Die-Off
Table of Contents
Further Titles from Kirk Russell
The John Marquez series
SHELL GAMES
NIGHT GAME
DEADGAME
REDBACK
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DIE-OFF
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A KILLING IN CHINA BASIN
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COUNTERFEIT ROAD
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ONE THROUGH THE HEART
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available from Severn House
A John Marquez novel
Kirk Russell
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First published in Great Britain and the USA 2013 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.
eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited.
Copyright © 2013 by Kirk Russell
The right of Kirk Russell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Russell, Kirk, 1954–
Die-Off. – (A John Marquez mystery; 5)
1. Marquez, John (Fictitious character)–Fiction.
2. Government investigators–California–Fiction.
3. Murder–Investigation–Fiction. 4. Detective and mystery stories.
I. Title II. Series
813.6-dc23
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8283-7 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-451-5 (epub)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being
described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this
publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons
is purely coincidental.
This eBook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland
Judy, your courage and gentleness in the face of everything are my inspiration.
T
his is the fifth Marquez novel and, as with the earlier novels, many thanks go to Nancy Foley. When I wrote the first book, Nancy was a member of the Special Operations Unit and would go on to lead it and later to become head of the California Department of Fish and Game. I wish my writing career had an arc like that. Nancy is now retired, as is Kathy Ponting, long-time patrol lieutenant of the SOU, and often a great source for this author. Thanks go to Kathy as well as Stafford K. Lehr, Chief of the Fisheries Branch, and to warden pilots, Ron Vanthuysen and Gavin Woelfel. Thanks also to Detective Rick Jackson of the LAPD. As of 2013, the California Department of Fish and Game became the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, but the challenges remain the same. All the best to those who take on that fight.
W
hen the call came Marquez was in a conference room at California Fish and Game headquarters looking at photos of elephant tusks and glass jars of ground rhino horn emailed that morning by an LAPD homicide detective. The mix of live animals and animal parts stockpiled at the warehouse were a good fit for the trafficker he was searching for and he was close to booking a flight to LA.
The tip call changed that. The caller refused to give her name but insisted it was urgent she talk with Lieutenant John Marquez. An office tech found him in the conference room and Marquez hesitated a moment then slid his laptop aside and reached for the phone. The woman’s voice was immediate, intense, and strong.
‘I have nothing to do with any of this. I’m just passing on a message.’
‘Okay.’
‘No, it’s really not okay, but it’s what’s happening. Hold on a minute.’
Marquez heard a car door slam. He heard rain on a windshield and an engine start. When she spoke again she was on speakerphone and harder to hear.
‘Don’t worry about how well you can hear me. It doesn’t matter. We aren’t going to talk long anyway and all you have to do is listen. I’m going to tell you where the gun is that was used to kill those two girls a couple of years ago along the Klamath River.’
Marquez was on the thirteenth floor of the Water Resources Building in Sacramento. He turned and looked out the window at sunlight through broken clouds and guessed she was well to the north along the Oregon border and probably somewhere near the Klamath, where it was raining today.
‘Go ahead, I’m listening. Where’s the gun?’
‘It’s buried along the White Salmon River three quarters of a mile down from Condit Dam on the road side. It’s at a bend where two large gray rocks lean out over the water. They’re side by side and he says you’ll know the spot when you see it.’
‘Who says?’
‘We’re not going there.’
‘Are we talking about Terry Ellis and Sarah Steiner?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you aware of what’s going on at Condit Dam tomorrow?’
‘He told me this morning.’
It could easily be a hoax call. It probably was and still it affected Marquez. He shifted in his chair and heard a low murmur, definitely male. He guessed the cell phone was on the dash and the man was listening and in control.
‘If anyone in law enforcement is going to look for a gun buried along that river with such short notice it’ll take more than an anonymous call. Who is it that told you it’s there and why are you calling California Fish and Game? Why not call the FBI or the local police in the area of the dam?’
Marquez spoke to the man.
‘Whoever you are, talk to me.’
There were several seconds of silence and then she spoke again.
‘You’ll need a shovel and a metal detector.’
‘Should I also pack a lunch? Look, you’ve called a California Fish and Game officer with a tip on a homicide cold case two states to the north. You need to call the people working on the case. The murders were in California and Rich Voight at the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office is the investigator in charge. Call him. He’ll know who to get in touch with in the state of Washington to get a search going.’
