Kirk Russell - Shell Games

“I won’t lie to you, we bought some abalone illegally that we then used. We did that on four occasions. Where are you that it’s an issue this morning?”

“Guyanno Creek. What other ways did you try to infiltrate his network? Did you hire Davies?”

“No, and as I told you, Davies is a loose cannon and he may be the perp in the Huega case.”

“Do you have any proof of that or does it just fit to paint him that way?”

“I don’t need this from you and I don’t have time for it. What are you doing back there anyway?”

“Trying to figure out what I missed.” And it came to him now. Ruter had interviewed Han’s landlord in Daly City and came away thinking the landlord didn’t know who he was renting to. Han’s live-in girlfriend had disappeared fast, and no one up here knew him. He’d showed up with cash and drugs and cultivated Stocker. He heard Douglas’s soft exhale and then the pieces came together. “Han was FBI,” Marquez said softly. “He was one of yours,” and Douglas didn’t answer.

“You need to come here.”

“Not this morning, I’ve got a few more stops. Was he one of yours?” Douglas still didn’t answer. Marquez finished, “I’ll call you later today.”

He clicked the phone off, laid it on the picnic table, and then watched it ring and ring. When it stopped, he picked it up and called Ruter.

Ruter was already at a table on the restaurant deck, his briefcase leaning against his chair near his right leg. He buttered a saltine cracker as Marquez sat down, and there were bread crumbs scattered across the tabletop. It looked like he’d already finished a basket of bread and seemed self-conscious about it, brushing away the crumbs as Marquez adjusted his chair.

“The cooler weather makes me hungry and at home my wife’s there with a calculator adding up every calorie. There’s no butter in the house. We’ve got this oily shit in a little plastic tub that tastes like cold motor oil.”

Marquez nodded. His mind was on Petersen, and now Han, not Ruter’s eating habits. When the waitress came over Ruter ordered a BLT, Marquez a turkey sandwich.

“I think Peter Han was an FBI agent.”

Ruter’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t say anything and when a busboy landed a basket of bread Ruter handed the kid the butter ramekin. He pulled a piece of bread, tore it in half, and seemed to be contemplating the Han idea.

“Why would they keep that from us?” Ruter asked.

“Because they were afraid it would jeopardize their Kline operation.”

Ruter nodded as if something in the idea made sense to him, and a new tension began to form in Marquez. He watched Ruter lift the murder book out of his briefcase, open it on the table, put on reading glasses, and then scan his case notes.

“Han rented that house in Daly City,” Ruter said, “but a girl-friend lived there with him, a nice woman, according to the landlord, clean-cut and polite. Why I bring her up is she told the landlord that she was going to arrange a service for Han, said he had no immediate family, which would also fit. The landlord wanted to attend but he never heard from her. He tried to contact her, but the phone numbers she’d provided had been disconnected. I’m talking less than a week after Han is killed. She also never came back for her things.” He stopped as another idea occurred to him. “Han’s body is still at the morgue. Pretty soon, the county will have to deal with it, meaning no one has come forward to claim it. The Feds always take care of their own. They’d never let that happen.”

“Unless he didn’t have family and they felt they had to leave him there,” Marquez said, and thought, or maybe he wasn’t really there and they’d got the coroner to play along.

“Do you want what I learned about Han’s past employer?” Ruter asked.

“Everything you’ve got.”

“All right. Employer was Horizon Industries out of Belmont. You call and a rep will call you back and tell you they’re wind-ing down operations, moving to Nevada for tax reasons. Listed as a California C corporation that buys and sells used electronic equipment. Been in existence since 1997. The man I talked with confirmed Han had worked there, mostly at a computer screen. He also said Han used to talk about getting a job along the coast somewhere near the ocean.”

Their orders arrived and Marquez studied the turkey sand-wich, thinking that what Ruter had on Han could fit with his idea. He watched Ruter pick up his BLT and hit it the way he’d seen a great white hit a seal off the Farallon Islands last winter.

“Tice,” Ruter said, as he swallowed.

“Who?”

“Lenny Tice. The Bragg police call him Lenny Lice. He’s a local lowlife, one of Stocker’s friends. Tice suspected Han was an under-cover drug agent. I interviewed him and he threw that on the table, so you’re in good company.” He chuckled. “He thought Han was one of your old gang, DEA.” Ruter took another bite, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, wiped his hand deftly on the napkin. “Told me he wasn’t up for the dogs, the bullhorns, the long-haired undercover guys with their riot guns. Tice pointed us toward the dope at Huega’s girlfriend’s house and we waited to see who else would show up. That’s when the DEA got brought in. You’re saying Han was undercover trying to penetrate this Kline organization. Well, what did Douglas say when you called him? Which I’m sure you did before calling me.”

“He wants to sit down.”

“I’ll call him, if you want. As soon as we get out to the park-ing lot.”

Marquez handed the waitress a credit card and ten minutes later they were sitting in Ruter’s sedan, Marquez listening as he looked out at the ocean. He heard Douglas ask, “Are you sitting there with Marquez?”

“Yes, but I’m asking you.” Ruter picked at his teeth with a yellow plastic cocktail stirrer while Douglas hesitated. The FBI no doubt had a plan for how to handle any questions like this. Douglas wouldn’t want to dig a hole for himself but he owed the investigating detective a straight answer.

“Marquez came to you with the idea, so put him on.”

Ruter handed the phone over. “He wants to talk to you.”

“What’s the game we’re playing here?” Douglas asked.

“I’m looking back at everyplace the SOU has been and who we had contact with and that has to do with Petersen.”

“We’ll talk and no bullshit, but not over a cell phone. That okay with you?”

“That’s fine, but when?” Marquez asked.

“Today. Now what are you doing with CATIC?”

“I got a list of boats from them yesterday.” CATIC was the California antiterrorism coordinating body set up after 9/11. All boats coming into California ports were supposed to go through a notification process and be boarded by a team before coming into port. Marquez had requested a record of all vessels sixty feet or longer docking in California in the last two months. From that he’d culled his list. “Nothing has changed since we last talked. If we find anything, we’ll call you first.”

Douglas relented. “He was one of the good guys, Marquez.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It hit us hard.”

“I’m sure it did.”

Marquez hung up and handed the phone back to Ruter, and told him Douglas had finally confirmed that Han had been an FBI agent. A half hour later he was at Van Damme State Park. There was a kayaking outfit in the parking lot getting their clients ready to paddle out to the sea caves. He looked at the expectant faces of the largely middle-aged group and wondered if he’d ever visit those caves again in his life. He didn’t turn into the parking lot but into the camping area on the other side of the road and found Alvarez and Roberts looking glum, sitting on Alvarez’s tailgate up near the end of the paved area, drinking Calistoga juices. Brad’s hair was wet and he wore a wetsuit peeled down to his waist.