‘We know Holsing. We’re working a large operation he’s part of. We’re closing in on a very big bust.’
‘Did you know about the Capay grow field?’
‘Yes.’ She added, ‘They’re using Zetas to keep the farmers in line. They have more sleepers in California than anywhere, except maybe Texas.’
Marquez nodded. It made sense. The Zetas were hired assassins who later formed their own cartel Kerry Anderson taught him about the Zetas years ago.
Nothing came of the search of Holsing’s boat and mid afternoon Marquez was at Fish and Game headquarters as a grim-faced Janet Blakely told reporters the SOU would stand down pending the investigation into the death of Lieutenant Brad Alvarez. She said it was a great loss for the department. She didn’t answer any questions about the killing. That night Marquez saw a sound bite from the press conference on Fox News. They showed Brad’s photo and those of the two shooters, now identified as illegal aliens working for remnants of the Salazar Cartel. Below the TV reporter in large white letters was the question, ‘ Are Mexican Cartels Stealing America? ’ By itself, the murder of a game warden wasn’t enough to sell TV news.
Brad’s body was autopsied and released to Cindy Alvarez four days later. He was cremated and a service was held in Folsom on an afternoon when thunderclouds boiled over the Sierras. Marquez attended the service in uniform. Katherine and his stepdaughter, Maria, came with him. He spent the next day with Yolo County detectives jointly investigating Brad’s murder with the FBI. He walked back up to the grow field with them.
A fugitive warrant was out on Holsing, but there were no leads, and that night Marquez packed and told Katherine he’d be back in three days. At first light the next morning he left for the Sierras. He crossed to the eastern slope and drove down to Mammoth. There, he caught the shuttle out to Red’s Meadow and hiked into the Minarets and up the trail to Lake Ediza, arriving after the sun had fallen behind the rim of the mountains and the small lake rippled with cold late afternoon wind. There was little snow this year and even now in late May the stream that fed Ediza was easy to cross. He drew water from the lake and set up a camp.
Brad was always collecting things and the running joke between Marquez and him was that he always later imbued those things with special powers, the smooth quartz pebble that carried good luck, a bear claw pulled out of tree bark that warded off evil, part of an antelope horn, a polished piece of petrified redwood he’d once given Marquez. He wasn’t a guy who wore ornaments or believed in much he hadn’t seen firsthand, yet he was funny about these natural fetishes. And he was passionate about Fish and Game work.
Marquez understood that. You didn’t get into this work for the money. It was a calling and Brad just liked being out there. When he’d started across the slope to see where Holsing and Talbot were going, good chance that a part of him was just glad to be outside on that open slope in the spring morning.
Marquez carried the piece of redwood with him, zipped it into the pocket of the jacket he’d wear tomorrow. He heated water on a gas stove as the Minarets reflected the setting sun and snow on the shoulders of Mount Banner and Ritter turned a rose hue. Before it got dark he slid his sleeping bag into his bivvy sack and got out the things he would carry up the mountain tomorrow.
Then he boiled water and cooked noodles and cut up two tomatoes he’d bought in Mammoth. He emptied sardines out of a tin on to the noodles. He tore up basil leaves, folded everything in, and cracked pepper onto the pasta. He ate out of the pot. It felt good to eat. He used the last piece of bread to wipe the inside of the sardine can clean and left the gas stove out to boil water for coffee in the morning. He washed the pot and packed up everything else he would carry out. Black bear were always around, but he doubted any were up here yet in this part of the late spring, and left his pack cinched tight, leaning against a rock. And maybe it was the grace of the mountains or the exertion of the hike in and finally eating. Whatever it was, he was able to sleep.
At dawn it was quite cold and he made coffee, ate bread, cheese, and dates, and then walked down to the lake and filtered enough water for the hike up. He slid the water bottles into the pack. He slipped the pack on and started up with an ice axe in his right hand.
There was no trail or any real need of a trail. The weather was fine and he could see ahead and knew his route. It was steep and long and jumbled with granite and talus, and then he climbed on snow. It was steep and there were places where you wouldn’t want to fall, but nowhere did he need a rope. On the saddle between Banner and Ritter he drank half his water and cleaned his sunglasses before starting up again. Here, the snowfield steepened and he kicked the toe of his boot in harder and used the ice axe.
When he summited Mount Banner just before noon he could hear Brad’s voice in his head. On top, it was cold and clear. Over the Minarets the sky was dark blue. He caught his breath sitting on a rock looking down at Lake Ediza, small and beautiful below, and at Thousand Island Lake and east toward the desert, and then down the long reach of the Sierras. This was a place Brad loved and Marquez walked the summit looking for a spot, then climbed down between rocks and found a place to tuck in Brad’s good luck talisman.
We do things to say good bye that defy rational explanation. You take what you remember and loved in a human being and you hold it in your heart, but still at times you need a photo or a ring or piece of clothing, something you can touch, a tombstone to visit where you can talk. Marquez knew from time to time he’d come back to this mountain. When he could no longer climb it, the mountain would still be here, and if part of Alvarez’s spirit lingered with it, and if the talisman held any good luck, the mountain would be safer for those that climbed. What better spirit to guard climbers than Brad?
TWENTY-NINE
Marquez was in Sacramento in Chief Blakely’s office on the thirteenth floor of the Water Resource Building. Blakely moved out from behind her desk and they sat at the table and talked.
‘You’re not going to be suspended, but the SOU won’t do any undercover work until the investigation is over.’
‘On some of our ongoing operations it’s going to be hard to pick up the pieces later.’
‘I know.’
‘How long will we be down?’
They looked at each other, Marquez with his big right hand resting on the table, his sun-weathered face in the shade of this room, Blakely not wanting to answer.
‘You’ve got court dates coming up and paperwork to do. You can check out leads, but the SOU can’t initiate any new undercover operations.’
Blakely didn’t address the real question, so he did it for her before leaving.
‘Melinda Roberts could step in for me.’
‘No, we’re not going there yet. There aren’t going to be any snap judgments. Go pick up the loose ends. Finish the reports. Get your team to focus again. If you want to check out the bighorn tip, that’s fine, go do that.’
The Fish and Game hotline, CALTIP, had recorded a call last night from a young woman reporting an alleged illegal bighorn hunt in the southern Sierra. That might be trophy hunters or bone merchants. A pair of the horns could net you sixty thousand dollars on the black market. The young woman who left the tip also left her phone number, and Marquez had left her a message.
When he walked out the temperature was close to a hundred degrees and the valley sky a hazy white-blue. He drove through the delta on the way home, past Holsing’s boat and then out to Holsing’s house in the Green Valley, a three thousand square foot, cedar-sided, two-story house there was no way Holsing could afford, yet had bought for cash. The house had been searched after the boat but the only thing of interest was a notebook and Holsing’s private cocaine stash. In the notebook was a page of handwritten codes that looked like this: