“Is Petroni staying here?”
“As in hiding out?”
“Yeah.”
“Seems like he’d find someplace farther away.”
Marquez watched the barn and house and everything as he walked toward the Honda. When he leaned over and looked through the windows he saw a large bloodstain covering most of the middle of the backseat. Rivulets had run down to the floor carpet.
He waved Shauf forward, keeping his eye on the windows of the house as he dialed Kendall.
“I’m at Johengen’s tree farm. Petroni’s car is here. There’s a large bloodstain in back. You’d better come on out.”
“Don’t touch-” Marquez hung up and knocked on the farmhouse door. He stepped to the windows and tried to look past lacy yellowed curtains, waited, stepped away from the house, and went back to the Honda where Shauf stood now.
“Someone died in here,” he said.
Two slow-moving flies reacted to his shadow and rose off the backseat. The plaid material of the old seats was torn in several places, and he saw an old mug lying in the passenger well, saw some paper scraps. He felt the heart go out of him and stood a long minute staring before backing away, making himself walk to the barn. It was chained shut, would take bolt cutters, and standing near the barn doors he caught a waft of something dead. He looked toward the orchard. The breeze blew from that direction, and with Shauf he walked out among the old apple trees. Another smell, the vinegary sharpness of decaying fruit, and then as the breeze strengthened again the decomp smell was stronger. His pulse bumped up, and he studied recent tire tracks in the orchard weeds. An odd pattern of crushed grass, something dragged out here.
He moved ahead of Shauf toward the thickening smell, the edge of the orchard where the embankment fell away, then spotted a carcass he feared was going to be Petroni, but it was a bear, recently skinned. A cloud of flies rose as he moved closer. He stooped and retrieved a piece of plastic tubing lying in the grass near the carcass. Studying the tubing, he put it together.
“We’ve got to get in the barn,” he said. “We’ve got enough for a warrant. Why don’t you call Roberts and ask her to get going on it while I talk to Bell?” He held up the plastic tube. “Tell her we found evidence of bear farming.”
“Why do we need a warrant with the county on the way here? Kendall will open the barn.”
“We may need it later.”
He looked at the barn, knowing Petroni could be in there. Petroni obviously knew this place, had put it in his log. Now Marquez called Bell, but the chief didn’t process it the same way.
Bell listened quietly, then asked, “Do you think he moved her in the car?”
“Stella?”
“Yes.”
Marquez realized how far Bell had gone toward accepting the idea Petroni had killed his wife.
“She never left her kitchen,” Marquez said. “They’re bringing bolt cutters to get into the barn here, and I’m ready to go into the house but we’ve been asked to wait.”
“Give me directions on how to get to you.”
Marquez and Shauf walked back across the flat open parking area to the orchard. A line of police vehicles rolled down the driveway and crunched through a glaze of ice over thin puddles.
“Protecting his crime scene,” Shauf said quietly.
Crime tape got strung and the front door of the house opened. Officers went in with guns drawn. Marquez wanted into the barn but all they could do was wait. Things moved carefully, yet steadily, and he picked up a new respect for Kendall, watching him direct traffic. Kendall quizzed them, went back to the Honda, and now came back to Marquez.
“Show me the bear carcass while they’re dusting the chain on the barn for prints.”
“What have you found in the house?”
“Someone has lived in the bedroom. It’s relatively kept up compared to the rest. ” “No blood?”
“Nothing.”
“Sophie told me about a rundown place Durham stays at.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
Marquez walked Kendall out to the bear, and Shauf cut through the grass toward them. She’d been on the phone to Roberts and wanted to talk away from Kendall. Marquez stepped aside with her while Kendall looked at the carcass.
“Melinda talked to the lawyer managing Johengen’s widow’s estate. He’s had this place rented to the same man for five years, though the name isn’t Durham, it’s Marion Stuart.”
“Sure.”
“She’s faxing Durham’s driver’s license photo to him. He’ll call back as soon as he gets a look.”
Marquez took a closer look at the orchard as he told Kendall they’d faxed a photo to an LA lawyer. He pointed out the tire tracks to Kendall, the other area of crushed grass, his idea that something had been dragged out here, possibly the bear whose carcass was on the embankment. They’d found the catheter, so that bear hadn’t come up from the willows and creek.
Kendall nodded and said, “There are media people already out on Howell. One of the deputies saw a couple of them hiking up outside the fence, so they may have cameras on us right now. I know you’re camera shy, but I don’t want you to leave.”
“We’d be the last to leave.”
Kendall indicated the plastic tube Shauf held. “That’s from the bear?”
“It was on the ground here near the carcass. A tube gets inserted surgically and the bile gets drained once or twice a day. We know Nyland hasn’t been coming out here twice a day, but we don’t know about Bobby Broussard or anyone else. It’s time to open up the barn. What are you waiting on?”
“It’s happening right now.”
Kendall left them and walked back out to his group. Looking around at the lack of bear tracks or scat and at the swatch of crushed grass, Marquez saw an image that explained the crushed grass, the bear dragged out here in a cage towed by a truck. He watched Kendall and Hawse go around to the creek side of the house past the cottonwood. As he walked toward them to see where they were going he caught a glint of metal and saw an old piece of plywood blackened with age and staked down with metal concrete stakes, the cover to an old well.
He pushed the grass along the edge of the plywood away with his foot and studied the metal stakes. They were a type that got used to support form boards in concrete construction, something he’d paid attention to lately as he schemed the bedroom addition at home. The steel stakes had bright nicks on them. Hammered, pounded in recently, nothing else would explain the marks. The plywood was blackened with age, spongy when he stepped on it, crusted with mud, and the stakes were rusty except for the bright spots, and now, leaning over, he determined the nails driven through the holes in the stakes were relatively new also. They were neither galvanized, nor rusted yet.
Kendall came around the corner of the house, waved across to get Marquez’s attention, and then pointed at the barn, meaning meet him there, they were opening the doors. Marquez studied the plywood cover more before walking across the clearing. The steel stakes had been driven in at an angle, and from the resistance to his pushing he could tell they’d been pounded in at least a couple of feet to pin the plywood down well. It would take some work to get them out, might require a shovel. A county deputy cut the chain holding the barn doors shut and as they swung open pale light cut the darkness. They could make out the shape of the near things, but not much more. From somewhere in there came a low, deep animal growl.
“Jesus Christ,” Kendall said, and the deputy who’d cut the chain pulled his gun, and stepped back.
Marquez put a hand on the deputy’s shoulder, slowed the man’s quick step back, saying, “It’s in a cage. It’s not running around in the barn.”
“How do you know that?” Kendall asked.
“We’ve been looking for this location for months.”
“Okay, Marquez, you come with me,” Kendall said. “Everybody else stay back.”
They clicked flashlights on, and Marquez swept the flashlight beam along each wall and across the dirt floor looking for evidence Petroni had been in here. Their lights reached toward the back where the growl came again, and he saw cages, knew the bear growling was in one of them. He counted seven empty cages and then one with an emaciated bear in it. The cages were set up over a metal trough that water flowed through into a drain. Excrement, urine, loose food, would fall into the trough and the water carried it away. He turned to Kendall.