Kirk Russell - Shell Games

“I remembered something.”

“Good, I’ll be right there.” He shut the cabin door, climbed onto the dock and peeled his gloves.

“They’d all gone up toward the street and then one of them came back down and got back on the boat. I believe he threw something in the water. I heard a splash like a brick would make.”

“Could it have been something bigger?”

“No, I’m sure it was small. He stopped as he was going up and then came back and threw it in.”

A diver could check under the dock. He could dive himself. He looked down at dark oily water. Would they find anything in that mud? He wrote his cell number on another card and handed it to her, telling her his first name was John, and asked hers. “Corinne Mathews,” she said, and he shook her tiny hand, grateful for her willingness to help. She was still watching as he backed his boat out. He gave her a wave and a smile, though he was very troubled by the Opal ’s presence here. The bay was still flat and calm all the way out to the Gate. No sailboats this afternoon, some motor traffic but not much. Marquez got on the phone to SFPD before pushing up the throttle, angling the boat as they transferred him around. They wanted to wait to see if Davies showed up today and reclaimed his boat and he hung up thinking he might as well call Douglas.

Marquez had gotten his boat, a twenty-nine foot Fountain, sev-eral years ago at a Fed auction. The hull had been damaged during a DEA bust and the boat went for way under market value, and still it had stripped his savings. It took another ten grand to repair the hull, but he didn’t think there was a manufacturer that built a better off-shore boat and had figured it would help his team. He’d named it Bonfire after Katherine’s nickname and when it had some engine problems three months ago he’d blamed it on the separation.

But it didn’t have any engine problems this afternoon and he reached for the throttle and kicked it up. The Fountain carried two 502 Mercs. It blew through fifty and he raised the tabs, opened the throttle.

“Where are you, Davies?” he asked aloud. “What happened there last night?” And the wind tore his words away as the Bonfire ran for home.

Marquez’s phone rang as he drove away from the marina. He’d been on the phone to Keeler, trying to reach an agreement about how to handle the Mauro situation and expected it to be Keeler calling back before he saw the screen read “Private Number.” When he answered he heard multiple voices and his immediate reaction was that someone had inadvertently hit his phone num-ber, perhaps an informant. The voices were male and the sound muffled as though from a cell phone in a coat pocket. He heard yelling now, someone saying, “Back up, back up!” Then another order in Spanish and several seconds of quiet followed by muffled voices, and one voice much clearer that he was sure belonged to whoever carried the phone, saying, “Okay, okay.”

He thought he heard someone pleading, but it was distant like something you might imagine you hear in the wind, then three dis-tinct pops that Marquez knew was the sound of gunfire, and the phone clicked off abruptly. The next call came in minutes and he stared at the screen unable to recognize the number and still wondering what he’d just heard.

“Lieutenant Marquez?”

It was another detective investigating Meghan Burris’s murder and wanting to meet him in Pillar Point. For several days Marquez had tried to get back on board the Open Sea, Heinemann’s boat. He knew it had been searched already-the detective told him they’d like to go through the boat cabin again today with Marquez present, the implication being that Fish and Game now could have a look.

Marquez got there in just over an hour and there was very little to look at. The detective, a freckled middle-aged woman, showed him loose papers with nothing coherent on them, an address book that Marquez thumbed, and a log she’d found in the boat cabin.

“I’m looking for anything with the name Mauro on it,” Marquez said. “He’s an Oakland fish broker and it’s unlikely he knew Burris, but Heinemann may have dealt with him.”

Mauro had insisted that wasn’t the case, that he didn’t know anyone named Heinemann and Bailey was always alone. The poach-ing angle he’d already talked over with this detective several times in phone interviews, but she went back through it pedantically now as Marquez searched the cabin. He left the Open Sea an hour later having learned nothing and walked past Bailey’s empty berth. He met briefly with Cairo, then headed north, talking to Keeler at dusk as Keeler was leaving headquarters. Douglas had called complaining that the telelocator readings were static. Either the equipment was malfunctioning or most of the team was in one location all day.

“They aren’t carrying them,” Keeler said. “You tell them they’re making us all look bad after we gave our word.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Or I will.”

Keeler hung up and Marquez called Hansen. He wanted Hansen’s perspective on the FBI as an overseer, to hear what the FBI had him doing and what Hansen thought about the homeland security patrols he’d made for months. Hansen was onboard the Marlin, coming up from the south bay.

“Reminds me of my riverboat days in Nam,” Hansen said. “It’s just the times we’re living in. The Feds have new information about every two weeks. They don’t have any choice but to check it out and until they’re comfortable again, they’re going to run all of us. Tell you where our boat is at right now, we’re passing the old naval yard south of Hunter’s Point, and I’m looking at the abandoned crane that loaded the Hiroshima bomb. That says something about all of it, doesn’t it? Hey, I saw one of those Fountains streaking across the bay this afternoon. Looked like someone familiar standing tall at the wheel.”

“Where were you?”

“Berkeley pier.”

“You’ve got some good eyes on you still, Nick.”

“They’re the only thing that’s held up. I’ll talk to you later.”

Marquez got Katherine on her cell phone on her way home from Maria’s doctor. She asked him to come over to talk about what the doctor had said. He headed to Katherine’s house, making a call to Petersen as he drove.

Petersen had gone out to the campground at Salt Point chas-ing down a poaching tip and interviewed a woman staying in a camper there. Her husband was a retired Park Service ranger who’d become suspicious of a couple of divers staying in the campground. Last night he’d seen headlights after midnight and got out of bed when he heard voices. He’d copied down the license plate of a white panel van after he’d seen the divers loading coolers into it. When he’d turned his flashlight on them and demanded to know what they were doing, someone had struck him from behind. From the damage to his skull and the pattern of the bruising the hospital speculation was that he’d been hit with a hammer. He was still in the hospital and Petersen had gone there after talking with the woman.

“He’s going to be okay,” she said. “He was able to talk just fine, though they didn’t allow me more than a few minutes with him. He’d written the license number on his palm with a pen, but he also fell on that hand and they cleaned it up at the hospital while he was still woozy. He didn’t realize they’d rubbed the ink off. Both he and his wife say they can identify the men who’ve been camping at Salt Point.”

“But they’re gone now.”

“Yeah, they’d dragged him into some bushes and his wife didn’t realize what had happened until she woke and started worrying around three in the morning. She called the sheriff, and deputies found him. They’ve already got a composite worked up and tomor-row I’ll take that around to the harbors and bars and see if I can find anyone that recognizes these guys.”