Dead Game (27 page)

But Ludovna didn’t have a good day.
Marquez got a call from him around dusk. His voice was tight, uncomfortable, perhaps sensing something deeper was wrong.

“There’s nothing on the TV,” he said. “They’re just talking about steroid baseball. Did you go to the boat?”

“Yes, and there was no problem.”

“Did the detective call you?”

“No.”

“Turn on your TV.”

“Turn my TV on?”

“Turn it on the Sacramento news.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s nothing on about them.”

“So what, maybe this morning is all they’re going to report. Now you’re the one who needs to relax.”

“There’s something wrong.”

“What could be wrong?”

Ludovna hung up, and Marquez called Selke.

“He’s getting nervous. He’s looking for more news.”

“He’s not going to get it. The media wasn’t too wild about the whole idea. It took a call from the Feds to make it work.” He added, “They’ve started surveillance of Ludovna, and there are two special agents here with me.”

“Are you with Torp?”

“No, with Perry. Torp got out of surgery a couple of hours ago, but he’s not talking. He wants a phone and a lawyer.”

“Has anything been said to him about the Raburns?”

“Not yet. Perry’s here in an interview box, and he’s wobbling. He may rat out his friend if a deal can be structured. The Feds have looked over what I have on Sherri La Belle and agree, better to try to get a confession before anything is said about the Raburns. Get the confessions, lock them up, then the Feds can go to work on them.” Before Marquez could ask about Crey, Selke answered the question. “He’s still on the table. The bullet shattered his shoulder, and he was pretty dicey from loss of blood when they got him in here, and it turns out he’s anemic and doesn’t clot worth a shit. The bastard is trying to die on us.”

“I’m supposed to take over his business anyway.”

Selke chuckled. He’d already recounted the conversation at Raburn Orchards for Selke, but Selke surprised him now.

“There’s a better life out there than dealing with these punks. My brother has a cabin up along the Boundary Lakes in Minnesota. It gets cold, the black flies are a bitch in the summer, but it’s beautiful. A guy like you could run a sport boat and when you think about being out on the bay on those warm still nights in the fall and the moon rising, a scotch in your hand instead of trailing
these lowlifes.” He sighed, exhaling into the phone. “What they did to her with a knife I just can’t believe, and if Torp and Perry weren’t stupid we wouldn’t be catching them, but I tell you, I’m tired of this. I talk to my brother, he’s up there fishing, he’s happy. Anyway, I’ll call you as it changes here. FBI got to you yet?”

“They’re on their way.”

Marquez sat in the front room of his house with two FBI agents. The gun he’d placed on Crey’s boat had been recovered, and they had more than enough to take Ludovna down, but without saying so directly, they indicated that the Bureau was waiting for something more. They were somber and quiet and watched as Maria came in the door and had an awkward but friendly exchange with her mother. Then Maria and Katherine drove down to Mill Valley to do some shopping after Marquez explained he’d have to talk to the agents alone.

It was dark now and cooling down in the room. Marquez turned on another lamp, asked the agents if they wanted anything to drink. No one wanted coffee, water, anything except to hear again Ludovna’s last instructions.

“He said that occasionally I’d have to take the boat out in the ocean and pick up a passenger.”

“How far out?”

“Didn’t say.”

“How are these passengers supposed to get onto the boat?”

“That one sentence was all he said, but I had the impression Crey had made similar trips. He thinks Crey is dead, and I’ll step into Crey’s shoes and do whatever Crey did for him. Ludovna put the money up for Crey to buy Beaudry’s business, and it’s
understood that I’m assuming Crey’s debt. He made it clear he’s got the leverage of being a witness to the murders.”

One of the agents spoke now. “He ought to be worried you’re going to take him out.”

“He made it clear he’s got other partners, and he seems to think it’s all going to be worth it for me and that I’ll like the deal once I get dialed in.”

“Is that what he called them? His partners?”

“Yeah.”

The agents on the couch glanced at each other. Marquez looked from one to the other. The Feds hadn’t said anything about what they’d found or not found at Weisson’s. If they’d found sturgeon or caviar, no one had told him. Nothing had been in the news, other than Karsov was a known arms trafficker and there were national security issues.

