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firm called ENTR. He’s the one who called me with the northern pike tip. Soliatano is bee-lining toward Hauser’s house in Piedmont.’
    ‘Who is this Hauser, again?’
    That was O’Brien, the warden passing Marquez now on his left.
    ‘ENTR is the business I’m looking at with this illegal hatchery scheme. Hauser claims an internal group at ENTR has a secret project going and has built three hatcheries in California, two in Oregon, and two more in Washington to grow northern pike. Until this truck flipped today there was no proof and Hauser is flaky. He’s avoided meeting. It’s all phone conversations on his terms and each one ends with something he immediately has to get to or another call coming in. You’d think the guy was a Hollywood producer.
    ‘He does five-, ten-, and fifteen-year microclimate projections for ENTR and told me a biologist also working for ENTR tipped him to the pike scheme. He got my cell number from a retired FBI agent I worked with in Argentina. That agent won’t vouch for him and I’ve been digging into who he is. That’s how I know where he lives.’
    ‘What’s he want?’ O’Brien asked. ‘Is he looking for money?’
    ‘Probably, but he says no, it’s his reputation as a scientist he’s worried about and also some forty-page non-disclosure agreement he signed that leaves him vulnerable whether or not the company is engaged in something illegal. Like I said, he hasn’t come across and he can never talk too long. They have an internal security group in the company and he goes on about how he’s afraid of them, but if Soliatano goes to his house now then all bets are off.’
    Marquez broke away three blocks later and was now into tree-lined streets where he could park and kill the lights as O’Brien and Liu reported Soliatano driving random blocks but looking like he was circling Hauser’s house. The house was white-painted and big, with trees in front that had to be a hundred years old, and Marquez remembered an offhand and bitter comment Hauser made about his wife and the house and living in Piedmont. Marquez’s phone buzzed. O’Brien.
    ‘Heads up, he’s coming your way.’
    Soliatano passed Hauser’s house and two blocks down turned around and came back, his headlights sweeping over Marquez’s car. He pulled over but didn’t get out of his car. Marquez could see him holding his phone to his ear.
    ‘He’s calling Hauser,’ and Liu answered quietly, ‘Yeah, I see him. He’s on the phone and there’s a tall guy coming out from the back.’
    ‘Should be tall and thin, but I’m getting that from Internet photos.’
    ‘Yeah, tall and thin, that’s what I’m looking at.’
    Marquez agreed as he watched the man cross the street and get in Soliatano’s car. Soliatano pulled away from the curb though he didn’t turn his headlights on until he was half a block away. Then they did a slow tour of Piedmont streets and, following, they gave them a lot of room. Marquez’s best guess was that Hauser was calming Soliatano down and making some sort of plan to deal with the death of the driver.
    Fifteen minutes later Soliatano and Hauser returned to the house and Marquez got a better look at Hauser as he passed under a street light. He disappeared behind the same garden gate and Marquez and the SOU stayed with Soliatano who returned to the freeway and got on eastbound, probably headed to the Vacaville address on his driver’s license.
    But that’s not where he went. When he got out of the Bay Area and into the Central Valley he took the 505 north cut-off, exited at Winters, and parked in front of a house on a suburban street that looked a lot like home from the way he got out and unlocked the front door.
    ‘What do you want to do, Lieutenant Marquez?’
    ‘Go home.’
    ‘You sure?’
    ‘Yeah, we’re done here tonight.’
    On the drive home Marquez’s cell rang and it was Hauser.
    ‘It’s late, Matt, what’s up?’
    ‘I was just watching late local news and