Kirk Russell - Night Game

“Let’s hear it again,” he said. He pushed play and the voice filled the car.

The next morning when Marquez walked into headquarters in Sacramento, Chief Bell was waiting. He took a seat, glanced at the chief’s new nameplate, a heavy brass plaque mounted on a dark-stained piece of oak. The nameplate reflected another bureaucratic change, reading assistant chief rather than deputy chief, as the department aligned its ranking system with the California Highway Patrol. For a while a rumor had circulated that the CHP would take them over, despite having little in common with them other than an interest in roadkill.

“They want everything we have on him and that isn’t much, is it?” Bell asked.

“Who’s the ‘they’ we’re talking about?” “The CD will ship to an FBI lab this afternoon and they’re going to do everything they can, but they’re also asking me about our procedures, specifically your training. They want to know why you opened and listened to it, why you didn’t wait.”

“Because we’ll hear from our seller before we have lab results.”

Bell shook his head, let him know that answer didn’t come close. But they weren’t going there yet. Bell’s priority this morning was the breach of computer files.

“I want the whole operation,” Bell said, “everything. Start at the beginning when we first heard from this seller, brief me on all of it.”

Marquez talked for two hours.

When he finished, Bell said, “We’re going to take this up again this afternoon.” He gestured toward his office door. “There’s an El Dorado County detective in the conference room who’s been waiting to see you about a homicide in the Crystal Basin. He’s hoping you can help him.”

“Is this about the body found up behind Barrett Lake?”

“Yes.”

The detective was standing near the windows, hands on his hips, surveying the buildings below like a guy trying to decide what to do with his property. He was gangly, balding, and middleaged, wearing elkskin cowboy boots and a tan corduroy coat that pulled tight under his arms when he reached to shake hands.

“Jack Kendall,” he said, and Marquez realized Kendall’s skin had the tinged quality of a chemical tanning agent, an unusual vanity in a homicide detective.

“We had a similar murder a couple of years ago near Placerville,” Kendall said. “That case is still open, it’s how I got in on this one. But I’m not saying there’s any connection, though both victims were killed by rifle shots. In this recent killing the victim was a geology student doing research for a thesis out along the boundary between the Crystal Basin and Desolation Wilderness areas. Your warden up there, Bill Petroni, tells me your undercover team has been in the Crystal Basin on and off all summer.”

“We have.”

Kendall walked to the table, sat down, and got his briefcase, saying he had photos. Marquez took a chair beside him, and Kendall pulled out a college graduation photo of the victim, Jed Vandemere, a brown-haired young man with a cheerful face, then a second photo, this one of Vandemere’s truck, a ‘99 Chevy with a camper shell.

“The truck was stolen,” Kendall said. “Theft is a possible motive.”

He ticked off a list of other missing items-laptop, telescope, the latest backpacking equipment-things that could be easily fenced. Then he handed Marquez the missing persons report Vandemere’s parents had filed in August.

“Who found him?” Marquez asked.

“His father.”

Marquez read the strong handwriting, then the father’s physical description of his boy, his love unmistakable even on this police form. Marquez knew what it felt like, knew from his first wife’s murder about the anguish and long emptiness that came after.

“For the first month the parents called me every day,” Kendall said, “but there wasn’t much we could do. We don’t have the resources to chase missing persons reports. You know that.”

“Sure.”

“For all we knew he met a girl and left. How long can you pick at rocks when you’re that age?”

Kendall seemed to need a response, but Marquez couldn’t assuage his guilt. He understood the dilemma though, knew Kendall was telling the truth about available resources.

“Do you recognize him?” Kendall asked.

“No.”

“These are more recent.”

He slid over photos of the body, Vandemere’s ribcage partially wrapped in a blue shell, a North Face logo visible. Other photos, black-and-whites of scattered bones. From the thin bright line of sky Marquez figured he’d been found near a ridge.

“We know he had an altercation with some hunters up there in July. They were running hounds, and he got in a shoving match with one of them. I have witnesses to that.” He paused, added, “There’s this-his parents tell me he was into environmental issues.

In high school he worked for something called the Bear Initiative in Idaho. He used his own money to take a bus to Idaho and help gather signatures.”

“I remember the Bear Initiative.”

“Tells you something about how he thought.”

“How he thought when he was a teenager, you mean.”

“Probably still spoke his views. The more years I put in, the more convinced I am that people don’t change fundamentally.”

Kendall surprised him now, rising partway out of his chair and leaning toward him. He pressed his fingers into the middle of Marquez’s spine. “We found a slug right about here, a .30-30 lodged between vertebrae. He also took an insurance slug from a .22 in the head at close range. Do you know the ridge back up behind Barrett Lake?”

“I’ve hiked through there.”

“There’s a gnarled stand of pine down the slope on the backside.

But from there it would have taken a good shooter, someone skilled.”

Kendall paused too long now, and Marquez got the feeling he was heading somewhere with this conversation.

“Has your team been in the Barrett Lake area in the last few months?”

“No.”

“Your chief thought you had.”

“That’s why he’s chief.”

Kendall smiled. “I’ve been questioning bear hunters. Everyone says the .30-06 is the caliber of choice and that a .30-30 is unusual, but what do you think?”

“The aught-six used to be more of a standard than it is now, but anything .30 caliber or bigger will do the job. Bear aren’t hard to kill, and an aught-six will break the shoulder and punch through the chest cavity into the lung. A broken shoulder will bring a bear down, and with a pierced lung they drown in their own blood.

Smaller caliber guns are popular for shooting a bear out of a tree or bait hunting. That’s where a .30-30 comes in. It shoots flat and is easier to handle.”

“Your chief says you got a threat on a CD last night.”

“Yeah, it’s a first, a technological breakthrough.”

“You can understand why I wonder if there’s some overlap with my case. I’d appreciate anything you can tell me about your operation.”

Marquez explained what the Special Operations Unit was doing in the Crystal Basin. “We’re looking for a bear parts dealer we think is working out of El Dorado County.”

He gave Kendall a quick rundown on bile products and then related a claim their seller had made, that he’d killed a female Virginia game warden a decade ago, adding that the only Virginia warden murder case they’d found so far was a case where an estranged husband had been tried, found guilty, and was serving time.

“This guy sounds like a nut,” Kendall said.

“He’s paranoid.”

“Or worse. I’m confused why Warden Petroni doesn’t seem to know much about your operation. If he’s the warden out of Georgetown, doesn’t that make him the main guy in the area?”