“Are you going to pick up Ludovna tonight?”

“No.”

Torp would have a lawyer by tomorrow, but that was about Sherri La Belle, and Torp wouldn’t be calling Ludovna anytime soon to chat. Neither would Perry or Crey.

“You’re waiting for him to make a phone call.”

One of the agents nodded. Marquez got up and made coffee. The agents stood. They were almost done here, and now everyone watched as Marquez’s cell phone rang and he checked the screen. “Selke,” he said to the agents as he answered.

“We just got a confession from Perry on La Belle, and he says he was there when the Raburns were killed but did not participate. The charge will get cut to manslaughter for Perry on the La Belle
murder, and he’s going to testify that Torp stabbed her to death and cut her up. Perry helped Torp dispose of the body.”

“Who killed the Raburns?”

“He claims the shooters were Torp and Ludovna. Ludovna shot Abe. Torp shot the kids, and I can tell you Perry is lying, that he was part of the Raburn killing, but we’ll get that from the others. But get this, he says he doesn’t know why they killed the Raburns. He says for Torp it was just about money. He got paid for it. I’m going to throw something else at you. This is from piecing together what Perry told us. I think Crey knew his ‘boys’ were going to get offed out in that vineyard and he came up with you as a lure to get them out there, but that pissed off Ludovna, who just wanted them driven out there and shot. That’s why Ludovna was angry when he drove up and found you chained to the Blazer.”

The pager of one of the agent’s went off, then a cell phone. Marquez hung up with Selke, and the agents thanked him and were suddenly more forthright as they were leaving.

“It’ll be no later than tomorrow,” one of them said.

“Are you hoping he’ll try to contact Karsov?”

“We are. We’re sorry we couldn’t tell you before. We’ve monitored every call Ludovna has made for the last year.”

DBEEP picked Marquez up
at the Benicia dock the next morning. They glassed a couple of fishing boats out along the Mothball Fleet then rode up the San Joaquin River before backtracking and going up the Sacramento with a strong wind at their back. Marquez and Ruax compared notes, looking at fishing holes and sloughs and docks and boat launches they’d determined had been used by poachers. They rode past Raburn’s houseboat. They pooled their notes on who was left, talking above the wind and boat noise and much more quietly as they docked and dropped Marquez in Walnut Grove.

The day was bright and clear, the sky wind-scoured. He bought coffee at Mel’s and waited outside across the road looking down at the river, the coffee keeping his hand warm. DBEEP was gone, and the SOU operation was basically done, though it felt unfinished. He turned as Shauf and Cairo drove up, and they
bought a couple of sandwiches and sodas and sat and talked about where they were at with everything. With the exception of August, the players they’d tracked were going down or had gone down, but in some larger sense the importance of stopping the poaching had been subsumed by human crimes. The Raburn murders. The grisly killing of Sherri La Belle. The deaths of the FBI agents and the intrigue still surrounding what the Feds were after. It left a disturbing sense of incompletion or imbalance.

Shauf drove Marquez into Sacramento, and he picked up an old Ford Explorer, one of the early models before they’d become so large. He liked the vehicle and hadn’t driven it in a while. He made sure it still started and then walked over to Shauf’s window.

“Time to go see your niece and nephew.”

“I’m leaving tonight. What about you, John?”

“I’ll be home.”

And he would have been, but for taking a call from Ehrmann. The call could have come from another special agent in the Sacramento Field Office, and it wasn’t clear from the questions he’d asked yesterday that Ehrmann was still part of the investigation. He’d gotten the impression Ehrmann might be on involuntary leave.

“Ludovna made a call we were hoping he’d make, and we’re going to take him down tonight,” Ehrmann said.

“I’d like to be there.”

“Sure, if you want.”

Ludovna was at a girlfriend’s, a woman who lived alone not two blocks from his house. She was very surprised when she opened the door. It was all very polite. There were eight of them and one of her. Two agents went in and buttonhooked left with
their guns drawn, two went right, and four straight ahead. Ludovna was in the shower. When Marquez saw him, Ludovna stood naked and handcuffed on the tiled floor of the kitchen. He’d come out of the shower and tried to get a gun from near the bed, and they’d taken him down on the bedroom floor. Water dripped from the dark hairs of his chest, abdomen, and groin. Ludovna’s eyes focused on Marquez.

