Kendall was sitting at a redwood picnic table facing the road, cleaning his fingers with paper napkins. No one else was at the food stand so Marquez brought the camcorder to the table and left Kendall with it. He ordered a black coffee and a hot dog, glancing at Kendall while squirting mustard and ketchup on the dog, then took a seat across the table. Kendall lay the camcorder down and pointed at the hot dog.
“You ever hear of a place called Charlie’s Serious Chili Dogs?”
“In Rohnert Park?”
“Yeah, you know it?”
“Used to stop there all the time.”
“So where’s this hunting shack?”
“There’s a dirt track running up to it near that abandoned diner along the highway.” Marquez, knowing what he might set in motion here, wondered if his imagination was running away with him. “What do the watch and ring mean to you?”
Kendall didn’t really answer until they were in the truck on their way.
“Vandemere owned a watch his parents believed was a Seiko.
We searched the area where his body was found but didn’t find it.
Of course, his parents didn’t know the model. They’d bought it on sale for cash at a shopping mall.”
“You don’t like Vandemere Sr. much, do you?”
“I don’t like what he told the newspaper.”
Marquez knew from talking to Petroni that in an interview in the Mountain Democrat Vandemere Sr. had been critical of the way the county had handled the search for his son. Petroni backed up the criticisms, said he knew for a fact that Kendall got tired of constant phone calls from Vandemere Sr. and would put him on hold until Vandemere hung up.
“How does bear baiting work?” Kendall asked, as they left the highway.
“You feed bears in a particular spot until they get accustomed to showing up there. Build a blind to shoot from and then wait for your bear.”
“Lure them, then kill them when you’re ready.”
“Basically.”
“Is there more to it?”
“No, that’s it.” Marquez slowed and eased off the shoulder. He pointed at the broken ribbon of asphalt ahead.
“I hate this off-road crap,” Kendall said.
“You’ll want to put your seatbelt on or we can walk, but it’s about three miles and steep.”
Kendall swore as they slid down the other side and bounced onto the dirt track. The ride up the ridge felt even rougher, and Marquez was unable to answer his ringing phone as he negotiated tight gaps in the trees. On top he saw it was Shauf that had called, decided he’d wait until it was easier to talk privately, and led Kendall out the ridge, then down through the trees.
“A Unabomber starter cabin,” Kendall said, as they came into the clearing. He turned and added, “You know Nyland was on this ridge, but you can’t place him at this shack.”
“Yeah, we saw lights on the ridge and we knew he’d gone up here. There’s some work still to match him to the shack and the bait pile, but we buried groundhog cameras. You and I are being recorded right now.”
“Is that right? Well, I’ve got to tell you that later today I might have to bring crime scene techs up here.”
“Take it slow, we’ve got a lot riding on this and our breaks don’t come easy.”
Marquez took the hinges off the door again, and Kendall pulled on latex gloves, treating the interior like it was a crime scene. As Kendall pulled the canvas packet down, Marquez reminded him that he and Alvarez had been all over in there.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Marquez asked.
“This isn’t our first look at Nyland. But anything we do, we’ll do unobtrusively. Don’t worry, Marquez, I’ll be gentle.”
“You and I could be headed to a problem.”
“No, we’re not. Look, you’ve been up all night, you’re tired, and you’re making more of what I’m saying than you need to. But don’t forget this is a murder case first.”
“You’re telling me you’ve been looking at Nyland for Vandemere’s murder.”
“Yes.”
Marquez walked outside, unsure how much of this he believed.
If Nyland was a suspect, Kendall had been awful quiet about it. He stood outside thinking over the sequence of events, and when Kendall finished they put the door back on, did a search of the trees for any more evidence of drug manufacturing, then drove down.
“I want to look at something with you,” Marquez said, as they got around the gate. He parked and got out, waited for Kendall, then pointed out where their tires had dug into the dry soil. “When he comes back he’ll see this because he’ll be watching for it. We’ve been up here twice today, and he’ll notice those tracks. You can bet he put a lock on that shack because he knew somebody could be coming up. If a jeep or two goes up around the gate, that isn’t going to bother him. Kids go four-wheeling. But if he starts seeing a lot of tire tracks, he’ll get squirrelly and won’t come back.”
“We didn’t need to get out of your truck for you to tell me that.”
“If I’m hearing you correctly, the watch and ring don’t mean much in the way of evidence yet. They might, but you’re not sure.
You’re just hoping at this point. A bait pile he’s going to feed regularly, so while you run DNA tests the only gamble is he’ll reach up there and find the watch and ring missing and then back away, but meanwhile those groundhogs will film him and we’ll both get what we need. It can work for us both that way, and he’s likely to return in the next few days. Why don’t you let the bears help you?”
Kendall smiled at the cheesiness of the idea that bears would help him. As they drove back to Placerville, Kendall reassured Marquez that his moves would be very calculated because he didn’t want to tip his hand either. Yet his excitement was palpable. He couldn’t wait to get out of the truck.
Marquez called Shauf after dropping Kendall at the food stand.
He felt mixed about having taken Kendall up there, and he bounced it off Shauf, who had a predictable take on it.
“There’s nothing we’ll ever do that’ll ever mean anything to him,” she said. “He’ll walk all over our operation if we let him.”
Then she asked if he’d talked to Chief Bell in the last hour.
“No.”
“A tip came in this morning that he’s all excited about. He wants you to call him right away. He’s been trying to reach you.”
“What’s the tip?”
A woman had called, talked to one of the dispatchers, and asked for Chief Bell. She’d told him she knew of an illegal bear hunt that would happen this week in the Placerville area and said the hunter would be someone well known.
“Bell is going to meet with her today,” Shauf said.
“I’ll call him when I get to the safehouse.”
“He says he’s been calling you.”
Marquez would be at the safehouse in ten minutes, and he wanted to think more about how to work with Kendall before he got there. Last night he’d felt a rush of hope, felt the case moving again as they’d trailed Nyland, but that effort would be wasted if Kendall wasn’t careful. Shauf was right about Kendall, and the idea that Kendall’s moving too fast could wipe out what they had set up with the groundhogs left Marquez feeling low. He took the exit toward the safehouse and drove down the street under a white cold sky.