Kirk Russell - Dead Game

“To the orchard? Was there a packing shed or did you take them to the houseboat?”

Julio didn’t seem to know either of those places. He shook his head, then described a two-story blue house out in vineyards and another man who was also there and talking in a foreign language his uncle said was Russian.

“What town was it in?”

“It was up from Courtland in the delta. We followed Raburn there.”

“How far off the levee road?”

“Like a mile or so.”

“And when you got there the Russian guy was there?”

Julio nodded.

“Would you recognize him if I showed you photos?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay, I’ve got some photos in my truck.”

Julio looked at a stack of photos that included August, Ludovna, Crey, Torp, Perry, and six other poachers they’d taken pictures of.

“I don’t know.”

“Fair enough. How long ago was this?”

“Like four months.”

“Okay, look at these photos and eliminate the people you know it isn’t.”

Julio laid the photos on Marquez’s hood in the sunlight, and the air was just gentle enough today to where they didn’t blow off. He began to take away photos. He picked up the shots of Crey, Ludovna, a couple of sturgeon fishermen and put those in a pile by themselves. He hooked a fingernail under the prison mug of Torp, and then Perry, uncannily pairing the two before moving them out of the way.

“Not one of those two?”

“No.”

“And Raburn led you out to this house?”

“Yeah, we loaded in someone’s car there.” He remembered more about the property now. “You drive through a lot of grapevines first.”

Now there were only four photos left, and among those remaining, August was the only one fluent in Russian. Juio concentrated on each photo, his eyes moving from one to the next and back. He remembered his uncle had caught a sturgeon in San Pablo Bay. He’d called Raburn from his cell, and when they’d gotten to Raburn’s houseboat, Raburn was already up under some trees near his truck waiting. He’d given Uncle Carlos a beer because the day was hot. It was dusk when they drove out the road to the blue house, and there were a couple of cars there. His uncle drank the beer as they drove, and dust blew in the windows because they were following Raburn. He remembered the house because it was blue like the sky, and now Marquez thought he knew which house it was. One of the photos Raburn had downloaded.

Julio had heard the man talking, and his uncle said it was Russian he was speaking to somebody else inside the house. The man came outside in the heat, looked over the sturgeon, and paid Raburn, who then paid his uncle. They moved the fish from their pickup to Raburn’s.

“Raburn was going to clean it,” Julio said, “but he had to show it to the man first.”

“So you were just there a few minutes?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see any other people?”

“Just the other cars.”

There were four photos left on the hood, and Marquez pointed at them.

“And you think that man might have been one of these four?”

“Maybe one of them.”

“If you had to pick one, who would you pick?”

He didn’t pick August, picked a carpenter instead, a guy who was working on a Fish and Game building.

“I may need to speak to your uncle later today. If I do, I’ll call you this morning, but we’re done here. You can go.”

When they got in the truck Julio was back down at his boat. He kept his head down as they pulled away.

“Are we going there, Dad?”

“Yeah, if you’re okay with it we’re going to take a ride into the delta and look for this house.”

“That’s fine, and it’s really pretty out here today.”

“Do me a favor.” Marquez handed her his phone. “Scroll through the address book until you find SEH. Right above it will be SEC. It’s a guy named Stan Ehrmann. He’s with the FBI. The H is for his home number.”

“Clever.”

“Yeah, I know, and I try so hard to be cool.”

“Okay, I’ve got it.”

Marquez held the phone to his ear, and a teenage boy answered. He said his father had gone to find a store that was open to “get something for my mom.”

“Tell him John Marquez called. Here’s my phone number. Will you tell him I need to talk to him this morning?”

The road was empty and clear, and Marquez drove hard. He waited for Ehrmann to call back.

“That guy was so up about college,” Maria said.

“Yeah.” He glanced over at her. “You heard where he’s coming from.”

She didn’t say anymore about it, and they crossed the river and came up past Poverty Road and the pink-stucco Ryde Hotel. People were starting to get out into the day. There was traffic and a long line of motorcycle riders going past from the other direction and a few boats out on the river. They were already to Isleton when Ehrmann called.

“You shouldn’t be calling me,” he said. “I have to refer the call to my S.A.C.”

“When you talk to the S.A.C. tell him I only want to talk to you.” He recounted the conversation with Julio. “Raburn should have led us to this house, but he never mentioned it. There’s a skyblue house like the one Julio described among those photos Raburn had stored.”

“I remember a few photos of houses. We haven’t been looking for a house in the delta, but sure, it’s worth checking out. Do you think you can find this place?”

“I’ll know soon.”

“I’ll make some calls in the meantime.”

He hung up with Ehrmann.

“What’s that about, Dad? How come you’re calling the FBI?”

“Because we followed a lot of people and none of them ever went to this house Julio is describing.”

“But is that really any big deal?”

“Probably not, but it’s worth checking out. Raburn had downloaded photos he was saving. Some of the photos he might have taken on the sly, and the FBI has been looking for other connections. Still, it probably doesn’t mean anything.”

There was one house he had in mind and could see now. He’d found it after he’d looked at Raburn’s photos. It wasn’t that far upriver from Raburn Orchards. They rolled down a lightly graveled road for almost a mile, and there weren’t any fresh tire tracks ahead of them. He could tell, driving in the long straight road through the bare vines, that no one had been here through several storms. When they got there the house still looked empty. No other cars.

It was an older Victorian raised off the ground in what had been a delta habit to avoid yearly floodwaters in the years before the levee system was completed. It sat high on a thick concrete foundation, stood six feet off the ground like a house trying to get a view of the river by looking over the levee road a mile away. He looked at the faded blue siding, at the porch Julio had described, then at Maria.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Sounds like what he described.”

“I’m going to knock on the door and take a look.”

When no one answered the door he walked back to the truck and gave Maria his keys.

“Sit in the driver’s seat and we’ll talk by phone as I walk around the back.”

“That’s pretty paranoid.”

“So if anything happens, you head for the road. You call 911.”

“What?”

In the back of the house he saw locks and the heavy-gauge steel doors covering an entrance to the big basement space created by raising the house above the floodwaters. He’d seen enough houses raised a similar way, but none with the basement locked up like this. He kept an eye on the windows of the house as he looked at the quarter-inch steel doors and the locks and chains. It would take two men to lift a door.