Kirk Russell - Shell Games

They didn’t find him, and from the road learned that Roberts had hooked up with the sheriff’s deputies and was checking the houses along the stretch where they’d lost the van.

“How many houses?”

“Approximately ten,” she said, “and one of the deputies is say-ing there’s a dirt road that they might have taken but he thinks only the locals know about it.”

They took it, Marquez thought. “How far does it run?”

“He says ten miles. They’ve already got someone on the other side, but no luck so far.” She anticipated his next thought. “It picks up a paved road that works its way out to the coast and we’re look-ing at how we can intercept. Cairo is already headed out there.”

He waited with Alvarez for the fire department unit and then went back down the slope with two firemen. He gave a statement to the police from up on the mountain and much later, after Meghan’s body had been removed and searchlights set up with detectives combing the area, the conclusion was that she’d made the ride down the slope alone.

They’d lost the van and before midnight Marquez pulled the team back, told them it was time to find a motel. He checked into a Best Western and tried to sleep, but most of the night his mind churned with images of what had happened, fragments of the phone conversation with Heinemann. He rebuilt the chain of his decisions. Was it arrogance that made him send Heinemann back out there thinking he could fool someone like Kline? Had Heine-mann watched her die or was his body up there somewhere? They’d do a daylight search. He’d leave part of the team down here. At 5:15 he got up and showered. The light was off in Alvarez’s room when Marquez checked out. He’d call the team from the road and started north in the darkness.

The next call he got was near dawn and from Ruter. “I hope it’s not too early,” Ruter said, “but you seem to be a morning guy. I’ve got abalone for you that came out of Huega’s girlfriend’s house and don’t tell me I was supposed to have called the DFG. This thing is a cluster fuck now. Your old friends at the DEA are involved and the FBI has taken over like you said they would. They send me for coffee.”

“How much abalone?”

“Two hundred ten shells. Some big ones, too. How fast does that stuff grow?”

“About an inch a year and they can live thirty.”

“It’s in a county freezer.”

“You should have left it alone.”

“The DEA dumped it on the concrete to get to the dope stored under it. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry to put it back and I figured you’d want it. I’d like to compare notes with you, Marquez.”

“You took your friendly pill this morning.”

“No, I’m figuring out what you told me in the first place. We need each other.”

There was something else in his voice that Marquez could hear but not identify. Ruter was asking him to drive up today, but he wasn’t doing it because he’d found abalone.

“I’ll have to call you back,” Marquez said.

When he talked with Ruter next it was nearly noon and he’d made the decision to go north to Fort Bragg tonight and was past Santa Rosa already. He called Petersen and they decided she’d sit down with Ruter, too. In the late afternoon when Marquez dropped down through the steep wooded country to Shelter Cove, Petersen was already parked in the lot and was talking to Ruter. The sky had smoothed and whitened to bone and wind had raised whitecaps. Ruter’s eyes were watering with the wind and he wanted to go inside the bar, find a table and talk.

They went inside and got a table. Ruter told them his problem. “I met with the FBI a few days after the Guyanno killings, but they didn’t want me talking to anyone.”

They both knew Ruter wouldn’t have said anything about the FBI anyway.

“They came to see me on the pretense we’d trade notes. They had a lot of questions about how you happened to be at Guyanno Creek and they photocopied my case file, including the notes you gave me. But on the whole, they treated me like a county hick.” He smiled a cynical hard smile that his eyes didn’t back up and said, “I’d almost rather deal with you.”

Marquez leaned back against a wall done entirely in wine corks that had been cut in half and glued. The wall was ten feet high, twenty long, with a small patch left to do. The cork deadened the sound in a room that was already too quiet and Ruter kept his voice low and told them what the Feds had said about Kline, confirming that he was very likely operating off the north coast.

“They gave you his name?”

“Yeah, Marquez, I don’t know why they told me when they wouldn’t give you a straight answer.”

“They know I have a personal interest.”

“Could be.”

“I take it they gave you a description.”

Ruter nodded. “A photo.” He took it out of his coat and laid it on the table and Marquez heard Petersen shift for a better view. But he could see it wasn’t recent, was maybe a few years after the one he’d gotten in Mexico City. “They’re also looking at Davies. Dope trafficking is part of this, too, at least as far as Huega was concerned. The DEA took his ex-wife in for questioning.” Ruter shook his head ruefully. “I’m up to my ass in Feds.”

“And what can we do for you?” Marquez asked. “You’ve got more info than we do. What’s changed since we last talked?”

“I want to solve these cases,” Ruter said, “but the Feds want me to gather information and pass it on to them. I know if you get close to him you’re going to try to take him down and when you need backup I’ll bring an army.”

“The killings bother you that much.”

“From the time I was a kid I wanted to be a detective. We had a neighbor who was murdered. He’d played minor league baseball and taught me to pitch when I was ten. He wasn’t even thirty yet and was like a big brother to me. Someone killed him over a small gambling debt. I didn’t get my badge to be a gofer for the FBI.”

“You don’t want your cases taken away.”

“No, I can’t stand it, and I know you’re not going to stop look-ing for him.”

“How do you want to proceed?”

“By communicating more.”

“Good enough.”

Then they were silent and didn’t have enough in common to have a second drink together. Marquez laid a twenty on the bar.

Outside, the light carried the pale gold of late summer and the wind was colder with the sun setting. There were high cirrus, waves churned against the shore rock, and Marquez wondered if they were going to see a weather change. Rougher weather would make it harder for abalone poachers. He stood in the parking lot with Petersen and Ruter and then said he was going back into the bar to get a coffee for the ride back to Bragg. He used the bath-room, splashing water on his face, which he seemed to be doing a lot lately. He gave the bartender two bucks for lukewarm coffee.

When he came out Petersen was in her truck on the phone and Ruter was waiting for him near the bumper, lingering there. “Something else I want to ask you about and I didn’t want to bring up inside because it’s not necessarily related to anything,” Ruter said. “But I’m going to run it by you.” He paused, looking past Marquez at the horizon as if the subject was embarrassing. “I just want your opinion.”

“Sure.”

“I’ve had an old black cat that’s been with me forever. Bad breath, bad temper, but I love this cat. I built a cat door into our kitchen door and she’d go out in the middle of the night when she was younger and bring back a rabbit as big as her.” He showed with his hands. “Lately, she’d just sit out in the night and I think it made her feel like a hunter again.” He bit down on his lip and looked at Marquez’s eyes. “Someone killed her last night out near our front gate.”