‘Before you hang up on me, I want to ask you to send me an updated photo of Stoval. Can you scan me something I can carry?’
‘I don’t know when.’
‘I need it, Kerry. Do this for me.’
After hanging up Marquez didn’t know whether Anderson would send anything or not. He laid his phone down and thought it all over. A few minutes later he took a call from Chief Blakely.
‘I want to read you something I found on the Internet,’ she said. ‘It’s an old LA Times article.’
‘Do you want to forward it to me?’
‘No, I want to read this. It’ll only take a minute. Here goes, “California is responsible for more than a third of the cannabis harvest in the US.” That’s one stat and then this, “In California, the state’s Campaign Against Marijuana Planting seized nearly one point seven million plants this year – triple the haul in 2005 – with an estimated street value of more than six point seven billion dollars. Based on the seizure rate over the last three years, the study estimates that California grew more than twenty-one million marijuana plants in 2006 – with a production value nearly triple the next closest state, Tennessee.” It also says there were more marijuana plants grown last year than there are citizens in California. This is going to be a continuing problem for wardens. We’re going to need a field policy. I want your help crafting a policy.’
‘You don’t want me to write policy.’
‘We’re going to need an active policy to deal with this.’
‘Probably so.’
But it’s not going to be a role for me. He realized that Blakely was trying to deal with her feelings about Brad’s murder, her own sense of responsibility, and she was also trying to come up with a job for him. She knew what was going to happen.
‘You still there?’ she asked.
‘I’m here.’
‘I want to say something else to you today that I’ve been meaning to say to you for awhile. I want you to stay at Fish and Game. I don’t want you to resign no matter how this comes out. Did the FBI make you an offer?’
‘Yes.’
Blakely had gone up the ladder and he’d stayed a patrol lieutenant, but they understood each other. He’d always felt that. There’d been other chiefs he’d argued with, and then Blakely. He collaborated with her. He trusted her. She’d worked as a warden. She knew the field.
‘But you haven’t accepted, have you?’
‘Where I’m at is I haven’t talked to Katherine yet. But you and I both know I’m going to have to step down from the SOU and I may join their task force for six months.’
‘You could do six months on a leave of absence. We can work that out.’
‘Melinda Roberts should take over as patrol lieutenant and I’ve been working with a warden out of Bishop who wants to be and probably ought to be SOU.’
‘Adrian Muller.’
‘Yes.’
‘Muller is doing a good job in Bishop and knows the area. I don’t know who we would replace him with.’
‘That’s not his problem.’
‘No, you’re right, it isn’t.’ She paused. ‘Don’t do anything yet, John. Call me tomorrow.’
He briefed her on the bighorn investigation and hung up. That night Maria came to dinner bringing a bottle of red wine with her and an effusiveness that felt forced. She told funny stories about work but her eyes never rested anywhere very long. They fried small peppers in olive oil and salt and ate them with a glass of wine before dinner. These were favorites of Maria’s but tonight she picked at them with a nervous intensity and hurried through dinner, then asked, ‘Who really believes anymore that America stands for individual freedom and human rights? Everybody at the top of our government is either rich already or gets rich on the other side.’
Neither Katherine nor he touched it and Maria stood abruptly. She moved into the kitchen and started cleaning up. She moved in a way that didn’t leave any room for anyone to help, but Katherine got up anyway. She suggested to Maria, ‘Why don’t we get together later this week? Can you do that?’
‘I don’t think so, Mom. There’s just too much going on.’
‘Even for a cup of coffee? I’ll come down to where you work.’
‘It’s just really a weird time.’ She looked at Marquez. ‘I didn’t mean to get angry or bring my problems here. I’m sorry about that, too. Bye. I love you both.’
Katherine walked out to her car with her and when she got back, she said, ‘This is about her breakup with her boyfriend. She’ll get over it. He treated her badly.’
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘You’re right, you don’t. You’re not around enough to know. What is the FBI offering you?’
‘A position on a task force to go after Emrahain Stoval.’
She bowed her head and covered her eyes with her right hand and Marquez sat down and put an arm around her shoulders. He didn’t try to sell her. He didn’t say anything and Katherine said very quietly without looking up, ‘If you chase that monster, you’ll bring him into our lives. How can you do that to us? I don’t get it. I don’t understand.’
THIRTY-FIVE
The next morning Marquez met up with one of his team, Carol Shauf, to visit a concrete contractor they videotaped buying sturgeon roe from Holsing. The contractor was on the phone in his office telling a joke that they could hear from the reception area as if he was standing next to them. When he hung up and his secretary led them into his office they saw walls festooned with fishing gear and photos of him standing near his varying catches, a bluefin caught off Cabo San Lucas, a marlin in Antibes, a huge silver salmon hooked on the Copper River, and then his favorite, a sturgeon taken right here in the delta.
‘Do you wish you were Hemingway?’ Shauf asked as she studied a photo of him with the fishing pole and the beard.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Do you wish you were Hemingway in Cuba instead of a guy poaching sturgeon in Antioch?’
He looked puzzled then scared as he studied their cards, but managed to muster, ‘What can I do this morning for the Department of Fish and Game?’
‘Confess,’ Shauf said, ‘and we’ll hook you up and take you to jail. But I’d like to get a photo of you first so I can hang it on my wall.’
Marquez stepped in.
‘We’re here about sturgeon poaching as part of an ongoing investigation. We’d like to ask you some questions about Jeff Holsing.’
‘I’m not sure I know who that is.’
‘If I showed you photos of the two of you together would you remember him?’
Shauf had the photos and was delighted to show them. Then they sat with him for an hour and a half and decided he really didn’t know much about Holsing’s operation, though he did admit to buying illegal roe. His forehead dampened with sweat as Shauf brought up Judge Randall, a judge who liked to fish but never caught anything and blamed it on poachers. In northern California no one handed out tougher sentences. Shauf had a signed picture of the judge in his black robe holding a fishing pole. It was the first thing you saw when you came in the door of her house, but, in truth, nothing would happen to this contractor for buying illegal roe. An assistant DA would look at what they had and say, you’ve got to be kidding, so the only question was whether the concrete contractor could point them to another lead. He didn’t.
And so the day went, working links to Holsing. They let one fishmonger know he was likely to be charged. The surprise of being confronted with photos and wardens’ notes turned several denials into apologies and the fishmonger and another suspect agreed to make statements. At dusk, before calling it a day, he and Shauf bought sandwiches, chips, a six-pack of beer, and took it all down to the river. They sat on top of a picnic table, the beer between them.
‘So you,’ she asked, ‘what’s going to happen?’
‘They’ll conclude Brad was inadequately supervised and the team was spread too thin. They’ll recommend a reorg and I’ll be out.’
She took a pull of beer. This wasn’t news to her. She’d already come to the same conclusion and he didn’t doubt the team had talked it out. She reached for the potato chips and looked out over the river, saying, ‘If you go, I may go.’