Kirk Russell: Night Game

“We cross a lot of jurisdictional lines and tend to keep to ourselves until we have something. We don’t always talk to the local wardens straightaway.” He added, as much for himself as for Kendall, “I’ll see Petroni tomorrow.”

That morning Marquez had talked to Petroni for the first time in a long while. A backpacker had called CalTIP, the Fish and Game hotline, and reported a dead sow black bear and two cubs in a canyon in the Crystal Basin Wilderness. Petroni would hike up there with him tomorrow, and Marquez planned to brief him during the hike. He hoped to talk some other things out with Petroni and get beyond some of the acrimony of their past.

“We’re looking for a sow and cubs, but all we have is an anonymous tip.”

“And you’re involved because of this seller you’re looking for? Otherwise, it would be Petroni’s to deal with?”

“It would, but you’re not here to make sure Petroni does his job.”

“No, I’m not. But I am here to talk to you about him. Not in here though. What do you say we get lunch together?”

They rode the elevator down and walked out into a hazy fall afternoon. Marquez led Kendall across one of the capitol lawns toward a Vietnamese restaurant he liked, and halfway across the lawn Kendall stopped and fished out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward the capitol dome.

“I’m ninety-nine percent certain Petroni lied to me. He told me he never had any contact with Vandemere, but I’ve got witnesses who saw Vandemere get into Petroni’s Fish and Game truck in the Ice House Resort parking lot in early August. I also have a statement from a fisherman out at Loon Lake who saw Petroni give Vandemere a real hard time one afternoon and not over a fishing regulation.”

“What kind of hard time?”

“A lot of finger wagging and getting in his face.”

“Are you telling me Petroni is a suspect?”

“Nothing like that. What I’m telling you is he lied to me and I want to know why.”

“I’m sure you’ve told him this.”

“I have and it hasn’t got me anywhere.”

Kendall flicked his cigarette out into the grass. It bounced and sank.

“One reason I bailed out of LA homicide was to get away from the bureaucracy. It was like the bad air down there, I couldn’t take another day of it. Your Chief Bell might be the greatest goddamned chief in the world, but if I told him what I just told you, he’d have an internal investigation going before nightfall, and I don’t want to have to deal with that. But I am going to make Petroni’s life miserable. I’m going to make it real miserable if he keeps stonewalling me, and I don’t give a shit how many dead bear are on his schedule. I’m going to give him forty-eight hours. You’re going to see him tomorrow, you tell him that.”

“I’ll tell him you’re looking for him, but you can handle your own threats.” Marquez smiled. “Send him a CD.”

“He may hear someone in his department more easily than he hears me.”

“I wouldn’t be the guy.”

“No?”

Kendall’s smile was cruel. He pointed out across the lawn vaguely indicating the direction of the mountains.

“You don’t want to stick up for him, do you?” he asked. He turned to face Marquez directly. “Nobody seems to want to. I wonder why?”

High clouds curled and colored like burning paper in the dawn sky as Marquez waited for Bill Petroni in the Crystal Basin Wilderness. Most of the cabins along the lake were already shuttered, and except for hunters the basin was emptying. The reflection off the lake quieted to a silver-blue, and sunlight touched the high granite peaks across the water before Petroni drove up.

When he pulled into the lot it was in the same red Honda he’d had a decade ago, its color faded to a tired orange, roof streaked with rust, the car testimony to the frugality a warden’s salary demanded. Petroni walked over, breath steaming in the cold, hair silver at the temples, face fuller, but the same long stride as if hurrying to get somewhere. Marquez wondered if Petroni had ever figured out where that place was.

“Can’t go with you,” Petroni said, before anything else. “I got a call ten minutes ago, got a problem with a couple of deer poachers.”

“Then let me ask some directions before you take off.”

“Ask.”

Marquez unfolded a topo map and flattened it on the hood of his truck.

“Show me where I leave the trail to get to Coldwater Canyon.”

Petroni touched a spot on the map with his car key. “Head left of these rocks. You’ll see where the creek comes down. Follow it.

You’ll have to do a little climbing near the top.”

“And if I find something up there, how do I get a hold of you this afternoon?”

“Call my cell.”

“On our hike up this morning I’d planned to brief you on our operation.”

“Better late than never, I guess.”

“I should have gotten to you before now.”

“Right, and I’m sure you were trying to.” He stared into Marquez’s eyes, said, “I don’t miss it. You don’t need to worry about that. I’m over it and all the bullshit that comes with it. I remember undercover operations where I sat in a van for twenty hours and peed in the cup I drank soda from hours earlier, and driving all over the state because I had an ‘operation’ going. Tell you something, Marquez, the way you find poachers is living in an area. That’s how you get to know the people and figure out who belongs and who doesn’t. They’re your real backup, not some slimebag tipster.”

He and Petroni had been called to headquarters in Sacramento one summer morning eight years ago and told the department was cutting back to a single SOU team. Petroni’s team was shut down.

Petroni had been offered a role working under Marquez, but pride wouldn’t let him do that. He’d gone back into uniform instead, asked for a transfer to Georgetown, and eventually gotten it.

For years afterward Marquez answered questions about what had happened between them. And meanwhile Petroni kept badmouthing him. Then in Placerville one afternoon Petroni had trailed him as he would a suspect. He’d confronted Marquez in a parking lot, accused him of things he should have known better about and other things he knew nothing about, such as why Marquez had left the DEA and come to Fish and Game. That finished whatever chance they’d had of remaking their friendship.

“You have any problem finding the canyon, give me a call,” Petroni said and started walking away. “Your phone will work up there.”

“I had a visit from a Detective Kendall.”

Petroni turned back. “Let me tell you something about Kendall.

He’s a reformed drunk LAPD sold the county sheriff. Worst hire they ever made.”

“He came to see me about the homicide up here, said you told him to talk to me. He also said you’re dodging him now.”

“Listen, I already told him what I know, and Kendall’s problem is he’s lazy. We’ve got all kinds of lowlifes up here now, meth cooks, pot farmers, cycle gang members doing drug deliveries, you name it. Hydroponics has made it so the pot farmers don’t even have a down season anymore. You can bet some scuzzbags scouted Vandemere’s gear and his truck, then decided to take it.

Tell Kendall he ought to move his office out of his favorite bar.”

“He’s thinks you’re stonewalling him.”

“Fuck him.” Petroni started to point a finger, stopped himself, said as he turned away, “Not your problem or your business, Marquez.”

He was looking at Petroni’s back now, watching him climb into his car. When Petroni’s door slammed, Marquez began refolding the topo map and decided he’d drive over to the wilderness lot, walk from there. He heard Petroni’s engine start and without turning around to face him lifted a hand to wave good-bye, a gesture to the conversation he’d hoped they’d have. But now he was glad to be hiking up alone.