Kirk Russell - Shell Games

“There’s a reason we crossed paths. We may be looking for the same people.”

“We may be, in which case we’re lucky the Feds are on the case.” Keeler looked at him quizzically. “Are we leading back to your ghost killer?” Marquez shrugged. He’d already pushed the Kline idea far enough without evidence and Keeler didn’t care for speculation. “Officially, there’s no way I can let you do that.”

“I understand.”

Marquez watched a nurse walk through carrying a clipboard, smiling at them as she passed. He let Keeler think and was quiet. It was a foundation belief of Keeler’s that no one should ever get away with endangering a peace officer, and he was counting on that.

“Did this FBI agent say anything to you about abalone poach-ers?” Keeler asked.

“They have an informant aboard the Emily Jane.”

“They didn’t tell Chief Baird anything this morning. They apologized for having to intercede, but that’s all.”

“I think that’s because we’re after the same man.”

“If you’re right, they’ve got a lot more resources to go after him. In that case we should stand aside.”

“They don’t know the coast or the people that live along it the way we do and it’s my judgment that we can’t afford to wait.”

“We’re not going to deliberately cross them.”

Then what are we going to do, Chief? Are we going to watch? Call them up when we have a lead? Marquez listened to the hospital noises and let Keeler weigh his own risks. The doors opened, a surgeon came out and then walked over to Keeler. He sat down on the edge of the couch and told the chief more about what they’d found and talked about other forms of therapy, but was candid that the odds were poor. The chief took this in quietly, then asked ques-tions about what kind of care his friend-a widower and without immediate family-would get. What could be arranged? What could he do? The surgeon outlined generally what would happen, then slowly stood, said he was sorry, again.

Marquez walked out of the hospital with Keeler soon after. Keeler was thinking about his request, but it was no longer the right time to ask. He got Bailey’s toolbox and the evidence bags he’d gathered out of his truck and showed Keeler the nine millimeter, its handle wrapped with electrical tape, then put the box with the gun in the back of Keeler’s Isuzu after asking the chief if he’d drop the gun at the Department of Justice in Sacramento. He stood at Keeler’s window, talking with him a little longer before Keeler drove away without answering whether they could look for the Emily Jane, or not.

Now, in the sunlight in the warm cab of the truck Marquez felt the long night like two heavy hands on his shoulders. He was slid-ing down the backside of adrenaline. He closed his eyes, reclined the driver’s seat, and felt the sun on his face. Had to doze, had to rest a little before going on. He thought of Katherine, her dark hair falling at her shoulders, the bright light in her eyes when she laughed. She was due back today. He’d have to call Maria this morning. Then he let the fatigue take him and closed down.

He woke to Petersen tapping on his window with her cell phone. He’d been asleep about forty minutes and looked at her groggily, before it all flooded back. He opened the door and sat up.

“How’d you find me?” he asked.

“I always know where you are. You know, we used to wonder if you ever slept. Are you ready to get going?”

He drank from a water bottle. He needed coffee, food. They drove tandem to San Francisco and left her 4Runner parked on Gough Street. By 2:00 in the afternoon they were walking down the Pillar Point dock to where Heinemann’s boat was berthed. A light wind was blowing off the ocean, the soft air smelled of salt, and you could feel autumn. Gold light hazed through thin fog at sea.

Marquez climbed aboard and knocked. The Open Sea carried a sleeping berth and they knew there was a girlfriend. When a curtain moved and the fingers of a young woman’s hand showed he held up his badge, and then a blonde wearing shorts and a very thin cotton shirt opened the door.

“We’re looking for Mark Heinemann.”

“He’s not here.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Up north, but I don’t know when he’s coming back.”

“Can we come in and talk with you a minute?”

“If you want, but I don’t know anything.”

They established that Heinemann was her friend and that her name was Meghan Burris. She sniffled and touched her nose in a way that said cocaine. Without prompting she elaborated on her relationship with Heinemann. They weren’t a couple, but they were going out together. She wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for the cat, and she pointed at the striped tabby watching them.

“We’re working an investigation we hope Mark can help us with,” Marquez said. “We’re also looking for a Jimmy Bailey. Do you know him?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen him today?”

“Nope.” She crinkled her nose. “I guess I’m useless. I have to get going anyway.”

“Have you ever heard Jimmy Bailey talk about abalone?”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

Petersen smiled broadly behind her and rolled the cat on its back, scratching its belly. Meghan made it clear now she only knew Mark Heinemann from school at UC Santa Cruz and staying on the boat was just sort of a fun thing to do. She didn’t believe in hurting animals. Marquez gave her his abalone rap anyway, the problem, what they were up against, needing the public’s help to save the species.

“We think Jimmy Bailey may be involved with poachers and anything you tell us might help Mark, because we know they’ve been out on the ocean together.”

“Mark wouldn’t ever poach, but there were these kind of freaky guys who came down to Jimmy’s boat.”

“Tell us about them.”

She described the men they’d videotaped in Oakland outside Li’s house, the hatchet-faced Caucasian and the black-haired, buffed Hispanic that Bailey had claimed came to meet with Heinemann. There’d been another man but she’d only seen him at a distance. He’d never come down to the dock.

“One of the guys that came down here wouldn’t quit staring at me so I left.”

“If I opened a calendar, could you show me what day that was?”

“Oh, I already know. On this Saturday it will have been three weeks. It was definitely a Saturday because I didn’t have school and I had to drop my car off that day.”

Marquez opened his pocket calendar. He marked Saturday August thirty-first and glanced at Petersen, knew from her look she read Meghan as telling the truth, or what she thought was the truth. “See, Mark was down helping Jimmy with his engine and when one of them showed up, it was like Jimmy pretended he didn’t know they were coming, but he did. He always acts like he can fool everybody.”

Marquez nodded. He tried to gauge what her reaction would be to what he was going to say next.

“I’m going to tell you some things that you might not like to hear, but that you need to know. We saw Mark bring up urchin bags filled with abalone near Elephant Rock up in the Point Reyes area yesterday. He was with Jimmy Bailey on the Condor and they took their catch down to Sausalito late last night. We broke up a transfer to another boat there, but that boat got away. Mark ran to that boat during the bust and there’s a warrant for his arrest now.”

“Oh, so you came here to trick me. That’s nice. Boy, does that suck. You said you weren’t after Mark, but you are. No wonder I can’t stand cops.” She brushed her nose with the back of a finger, let her hand fall slowly. “So I’m supposed to be the stupid girlfriend.”

“Not at all.” He made up a reason now. “We think Jimmy Bailey tricked your boyfriend. It’s Bailey we’re really after,” Marquez said. “Let’s go back to the night of the thirty-first again, what you heard in the conversation on Bailey’s boat.”