Kirk Russell - Night Game

“It’s a Colbalt with blue trim.” She drew a breath. “After sunrise there were a couple of boats that came into Emerald Bay and we figured them for photographer types trying to get a picture of the bay with the first snow on the mountains. But there was also a lone guy in a Colbalt who circled the island, then sat along the shore for a while. He stayed on this side in the shadow so we could never really get a good look at him. When the patrol units showed up he moved farther back and then took off back out the channel. We got the CF numbers and it’s registered to an Ed Schultz who lives in Palo Alto. We’re trying to get a hold of him.”

“Where’s the boat at?”

“Near Zephyr Cove, starting to work its way up the east shore, and it’s rough out there, rougher still on the east shore.”

“See you soon.” He didn’t hang up with her yet. “Carol, this isn’t the same but I’ve got to say this to you. I had a wife I was so in love with once that after she was killed I didn’t think I’d ever get over it. But what I’ve learned is that as long as you have memories, she’s going to be with you forever.” Part of that is true, he thought.

Kendall was coaching the deputy to remember Nyland charged him with a stick that could crush his skull. He broke from that and turned toward Marquez.

“I’m going to need a formal statement from you. A couple hours with you this afternoon.”

“I’ll call you.”

Kendall nodded and as Marquez started to leave, started walking with him, leaving the deputy. Marquez knew what was coming. He stopped and watched Kendall gesture back toward the stick Nyland had brandished.

“The sheriff is an old pacifist. He’ll want to know there was no other way with Nyland, so he may want to talk to you. But you saw it.”

“I didn’t see it, I heard the shot.”

“You must have heard the deputy order him to stop.”

“I heard Nyland yell.”

“You didn’t hear our deputy order him to stop?”

“No.”

“All right, then, answer this for me,” and Kendall pulled his hand back. “Why wasn’t he handcuffed?”

“One wrist was clipped to his coat. I had him cuffed for most of the hike out, but his hand with the broken index finger had swollen so much I felt I had to take the cuff off that wrist so he’d have circulation and better balance for the steeper parts. His hand might have frozen.”

“So you devised this deal where he was cuffed to his coat.”

“That’s right.”

“With his hand hidden behind his back, the deputy thought he might have a rock or a knife. We didn’t know you’d cuffed him.”

“Did anybody hear me yelling while Nyland was running?”

“I heard you, but they were down here trying to find him.”

They looked at each other, and Marquez knew there hadn’t been much warning given. His guess was the deputy had shot him as soon as Nyland lifted the stick, and yet, what Kendall said about the hand hidden behind his back carried weight.

It didn’t take long to hike out, and Shauf picked him up in the parking lot. He ate a ham sandwich, an apple, and drank coffee that Shauf had in a stainless Thermos. He felt better almost immediately and wished he could comfort Shauf more about her sister, but she seemed to want to focus on what was at hand.

Lake Tahoe is twenty-one miles long, twelve wide, with the state line separating California and Nevada running through the middle. If the boat worked its way very far up the east shore, Marquez knew it would be harder to track where the road climbed away from the shoreline. They could call for help and get a patrol boat out, but he was reluctant to call unless they had more to go on, and so far, the Colbalt pilot was just a guy who’d motored into Emerald Bay and was dogging through the waves to wherever he was headed back to. Then Alvarez called and said they’d gotten through to the boat owner, Schultz, a doctor in Atherton. Marquez shifted the coffee cup and listened.

“They have a condo they rent in Richardson Bay. It’s leased right now to a man named Ben Karin. He’s got permission to use the boat because he’s thinking of buying it. Schultz bought a new one.”

“This Karin leases their condo in Richardson Bay and docks the boat there?”

“That’s right, and there’s no boathouse. They pull it out in the winter and park it in a garage at the condo. It’s one of those condo developments set up for boat owners. You know, with the big garage and heated just enough to keep things from freezing. Karin is a nature photographer doing a calendar on Lake Tahoe.”

“So he’s probably legit.”

“Could easily be,” Alvarez acknowledged. “But he’s the one who caught our eye this morning. If he was there to get a good photo of the first snow on the mountains, seems like where he was didn’t have that angle. ” Richardson Bay wasn’t far south of there and with the lake as rough as it was, Karin wasn’t out for a pleasure ride. But then, maybe he was testing the boat to see how it handled rougher water. Marquez turned to Shauf, asking Alvarez to hang on because Shauf had Roberts on the line.

“She’s got him in sight still and says he’s still getting pounded,” Shauf said.

“He’s going somewhere,” Marquez said, and Alvarez told him now that the Schultzes had called the realtor who handles the lease. She was going to call back in a few minutes.

Half an hour later they met the realtor, a middle-aged woman in a baby blue parka and bright red lipstick, at the condo complex in Richardson Bay.

“I have another appointment soon,” she said. “What’s this all about anyway?”

“We don’t know yet,” Marquez said. “How well do you know the tenant?”

She pointed out the condo, a corner unit up a flight of stairs, and when they asked about boat storage, she pointed at the high garage doors. She’d done the original lease but hadn’t seen Ben Karin in four months. She checked her watch again.

“Shall we go up and knock?” she asked, after no one answered the phone. “I have the owner’s permission to go in.”

“Hold for just a second,” Marquez said. “We want to show you some photos.”

Alvarez slowly flipped through six photos, including Durham’s face, and she fingered Chief Bell, said he looks most like him only with very black hair.

Marquez touched Bell’s photo and said, “We’d like to lock him up, but he’s not the guy we’re looking for today.”

“I admit I’ve only seen him from a distance. Oh, well, this man’s is too old anyway. Mr. Karin has a different build. He’s bigger in the shoulders. He wrote on his application he was thirty years old, but we did everything by mail and he prepaid for a year.” She added, “There’s maid service that comes in once a week.”

Shauf took a call from Roberts as Marquez went upstairs with the realtor. She knocked twice, unlocked the door, and called for Karin. Marquez followed her in and didn’t see any personal belongings.

While the realtor was talking he started looking around and in the bathroom found a wastebasket and in it wadded bloody bandages. He unfolded those, saw the quantity of blood, then flipped his phone open and called Roberts, told her to stick with him no matter what and they’d call for all the help they could get.

Marquez put the call out to all the locals and reached Kendall, who was close by on his way back to South Lake. Kendall drove up as they were trying to figure out how to get the garage door open.

The realtor thought she had a key for the side door, but complained about it not being keyed the same as the main door, about people subletting their garage spaces when they weren’t supposed to. She went to her car to get an extra set of keys.

Durham had staged out of here, Marquez thought. From here it was easy to drive over Echo Summit and down to the Placerville area. He had run the buys they’d done at the lake from here.