Katherine and Maria were asleep when he climbed into his truck. A couple of deer bolted through the darkness down the slope into the brush and trees, and a few minutes later he was on the road, holding a coffee cup in one hand, adjusting the heat and defroster fan with the other. He liked the early mornings, the quiet chance to think. The conversation with Ungar yesterday disturbed him, was on his mind this morning. When he finished his coffee he talked with Shauf, listening closely to her report of the search for bait piles and her plan to return to the Crystal Basin.
“We’ve heard fresh reports of off-road vehicles at night and we’re checking those areas today,” she said. “Where are you?”
“On my way to Nyland’s trailer park.”
“You heard they kicked him loose, right?”
“Yeah, Kendall called me.”
“Hey, he’s our new best friend.”
Marquez didn’t want to get into a Kendall conversation this morning. “I’ll call you after taking a look at Nyland’s place.”
Ducks lifted from the rice paddies along the Sacramento River flood plain as he crossed the causeway. He drove through Sacramento and then into the foothills and an hour later exited onto Six Mile Road, remembering Kendall’s wry “There should be a road sign for peace officers that reads 5.7 miles to the Nyland trailer overlook.”
Marquez stopped short of the ridge, turning down a dirt track and following that until he could hide his truck. He walked back out the dirt road, smelling oak, pine, and brush, dry and waiting on rain. Near the ridge he cut left into the trees and found a place where he could see the meadow below. He saw the flat gray house foundations in the middle, the abandoned sales office on one end, a broad deck off it layered with brown pine needles. On the far end were three aluminum-skinned trailers, one of which Kendall had told him Nyland lived in. The trailer with the propane tank. Nyland’s Toyota and an older blue Ford F-150 were parked nearby. A hound sat on the Toyota hood.
Nyland’s trailer had a window like an opaque eye facing the meadow, the interior hidden from Marquez’s binoculars by curtains, iron stairs running down from the trailer door to the dry meadow grass. Behind that one and up the slope were two other trailers, these resting on cinder blocks. The door of the second was padlocked, and the last trailer, the one bordering the trees, missing its door. He watched a dog hop out and guessed the dogs slept there.
He brought the glasses back to the Ford pickup, jotted down its license plate. Nyland had a pretty good setup out here, a lot of wooded country and no one around to question anything he did. He could skin a bear on one of the slab foundations, and no one would be the wiser.
Before Marquez had reached the highway he’d learned the blue Ford F-150 was registered to Sophie Broussard. He drove back into Placerville and passing the Waffle House saw Petroni’s Fish and Game truck. He doubled back and pulled in alongside it.
Petroni was in a booth wearing a neatly creased uniform though it was Sunday morning.
“Saw your truck when I drove past and couldn’t pass up the chance to talk to you.”
Petroni’s look was morose, distant, but he gestured. “Have a seat.”
After Marquez had slid into the booth and ordered scrambled eggs and coffee, Petroni volunteered, “I’ve got a special meeting at the sheriff’s office this morning. I’m meeting Kendall and his partner in fifteen minutes.”
“What do you have left to say to him?”
“Nothing he doesn’t already know.”
“Then maybe today will end it. I just came from Nyland’s place. There’s a Ford pickup parked out there that’s registered to Sophie.”
“He owes her money, and he’s supposed to fix her truck to pay her off. She says that’s the only way she’ll get paid. She’s been driving the car of the people she’s house-sitting for, but supposedly he’s got it fixed now. What does Sophie have to do with you?”
“Nyland tried to run me off the road the other night.”
“Then maybe your cover is still good.”
Petroni started to slide out of the booth, saying, “I’m late.”
“Do you want me to come along?”
“Why would I?”
“It might help to have another wildlife officer in the room.”
The offer was about more than helping Petroni out, and of course, Petroni knew that. Marquez wanted to know more about Kendall’s investigation, felt he needed to know.
“No, thanks.”
Petroni walked out of the Waffle House ahead of him, got in the truck without looking back, then stopped and lowered his window as he came alongside Marquez.
“About a year ago word got back to Kendall I’d told the sheriff he ought to fire him. This is his payback.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to have me there.”
Petroni stared hard before nodding.