But that was only hope. Sue was away from this life and laughingly told him she’d gotten back into surveillance work lately herself, trying to catch a contractor who’d done some work on her house but not finished what he’d promised to do. Hearing the light roll of her laughter was like being there with her and he hung up, smiling.
Two hours later Alvarez called and said Nyland had just called his cell and suggested having a drink together at the Creekview that night.
“I told him I’d call him back.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I’m okay with it.”
Alvarez sounded confident and they decided he would go. They’d wire him up and Alvarez would buy all the drinks, tell Nyland next time around was his buy.
When Marquez hung up with Alvarez he drove to meet Shauf and Roberts. He climbed the winding Crystal Basin Road, then broke from that onto Weber Mill Road, a dirt road cut into the canyon face high above the highway and river. About a mile down Weber Mill, they were waiting for him. He read their upbeat expressions as he slowed to a stop, Roberts with her hands jammed in the pockets of her coat, hair floating off her shoulders in the wind, and Shauf in a T-shirt, oblivious to the ridges of goose bumps along her arms, her solid face loosened with pleasure.
Driving along Weber Mill, Shauf had spotted a sun-faded Budweiser can sitting on the whitened stump of a pine tree maybe twenty yards below the road. Roberts hit the brakes, and Shauf hiked down the steep slope to the beer can. When she picked it up she found it was filled with sand and then started looking around, guessing the can had been left as a bait pile marker. Sometimes it would be a strip of cloth tied to a limb or a slash in the bark of a tree.
“I saw it sitting on the stump and thought about Nyland making all those beer runs to 7-Eleven before driving home at night.”
She turned. “Do you want to walk down there?”
Roberts stayed behind to watch the road. They might have to hustle back up the slope if she spotted someone, but they could clear the area before anyone drove up. Shauf had found a path of sorts, and they followed that down through dry grass and brush. It was slick and steep and then the brush was chest high, and through the trees Marquez could see the highway and the whitewater of the river running shallow in October. He heard a truck downshifting, each gear shift carrying easily in the steep canyon. They wouldn’t tell anyone about this bait pile. He thought about where they would bury cameras as they got closer, and he saw the makeshift blind. Shauf pointed out a route at least one bear took coming up through the alder and gooseberry.
“We found tracks of four different bears.”
The bait-pile smells were rotted fish and the winey vinegar of old apples. From debris and paper trash and bear scat, he saw enough of everything that it told him whoever serviced this bait pile had been at it a while.
“Waiting for bear season to open,” he speculated. “Three days from now no one will notice the rifle fire.”
Shauf pointed to a shirt and an old leather boot, meaning whoever kept this bait pile was trying to familiarize bears with human smell.
“So I was thinking one camera here,” she said, and Marquez looked up the slope to where they’d walked past a fallen oak and the trench dug behind it where the hunter would wait.
“Yeah, that seems right,” he said.
They hiked back up the steep slope to the road and drove on farther down Weber Mill, winding along, tracing ravines and folds, driving through stands of pine, darker there, and then out across the open face until the dirt road hooked up with the second paved access road climbing from the highway east of Kyburz.
“Melinda is going to make the run down to Sacramento to get more cameras,” Shauf said. “Then we’ll bury them later this afternoon.”
After Roberts drove off, Shauf lingered and Marquez leaned back in the open passenger window of her van to talk to her. Her question was simple. “Did Petroni screw up?”
“I don’t know.”
“The rumor is bribes. One of the dispatchers down at the Region IV office asked me about it.”
“It’s out?”
“Big time.”
“Kendall is passing on rumors, but he’s getting them from more than one spot.”
“I wouldn’t trust Kendall to park my car, so that doesn’t go far with me. Have any of these people come in and signed anything?”
“I don’t think so, but he put me on the phone with one of them.”
“No kidding?”
“A man who said he’d heard about a warden who was getting paid to be scarce and had warned about an undercover team working in the area.”
“When was this?”
“A few days ago.”
“How come you haven’t said anything?”
“I’m not sure I believe it.”
She was quiet, then said, “Coming from Kendall, I don’t either, but that’s worrisome.”
“Yeah, it is. I’ll see Bell this afternoon about the tip on the politico hunt and if there’s a chance to talk about Petroni with him, I’ll ask what’s new. I know Kendall is talking to him.”
“Think he’ll tell you anything?”
“He might. Do you want to get a cup of coffee before I take off?”
They bought a couple of lattes in Pollock Pines and sat in her van. Two hours later Marquez was in Sacramento sitting across the desk as Bell cheerfully told of the second meeting he’d just had with the senator’s assistant.
“Her name is Dianne,” Bell said. “Or that’s the name we’re going to use. She gave me a copy of a travel itinerary for the senator, bookings that she did for him. When she asked if he had a permit, a bear tag, he told her he didn’t need one. So she did her own research and found out you do need one.”
“What made her do the research?”
“Said it was just curiosity about how it all works with bear hunting. Then she started thinking about it and got upset. Someone I met at a fund-raiser gave her my card.”
“What fund-raiser was that, chief?”
“I don’t know. But does it matter?”
Bell drummed on his desk as he described her certainty and his own confidence that she was telling the truth. He envisioned the publicity that might come from the case and dismissed the idea that they’d be accused of targeting this senator for political reasons, not entirely dismissing it but explaining he would handle that part. He leaned to slide Marquez a printout of the senator’s itinerary, dates and times over a three-day period.
Marquez stared at the dates. They would hardly have time to get ready, and they had their hands full already.
“I’ll get you more wardens. We’ll transfer people in,” Bell said.
The itinerary showed Senator Sweeney staying at a South Lake Tahoe casino the first night and the next day coming down from Tahoe to a refurbished boutique hotel in Placerville called the Lexington. Marquez knew the hotel, checked the dates again, saw Sweeney had reserved at the Lexington the night before opening day of bear season.
“I’m not even certain your team should know his name,” Bell said. “This could leak very easily.” He stared earnestly. “It’ll be a bombshell if we bust him. We could see CNN coverage.”
“If this assistant is correct and he does take a bear illegally and we arrest him, her name will come out. Does she know that?”
Marquez asked.
“It won’t come from us.”
“We probably should tell her.”
If Bell heard that, he didn’t give any sign. He started talking about Sweeney, where he’d come from, how he’d gotten elected. Sweeney still owned a car dealership in Bakersfield, was partnered with a former sports figure, baseball or football player, Bell couldn’t remember which. But Marquez knew Sweeney’s face, had driven past a billboard on Highway 99, Sweeney, the guy who’d grandstanded by suing the governor over the budget, smiling down at the highway. A short guy with a big head, a lot of hair and attitude.