Die-Off by Kirk Russell Page A

let her live with uncertainty, long silences, the empty nights and weeks when he was gone. It all took its toll.
    Then, as he resigned as patrol lieutenant heading the SOU and was no longer responsible for the team and moving into a sometimes more dangerous role, something snapped in him and he left the department rules in a desk drawer and wrote his own. He and Katherine had each other. That’s what they had. He told Katherine now as best he could how it felt.
    ‘I feel shock, surprise, anger, everything, Kath. I never saw it coming and now I’ve got to start pushing back.’
    In the California Department of Fish and Game Marquez was legendary for taking the battle to the enemy. That was long his style and maybe that would never change, but working alone as he often did now he was more careful how he picked his battles. Katherine didn’t know Voight but she did know him and he walked her through what he saw happening next.
    ‘It’s going to get rough. Voight will come after Maria.’
    ‘How can he do that?’
    ‘She was a friend of both Terry Ellis and Sarah Steiner.’
    ‘So were a lot of people.’
    ‘Maria is how I learned about them and Voight knows Maria is the tie between me and Terry and Sarah. He’s known that for a while and I think he’s got some new theory about it. He’ll want to question Maria again.’
    ‘How do you know that?’
    ‘From the questions they asked me.’
    ‘She can say no.’
    ‘She can but he won’t quit. He’ll make the case that she can help him solve the murders of her friends.’
    ‘He’ll spin anything she says. You shouldn’t help him do that.’
    ‘I can’t stop him from questioning Maria and sooner or later he has to talk with her.’
    ‘But she doesn’t have to talk to him.’
    ‘Voight took it to the edge when we met. To me that says he believes he has information I don’t know about. He and the sheriff got as far as trying to get me to confess. They held me for hours and got the district attorney involved. She is why they backed off. Harknell followed up with a call to the chief and to Captain Waller. He knows naming me as a suspect could end my career. At a minimum I’d be off until it was resolved.’
    ‘Is this investigator Voight doing this because of bad blood between you?’
    ‘I don’t think so. The sheriff can’t stand Fish and Game and maybe he’d push it farther without evidence but I don’t think Voight will. That’s why I think he’s trying to verify something he got from a tip or someone who came forward.’
    ‘Call Maria and let her know what’s coming.’
    ‘I’ll call her now.’
    Maria’s voice was bright, light-hearted, and teasing as she asked, ‘Dad, what’s up?’
    He told her and she was quiet then indignant and asked for Voight’s phone number, insistent that she was going to set him straight.
    ‘Here’s his phone number but I would let him call you first.’
    ‘I’m going to deal with this, Dad.’
    Early the next morning Marquez switched vehicles again and left Sacramento driving north on 99 thinking about his conversation with Waller last night. Waller’s view was thoughtful and unemotionally frank. If Marquez was named a person of interest the media would circulate his photo and his viability as an undercover operative would end, or in a best case be compromised enough to bring him into the office and find a new role.
    That was a place they both knew he would never go, so the assessment was stark and in truth it was worse than Waller said. If Voight didn’t solve the murders yet named him as a person of interest, then until he did solve them Marquez’s name would hang like a question mark. He would become the guy the police were sure did the killings but didn’t have enough evidence to arrest.
    Among the law enforcement across the country there was some small fraction of cops who were killers. Inside that tiny fraction were a few who killed and then taunted the detectives by insinuating themselves into an