Dead Game (25 page)

The next morning
he rode into San Francisco with Katherine, and it was nice to be together. They were out of their routine for once. He looked at Kath’s face, her profile, the ghost streak of white hair along the dark hair at her temple. They drank cappuccinos, sitting at one of the marble tables at Presto on the Wharf, the new one, and he watched her with her employees, the deft way she communicated.

Then he took her car, because Maria was going to pick her up later. He drove over to Golden Gate Avenue to FBI headquarters, where Ehrmann was waiting for him. Marquez had three of the photos with him and more copies of those at home. When he’d left Selke he’d called a photographer friend in Oakland, then emailed the three fishing access photos. His friend ran them through his software program. You could read the faces now on the man and woman in the parking lot. You could read the license plates on the
cars. He’d run the plates on the BMW and gotten the name Sandy Michaels and the same southern California address as the Cadillac that Ludovna had burned. He rode the elevator up and then waited as the duty officer found Ehrmann.

Marquez couldn’t remember a face that had changed more than Ehrmann’s had in less than a week. The skin under his eyes was very dark and sagged. He had a cup of coffee on his desk, but his movements had slowed.

“Lieutenant, do I look that bad?”

“You look like you’re carrying it all. You couldn’t have known.”

“They moved those two vehicles every day. I made an assumption I shouldn’t have made about why they were there. We could have gotten someone in the night before to check them out. Those agents are dead because of my failure, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about today, and I don’t want to talk about it. There are several people who are going to sit in with us, and I’d like you to take us through it, including any theories you might have of your own about the Raburn murders.”

They moved to a conference room, and Marquez recounted his conversation with Raburn the day before. He gave them the approximate time of that meeting and knew they’d gather Raburn’s phone records and go through his computer and determine who, if anyone, he contacted after Marquez had left. Then he related driving out there the next day with Shauf and finding the bodies.

“They would have done them in the house,” Ehrmann said, “if it was a straight execution. They wouldn’t have walked them down there without a reason.”

“The door wasn’t locked or latched, but it binds on the jamb and was closed enough to be stuck shut. I pushed it open. But I’m
saying this because the wind was out of the east that night, and one thing that struck me was that Cindy Raburn and her daughter, who both had long hair, had pools of blood around their heads and must have bled before the wind blew their hair into the blood.”

“What’s that mean to you?”

“Only that whoever killed them didn’t just walk in, shoot them, and leave. Makes me think there was questioning going on, and if the killings had to do with sturgeon poaching, then it’s very possible it all comes back to Raburn’s working with us. If it looks like an organized crime–style killing to you, could that mean it was somehow retribution for the Weisson’s bust? What I’m wondering is if someone thought Raburn knew something, had information they could get out of him. Since we did connect sturgeon traffic through Weisson’s, it’s possible that Raburn let slip that he was working for us, and they tied the bust to him and killed him out of retribution.”

“Highly unlikely.”

Something Marquez had said caught the FBI’s attention. It didn’t matter whether they told him or not. All that matters is that they find who killed them. He pulled out his photos, had planned to show them only to Ehrmann, but what difference did it make? He kept them face down and then slid the lone shot of Anna’s car across the table to Ehrmann.

“Where did you get this?” Ehrmann asked.

“Off Raburn’s computer yesterday. I met the county detective there. Someone I know was able to improve the quality. That’s Anna Burdovsky in the fishing access lot she staged her disappearance from. This next photo seems to have been taken after another car pulled in alongside her.”

Marquez slowly flipped over the photo with both the BMW and Anna’s Honda. The cars were side by side. With a magnifying glass you could now read the license plates.

“The BMW is registered to a Sandy Michaels, which as near as the county detective can tell may be a fictitious name. We followed Nikolai Ludovna in a Cadillac with the same registered owner. The Cadillac was allegedly stolen and burned. I say allegedly because we think he had it stolen. The point is both are registered to Sandy Michaels.”

He waited. The first two photos were slid around the table. It was obvious they’d already seen them, and no one looked surprised. Instead, they watched him as he flipped over the next one. Again, he slid it to Ehrmann.

“I think the photos are sequential. This is after the BMW pulled in and they both got out of their cars.”

“Okay,” Ehrmann said. “Any others?”

“One. I asked a photographer friend what he could do with the profile of the man and then to compare it to Karsov.”

Now he had their attention. He slid the enhanced headshot and the computer profile comparisons onto the table for everyone to see. “Who’s this photographer?” someone asked, not Ehrmann, but one of the others.

“With our Fish and Game surveillances we’re often taking photos from a long distance, so I’ve paid attention to the advances in improving the quality of photos, particularly digital.”

Marquez did not give the name of his friend in Oakland. Nor did he get asked again.

