“Making it real,” he whispered to Perry. “You’ve got to look dead,” and brought the gun down as hard as he could against Perry’s skull, fired twice near him.
Behind him Ludovna’s car started. Its headlights shined this direction, suddenly brightening the ground, lighting the bare vines. Marquez turned to Crey walking toward him, carrying the shotgun, coming out to kill me, he thought. He saw Crey start to raise the gun, and Marquez shot him first. Crey’s shotgun discharged and the blast went high as Crey fell. When he did, the Cadillac backed up fast but didn’t leave yet. The passenger window lowered, and Ludovna watched as Marquez walked up to where Crey lay on his back. He leaned over him and fired twice. He stared at Ludovna and yelled at him, waved the gun.
“Get out of here,” he yelled. “I did it, now get out of here.”
And he watched Ludovna drive away. He walked back to Crey, who’d been hit high on the shoulder and already lost a lot of blood. He staunched Crey’s bleeding, found a cell phone in the Blazer, and got a hold of a Sacramento County dispatcher. He held Perry and Torp at gunpoint as Roberts and Cairo made their way to him. They’d been on foot less than half a mile away when the gunfire started. They cut through the vines to where he was, and Marquez told them the new plan.
49
Sacramento County deputies took charge of the Chevy Blazer, and two ambulances followed police cruisers out the vineyard road. They took Crey out first, loaded Torp into the second ambulance, and Selke confirmed that Ludovna had returned to his house. An unmarked had picked him up as he came through the delta. He showed Selke where the fight had gone down in the clearing and then made his proposal as they drove away.
Down the highway they pulled off on another road, and Marquez waited with Shauf, Roberts, and Cairo. Cairo found him a sweatshirt. They all waited as Selke talked to his captain and ran the idea by him. He was a long time on his phone in his car. Then he walked back to where they were standing.
“You’re insane,” Selke said, “but my captain is willing to go along with your idea. We’ll call the Sac Bee and the TV stations, but there’s no guarantee. They don’t like this kind of stuff because they think it makes them look bad later, and we can’t just lie to them. Also, no one is going to hold the story forever so it’ll all have to go down fast, but everyone agrees it’s worth a try. You really think Ludovna was upset over La Belle?”
“I think so, but I think the real reason was you coming after them with murder warrants. He’s afraid some part of it will reach him. If Crey had killed me I think he would have shot Crey. Right now he’s probably thinking about how to deal with me. What’s going to happen with Crey, Perry, and Torp?”
“Well, it’s interesting. I called the Feds, and they’ve got a way to treat them and keep them away from phones and anybody they can talk to. They’re suddenly very interested in what Ludovna’s doing.”
“Get the TV stations to go along, and I think it has a chance of working. Ludovna has the TV on all the time.”
“We’ll see what we can do.”
The morning news reports were less than six hours away. Selke looked at his watch and shrugged. He was for trying the idea but not overly hopeful. Seemed like a long shot to him.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
Six hours later Marquez called Ludovna’s cell and told him to turn the TV on to KMAX. He added, “I should have had a shovel.”
Marquez watched the KMAX report. Three dead of gunshot wounds in a vineyard in the delta, a winery superintendent finding them this morning. Selke was interviewed as the detective in charge. On TV they were saying only that the bodies were Caucasian males approximately thirty-five to forty years of age. He watched the report and waited for Ludovna to call back. When he didn’t call right away, Marquez called him.
“Did you see it?”
“Yes.”
“No one is going to care about these guys. When they figure out they’re all ex-cons they’ll assume it was a drug deal gone bad or something. Everyone will say good riddance.”
“Don’t talk on the phone. You meet me at Raburn Orchards.”
“Are you kidding? Why there? Anywhere else but there.”
“There’s no one out there. The police are finished.”
“So what? I don’t want to be seen around there.”
“Meet me there.”
At noon Marquez met Ludovna in the packing shed at Raburn Orchards. He wore a wire. Ludovna got there ahead of him and was parked near the main house.
“What if someone shows up?”
“I already talked to the bank. I want to buy this property. It’ll be months before all the probate bullshit is done, but if a cop comes he can check with the bank.”
“Why are we here?”
“Because Torp and Perry and Crey killed them, and I have a gun I want you to put on Crey’s boat today.”
“What gun?”
“The one he used here.”
“I’m not tracking you.”
“He killed the Raburns. He killed them with the other two. Torp brought the kids down. The kids could have stayed in bed, but they brought them down to make the parents talk. They didn’t know anything. It was the goof, Raburn, who knew things and he tried to stand up, and they had to kill him before they could get the questions answered. It was all fucked up. It was all a waste.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Crey told me, okay.” Ludovna stared hard at him to make the point that it was the truth. But Marquez didn’t believe him.
“You killed three men last night. They would give you the death sentence, right? But only I know.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you do what I say this afternoon. You take the gun that’s here and put it on Crey’s boat before the detectives go there today.”
“Where is it?”
“In the building over there.” He pointed at the equipment building.
“How do we get in?”
“I have a friend at the bank, so I have a key.”
“The guy has been offed, and I’m going to walk down the dock, get on his boat, and plant a gun?”
“This way the murders here get solved. They find the gun and figure it out.”
“I don’t want to take a hot gun anywhere.”
“It won’t be so hard. You’re his friend, you’re coming by. People know you’re his friend.” Ludovna pushed keys into Marquez’s palm. “These are all of his keys. Someone asks you just say he’s your friend and you have a key. Lose the keys in the water after you put the gun on the boat. Okay, then like you say, it’s simple. The detective has his killers of Sherri. The FBI solves the case here, and when they go through the van Perry and Torp have been driving, maybe they find another gun that was used here.”
“Is that what’s going to happen?”
“What did I tell you Torp did here?”
“He walked the kids down and shot them.”
“With his gun, and his friend must have helped. Crey told me while we were waiting for you.”
“Right, while I was out in the vines shooting the idiots, Crey was confessing. Bullshit. And you sent Crey to kill me.”
“No, I sent him to check on what happened, to make sure you were okay.” Ludovna got close to Marquez, stood inches from his face. “You murdered him. I saw you murder him. I saw you murder three people. It cost me money because Crey owed me money, and now he’s not there to run the business and pay it back, so maybe you run the boat and the bait shop, or you hire someone and then pay me back.”
“I’m not running any bait shop.”
“You owe the money he owed me, and last night I let you take care of them. Now you owe me. If you have a problem with that, then we have a problem.”
They walked over to the equipment building, and Ludovna opened the door. The orchard machinery was neatly organized inside, and Ludovna led him to one of the tilling machines.