Kirk Russell - Shell Games

“I’m sorry.”

And he was. He could hear what it meant to Ruter.

“I got her the day I got my badge and she was my good luck. She’d always wait up for me and you know you get home late at night sometimes. I named her Hero. Aw, Christ, this isn’t your problem.”

“How’d they kill her?”

“Looks like a knife. Most likely a neighborhood kid, some sick little fuck. But I’ve thought about Davies and that’s why I’m telling you. We’ve pushed him pretty hard and I’m wondering if you can picture him doing something like this, but maybe that’s having the Guyanno cases on my mind. It’s probably an old case, someone with a grudge against me, or a kid like I said. That’s not some-thing you’d associate with this Kline’s network, is it? There’s no reason he’d take an interest in a county cop, is there?”

“Someone was trying to get inside your head.”

“That’s right, and they did it. That’s why I wanted to run it by you.”

“A knife?” Marquez asked.

“Yes, and that’s why it’s got me wondering.”

“It’s not the Davies I knew, but it doesn’t seem that I knew him very well and I can’t think of why Kline would try to get to you. Unless you’ve brushed next to something they have going on. But your cat, that’s got to be someone that knows you.”

“Or has watched me.”

“There is that possibility.” Marquez reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” and Ruter shook his head, his thoughts private, and he walked away looking like a man temporarily lost in himself. Marquez saw Petersen had gotten out of her truck and was walking over, wanting to talk again before leaving, and proba-bly wondering what that was all about. Marquez raised a hand, waved to Ruter as the detective drove away. He guessed that Ruter’s theory of a neighborhood kid was probably right. Some kid in a bad space trying out a knife or trying out the feeling of killing. Petersen leaned against his truck and looked uncomfortable.

“What was that about?”

“Someone killed his cat last night.” He told her what Ruter had told him and she was quiet, absorbing it, saying she was sorry and then, “In the bar Ruter acted like a man who’d had a religious con-version. All of a sudden he’s a Kline believer. I know you kept a file on Kline, but has the FBI really looked that hard for him all these years and not nailed him? No one can stay hidden that many years.”

“You wouldn’t think so.”

“You’re not afraid of him, are you?”

He looked at her and wondered what had happened to their conversation of the other day. Maybe she hadn’t taken him seri-ously because she didn’t believe he could think about Kline in a clearheaded way. She probably figured his worries were overblown and assumed as Ruter had, that Davies had killed Huega. Now, something in the bar conversation with Ruter had changed her and that surprised him.

“Kline almost took me out when I was looking for him and I still don’t understand how he found me. I still think about that at night. Yeah, there’s something off the planet about him.”

“I’ve never seen you scared of a criminal. I don’t know what to do with that.”

“He’ll go down this time.”

“That kind of male bravado doesn’t usually come from you.”

“If we find him, it’ll be us or him.”

“Oh, that makes me feel better.”

“You’re not going in the line of fire, Sue.”

“You think that’s why I’m asking? Because I’m pregnant?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I may as well turn in my equipment today.”

“Take it easy.”

“Then don’t lay this male bullshit on me.”

“It’s not bullshit.”

“It’s not? Okay, Lieutenant, see you back in Fort Bragg.”

She went to her truck and he turned his back as her engine gunned. Her anger left him feeling lousy and he sat in his truck sipping the coffee, then shaking off the feeling and calling Roberts to see if anything more had turned up. He checked his voice mail, surprised he still hadn’t heard anything from Keeler after the con-frontation with the FBI yesterday. As dark closed in, he started for Fort Bragg and his phone rang as he climbed the steep road up from the cove. He stared at the screen before answering, somehow had known he’d hear from him.

“I’ve got a lead you want,” Davies said.

“Go ahead.”

“It’s got to be in person. Where are you at?”

“Shelter Cove.”

“You want to meet me in Fort Bragg?”

“All right.”

“They’re after me.”

“Who is?”

“I don’t know who they are. Call my cell when you get into town. I don’t want to wait anywhere public.”

“I’ll call you,” and Marquez hung up first.

Five miles from the cutoff that would take him back to Fort Bragg, Marquez crested a rise, saw a long line of brake lights and in the dip below, flashing lights of emergency vehicles and the highway patrol. The driver of the car in front of him was out of his vehicle with a foot up on his rear bumper. His head turned toward Marquez’s headlights and he squinted, face scrunched as if to say, don’t you get it, buddy, we’re not going anywhere soon. A half hour later the traffic was still at a dead stop and he’d learned that it was a logging truck that had jackknifed and there was a fatality. He called Petersen, thinking she might have to meet Davies and keep him in Fort Bragg until he could get there.

“It must have happened after I drove through,” she said. “How come you talked down to me like that?”

“I wasn’t talking down.”

“You were patronizing me.”

“I wouldn’t do that, but if you want to say being pregnant is the same as not being, then we’re not on the same page.”

“I’m not saying that.”

He didn’t understand the intensity of her reaction, but knew she was serious and apologized again, although the apology didn’t sit that well with him. He swallowed his pride, did it anyway, and then checked the action below. They had something like a 988 Cat with log forks and a top clamp moving logs off the roadway. The opera-tor looked experienced and maybe they’d get the road open soon, but there was no way to know for sure and he told her about Davies’s call.

“He wants to meet tonight in Fort Bragg and claims he’s got information.”

“That he couldn’t give you over the phone?”

“He wants to talk in person, says he’s being followed.”

“Yeah, by little people in his head.”

“I’m wondering if the Feds are tracking him.”

“I think we should write him off. Skip the meeting tonight. He’s trouble and he hasn’t been straight with us.”

“You’re right, but I want to keep a conversation going. How about checking Noyo for his boat and then call me back?”

“This guy makes my skin crawl, John. He’s up with two murder victims at Guyanno, then he’s dumping Huega off his boat after torturing him and you still want to meet with him. I don’t get that.”

“He’s not all smoke. He’s had contact with our abalone buyers.”

“You don’t know that, but if it’s true, what’s that say about him?”

“It says he’s got his own agenda.”

“I’ll check the harbor and call you.”

There was a part of him that completely understood taking Huega up the coast and questioning him. He knew the feeling, but had never given into it. Davies was sure he’d been set up by some-one and Marquez didn’t think that part was an act, though he knew he was the only one who believed that. He hung up with her and saw the first cars crawling through down below. An hour later, as he drove through Leggett he took a call from Katherine.