Leaves stuck to his boots as they walked the mud between the pear trees. They worked their way closer. The Raburns didn’t have any dogs, and it was unlikely anyone was behind a darkened window in the main house with night-vision equipment. The single light outside the canning shed door glowed yellow and hazy at this distance, but with light-enhanced cameras they could read the terrain, and the lines of the canning shed took form. Her car was still out front, Isaac’s pickup near the house. Up on the levee road Shauf drove slowly past and on down toward Raburn’s houseboat. She said the lights were off there, his pickup gone.
“Take a drive through Walnut Grove and Isleton and check the bars. Maybe you’ll find him in town,” Marquez said.
The cold deepened, and a few more lights came on in the main house. Marquez read Alvarez’s face in the dim light from his cell screen, saw his breath cloud in the cold. The wind picked up. Cindy Raburn was still in the canning building at 10:00 when lights started clicking off in the main house. Not long after, Isaac stepped out onto the porch, and they watched him walk up the gravel road to the canning building.
“Bringing her dinner,” Alvarez said, and it looked like he was carrying a plate.
Isaac stayed in the shed an hour then walked back to the house.
“We’ll stay until she locks up and leaves,” Marquez said. “She may be doing more than one thing in there. There may have been a whole other delivery we missed.”
Traffic died off on the levee road, and the night quieted. Marquez talked to Shauf on and off. She was about a mile away from them off the side of the road.
“How is it?” she asked.
“Cold out here. It feels especially cold tonight.”
“Yeah, it does, and you know, that’s the part I’m not going to miss.”
“We’re getting older, I guess.”
“Think we’ve made any difference?”
“Sure, we’ve slowed it all down. Some of those people would still be out there poaching.”
Marquez talked with Alvarez about a case they’d never solved, a hunter who’d made it his mission to hunt down and kill mountain lions. As far as they knew he was still out there, and the rumor was he claimed his wife had been killed by a mountain lion. They knew he was from out of state and didn’t know much more about him, except that he had a knack for tracking lion. At midnight Alvarez said he’d rather take the first than second shift.
“Then I’ll see you at around 4:00.”
Shauf picked Marquez up on the levee road, dropped him at his truck, and he told her to go on to the safehouse and sleep. He’d see the night through with Alvarez. He ran the engine long enough to heat the cab, plugged his phone in to recharge, lowered the seat, turned the radio on low, and listened to Lucinda Williams singing. It didn’t take long for cold to seep back into the truck, and when he finally dozed he was listening to the wind high in the trees. He dreamed of a simpler time when he’d been much younger and the world had looked more open.
At 4:00, before hiking back out along the edge of the orchard to take over from Alvarez, he drank a cup of cold coffee. Then he made the mile walk from his truck. The cold wind had strengthened, and Alvarez said he’d been moving around to try to stay warm.
“She’s still in there, Lieutenant.”
After Alvarez faded into the pear trees Marquez repositioned himself. He zipped his coat collar up and about twenty minutes later saw headlights he recognized as Abe Raburn’s slow on the levee road. Checked his watch, 4:22, thinking, okay, here we go, we’re on. Shauf hadn’t found Raburn’s pickup when she’d checked the bars or his houseboat earlier, but here he was now. His headlights flashed through the bare orchard trees. He pulled up in front of the shed, parked, and went in. A few minutes later Cindy Raburn left the canning building. She hurried down the road to the house, and Marquez waited for Raburn to come out.
But nothing happened. Marquez had been close to calling the safehouse and waking the team, had expected him to load and go, but instead, the lights went out in the canning building and Raburn was still in there. Now, he came out and walked around on the gravel. It took Marquez a minute to realize Raburn was talking on a cell phone. Then up on the levee road a car slowed and turned down. Marquez read the profile as a Toyota hybrid, a Prius, as it drove past his position. It drove slowly along the gravel road until Raburn stepped out into the headlights and directed the driver to park near the canning building door.
The driver got out, and Marquez used the light-enhanced feature to tape boxes getting loaded into the rear of the hybrid. He called Shauf.
“Raburn showed up and took over for Isaac’s wife, and now we’ve got a driver picking up a load of boxes. Looks like Raburn Orchards boxes. Get everyone up at the safehouse. We’re rolling.”
He called Alvarez and woke him as the hybrid started moving. Alvarez picked up the car as it climbed up to the levee road and then gave it a lot of room. Marquez hustled out and up to the road, and Shauf dropped him at his truck.
“She’s going toward I-5,” Alvarez said.
“You say, she?”
“Looked like a white female at the wheel when it passed me, but I’m not sure yet.”
“How good a look did you get?”
“I didn’t. The driver is wearing a cap. I’m running the plates right now.”
“Good, because I didn’t get them when it went past.”
The hybrid got on 5 northbound and continued into the darkness beyond Sacramento. Cairo passed it and reconfirmed the driver was female and they already had a registration address in Thousand Oaks. Southern California.
“A long way from home,” Marquez said, and thought of the car Ludovna had stolen and burned.
“Who’s closest?” Marquez asked.
“I am,” Roberts said, “and I like it. It’s a nice color blue. I think it’s an ‘05. I wish Detroit would get off its ass and start making a good hybrid. I’d like to get one of these.”
“Keep working at headquarters,” somebody said, and Marquez asked, “How can you tell it’s an ‘05?”
“Some article I read, the detailing is a little different.”
Marquez felt the subdued optimism running through the team. They were still in darkness but they had the car surrounded. They wouldn’t lose it. He hadn’t said so yet, but he’d also thought it was a woman who’d gotten out and helped Raburn load boxes in the rear. With night-vision goggles it was difficult, things bulked out, but in general men and women walk differently, not all, but most, and then something in the way she moved her arms, shifted to let Raburn slide a box in. You carry a memory of the way somebody moves.
Shauf and Cairo had to be wondering too. Marquez edged closer to Alvarez’s truck, rode up near him and took over the lead at first light.
“What’s the gas mileage on those hybrids?” Alvarez asked.
“Two and half times what we’re getting.”
“That’s why I’m asking. I’m there. I’m at a quarter tank.”
Alvarez pulled off at the Mobil, Shell, Chevron signs up ahead. He was just getting back on the freeway when the first sunlight came through the passenger window of Marquez’s truck.
“Right lane at sixty-five,” Marquez called out. “Sitting on sixtyfive.”
He felt sunlight touch his face and heard Alvarez say he’d picked up two cups of coffee. “One for you, Lieutenant, unless I finish this one before I catch you.”
“Catch me, I could use it.”
As the sun rose, Marquez dropped back, putting more space between himself and the hybrid, his mouth dry, heart racing, though nothing had changed in the last hour. But there was daylight now, the shape of a head, a cap coming off, Roberts said. Dark brown hair, and, from behind her, Roberts used her binoculars to look at the reflection in the rearview mirror.