“I’m ready to meet you,” the mechanical voice rasped. Marquez cleared his throat and sat up. “I’m going to take you to one of my farms. You’ll meet me, leave your car, and wear a hood until we get there.”
“I get claustrophobic.” He stalled. “You’re going to take me to a farm?”
“Yes.”
“How long will I have the hood on?”
“A couple of hours.”
“I’m not good with the hood, but, yeah, okay, I’ll do it.”
Silence now, a mechanical whine, a television or radio playing in the background on their seller’s end, the noise coming from it distorted by the voice changer. Marquez felt adrenaline start in him. He checked his watch, saw it was nearly 3:00 in the afternoon.
“Leave Placerville and go east on Highway 50 at 5:30 today. I’ll direct you to where we’ll meet.”
“I drive out of Placerville at 5:30?”
Their seller hung up, and Marquez had two thoughts. One that he’d do it, and two, there wasn’t much time, just over two hours before he was supposed to drive up the highway past Placerville.
Before that he’d have to drive to Folsom to the Region IV office and pick up the show car. He left the motel room and called Alvarez, Cairo, Roberts, and Shauf as he made the thirty-minute run down to Folsom. The car was where they’d left it on the gravel lot and he parked, switched into it, and took a call from Chief Bell as he drove away.
“We’re going to drop charges against Sweeney and his lawyer,” Bell said without any preamble. “The district attorney has heard their side and requested that we do that.”
“That was fast.”
“The state police interviewed our tipster and believe there’s a chance she misled us and Sweeney. Sweeney thought he had a bear tag and another of his staff backs that up. Our tipster told Sweeney and this other staff member that she’d acquired one for him. She’d been working on setting this hunt up for him for a while. Had him sign the bear permit application, the whole thing, and set it up with Durham, who’s been in and out of their office on lobbying business for years. The kicker is she’d had an affair with Sweeney and was angry he broke it off. This staffer backs Sweeney’s story that our tipster plotted it as revenge.”
“How do they know what’s what?”
“One of them knows about the affair. That in itself is enough.”
“Sure, the same staffer that came to pick him up. Are we really going along with this?”
“I want you to know I’m fighting it.”
“Did you know she was sleeping with Sweeney?”
“She’d told me they’d had a short relationship and that it might come up, but that it meant little and had nothing to do with this.”
“Sweeney never asked to see a bear tag?”
“He’d known Durham for years, trusted him, Durham always talking about hunting. And the DA sees problems.”
“So he’s blaming Durham too?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Okay, if he’s innocent why did he run?”
“He told the state police he realized he’d been set up and panicked.
It gets worse, Lieutenant, and I’m sorry for what’s happened here. This one is all my mistake. We’re being asked for an apology to offset political damage we’ve done to Sweeney.”
“Apologize for what?”
“They’re claiming their rights were violated, the bust mishandled.”
“Who’s claiming that?”
“The lawyer.”
Listening to Bell, Marquez could tell he hadn’t argued very hard the other way. Bell hadn’t backed them up when it mattered.
The arrest was going to be labeled a misunderstanding and the going official story that Sweeney had been deceived by a dishonest hunting guide who’d be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Nyland’s prior brushes with the law had been released to the media, and they were already doing a number on him. Sierra Guides would have its license suspended today, and Fish and Game would support Sweeney’s contention he’d been deceived. In return, nothing would be said by Sweeney’s office about an aggressive, politically ambitious assistant chief being manipulated by a jilted girlfriend. Bell was very frank in describing the threats that had been made toward him. He sounded both humbled and defeated.
“That’s what you’ll read in the newspapers tomorrow,” Bell said.
The speed of it surprised Marquez, but why should it? Hadn’t spin doctors only gotten faster and more skilled? Better get off the phone before you say something you regret. Call your team and stay with what you’re doing. Forget about Sweeney, though it was his belief that each time an individual with access to power was able to get around the law it left a tiny tear in the fabric of society.
He believed in a ripple effect, that however well these events were hidden they eventually touched everyone.
“I’m sorry,” Bell said.
“Chief, I got a phone call a little over an hour ago from our seller. He claims he’ll take me to a bear farm tonight and is calling back at 5:30 to direct me to where I drop my car. The team is already rolling. I drop my car, ride with him, and we’ll arrest him at the bear farm. We’ve asked for county backup. We’re going to take him down tonight.”
“Called when?”
“A little over an hour ago.”
“Who on your team has had any sleep?”
“Everyone.”
“You have?”
They talked it out now, Marquez giving the details of the call, how he wanted the takedown to happen. Couldn’t risk the drive with the hood so the bust would go down almost immediately.
“He’ll meet me someplace he can watch. All the buys have been in canyons at dusk where he can monitor any traffic coming in, so I doubt I’ll be able to get people in position to do it as I walk up, but as soon as we start driving.”
“You could end up a hostage. That’s very risky.”
“It’ll be hard and fast when it happens. We’ll be overmanned and do it right at first contact if we can. If I see him parked, see his face, then we’re there, no hood.”
After he hung up he checked in with the team again and then watched the minutes count down. When he drove through Placerville his phone rang, the seller’s voice crackling, “Continue east on the highway.”
He drove a steady sixty miles, the phone sitting where he could reach it easily.