Gerhardt was at his desk. “I won’t take much of your time,” Marquez said, and watched him drop his reading glasses and slide his chair back.
“I’m sorry about last night, John. We got there as quickly as we could.”
“I short-noticed you.”
“You couldn’t help it.” He frowned. “We’ve searched town for this Bailey and your wardens seem to think he’s gone, but you’re not here about him, are you?”
“No, I’m here because I just met with the FBI.”
Gerhardt nodded, reached across his desk, his big-boned wrist pulling free of his sleeve as he picked a card from a holder. He squinted at it, holding it a distance away, before fumbling with his glasses again. “Special Agent Charles Douglas,” he said. “He was here with another agent this morning. He wanted to talk about the sequence of events last night.”
“Did he say why?”
“He couldn’t discuss it.”
“The FBI called off our pursuit of the Emily Jane and I think they probably watched the whole thing here last night. They had the Emily Jane under surveillance and we stumbled into that when we showed up with Bailey.”
“They didn’t say a word to me about being in town with any surveillance team.”
“That was my next question.”
Marquez handed back the card, thanked him again for back-ing them up last night, and then drove to the hospital to meet Keeler. A couple of red-tailed hawks circled in the late morning sky above the parking lot and the air was clear and cool as he walked toward the entrance. Inside, the air was humid and rich with chemical odors. People had surgeries that saved their lives and children got born and many good things happened in these places, but he associated hospitals with some of the worst memo-ries of his life. He moved quietly in here, asked at the desk where the surgery waiting room was, and when he walked in, Keeler was alone in the large, empty room.
There were gurneys in the corner and a couch arrangement where Keeler sat. From behind, he looked like an old valley rancher on horseback, hands folded into his lap as though holding reins. He sat straight-backed, a legacy of Marine Corps training. He’d thinned at the shoulders in the last few years and his waist bulged where his uniform shirt was tucked in tight. His white hair was cut short and neatly combed. He wasn’t far from retirement now, and lately had been talking about hanging it up next spring and working on his almond orchard behind the old farmhouse he’d bought and was restoring outside Davis. He was also refurbishing an aluminum-skinned Airstream camper and had plans to go all over the United States with his wife, Clara. The chief turned at the echo of footsteps in the empty room.
“How is he?” Marquez asked, meaning the chief’s old friend who was in surgery.
“It’s worse than they thought.” He touched his abdomen. Marquez knew it was some kind of cancer. “I’ve lost three of my oldest friends in the last year and a half to cancer. I hate that. I hate it that they had to close him up and they’re going to tell him they can’t do anything for him.” His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “Goddammit, I hate it.” He touched his face, pressing fingers into his forehead, looked at Marquez and said, “You know, I can remember him like yesterday when we were no more than twenty-one. He was the one the girls always went for.” He shook his head. “Tell me what happened last night.”
Marquez walked through the sequence of events but left out telling Roberts to get off the boat. “I’d like to try to find the Emily Jane,” he said. “They berthed somewhere up north.”
“You want to pit your unit against the FBI?”
“No, sir, but we can’t stop doing our jobs because they’re after somebody. They owe us a lot more information, Chief.”
“Why do they owe us if we walked into their operation?”
Marquez was unsure how to answer that. The Feds had wiped out a bust after he and Roberts had to bail off a boat at gunpoint, yet he also knew Keeler’s respect for the FBI was almost unques-tioning. He’d brushed with the chief on this subject a couple of times before and had learned that saying anything openly critical of the FBI was something Keeler saw as unpatriotic. Yet he could also sense an opening here. Perhaps because of the circumstances of the morning, perhaps because of the risk Roberts and he’d been in or a conversation he’d had with Baird while driving here from Sacramento this morning.
“Chief, I need the Emily Jane. We can find it without approach-ing anybody on board.”
“Should we tell the FBI to cancel their operation?”
“No, sir.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“There’s a reason we crossed paths. We may be looking for the same people.”
“We may be, in which case we’re lucky the Feds are on the case.” Keeler looked at him quizzically. “Are we leading back to your ghost killer?” Marquez shrugged. He’d already pushed the Kline idea far enough without evidence and Keeler didn’t care for speculation. “Officially, there’s no way I can let you do that.”
“I understand.”
Marquez watched a nurse walk through carrying a clipboard, smiling at them as she passed. He let Keeler think and was quiet. It was a foundation belief of Keeler’s that no one should ever get away with endangering a peace officer, and he was counting on that.
“Did this FBI agent say anything to you about abalone poach-ers?” Keeler asked.
“They have an informant aboard the Emily Jane.”
“They didn’t tell Chief Baird anything this morning. They apologized for having to intercede, but that’s all.”
“I think that’s because we’re after the same man.”
“If you’re right, they’ve got a lot more resources to go after him. In that case we should stand aside.”
“They don’t know the coast or the people that live along it the way we do and it’s my judgment that we can’t afford to wait.”
“We’re not going to deliberately cross them.”
Then what are we going to do, Chief? Are we going to watch? Call them up when we have a lead? Marquez listened to the hospital noises and let Keeler weigh his own risks. The doors opened, a surgeon came out and then walked over to Keeler. He sat down on the edge of the couch and told the chief more about what they’d found and talked about other forms of therapy, but was candid that the odds were poor. The chief took this in quietly, then asked ques-tions about what kind of care his friend-a widower and without immediate family-would get. What could be arranged? What could he do? The surgeon outlined generally what would happen, then slowly stood, said he was sorry, again.
Marquez walked out of the hospital with Keeler soon after. Keeler was thinking about his request, but it was no longer the right time to ask. He got Bailey’s toolbox and the evidence bags he’d gathered out of his truck and showed Keeler the nine millimeter, its handle wrapped with electrical tape, then put the box with the gun in the back of Keeler’s Isuzu after asking the chief if he’d drop the gun at the Department of Justice in Sacramento. He stood at Keeler’s window, talking with him a little longer before Keeler drove away without answering whether they could look for the Emily Jane, or not.
Now, in the sunlight in the warm cab of the truck Marquez felt the long night like two heavy hands on his shoulders. He was slid-ing down the backside of adrenaline. He closed his eyes, reclined the driver’s seat, and felt the sun on his face. Had to doze, had to rest a little before going on. He thought of Katherine, her dark hair falling at her shoulders, the bright light in her eyes when she laughed. She was due back today. He’d have to call Maria this morning. Then he let the fatigue take him and closed down.