He gave Keeler a ride back to Ice House, and shortly before noon Marquez was back in Placerville in a judge’s chambers. The judge knew Petroni enough to be concerned and asked Marquez what he knew about Petroni’s situation, what did he think? The judge was the first human being outside of Keeler who seemed concerned about Petroni. Marquez told him what he knew and then a few minutes later watched quietly from a side door as Nyland pled not guilty to all charges.
After leaving the courthouse he talked with Katherine from his truck. Kath was driving and almost back to San Francisco. She sounded more philosophical about Maria’s missing school. Her mom, Lillian, had been a high school teacher and would help Maria with chemistry. She was also an avid outdoorswoman and planned to take her hiking to lakes below the Inconsolable Mountains.
They were going to Lake Sabrina today, so whether they’d overreacted or not, there was at least the silver lining of Maria’s spending time she wouldn’t otherwise have had with her grandmother.
Tomorrow they’d drive up to the bristlecone park ten thousand feet up in the White Mountains, and Lillian would show Maria the oldest living trees on earth. Years ago, on Maria’s tenth birthday, Lillian had taught her how to shoot a rifle, taking Maria up a dry canyon behind the house with a handful of Coke cans.
They planned to do more of that as well.
“Give Maria a call,” Katherine said. “She needs to hear from you.”
“I’ll call her.”
“Did I tell you the building permit got approved? They left a message. I told Maria, she’s very excited.”
“That’s great.”
Contemplating that build was like thinking about another world, but that was the world Katherine was trying to keep his head in, and he knew it was lucky they’d been approved.
When he hung up with her he tried to reach Maria on her cell phone, and when that didn’t work left a message on the answering machine at Lillian’s house. Then, driving away from the courthouse he took a call from Kendall.
“I hear Nyland made bail but you’ve taken away his wheels.”
“We impounded his truck. One of the lookouts was driving it that night.”
Marquez didn’t say they’d moved the transponder to Sophie’s truck, didn’t feel like he owed Kendall that. Alvarez had done it after she’d driven into Placerville and parked.
“He’s going to be angry when they kick him loose,” Kendall said. “He’ll act out.”
“That’s the way we read it too.”
Marquez had talked it over with the team that day and believed Nyland’s reaction could be violent when he learned what they’d impounded. The charges, the equipment he was unlikely to ever get back, the loss of guide license, and the possible loss of the right to ever hunt again could easily set him off. They would have to assume their identities were known by Nyland and be very careful following him, yet at the same time the route to Durham most likely was through him.
“Did you think about what I said earlier about Petroni?”
Kendall asked.
“Yeah, and I don’t see it.”
“You don’t see or you don’t want to see it?”
“Both.” Marquez took a breath, debated, said, “I found the place on Howell Road Petroni had made notes about. Johengen’s was a Christmas tree farm and apple orchard. Johengen died twenty years ago, and his wife is in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. A lawyer manages a living will. I was out there this morning.”
“Tell me how to get there.”
Marquez gave him directions, then parked his truck on the east side of town and waited for Shauf. They rode out to Eli Smith’s house and found him sick with the flu and sweating when he answered the door. A half-full bottle of NyQuil sat on his kitchen table, and the heat was turned way up, windows closed. Coming from the cold outside air, it was hard to breathe in the house.
Marquez showed Smith a badge, let him adjust to that before suggesting he be careful with his answers.
“We’re about to make more bear poaching arrests.”
“I don’t do any illegal hunting.”
“All you have to do is be truthful.”
“All I did was get ripped off.”
Marquez waited until Smith looked up at him again, face pale, body shaking with chills.
“Bobby Broussard gave us your name, but let’s go back a couple of steps and talk about the guns you reported stolen.”
“I told the detective I loaned them out. A man can loan his guns out to whoever he wants.”
“No one loans prize guns to just anybody.” It was why he’d loaned them that Marquez wanted. “Who’d you loan your guns to?”
“A friend I hunt with. His girlfriend came by and picked them up a couple weeks ago. He wanted to borrow them, and she brought them back to me the day before they were stolen.”
After Delano had confirmed the rifles were registered to Smith, they’d asked that he not inform Smith yet. Delano had no problem sitting on the information, and Kendall didn’t care about it because neither gun matched his Vandemere bullet.
“Did Nyland keep your guns because you owed him money?”
Smith flinched at the sound of Nyland’s name.
“She brought them back.”
“The guns have been found.”
Smith looked down again. Probably was promised by Nyland that they wouldn’t be sold or found by anyone. “How much were your dogs insured for?” Marquez asked.
“What?”
“We know they were insured, same as the guns,” Shauf said.
“We know you contacted the insurance company the same day you found them, and they contacted the police and asked for a report.”
Smith nodded, his eyes on Marquez. Marquez measured him, then taking a gamble, asked, “How much money did you owe Nyland?” He watched Smith string it together now, tying it to last night and making the assumption that Bobby had told them. The connection showed just for a fraction of a second in his eyes, and then he was slow to answer. He reached for the bottle of NyQuil and chugged a big swallow.
“Five grand,” Smith said.
“And you didn’t have a way to pay it.”
“I’ve been working it off with the guide company.”
“Sierra Guides.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We were there today and we saw your name in the records, but they haven’t done many guided hunts. You could say business has been slow, or you could call the business a shell.” Marquez reached over and tapped one of the survivalist magazines. “You know all about conspiracies, Eli. If we sit Sophie down and swear her in, is she going to testify she brought the guns back? What do you think? How far do you think she’d lie for Nyland now? Is she going to testify in court that she brought the guns back to you?”
“She did and they were here.”
“How much were the dogs insured for?”
“I loved my dogs. I wouldn’t do something like that.”
Marquez waited and Shauf shifted in her chair, stared hard at Smith.
“Ten grand,” Smith said.
“They pay out?”
“They’re still investigating.”
“Who came up with the idea?”
“What idea?” He looked baffled. He shook his head as though that would make it all go away. But nothing would ever make it go away.
“You owed Nyland five thousand,” Marquez said.
“I’ve been working it off.”
“Did Nyland get the guns as a down payment? Sold them cheap, filed the number so it would look like they’d been stolen? Not wanting to mess up your insurance claim, expecting to be paid from it. I’m pretty sure he sold them for what he could get, and it was on you to come up with the rest of the five thousand.”
Was Sophie set to get part of the money? Marquez remembered Petroni’s saying Nyland owed her money and that’s why he was fixing her truck. Maybe she took part in the scheme because of that. Had Smith poisoned his own dogs? If not him, who else? Neither Nyland nor Sophie would have had a reason to come out here that night. “I loved my dogs,” Smith repeated, and Marquez didn’t even want to know how he’d balled up hamburger meat and walked out and fed them. He wanted to know something else though.