“You’re FBI?”

Marquez shook his head, showed his badge. Special Operations Unit, Department of Fish and Game.

“I should have killed you,” Ludovna said, and an FBI agent cut him off.

The last Marquez heard was an agent telling Ludovna they were going to unhook him so he could dress. They’d already read him his rights, and he was demanding a lawyer. Marquez walked outside with Ehrmann.

“I’ll drop you back at your car,” Ehrmann said. As they drove away he added, “I guarantee you he won’t be buying fish for a very, very long time.”

And that was the way it ended,
except it wasn’t the end of everything. There were the poachers they tracked down that came from Ludovna’s list of contacts, and with Baird’s approval Marquez was still chasing those after Christmas. There was enough in Ludovna’s computer to bring trafficking charges against August, though what came later far surpassed those. It was the end of the SOU, or the end until new money was found in the state budget. It was the end of Sacramento Fresh Fish and Beaudry’s Bait Shop and Sportfishing, and the end of August Food’s caviar line.

Torp and Perry got charged in the La Belle killing, and Ludovna, Torp, Crey, and Perry in the Raburn slayings. The FBI had other pending charges against Ludovna that Marquez was told might eventually include arms trafficking but definitely included further counts of murder, auto theft, RICO violations, and drug smuggling.

Marquez didn’t doubt that August would hire the best lawyer. He laughed when he heard it was Batson, but it didn’t surprise him. It was also the end of Anna’s ability to pay Batson when the FBI located, and was able to get a judge to freeze her access to, a Cayman Island account.

Maria moved back home on Christmas Eve, walked in around dusk carrying a bagful of presents, and rode with Marquez a couple of days on his trips into the delta, said she wanted to understand better what it was he did. She was with him this New Year’s Day morning, and it was one of those California winter days when it was bright and clear and warm. The light shone like polished gold on Suisun Bay, and the sturgeon bite was on.

He figured the kid, Julio, would be out, guessed he’d think he was clever getting out early New Year’s Day and fishing for sturgeon when everyone was recovering from last night. Marquez knew Julio had taken more sturgeon since he’d last bought from him. He knew from talking to him where he liked to fish, and they went there now after buying coffees at a convenience store.

“This coffee is terrible,” Maria said.

“Not to your refined tastes.”

“I don’t see how you can drink it.”

Marquez drank it anyway and then carried the Styrofoam cup as they walked along the shore. He glassed the few boats out there and found Julio.

“This guy I may bust is about your age,” he told Maria. “He’s got a fish, but I don’t know what it is yet.”

He felt the sun on his face and watched the kid bring the fish in, then work a gaff. The gray armor of a sturgeon rolled in the water. He’d brought a pair of binoculars for Maria, and she
watched Julio secure the sturgeon, and now they trailed him toward the dock. At the dock a couple of Julio’s friends were there to help. They carried the sturgeon up to a pickup and covered it with a tarp.

Marquez looked at Maria holding small binoculars to her face, hiding the binos with her hands. Julio wouldn’t be armed, and his friends were gone. He was alone and back down at his boat, tying it off. He might have a place he needed to deliver the sturgeon to, but they weren’t going to follow him there.

“Let’s walk on down there,” Marquez said, and Julio smiled but was leery as they approached.

“Do you recognize me?” Marquez asked.

“Sure, I sold you that one that time.”

“That’s right. Is this your boat?”

“My uncle’s.”

“The uncle who taught you about sturgeon?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s he at today?”

“Home.”

“How’s that college account coming along?”

Julio hesitated at the change of subject, then pride got the better of him.

“I got in,” he said, and his eyes were full of hope and light. “I got the scholarship, and I’m earning the rest. I’ll be the first one ever in my family to go to college. But how come you remember all that?”

Julio looked to Maria’s face for the answer, then back at Marquez.

“Maybe because Maria has applied to colleges. This is my daughter, Maria. We saw you wrestling with the fish, and I
recognized you. We watched your friends help you load it into the pickup.”