“My friend seems to think that’s a match. He downloaded Karsov off your Most Wanted List on the Field Office website.”

“It is a match,” Ehrmann said.

“I’d like to ask a couple of questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“Did the FBI ever have any contact with Abe Raburn?”

“No.”

“Did you take over from the county because you suspect the Raburn killings were an organized crime hit?”

“It has those earmarks, but that’s as far as it goes right now.”

“Okay, then let me ask it this way, could this in any way be connected to Karsov smuggling arms?”

“It could.”

“Then I have a question about Nick Ludovna.”

“Go ahead.”

“When he immigrated to this country was the FBI in some way his sponsor?”

Marquez caught the reaction of the man across the table. But Ehrmann answered matter-of-factly.

“He was a Special Interrogator for the KGB, and we were very interested in talking to him and in getting him to talk to us. Specifically, in his KGB role he had interrogated some of the criminals we were pursuing and a few we’re still pursuing.”

“Karsov.”

“Yes, a younger Karsov was incarcerated for a year.” The photos had all made their way to Ehrmann’s end of the table. “We’d like to hold these,” Ehrmann said, “and John, I’d like to talk to you alone before you leave.”

When he did, it was to reiterate how vital it was Marquez didn’t talk to anyone about any of this. “Not even your wife.”

Marquez drove home with it all turning in his head. He found Bob the cat outside on the back deck. The idea was to leave him in the house for a week to get used to his new surroundings, but he’d
pushed his way out through a kitchen window and was sitting in a chair watching the birds in the brush below. Marquez sat down in the chair next to him and got up again when he heard a car in the driveway. To his surprise it was Chief Baird.

“You change vehicles so much I didn’t know if you were home. I was going to leave a note. I’m down here for a conference.”

“Do you want to come in and talk, Chief?”

Marquez offered him a beer and asked if he wanted to stay for dinner, but Baird said his wife was with him, at the hotel right now. They were making a little getaway out of the two-day conference, or at least out of the nights, going out to dinner, and the city was decorated for the holidays so it was particularly nice to be here.

“What’s the chance of you and Katherine getting away for a few days?”

“Probably not much chance of that right now.” He added, “Katherine just got back from a trip.”

“She likes to travel though, doesn’t she?”

“Loves to.”

“It might do you some good. I heard about the Raburn murders this morning. I tried to call you. Did you get my calls?”

“I’ve been with the FBI, Chief. I just got home. I was going to call you this afternoon. Why don’t I make some coffee?”

Marquez made coffee, standing in the small kitchen. The chief took his with a lot of milk. Marquez poured himself coffee and told Baird about finding the bodies, then Selke and now the FBI taking over. He talked about Crey.

“He offered me a partnership, and I took him up on it.”

Marquez sensed that what the chief really wanted was to say
now was, “We aren’t going to do anymore in the delta right now about sturgeon poaching.” But he was too tough for that. He wanted Marquez to volunteer it instead, and when he didn’t, Baird slid into the future.

“When this is over I’ve got a new role for you in the department. I want you to train wardens in undercover work. It’s a position we can afford and the best way to make use of your experience. And you’re due for a promotion.”

“If I make captain then I’ll be behind a desk and never run the SOU again.”

“The SOU will go down until there’s new money budgeted for it.”

Nothing was said for a minute. Marquez watched a squirrel run along the deck railing outside.

“I’m going to give you some time to think it over, but I want you to stay.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t like my idea.”

“It’s a fine idea, but I don’t see myself behind a desk writing training programs. I belong in the field, or maybe it’s time for me to call it.”

Baird ran out of time and had to get to the city and meet his wife. On the way out the door he paused, turned, took in the big frame of Marquez blocking the light, sun-gold hair with gray in it, the broad face.

“I have not forgotten why we are here, Lieutenant. I will never forget.”

They stood looking at each other a moment. Then Baird nodded and left.

They’d told him
one other thing when he was at the FBI, that Anna had hired an expensive lawyer. Jack Batson. Marquez knew of Batson and had read about his plush below-ground office on Montgomery Street the press had dubbed “The Bat Cave.” That was where he wanted to meet Marquez when he called the next morning. They agreed on the delta instead, and Marquez got there early enough to walk the trail out to the water and find the place up on the levee where the photos of Anna and Karsov had been taken.

A BMW dropped down from the levee road, and he recognized Batson at the wheel. Batson’s car was a BMW M5, an older model, dark blue. Batson got out, looking like he was dressed for a safari, and maybe that’s what coming out here meant to him. The delta reached back into a different time and didn’t have the fast roads the high rollers needed to get from place to place. BMW seemed to
be the car of choice this week, though this older model was probably not his regular car. Not with the money he was making. But give the guy a break. He’s just another lawyer.

