Marquez looked at Maria holding small binoculars to her face, hiding the binos with her hands. Julio wouldn’t be armed, and his friends were gone. He was alone and back down at his boat, tying it off. He might have a place he needed to deliver the sturgeon to, but they weren’t going to follow him there.
“Let’s walk on down there,” Marquez said, and Julio smiled but was leery as they approached.
“Do you recognize me?” Marquez asked.
“Sure, I sold you that one that time.”
“That’s right. Is this your boat?”
“My uncle’s.”
“The uncle who taught you about sturgeon?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s he at today?”
“Home.”
“How’s that college account coming along?”
Julio hesitated at the change of subject, then pride got the better of him.
“I got in,” he said, and his eyes were full of hope and light. “I got the scholarship, and I’m earning the rest. I’ll be the first one ever in my family to go to college. But how come you remember all that?”
Julio looked to Maria’s face for the answer, then back at Marquez.
“Maybe because Maria has applied to colleges. This is my daughter, Maria. We saw you wrestling with the fish, and I recognized you. We watched your friends help you load it into the pickup.”
“Do you want to buy another one?”
“No, but I want to talk to you. Why don’t you walk with me a minute?”
“What for?”
“Because I don’t want you to sell it to anyone, and I think I can convince you.”
Marquez showed him his badge, and the kid’s face fell as they walked down to the end of the dock. He told Julio what he could cite him for and what that might do to the scholarship, told him the sturgeon had been here two hundred fifty million years, but it was going to take the ones like the fish in the back of the pickup to keep the species going.
“I’m sorry,” and he was a big strong kid but close to tears. “I’m really sorry.”
“How about you give me your word you’ll do something to make up for it, and I don’t bust you on the first day of the year you start college?”
Of course Julio gave him his word, gave it immediately, and Marquez got his full name, wrote it into his notebook. Julio Rodriguez.
“I’m letting you go on this because I think you’re good for your word.”
Julio was scared but trying to face him. He squared his shoulders, looked Marquez in the eye, then looked away.
“I can’t remember the last time I let someone go who has taken as many as you have.”
“I’ll never do it again.”
“Everyone says that, but make that the truth, and I want you to tell your uncle what happened out here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Last time it was Abe Raburn you called. How did you meet Raburn?”
“Isn’t he dead?”
“He is.”
“I met him through my uncle. We delivered a couple of fish to him.”
“To the orchard? Was there a packing shed or did you take them to the houseboat?”
Julio didn’t seem to know either of those places. He shook his head, then described a two-story blue house out in vineyards and another man who was also there and talking in a foreign language his uncle said was Russian.
“What town was it in?”
“It was up from Courtland in the delta. We followed Raburn there.”
“How far off the levee road?”
“Like a mile or so.”
“And when you got there the Russian guy was there?”
Julio nodded.
“Would you recognize him if I showed you photos?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay, I’ve got some photos in my truck.”
Julio looked at a stack of photos that included August, Ludovna, Crey, Torp, Perry, and six other poachers they’d taken pictures of.
“I don’t know.”
“Fair enough. How long ago was this?”
“Like four months.”
“Okay, look at these photos and eliminate the people you know it isn’t.”
Julio laid the photos on Marquez’s hood in the sunlight, and the air was just gentle enough today to where they didn’t blow off. He began to take away photos. He picked up the shots of Crey, Ludovna, a couple of sturgeon fishermen and put those in a pile by themselves. He hooked a fingernail under the prison mug of Torp, and then Perry, uncannily pairing the two before moving them out of the way.
“Not one of those two?”
“No.”
“And Raburn led you out to this house?”
“Yeah, we loaded in someone’s car there.” He remembered more about the property now. “You drive through a lot of grapevines first.”
Now there were only four photos left, and among those remaining, August was the only one fluent in Russian. Juio concentrated on each photo, his eyes moving from one to the next and back. He remembered his uncle had caught a sturgeon in San Pablo Bay. He’d called Raburn from his cell, and when they’d gotten to Raburn’s houseboat, Raburn was already up under some trees near his truck waiting. He’d given Uncle Carlos a beer because the day was hot. It was dusk when they drove out the road to the blue house, and there were a couple of cars there. His uncle drank the beer as they drove, and dust blew in the windows because they were following Raburn. He remembered the house because it was blue like the sky, and now Marquez thought he knew which house it was. One of the photos Raburn had downloaded.
Julio had heard the man talking, and his uncle said it was Russian he was speaking to somebody else inside the house. The man came outside in the heat, looked over the sturgeon, and paid Raburn, who then paid his uncle. They moved the fish from their pickup to Raburn’s.
“Raburn was going to clean it,” Julio said, “but he had to show it to the man first.”
“So you were just there a few minutes?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see any other people?”
“Just the other cars.”
There were four photos left on the hood, and Marquez pointed at them.
“And you think that man might have been one of these four?”
“Maybe one of them.”
“If you had to pick one, who would you pick?”
He didn’t pick August, picked a carpenter instead, a guy who was working on a Fish and Game building.
“I may need to speak to your uncle later today. If I do, I’ll call you this morning, but we’re done here. You can go.”
When they got in the truck Julio was back down at his boat. He kept his head down as they pulled away.
53
“Are we going there, Dad?”
“Yeah, if you’re okay with it we’re going to take a ride into the delta and look for this house.”
“That’s fine, and it’s really pretty out here today.”
“Do me a favor.” Marquez handed her his phone. “Scroll through the address book until you find SEH. Right above it will be SEC. It’s a guy named Stan Ehrmann. He’s with the FBI. The H is for his home number.”
“Clever.”
“Yeah, I know, and I try so hard to be cool.”
“Okay, I’ve got it.”
Marquez held the phone to his ear, and a teenage boy answered. He said his father had gone to find a store that was open to “get something for my mom.”
“Tell him John Marquez called. Here’s my phone number. Will you tell him I need to talk to him this morning?”
The road was empty and clear, and Marquez drove hard. He waited for Ehrmann to call back.
“That guy was so up about college,” Maria said.
“Yeah.” He glanced over at her. “You heard where he’s coming from.”
She didn’t say anymore about it, and they crossed the river and came up past Poverty Road and the pink-stucco Ryde Hotel. People were starting to get out into the day. There was traffic and a long line of motorcycle riders going past from the other direction and a few boats out on the river. They were already to Isleton when Ehrmann called.