“This neighbor told me that Stella has always been afraid someone would break in and rob her. He’s like you, he can’t picture the statistically likely assailant. Where in Placerville did you last see Bill Petroni?”
“At 7-Eleven.” Marquez gave the time of day, a shorthand account of what they’d talked about. “He’s upset about his suspension and the bribe accusations. He’s angry at you. He said you’d passed on rumors to Bell so you could turn the heat up on him, even though you knew the accusations were false.”
“Then maybe I’m next. What was he driving?”
“The Honda.”
“Did you know this truck was here?”
“No.”
“He didn’t tell you he was storing it here?”
Marquez let the second question slide off him. He watched a TV van roll in and pointed at it.
“I don’t want to be on their tape. Let’s take this conversation somewhere else.”
They walked down the road to where Kendall had parked and got in the sedan.
“What did he want to talk with you about?” Kendall asked.
“You, for one thing. He feels like he’s being framed. He wants to know if you have any signed statements from anyone claiming he took bribes.”
“The answer is no, I don’t have anything signed, not with Brandt, the man you talked to, and not with anyone else either.”
Marquez took a deep breath, the images in his head those of Stella on the floor, the odd tilt of her neck, the hinge of her jaw torn loose. He’d known Stella in a lighthearted way when he’d been friends with Bill, been invited here when Petroni and Stella had bought the house, and remembered her loving to dance. He looked at Kendall, admiring the discipline, finding that to like about the detective, Kendall’s doggedness.
“Did you expect Petroni to call yesterday?” Kendall asked.
“No, it surprised me.”
“He called your cell?”
“You want the time he called?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll get it.”
“I hope I don’t have to explain our interest in his whereabouts this morning. Who’s the friend he was going to meet?”
“He didn’t give a name.”
“What else did he talk about?”
“Going into the roofing business. There’s a cousin with a roofing business and I don’t know the name of it but the wardens who work with him probably do. That cousin might know where Bill is today.”
“He talked about money problems?”
“A little bit.”
“And?”
“He wouldn’t take a loan from me.”
“How’d he show his anger toward Stella?”
“He didn’t.”
“You’re the perfect alibi, Marquez. You’re the go-to guy for this situation. You’re credible and you’re not going to cover for him.
But underneath it all you back him because you’re that type of guy. If he can show us that he was with you and then with this other unnamed friend later in the afternoon, and if she died yesterday afternoon, and it was somewhere around then, he’s got a step up on us, and I know you don’t believe a word of what I’m saying.
It’s inconceivable to you, I can see it on your face, but I’m betting he used you yesterday.”
“You said the neighbor noticed the open door this morning.”
“It was probably open since yesterday.”
“Stella is in on the kitchen floor, the door’s open all night, and no other neighbors noticed?”
“The porch light was off. There are six neighbors on the street, two weren’t home last night, one is bedridden. None of the others walked or drove down to the end of the street until the gentleman this morning with his dog.”
“That’s not what I’m getting at.”
“I know what you’re getting at. You’re wondering why the killer would leave the door open, and there are several possible answers, one obvious being that after following her into the house, the killer may not have wanted to be seen going out the front again, may have been afraid someone would recognize him.” Kendall’s eyes narrowed. “What’s he take home a month after taxes?”
“Not enough.”
“Not for both alimony and a life, and believe me I know the feeling. He’s trapped and there’s no way out as long as she’s got her hooks in his regular check. He did the math and it didn’t add up.” He paused. “How much did you offer to loan him?”
“Just a few hundred but he didn’t ask for it, and that stays between us. I don’t want it coming back over the table in Petroni’s face. I pulled the money out of an ATM to loan it, but he never asked me to and wouldn’t take it. He left it on the seat.”
“Don’t protect him, Marquez. Try to keep an open mind.”
“How open is yours?”
“I try to treat all homicides more or less the same.” He added quietly, “Before I heard about bribes I heard some other stuff I’d call unsavory, Petroni demanding additional fees from some of these bear hunters, that kind of thing. Not a lot of money, but twenty, thirty dollars a pop, and in cash from scraggly-ass locals he knew wouldn’t go to the police. He had a hard-on for some of them, so he made them hurt. And I wasn’t born yesterday, Marquez. I know three-quarters of these guys are more than happy to see a warden go down, and they don’t care how it happens as long as the warden’s life gets messed up. I’d heard all these stories before we had that Sunday roundtable with your chief and the internal affairs officer. I cut Petroni that break, but in the back of my head I kept asking myself why lie to me over trying to get Vandemere to quit harassing her. I couldn’t make that work so we decided to take another look at him and decided to see how he’d react to these accounts that he was on the take. I let him listen to one of the tapes, and he started getting loud. Telling me how he was going to sue me and the county and ruin me personally for slandering him. I had to get a couple of deputies to come into the room. He was running right on the edge and I think he crossed over yesterday.”
A sheriff’s deputy walked down the road toward them now, an officer young enough to still have acne. He looked both earnest and shocked, approached at a brisk walk, his eyes on Kendall in the driver’s seat.
“Looks like they need me up there,” Kendall said and unlatched his door. He turned to Marquez before getting out. “I know you’re shocked, but I can also tell that you’ve seen your share of killings before. I know when somebody has. Is that from your DEA time?”
“Yeah.”
“And now you’re in wildlife.” Kendall pointed at the young officer walking toward them. “Petroni needs to come in before we turn these kids loose to apprehend him along one of these roads somewhere. If he calls you again, tell him he’s got to come in immediately, and if I was Petroni I wouldn’t make any assumptions about what his years in law enforcement will do to protect him.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means he’s wanted for questioning in connection with a murder.”
26
When Marquez left Kendall he drove to Wright’s Lake in the Crystal Basin and slowly cruised the lake road looking for Petroni’s orange Honda. Half an hour later he called Kendall.
“I’m at Wright’s because he told me he might borrow a friend’s cabin out here. Didn’t say he would, said he might.”
“You should have told me.”
“I’ll check it out first.”
Marquez walked the rocky shoreline, aware that he was visible to anyone in a cabin along this side of the lake. He talked to Alvarez, then Roberts, telling both to stay focused on preparations for Sweeney’s hunt and checking the sites Nyland had stopped at last night. But it was useless. Stella’s murder and the hunt for Petroni swept everything else away.
“I’m less than five miles from you,” Roberts said. “I’ll drive there and help you.”
“Run out to Dark Lake first and have a look there and across from the wilderness lot.”
Marquez hung up with her and kept turning over a thought that he didn’t want to hold, that Kendall was right, Petroni had lied and there wasn’t any friend’s cabin. Petroni had used him as an alibi, nothing more, a final fuck you to a friendship lost many years ago.