Die-Off by Kirk Russell Read Free Book Online Page B

talk to me. They’re going to talk to immediate family and I wanted to know he was okay.’
    ‘You already knew he wasn’t. You were just making sure.’
    Now Soliatano moved to shut the door.
    ‘You can do that. You can close the door and I can come back with a search warrant and question your wife. That’s your call, Emile.’
    Soliatano shut the door and Marquez walked back out to the street. He didn’t turn or look back and was close to driving away when Soliatano hustled out to stop him, raising a hand, walking toward his car, signaling him to wait. Marquez lowered the passenger-side window.
    ‘Enrique was a good friend and I’m freaking out. Like I said, I’m not thinking straight.’
    ‘Were you with him when he picked up the coolers with the fish?’
    ‘I don’t know anything about that.’
    ‘I think you do. Two undercover operatives and I followed you from the hospital and I know Enrique didn’t make the call to 911. If we have to run a voice analysis I can get the taped call compared to your voice, or you can just talk to me.’
    Marquez couldn’t get a voice analysis done and didn’t know anything about the 911 caller other than he was male and Soliatano was a good fit, but from Soliatano’s downcast expression he knew he had hit home.
    ‘Start with the pike.’
    ‘I didn’t know what kind they were and he didn’t either. It didn’t matter and I only sort of know where he goes to get them.’
    ‘How many river trips with pike did Enrique make?’
    ‘This was the second time. All the fish in the first drop died of a virus – or that’s what they told him. He was going to have to go back there again.’
    ‘I need you to show me where the first drop happened and where you think the hatchery is.’
    ‘Like I said, I don’t know where it is. They’re super tight about only the drivers going in.’
    ‘How many drivers?’
    ‘Enrique and one other guy. What’s so bad about these fish?’
    In Soliatano’s version there was the same one guy at the hatchery every time his distant cousin, Enrique Jordan, showed up which was once every two weeks, so four weeks in on a schedule that might or might not go through the winter. At the hatchery they told Enrique they would plant young fish in the rivers all winter if it was warm enough. He got a thousand dollars for each river stocking and the job came through a friend of Enrique’s that Emile couldn’t remember the name of.’
    ‘But you rode with him each time?’
    Emile nodded.
    ‘What did your cousin say about the man at the hatchery?’
    ‘The guy never talked to him. He made sure Enrique knew where he was going and never said what type of fish or anything. Enrique did training before he got hired and the job was different and then this part for cash came along after about six months. It was all super legit at first.’
    ‘Give me a description of the man at the hatchery.’
    ‘I never asked.’
    It went like that. Marquez got close to the hatchery but never quite touched it, though Soliatano led him back into the house and showed him on his computer where he thought it was, between Chico and Sacramento but east into the foothills. The area he vaguely outlined was about a hundred square miles.
    At some point it hit Marquez and he looked at Soliatano.
    ‘You were the connection. You’re the friend that got him the job.’
    They went back and forth on that and when Soliatano admitted to that it still didn’t feel right.
    ‘I didn’t know these guys. I just knew they were looking for a couple of drivers and my cousin drove everything.’
    ‘How did you know they were looking for drivers?’
    ‘I don’t remember how.’
    They kept talking past the time Soliatano was supposed to go to work and Soliatano came up with new numbers. Enrique was really making five grand per delivery, which was really good money. They both knew it was illegal what he was doing, but he stuck with not knowing what the fish was and Marquez believed that might