When Marquez left Kendall he drove to Wright’s Lake in the Crystal Basin and slowly cruised the lake road looking for Petroni’s orange Honda. Half an hour later he called Kendall.
“I’m at Wright’s because he told me he might borrow a friend’s cabin out here. Didn’t say he would, said he might.”
“You should have told me.”
“I’ll check it out first.”
Marquez walked the rocky shoreline, aware that he was visible to anyone in a cabin along this side of the lake. He talked to Alvarez, then Roberts, telling both to stay focused on preparations for Sweeney’s hunt and checking the sites Nyland had stopped at last night. But it was useless. Stella’s murder and the hunt for Petroni swept everything else away.
“I’m less than five miles from you,” Roberts said. “I’ll drive there and help you.”
“Run out to Dark Lake first and have a look there and across from the wilderness lot.”
Marquez hung up with her and kept turning over a thought that he didn’t want to hold, that Kendall was right, Petroni had lied and there wasn’t any friend’s cabin. Petroni had used him as an alibi, nothing more, a final fuck you to a friendship lost many years ago.
He picked his way around granite boulders at the water’s edge and looked at a dark brown cabin with two open windows facing the lake. He climbed stairs up to a weathered deck, knocked on a door, and when no one answered leaned through one of the open windows and called hello. A gear bag sat on the floor near an old sofa, a worn green Army duffel bag. He knocked harder.
“Anyone home?”
He stepped away from the window and walked to the railing facing the lake, didn’t see anyone on the shoreline or boats, and walked back to the window, stepped through into the cold shade inside. When he leaned over the duffel bag he saw the initials WP written on it in black marker. Without debating the right or wrong of trespassing, he unzipped it. Under a couple of folded T-shirts was a DFG uniform belt and shirt, everything neatly packed, and he remembered Petroni’s talking about his father, the Army major, what it had been like growing up a military brat.
He zipped it shut again and checked two bedrooms and a bath. The rooms were empty, in the bedrooms metal springs showing on cots, everything covered, protected from rodents. He went into the kitchen and saw that the refrigerator was on. Inside was a head of lettuce and a deli bag. So Petroni was staying here or planned to, though it didn’t look like he’d slept here yet. Dropped the bag, opened the windows to air the place out, then took off? Or he’d planted the story with me and staged this. Marquez took a final walk through the cabin before going back outside. He didn’t feel any impulse to call Kendall yet, wanted to think it out a little further, running through possible reasons why Petroni might leave his gear. May have gone with the roofers for the day. Riding around with his cousin learning how to bid roofs. But if that was the case Petroni would hear about the murder over the radio. He’d have contacted the police by now. Dropped the gear and went where, then? Marquez took a last look around before walking back to his truck. As he got there his phone rang and it had to be Kendall or Roberts who was somewhere nearby. He expected to find out that Petroni had been located. But when he picked it up the screen read “Unavailable,” and as he answered he heard the tonal beep of a voice changer initiating.
“Your business in Placerville,” the toneless voice said. “Who’s your contract with?”
Marquez adjusted to his surprise at their seller’s calling. His team had a phone number and a name at the Department of Energy ready to back up their story. But still, the cover story was weak. Anyone intent on knowing could find out what public contracts and grants the DOE had let.
“It’s with the DOE, but why are you asking. You checking up on my business?” Marquez opened the door of his truck, got in, and flipped through a notebook. “We’re part of a study gathering information on global warming, in our case looking at particular tree species for evidence of change. Call this number, ask for Bob Phillips. Tell him John Croft said he should tell you anything you want to know.”
There was silence now and then another adjusting of the machine, the cell phone their seller was on no doubt working off a counterfeit or stolen chip as he had previously done. He’s too close to your operation, Marquez thought, as the silence continued. Bell’s right, Shauf’s right, I’ve pushed this too far. Shut the office down and pull the team. You’re trying too hard to make it work with this guy, and he’s prowling around you because he’s suspicious. Pack up and move out of the safehouse and come back at him a different way. He’s not calling to sell anything today. We’re not hunting him anymore, he’s hunting us.
“I have the galls you bought. Do you want them?”
“If you dip them in chocolate.”
He heard laughter, a strange “Hack, hack, hack,” through the machine. Marquez had thrown the answer back as a flip comment, but dipped in chocolate was a way smugglers sometimes disguised galls, trying to make them look like figs that had been coated.
“I can drop them at your business or meet you.”
“I won’t be around the business for the next few days, so maybe we’ll have to meet.”
“I’ll call you very soon.”
Marquez drove away from Wright’s Lake. He phoned Kendall when he got out to the highway and told him what he’d found.
“I’m on my way to you,” Marquez said. “I’ll take you there.”
Kendall was in the garage with Hawse and two other detectives when Marquez walked up. They’d pulled the contents of Petroni’s truck and spread them on plastic on the concrete walk leading up to the house. Marquez saw the satisfaction on Hawse’s heavy face and knew they’d found something.
“I’m talking to you only because Petroni came to you and maybe you’ll help us find him,” Kendall said. “There are threatening messages from Petroni on her answering machine. He was angry about her cutting off the credit cards. Her lawyer just told us she saved them for a judge to hear. They aren’t apologies. They’re not the voice of a man trying to get back together with his wife.”
“He put the blame on himself yesterday.”
“Sure, and she paid the ultimate price. Let me show you what we found in the truck.”
They had photos, shots taken of Sophie Broussard and a young man who it took Marquez only a moment to recognize. Behind them was a lake, and from the gold light reflecting off the water he knew it was taken near sunset. Sophie wore a black thong swimsuit.
Her tan skin glistened with beads of water and suntan oil. Vandemere’s left hand cupped her ass as their hips pressed together.
“What lake, Marquez?”
“I’d guess Loon.”
“That’s what one of the officers here said.” He shook the evidence bag with the photos. “Buried in his truck.”
Vandemere was tanned, lean, looked fit. Sophie’s long legs were as tall as his. Her hair was longer than it was now and wet and dark on her shoulders.
“Taken with a digital camera and printed off on ordinary paper.
We’re going into the house where he was staying with Sophie as soon as we get a warrant signed, and that’s going to be soon. Can you give me a job-related reason he’d be driving around with these photos?”
“Not offhand.”
Marquez led Kendall and a couple of county cruisers to Wright’s Lake. He showed them the cabin, the duffel bag visible through the window.
“I’ll need a warrant to go inside,” Kendall said, “and I’m going to write down that you stopped by to visit because he told you he was staying out here. You with me on that?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “How’d you know it was that cabin?”
“I saw open windows.”
“He wanted you to find it.”
When Marquez left, Kendall was giving instructions to a county cop to park his unit out of view and wait.
“Officially, Petroni’s wanted for questioning,” Marquez told Alvarez as he reached the highway and started for Placerville.
“Unofficially, he’s wanted for murder, and Kendall still thinks I know where he is. There’s a chance he’ll try to have someone follow me, so take a look behind me as I come into town.”
“Got you covered.”
Half an hour later in a surprised but clear voice, and after Marquez had made several turns on Placerville streets, Alvarez confirmed a car more or less staying with him, not aggressively, but there.
“I’m not sure it’s a cop.”
“What kind of car?”
“White TransAm.”
“I need gas, I’ll stop for it now. Let’s see what he does.”
Marquez pulled into a Shell station. He caught just a glimpse of the car as he got out.