Even as he said that he knew he’d be making the calls and reached for something to write with. Terry Ellis and Sarah Steiner were twenty-four, young, idealistic, and part of a movement to remove dams along western rivers. Sarah Steiner would have started Columbia Law School that fall. Terry Ellis worked for a social media start-up in San Francisco, but through family both knew the north coast. Ellis’ brother Jack still guided rafting trips in the Six River area. Steiner’s father was a lawyer in Redding.
They traveled along the Klamath in a pickup with a home-made camper shell that belonged to Ellis’ brother. Instead of a single door at the rear of the camper shell, it had two doors that opened out, a modification Jack Ellis made so he could slip a pair of kayaks in and out easily. At night Ellis and Steiner slept in sleeping bags on a piece of four-inch foam with the back doors of the camper open. The river country was generally safe and family and friends said they were careful where they parked.
The sleeping bags, with Ellis and Steiner inside them, plus the foam underneath, everything got dragged out the back. They hit the ground in their sleeping bags and fought—or that’s what Voight, the Siskiyou County investigator concluded.
Steiner was shot and stabbed and never made it out of her sleeping bag but did make a 911 call from her cell phone and talked eleven seconds with a dispatcher before the phone disconnected.
Ellis took off running. Her body was found in the Klamath River half submerged about a third of a mile away. She ran most of that distance with a bullet wound in her right upper hip and another high in her left shoulder.
‘How does the man with you know where the gun is?’
‘He’s not with me.’
‘I can set up a meeting with the Siskiyou County investigator if he wants to come in and talk. That’s what should happen. Why don’t we do that? I’ll meet you in Yreka at the sheriff’s office? If you’re good with that I’ll leave Sacramento in the next ten minutes.’
‘He wants you to back off your investigation.’
‘What investigation?’
‘He wants you to stay out of Vancouver and LA and says you’ll know what he’s talking about. He said to tell you that you had a close call a month ago in the Washougal Basin and that you were lucky.’
‘If I’m going to do anything about this call he needs to start talking.’
‘We’re about to lose connection, Lieutenant.’
‘Then pull over to the side of the road. I need more before trying to convince anyone to search for this gun, and here’s my message to the guy in the car with you. I’m coming for you. I’m getting closer and I will find you.’
Marquez heard the jarring thud of a car wheel hitting a pothole. The tire sound changed and he guessed they had turned onto dirt road and this was where cell connection would end. But he was wrong. There was one last thing said, a man’s voice calm and so quiet Marquez had to replay the tape of the call several times before he was certain of what he had heard.
‘This is Rider and the tip is real. I’m giving it to you as a last warning, Marquez. I’m not going to let you keep looking for me. What happened to those two women could happen to you. You’ll drive down a dirt road one day and just disappear. Back off now or that’s how it will end.’
Marquez didn’t get to respond. The caller broke the connection. But that didn’t matter; he would have said the same thing again.
‘I will find you.’
A
t dawn Marquez was seventy miles north-east of Portland at Condit Dam standing in gray light and cold with a Washington Fish and Wildlife warden named Donna Kinsell. A Klickitat County deputy was also there, though Marquez doubted the deputy would get out of his car again. He had already reminded them they were allowed four hours, not a second longer, to search the riverbank. He followed at a distance now as they left in Kinsell’s truck, backtracking on the dam road to a steep trail that led down from the road to the river.
Marquez didn’t get anywhere with the FBI. His guess was they Googled the river, saw plenty of rock and bends and, after weighing the likelihood that the call was a hoax, decided to offer expedited ballistics testing should anything turn up. In the bed of Kinsell’s truck were a metal detector and a folding shovel. After they parked, he slid the shovel into his pack and cinched it tight enough to keep the shovel handle straight. He picked up the metal detector and Kinsell clipped a radio onto her belt and explained the rules again, pretty much a repeat of what the deputy said at the dam but with an edge of her own.
‘When we get the radio call we leave. If we don’t get the call we leave at eleven thirty.’
Marquez left that alone and they started down. The land was wet from recent rain, the trees pungent despite the cold, the trail rocky, narrow and slippery. He carried the metal detector in his left hand and gripped tree branches with his right as he descended. As they reached the river Kinsell waited for him to lead.