“Lieutenant, thank you for meeting me, and I know you’ve been through a lot and my client feels deeply responsible.”

“She should.”

They shook hands, Batson with a firm grip, warm brown eyes, eyebrows like Bin Laden.

“This is where she faked the abduction,” Marquez said.

“Faked may not be the right word.”

“It may not be, but I don’t know what she was thinking. I’m just speaking from my point of view. Her car was right about where yours is when I pulled in.”

“She didn’t want anything to do with it. Are you familiar with the Patty Hearst syndrome?”

“Is that what you’re going with?”

“We’re going with the truth.”

Marquez nodded. “Well, the truth sometimes works. It’s at least worth a try.”

“She was forced to deliver a stolen vehicle to Las Vegas. That’s where she went from here. I doubt the FBI has told you that. She left her car and drove that car to Vegas, as she has done other things to protect her son.”

“Well, I don’t have anything I need delivered, so what can I do for you today?”

“Karsov forced her into all of this, and instead of following through with the deal the FBI cut with her in return for her help bringing him down, they’re now trying to bring murder charges against her. They’re claiming she was part of a conspiracy to
commit murder. They’re not interested in justice, only revenge for their officers killed. Anna has asked me to approach you and see if you’re willing to help.”

“What could I possibly do for her?”

“On the stand you could counter the manner in which the FBI will paint her character. She’s not a killer, and they’re going to frame her. At the moment she just wants to talk to you. She did help your team before all this happened.”

“Not really.”

“You encouraged her, you told her she did.”

Marquez couldn’t believe it was possible but had to ask. “You do know she burned us, right?”

“No, she did what she had to. She didn’t burn your team, and she shares the same intense feelings about the land.” Marquez thought, forget it, what a waste of time meeting Batson. He took the conversation back to the car.

“So she picked up a car here?”

“That’s right, her instructions were to leave her car and call you. One of these mobsters was waiting here with a stolen Hummer that she then drove to Las Vegas. His was the voice you heard. She was used, extorted, if you will. It’s gone on for years, and the Bureau has essentially participated in it. There’s an around-theclock suicide watch on Anna. She needs your help.”

“I would like to talk to her again. Tell her that.”

He watched Batson drive off. Then he drove to meet Crey to talk about the Raburn killings, how it might be a business opportunity for them. They spoke out in the bait shop lot. He told Crey he’d been the one to find them, because somehow it was going to come out and he didn’t want Crey to discover it later.

“They took me in and questioned me all day and almost all night, really tried to mess with my head. The wife ran the caviar making out of that shed. You knew Cindy, right?”

“Yeah,” Crey said. “Nice little ass on her.”

“She did some work for me through Abe, and I don’t know how they found out about it, but they were trying to tell me I offed the family.” Marquez held his hand out, fingers spread, his big scarred hand riding a few inches above the bar. “They wanted to test my hands for residue, you know, wanted me to volunteer to let them. I did the lie detector test, residue test, all that shit, but I passed everything.”

“What were you doing out there?”

“Trying to find Abe. He owed me a hundred bucks.”

That made Crey laugh. Raburn dying and getting away without paying just fit perfectly.

“That’s just perfect,” Crey said.

“I collected.”

“What? You got in his wallet when he was lying there?”

“No, man, but I went down to that canning room for a reason. I stepped over them and grabbed a stack of labels and jars before calling 911 to report they got smoked. I’ll show you what I got. It’s the official stamp, the whole thing. There’s more stashed out there. I couldn’t hide it all in my truck.”

They moved the conversation from the parking lot to a bar now, walked up Main Street, and the bartender brought a gin and tonic for Crey. He brought a beer for Marquez.

“I’ve got to make some calls but it’s possible we can get something going tonight.

“Want to play a little poker tonight? There’s some guys that might show up who I’ve done business with before. They’re interested in
talking about doing more together. I figure it’s a good time to introduce you.”

“How do we know they’ll show up, because if it’s just poker, I already went to high school.”

“I’m going to make some calls, then I’ll call you later. These guys could be good for like a hundred grand a year.”

Marquez nodded, didn’t believe any of it, though he’d call and talk it over with the SOU. It sounded like more Crey bullshit until the last line.

“There’s a guy in San Francisco with a store,” Crey said. “He’s got another one in LA and one in Seattle, and he sells all kinds of caviar over the Net, only not on English websites. These guys supply him. Goes from the water through us to them to this dude in San Francisco. We’re not going to get the business right away, not with Raburn getting offed, but after things cool down. Tonight is the night to meet these guys. I’m going to make the call, then call you.” He grinned. “How’s poker sound now?”

Marquez smiled back at him. He killed the draft beer and stood up.

“Okay, call me.”