Dead Game

by Kirk Russell

  “Let’s go talk in my car,” Selke said.

  After they got in his car Marquez listened to Selke go back and forth on the radio, and he was still having a hard time understanding Selke not going out with an APB on August’s car, or getting the warrant application going, getting in touch with the on-call judge in San Francisco. He watched Selke type into a Blackberry, his thumbs thick on the small pad. He couldn’t watch this much longer.

  “What business is this Don August in?”

  “He owns three specialty-food stores, one in Seattle, one in LA, one in SF, all named August Foods.”

  “So what’s he going to tell me when I ask why he was in the delta today?”

  “He buys product from small producers, artisanal food products. We’re pretty sure he also buys sturgeon roe that’s been processed to caviar out here and gets that repackaged as Caspian beluga. The eggs are similar in size and color, gray and about like a little glass bead. All his labels have the proper stamp, but we think they’re either forged or bought.”

  “What do Customs and U.S. Fish and Wildlife think?”

  “Everything appears legit.”

  Selke surprised him. “But you’ve checked DNA and it’s not?”

  “What we’ve checked is legit, all from the Caspian.”

  Selke’s cell rang. The radio crackled at the same time. He answered the radio call, which was to tell him a vehicle stop was in progress—two white males in a black Lincoln sedan just north of Patterson, about fifty miles from here. They waited, talking about August until more information came in. The officer who’d made the stop had run the driver’s license and then called for backup. The individual was wanted on a felony drug charge. Marquez listened to the names spit out of the radio and shook his head. He didn’t know them. Then his cell rang.

  “August is home,” Shauf said. “The lights just came on; I can see him through the window. There’s a woman with him. Where are you?”

  “Still at the fishing access but about to leave here.” He saw Selke react to that. “Hang on a minute.”

  He turned to Selke. “August is home.”

  Selke was quiet, looking through the windshield, watching the dog getting loaded back into the K-9 car. Half the officers standing around were gossiping. There was nothing left to do here.

  “All right, Lieutenant, we’ll go knock on his door.”

  4

  Shauf slumped back against the driver’s door, blond curls flattened from the headrest, a Diet Coke resting on her left thigh. Selke and a San Francisco homicide inspector were up on August’s porch. Two SFPD patrol units were on the street, their light bars reflecting off the white-painted stairs. Getting to the on-call judge and getting a warrant had delayed Selke’s arrival, and lights were no longer on in the front rooms of the apartment. Through binoculars Marquez watched Selke hit the bell a second time.

  “Selke called me on his way here,” Shauf said. She took a sip of Coke. “He wanted to know if you and Anna have something going on.”

  “He’s got to ask.”

  “Not the way he does it.”

  The front door opened, and August moved onto the threshold, silhouetted by the light from behind him. Selke badged him, showed him the warrant, and August handed it back to him. He stroked his goatee and smiled.

  “Why does he remind me of the devil?” Shauf asked as August stepped aside and ushered the detectives in. “The woman he came home with is also in there. She looks like a kid, but he had his arm around her when they went up the stairs, and I think I’ve seen her in his store here. I’m pretty sure she works there. She’s got a little ruby stud in her nose.” After a pause, Shauf added, “The guy is a scuzzball.”

  The door closed and Marquez laid the binoculars down. The street was mostly commercial buildings, shops, boutiques, a Tully’s Coffee at the corner. Two blocks down the street was August Foods, the neon script with the store name not unlike the neon over his wife’s two coffee bars, Presto on Union and Presto on Spear, a third about to open down near the wharf.

  “Did you talk to Chief Bell?” Shauf asked.

  “Yeah, after the BOLO went out.”

  “How’d he take it?”

  Bell had immediately assumed it was their fault, that the be on the lookout for going out meant the SOU had somehow screwed up. But Marquez didn’t volunteer that yet. It was the kind of information Shauf was fishing for, and he didn’t want to get into that with her tonight.

