“The Feds can be pretty damned good when they want to be.”
“Right, the Feds are invisible, and the Russian mob just invaded the delta in a submarine they stole from the old Soviet navy.”
They turned out of the slough and onto the river again. There were more gaps in the fog as they headed downriver, and Marquez figured the day would turn pretty. He liked the smell of the cold mornings when they just started to warm on the river. You could tell the time of year in the way it smelled. Water slapped against the bow as they ran through patches of sunlight on the water. Ruax hadn’t said anything since they came under the trestle bridge, her bitterness overwhelming her again.
“You didn’t have any of the cinnamon rolls. Do you want to get something to eat?” he asked.
“There’s a place up here ahead where you can dock, and it’s good for breakfast.”
“Is the coffee good?”
Ruax smiled and her face lit up. “No, we joke about it. The coffee is terrible, but they’ve got an egg scramble that’s great.”
Marquez kicked the engine up, and they crossed the river. He turned to Ruax as they slowed, approaching the dock.
“What do you say we eat and figure out how we can work together?”
22
Marquez pulled the Fountain from the water at Loch Lomond, and after he’d parked the boat and unhitched the trailer, Ruax followed him to San Francisco. She went in to have a look at August Foods, and he left her there and was on his way back to the delta when he took a call from dispatch. Two duck hunters had found a strange dumping ground. One hunter had left a phone number, and Marquez called and talked to the man, who then agreed to meet him. He scribbled directions and turned toward the rice fields where the hunter said he’d be waiting in a white Ford pickup.
Marquez got there ahead of the hunter and talked with Shauf while he waited. More had come in on Torp and Perry. Shauf had made it her project to find out.
“Torp did five years for his part in a gang rape. He and a friend fed Liquid X to two high school girls in Hayward. Roofies and GHB. Both were found in his apartment, and his friends testified he’d participated in two rapes. DNA matched semen found on both girls, but somehow the evidence got tainted and Torp ended up with a light sentence. He got picked up on suspicion of rape in Washington about two years before that.”
“Anything with children?”
“I can’t find anything. Perry graduated from burglary to grand theft to aggravated assault, did two for a robbery. He was Richie Crey’s cellmate in Lompoc.”
“What about sex crimes?”
“None, but another thing about Perry is he broke three of his stepfather’s ribs after getting released last time.”
“Where’d you get that from?”
“A deputy in Bakersfield. The stepfather brought charges, then dropped them and called it an accident. It would have put Perry back in.” She was quiet a moment. “Can I talk to you about something completely different? My brother-in-law is supposed to be here this weekend with the kids.” If she was wondering if she could get time off, they’d find a way. “If he gets here, I want to have them over for dinner, and when our operation ends or we get shut down, I’m going to go stay with them for a couple of weeks.”
When her sister died the family was living in Folsom, and she had thought she’d play a much bigger role raising the kids, but her brother-in-law Jim found he couldn’t stay in the same house and had taken a job in southern Cal last March. Since the move she hadn’t seen much of the kids.
“When I talked to Jim last night he said he had to tell me something before I came to stay with them. He’s started seeing someone. He’s got a girlfriend who sometimes stays the night. He wanted me to know she might be there when I’m staying with them. I didn’t say much. What am I going to say anyway? It’s his life, and I know how hard it has been for him, but I’m having a real hard time with the idea of staying in the house and someone there taking my sister’s place.”
“She’s not taking her place, is she?”
“I know he’s got to go forward and all that, but for me it just doesn’t feel like it’s been very long and now the anniversary is coming up. I didn’t think it would affect me as much as it has. I was shaking all day today. I don’t care how nice she is; it’s just too soon for me. But if I don’t sleep there I won’t be around the kids when they wake up in the morning. I want to be there Christmas morning if I can, if we’re not watching these bozos. I want to bring a trunk full of presents and see their faces.”
“You’ll be there, and the other part, he’s got to go about it his own way. No one else can know what it’s been for him.”
She didn’t say any more, and the duck hunter drove up. Marquez followed him out to the blind. They crossed a large tract of private property and went through several gates. Then, out beyond a duck blind at the spot where a dirt road ended, there was a pile of fish heads and tails. Marquez knew before he got out of the truck that they were all sturgeons. A biologist had once told him that a sturgeon today fit almost perfectly into fossilized imprints its ancestors left two hundred fifty million years ago.
“When did you find these?”
A few of the tails were large. He began counting, and the hunter pointed.
“About a week and a half ago we were out at the blind down there. The dogs smelled this, and we came down here.”
Marquez had counted better than sixty so far, all sturgeon. He turned back to the duck hunter, a young guy, overweight, earnest.
“Were you the one who called CalTIP?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you wait to call?”
“I don’t know. We thought they were for the rice for next year’s crop. You know, maybe to fertilize it or something.”
“Did you know they were sturgeon?”
He nodded. “One of the guys I hunt with goes sturgeon fishing.”
“Then he knows about the legal size limits.”
It was called the slot size. A legal sturgeon was between forty-six and seventy-two inches. Some of these were way over and some under. If the friend fished sturgeon then he must have realized that.
“It wasn’t really any of our business.”
“It’s everyone’s business. Part of why this is dumped out here is someone figures no one will bother.”
“Look, I called it in.”
“I’m not riding you about it. I’m just telling you we need help from everyone.” Marquez pointed at the pile. “There are more poachers than wardens. Call it in right away next time.”
Marquez finished the count and followed the white Ford back out. He knew the duck hunter probably felt like he’d tried to do some good and had gotten lectured for his efforts. But it was going to take a lot of help from the public to save some of these species. He relayed to Shauf the eighty-two sturgeon heads he’d counted.
“Someone like Raburn,” she said. “Where are you headed now?”
“To pick up one of the older cars and go by Weisson’s Auto. Maybe the one Alvarez hit the tree with chasing those bear poachers up in the Trinity.”
“The Scout?”
“Yeah.”
“It still runs?”
“It runs okay. Where are Torp and Perry at?”
“Rio Vista. The bait shop. Torp just bought a bag of Cheetos and a six-pack of Bud, so they’re having lunch. Then it’s back to the office and a busy afternoon for both of them.”
Marquez smiled. Shauf knew that after what Torp and Perry had connected for them with August, it was worth staying with them. But later, if they went down, despite their prior records the DA would likely allow a plea bargain reduction from a 17B felony to a misdemeanor conspiracy charge. They might get sixty to ninety days of jail time, but more likely home time with a bracelet, which probably would force them to scratch out a living making dope and meth deals from Crey’s house.
Now Marquez drove the old Scout toward Weisson’s Auto. The engine ran raggedly. It coughed blue smoke, and the transmission ground into gear when he pulled away from stoplights. When he drove up, the fence gate was open. He drove past an old yellow diesel Mercedes and a battered Ford van, vehicles they’d watched get moved at closing time a couple of nights to positions partially blocking access to roll-up doors on this face. They’d picked up on some of the habits of the owner of Weisson’s.