Kirk Russell - Shell Games

“What kind of business have you done with Jimmy Bailey recently?” Marquez asked.

“Urchin, but not much.”

“We’re losing a lot of abalone to poaching and we’re going to do everything we can to stop it.”

“You should.”

They pushed back out through the walk-in door and Marquez nodded at four Hispanic workers sitting together on their break. His guess was these workers weren’t overpaid.

“Have all your employees been with you a long time? When we separate them and question them, what will happen?”

They all looked at the workers and were making the men nervous. Marquez had seen two Hispanics loading the truck when they’d walked in and his guess was they were closer to each other than to the boss. They could separate them and break them down and his Spanish was plenty good enough for that questioning.

“I’m going to call my lawyer.”

“Why don’t you ask him about cooperating with us? Tell him we’re willing to deal today only. Today is very informal.”

Mauro walked to his office and they waited outside.

Roberts gave a crooked smile, showed a different side. “What do you think, do we have him boxed in?” she asked.

Marquez smiled, but he didn’t know yet. He thought Mauro would roll over but wasn’t a hundred percent sure. Mauro would play the percentages, he was pretty sure of that. He’d telegraph the situation to his lawyer without actually saying anything outright and he’d take his cue from the answers. He was on the phone now and that could be to his lawyer or it could be to poachers. That was the risk Marquez knew he was taking here. He’d done a lot in the name of expediency, lately. But they’d learned that both Bailey and Li had done business here and he had a feeling they were about to learn that Mauro was a practical man. After all, he’d tried to buy Li’s silence and had gone to him immediately. Perhaps he’d reason now that Bailey and Li were coming at him from com-pletely different angles and that would increase his vulnerability. They could hear the rise and fall of his voice, but not the words. They listened and waited.

Billy Mauro opened the door of his office and motioned them in. He dropped the shades that screened his windows from the work space and his forehead carried a light sheen of sweat as he sat down. He removed two 9 x11 color photos from a brown paper envelope and slid them across facedown to Marquez, then pointed at a printer in the corner.

“I printed from e-mail attachments.”

“Where did the e-mails come from?”

“After Li’s boy drowned, I let them know I was putting my business up for sale on the Internet.”

“Let who know?”

“The men you’re looking for.”

Marquez laid a hand on the photos but didn’t turn them over yet, wanting a more complete description from Mauro first and guessing that the photos had some shock value. He watched Mauro slide a desk drawer open, then suddenly he had a handgun, but he was holding the grip with two fingers to show he wasn’t pulling a gun on them. Roberts had already gone for her gun and had it out while Mauro laid his on the desk.

“No, no, officer, I’m just showing you the gun I bought after this. They threatened my family. I never would have done business with them otherwise. They watched my family and then came to me and said if I didn’t work with them they’d kill my family. My mother is ninety and lives in a rest home and they got her name somehow, so what was I supposed to do? Call the Department of Fish and Game?” He tapped his computer. “Your department is less than four hundred people, I looked it up. Are you going to protect me with only a few people in the area? No, of course not.”

“Maybe your friend the mayor could,” Roberts said. “You should have called the police and us and you know that. You wanted to make money and you saw an opportunity.”

Mauro’s broad face turned toward her. “You don’t have any children, do you?” She didn’t answer. Mauro looked at Marquez. “What about you?”

And Marquez had a feeling they were getting something like the truth now. “You always have to fight back,” he said. “Whether you’d called us or not, you knew it was wrong. But we would have had a setup here and eventually taken them all down. They never would have known you were involved.”

“Okay, you say that, but look at these first.”

Marquez read the expectation in his face and still didn’t flip them over.

“Where’s the e-mail?” he asked.

“Deleted.”

“On this computer?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get it back.”

“I’ve never retrieved one. You’ll have to show me.”

“You’re as bad as I am,” Marquez said, and Roberts was already on her feet, coming around the desk to help Mauro scan through his deleted mail.

It didn’t take long to find and open it and they didn’t find any others from the same address. There was no text, only the attachments.

“Open the attachments?” she asked.

“Go ahead and we’ll compare them to the photos.”

She opened the first one and Marquez flipped the photos over, a feeling like a cold finger on his chest touching him as he looked at the first one. It was a shot taken at the killing scene at Guyanno. At the far left of the print, part of Stocker’s arm showed along the left side of the photo. You could read a series of blue dots on Stocker’s bicep and Marquez realized that the tattoo really was the constellation Orion as Davies had said. His eyes moved off Stocker and followed the image. There was the trunk of the oak and the chain around Peter Han’s neck. Han’s head was pitched forward, his eyes closed. He was the subject of the photo and Marquez wondered if that was because Billy Mauro had some Asian blood in him as did Han. Was there a racial angle? Did they think Han’s murder would feel closer to home? He could make out a reflection of blood on Han’s thighs. It glistened, hadn’t dried yet, and he stared at it.

“Look at the other one,” Mauro said, seeming to know what he was thinking and Marquez slid the top photo off and looked at the one underneath. Han was looking up at the camera. His left side was bleeding, but there was no knife wound yet. Han had his head pressed back against the tree trunk. He’s trying to get enough air. He’s wounded and he sees what’s coming. You could see pain, fear, resignation in his eyes, but Marquez also saw something he thought was courage, defiance. He’d been shot, chained to the tree, and had known this was the end. Why Han?

“They told me this would happen to me. They called the day after Li’s accident, so I went to Li and begged him not to say any-thing to you.”

“Did Li see these photos?”

“No, no, of course, not.”

“Did anyone come see you?”

“Yes, a man came and I have a video.”

“Do you have sound, do you have his voice?”

“No sound.” He pointed up at the corner of the room and when Marquez saw the tiny lens buried in the wall, he knew he should have seen it when he walked in. Looking around, you wouldn’t expect something like that. “He was in the chair you’re in.”

Mauro put a CD in his computer and explained that the camera was activated from the desk and it burned a CD. He’d had it installed after he’d had a problem with a union rep. There’d been threats he’d been trying to get on tape and there was a sound system, but it was down temporarily. He played the CD for them now and they watched a silent movie.

Marquez didn’t give any sign that he recognized the man and asked, “Have you had contact with him before?”

“On the phone. I recognized his voice.”

“How often do they deliver?”

“Every few days.”