  “He wants me in his office tomorrow morning.”

  “He’s going to say the operation is blown.”

  He’d all but said it tonight.

  The front door opened and they watched Selke come back outside alone. He held his cell phone under the porch light to punch in numbers. Seconds later Marquez’s phone rang.

  “Does Anna Burdovsky have a cat?” Selke asked.

  “She does.”

  “Could you describe it?”

  Marquez pictured the cat. He’d been to her apartment here in San Francisco after she’d called CalTIP saying she might have information on sturgeon poachers. But that was about four months ago.

  “It’s black and white, a male, it looks a little like a Holstein cow. The name is Jim or Pete, something like that.”

  “Bob.”

  “That’s right, it’s Bob. What does the cat have to do with anything?”

  Selke turned to face the street. He seemed to like delivering the bombshell.

  “Mr. August says Burdovsky and her cat have stayed here for the last week. He told her she could stay with him a week or two and showed us the room she’s been staying in. The cat is part of the deal and I don’t know what else is, though August’s friend here is sure she knows and she wants to leave, but we’re holding her because we want to get a statement, otherwise you’d see her stomp down the stairs. Have you ever been up here?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know, he’s got four bedrooms? How much money is this guy making? This place has to be worth a couple million bucks minimum. It looks like a magazine and I can see why Burdovsky would want to stay here. There are clothes and items he says belong to her and we’re welcome to take. He also admits talking to her today but it was closer to noon and they argued because he told her he wanted her stuff and the cat out today. He told me the cat’s next home is the Humane Society if she doesn’t show up by tomorrow. Is any of this making sense to you?”

  Marquez didn’t have to answer that.

  “Well then, try on this idea, Burdovsky isn’t who you thought she was. Mr. August is very cooperative. Anything we want we can have. Even the sheets off the bed or his phone records, whatever we want. Hell, he’d give us the cat if we had a carrier. He’s also coming in tonight to sit in an interview box.”

  “Where?”

  “The Richmond Station.” Selke waited a beat then continued. “The young lady he’s with works at his store here in the city and told us August was in the store from 10:00 this morning forward. I don’t think she’s lying, particularly since she can’t wait to get out of here. Either way it’s easy to check. She says they left the store together and went to a bar at around 5:30.”

  Selke walked over to the edge of the porch and looked down the street, perhaps trying to locate them.

  “I also called the number you gave me for the apartment Burdovsky is moving out of and got the ex-roommate who just got back from Chile two weeks ago. She’s not a big fan of Burdovsky. She told me she got back from Chile and found the cat in her bedroom with a litter box and food. Apparently, whenever Burdovsky was gone for a day or two she put the cat there. The room smelled like a litter box and the rent hadn’t been paid in two months. She claims Burdovsky lied about paying it, was supposed to have sent the check and didn’t do it because she didn’t have her half. There was an eviction letter on the kitchen table, and Burdovsky had some story about her employer owing for the rent. She’s thinking of taking Burdovsky to small claims court, so she’s right there with you, she wants her found.”


  “We’ll see you at the Richmond Station,” Marquez said.

  “Sure, you’re welcome to listen in.”

  At the Richmond Police Station they watched Selke and the SFPD homicide inspector go into an interview box where August was already waiting. Coffee sat untouched in front of August, and he’d changed clothes. He wore a dark green cashmere sweater, gray slacks, polished loafers.

  “My ex-wife loves your store,” Selke said. “She always ran up a big bill. I ought to lock you up just for that.” The SF inspector laughed. August smiled. Selke smiled back at him.

  “We appreciate you coming in.”

  “Frankly, detective, I think you know I only came down here because I lied to you earlier. You asked if I was sleeping with her, and I couldn’t tell you with Dara there.”

  “So you were sleeping with Ms. Burdovsky?”

  “Yes, but I told her yesterday I wasn’t interested in continuing the relationship. She got hysterical and told me she was falling in love with me, so maybe you ought to dredge the river. Maybe she got lovesick and threw herself in.”

