead.”

“When he immigrated to this country was the FBI in some way his sponsor?”

Marquez caught the reaction of the man across the table. But Ehrmann answered matter-of-factly.

“He was a Special Interrogator for the KGB, and we were very interested in talking to him and in getting him to talk to us. Specifically, in his KGB role he had interrogated some of the criminals we were pursuing and a few we’re still pursuing.”

“Karsov.”

“Yes, a younger Karsov was incarcerated for a year.” The photos had all made their way to Ehrmann’s end of the table. “We’d like to hold these,” Ehrmann said, “and John, I’d like to talk to you alone before you leave.”

When he did, it was to reiterate how vital it was Marquez didn’t talk to anyone about any of this. “Not even your wife.”

Marquez drove home with it all turning in his head. He found Bob the cat outside on the back deck. The idea was to leave him in the house for a week to get used to his new surroundings, but he’d pushed his way out through a kitchen window and was sitting in a chair watching the birds in the brush below. Marquez sat down in the chair next to him and got up again when he heard a car in the driveway. To his surprise it was Chief Baird.

“You change vehicles so much I didn’t know if you were home. I was going to leave a note. I’m down here for a conference.”

“Do you want to come in and talk, Chief?”

Marquez offered him a beer and asked if he wanted to stay for dinner, but Baird said his wife was with him, at the hotel right now. They were making a little getaway out of the two-day conference, or at least out of the nights, going out to dinner, and the city was decorated for the holidays so it was particularly nice to be here.

“What’s the chance of you and Katherine getting away for a few days?”

“Probably not much chance of that right now.” He added, “Katherine just got back from a trip.”

“She likes to travel though, doesn’t she?”

“Loves to.”

“It might do you some good. I heard about the Raburn murders this morning. I tried to call you. Did you get my calls?”

“I’ve been with the FBI, Chief. I just got home. I was going to call you this afternoon. Why don’t I make some coffee?”

Marquez made coffee, standing in the small kitchen. The chief took his with a lot of milk. Marquez poured himself coffee and told Baird about finding the bodies, then Selke and now the FBI taking over. He talked about Crey.

“He offered me a partnership, and I took him up on it.”

Marquez sensed that what the chief really wanted was to say now was, “We aren’t going to do anymore in the delta right now about sturgeon poaching.” But he was too tough for that. He wanted Marquez to volunteer it instead, and when he didn’t, Baird slid into the future.