“Do you want to buy another one?”

“No, but I want to talk to you. Why don’t you walk with me a minute?”

“What for?”

“Because I don’t want you to sell it to anyone, and I think I can convince you.”

Marquez showed him his badge, and the kid’s face fell as they walked down to the end of the dock. He told Julio what he could cite him for and what that might do to the scholarship, told him the sturgeon had been here two hundred fifty million years, but it was going to take the ones like the fish in the back of the pickup to keep the species going.

“I’m sorry,” and he was a big strong kid but close to tears. “I’m really sorry.”

“How about you give me your word you’ll do something to make up for it, and I don’t bust you on the first day of the year you start college?”

Of course Julio gave him his word, gave it immediately, and Marquez got his full name, wrote it into his notebook. Julio Rodriguez.

“I’m letting you go on this because I think you’re good for your word.”

Julio was scared but trying to face him. He squared his shoulders, looked Marquez in the eye, then looked away.

“I can’t remember the last time I let someone go who has taken as many as you have.”

“I’ll never do it again.”

“Everyone says that, but make that the truth, and I want you to tell your uncle what happened out here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Last time it was Abe Raburn you called. How did you meet Raburn?”

“Isn’t he dead?”

“He is.”

“I met him through my uncle. We delivered a couple of fish to him.”

“To the orchard? Was there a packing shed or did you take them to the houseboat?”

Julio didn’t seem to know either of those places. He shook his head, then described a two-story blue house out in vineyards and another man who was also there and talking in a foreign language his uncle said was Russian.

“What town was it in?”

“It was up from Courtland in the delta. We followed Raburn there.”

“How far off the levee road?”

“Like a mile or so.”

“And when you got there the Russian guy was there?”

Julio nodded.

“Would you recognize him if I showed you photos?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay, I’ve got some photos in my truck.”

Julio looked at a stack of photos that included August, Ludovna, Crey, Torp, Perry, and six other poachers they’d taken pictures of.

“I don’t know.”

“Fair enough. How long ago was this?”

“Like four months.”

“Okay, look at these photos and eliminate the people you know it isn’t.”

Julio laid the photos on Marquez’s hood in the sunlight, and the air was just gentle enough today to where they didn’t blow off. He began to take away photos. He picked up the shots of Crey, Ludovna, a couple of sturgeon fishermen and put those in a pile by themselves. He hooked a fingernail under the prison mug of Torp, and then Perry, uncannily pairing the two before moving them out of the way.

“Not one of those two?”

“No.”

“And Raburn led you out to this house?”

“Yeah, we loaded in someone’s car there.” He remembered more about the property now. “You drive through a lot of grapevines first.”

Now there were only four photos left, and among those remaining, August was the only one fluent in Russian. Juio concentrated on each photo, his eyes moving from one to the next and back. He remembered his uncle had caught a sturgeon in San Pablo Bay. He’d called Raburn from his cell, and when they’d gotten to Raburn’s houseboat, Raburn was already up under some trees near his truck waiting. He’d given Uncle Carlos a beer because the day was hot. It was dusk when they drove out the road to the blue house, and there were a couple of cars there. His uncle drank the beer as they drove, and dust blew in the windows because they were following Raburn. He remembered the house because it was blue like the sky, and now Marquez thought he
knew which house it was. One of the photos Raburn had downloaded.

Julio had heard the man talking, and his uncle said it was Russian he was speaking to somebody else inside the house. The man came outside in the heat, looked over the sturgeon, and paid Raburn, who then paid his uncle. They moved the fish from their pickup to Raburn’s.

“Raburn was going to clean it,” Julio said, “but he had to show it to the man first.”

“So you were just there a few minutes?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see any other people?”

“Just the other cars.”

There were four photos left on the hood, and Marquez pointed at them.

“And you think that man might have been one of these four?”

“Maybe one of them.”

“If you had to pick one, who would you pick?”

He didn’t pick August, picked a carpenter instead, a guy who was working on a Fish and Game building.

“I may need to speak to your uncle later today. If I do, I’ll call you this morning, but we’re done here. You can go.”

When they got in the truck Julio was back down at his boat. He kept his head down as they pulled away.