  Selke walked August through the past few days, where he’d been, whom he’d talked to, who else knew anything about his relationship with Anna. The interview ended at 12:17. Shauf left to drive back to Sacramento, and Marquez stayed to talk with Selke and the SFPD inspector.

  “It’s going to turn out that she was staying there,” Selke said. “We’ve got a downstairs neighbor that recognizes her and has seen her come and go with August. We showed the neighbor photos, and she said they had their hands all over each other. You’ve got to face the very strong possibility Burdovsky burned you.” Selke looked at the SFPD inspector, then back at Marquez. “We have to ask you something.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “How is it she’s staying with your suspect and you don’t know about it?”

  It was a fair question and not easy for Marquez to answer. Watching August interviewed he’d realized Anna most likely had burned them.

  “My team is down to three wardens, and we’ve had our hands full in the delta.”

  Selke nodded. Sure, that explained it. The SFPD inspector nodded in understanding, but the answer didn’t cut it for either of them. It stank of incompetence. Selke studied his face, looking for a further answer there, then backed off.

  “What is it about sturgeon?” Selke asked, smiling again. “Isn’t that what Scott Peterson said he was doing that night, going sturgeon fishing Christmas Eve?”

  Selke and the SF inspector had a laugh over that. Marquez left them there, the two of them still joking about Peterson and sturgeon fishing as he walked down the corridor and out the door.

  5

  At dawn Marquez stepped over crime tape at the fishing access with a tightness in his chest he hadn’t felt since his DEA career ended more than a decade ago. The tape sagged with condensate from the fog. The sandy path out to the water was dark, the morning cold. He walked the parking lot and then out to the river, as though seeing it again would provide a reason for Anna to stage an elaborate scam to disappear.

  After he left the fishing access he stopped at a diner in Isleton and ate a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast soggy with a commercial butter spread that dripped through his fingers onto his pants. Later in the morning when he walked into Chief Bell’s office, Bell’s eyes went immediately to the stains the butter had left. Bell didn’t like undercover work, didn’t really like the idea of wardens out of uniform, and equated neatness in appearance with clear thinking.

  “Take a seat, Lieutenant.”

  It was Saturday, the rest of the floor empty, the building quiet, Bell making the point he’d come in just for this. He made a second point, that he’d talked with Selke and understood Burdovsky had burned them.

  “Where do you think your operation goes now?”

  “We’ve got one suspect I want to try to flip. If he’ll work with us we can make several arrests in the next few weeks and then it doesn’t all go to waste.”

  The faintest smile started on Bell’s face. “Lieutenant, all August has to do this morning is pick up the phone. Won’t he call everyone he’s bought illegal sturgeon or roe from?”

  “We don’t connect all of the suspects with August. There are other people.”

  “You don’t know if August is working with or buying from these other suspects, and in fact, what you don’t know has been highlighted in the last eighteen hours. Let’s face the music, Burdovsky identified you for August. She blew the operation. It’s over. You’re done. I’m meeting with Chief Baird in an hour to discuss the SOU because I think we’ve also reached that door.”

  “What door is that, Chief?”

  “Last night was an embarrassment.” He paused so the importance of that wasn’t lost on Marquez. “The question I’ll raise with Chief Baird today is whether the SOU is viable in its current configuration. I don’t believe this would have happened if your team had been at full strength. You would have known she was staying with August. Keep your phone with you today. I’ll call.”

  Marquez left Sacramento and drove back into the delta on Freeport Road. He talked to Shauf and Cairo, told them where to meet before taking a call from his stepdaughter, Maria, who was with her mom in Boston. Though his wife, Katherine, and his stepdaughter had been gone on a college tour only a single day, it felt like weeks.

  “What colleges have you seen?”

  “Boston College and Tufts. We’re on our way to Harvard Square. We’re going to BU this afternoon. Mom wants to see it.”

  “You don’t?”

  She breathed hard into the phone as she walked. He tried to picture them in Boston, white sky and cold when he’d checked Boston weather on the Internet.

  “Dad, this trip is more about her.”

  “Have you told her what you told me?”

  “Not yet. Where are you this morning?”

  “In the delta on a sturgeon poaching case, but don’t change the subject.”

  A month ago, Maria had lightened a streak of her hair from dark brown to a pale gold sheaf falling down her left temple, similar to her mother’s streak of white hair. She’d done that despite arguing nearly continually with Katherine for the past six months. What she’d talked to him about on Thanksgiving was her plan to take a year off before college.

  “I’ll talk to her today or tomorrow,” she said. “She’s going to get really upset.”

  Katherine had gone one semester to a college in Vermont twenty-five years ago and had loved being away from home and in college. Then her mother had been diagnosed with ALS and she’d had to drop out, return home to help care for her and get her younger sister through high school. She’d signed herself up at the local junior college. Now what she hadn’t had she wanted for Maria.

  After hanging up with Maria he drove into Freeport and parked across the street from a restaurant the SOU used occasionally as a rendezvous point. He bought three coffees to go, walked up to the levee road, then down the wood stairs and around the old building to the marina dock. Gusts shoved two plastic chairs around, and he caught one to sit on. He propped the other so it couldn’t move and rested the coffees on a splintered dock board at his feet. He tried to drink his but found his gut was already churning.

  He looked out over the river. The fog was gone and cirrus clouds were running ahead of the forecast storm. Shauf and Cairo were still fifteen minutes away, and he thought back to the first contact with Anna and his first meeting with August. Because of the smaller size of his team he’d done something he wouldn’t ordinarily do, made direct contact with the suspect, visiting August at his San Francisco store under the guise of opening a catering business.

  Marquez had bought tiny olives imported from a boutique Spanish producer, capers from the Aegean Islands, ghost shrimp from the delta that August advertised with the old line, “So fresh you can’t see them.” He’d bought Caspian caviar that the Ashland, Oregon, wildlife lab had tested and come back negative on for Pacific white st
urgeon DNA, though the SOU was fairly sure August was buying poached sturgeon roe from the Sacramento/ San Joaquin delta and repackaging it as Caspian beluga, or mixing it with Caspian beluga. Unfortunately, “fairly sure” was as far as they’d gotten with August, which was why Anna had seemed like such good luck.

  He’d given August his card with the name John Croft, told him he was a cook going into business on his own, starting a catering business called Three Bridges Catering, meaning he’d go anywhere in the San Francisco Bay counties. You build a cover story, make it whole enough to stand up, make it so it wears like a comfortable shirt.

  August sold walnut oil, honeys, tins of sardines, dried fishes and seaweed, balsamic vinegars, olive oils, a whole vocabulary of artisanal products. He spoke seven languages, made a point of telling Marquez that, eyes glittering, the kind of guy who needs you to be impressed by his credentials, wants you to think he’s superior to you. He claimed to travel the world looking for “what was left,” and Marquez didn’t doubt that. Some of the best of what was left of sturgeon was in the Sacramento/San Joaquin delta, and August certainly had been there.

  Marquez had stood on the polished chestnut floor of August Foods, handling tins of Iranian caviar, talking business, August memorizing his face while explaining that he was working through his stock of the 2003 harvest of Caspian caviar. He didn’t know what he would do next, because the UN through CITES had banned any commercial trade in sturgeon roe from the Caspian Sea. They’d shut down the 2004 harvest, blaming the poaching for decimating sturgeon stocks. But that was in September. By October CITES had reversed itself, and the ban was lifted. Go figure.

  Now Shauf and Cairo walked around the corner. Marquez handed out the coffees and Shauf freed the other plastic chair. She sat across from him in the chair, the wind at her back, and Cairo sat on the dock.

  “So when do we get the word?” Shauf asked.

  “Bell told me to keep my phone close this afternoon.”