CHAPTER TEN
Kate had never been a fan of early mornings, but she liked Saturday mornings least of all. Something about the way the city still slept while she was up and moving gave her a sense of weary injustice, as though she was being cheated of her entitlement by everyone else’s snores.
Marcus, of course, was chipper.
He slouched across the diner booth opposite her, already halfway through a plate stacked with pancakes, eggs and bacon, his grin as unrepentant as a schoolboy skipping class. “You’re makin’ that face again.”
Kate stifled a yawn with her hand. “What face?”
“The one that says you think breakfast before dawn is a crime against humanity.” He forked another bite of eggs, chewed with relish, then pointed the fork at her. “You should try it. Fuel for the day.”
“Blechhh.”
Her coffee was black and bitter, but it kept her upright. She stirred it absently, letting the spoon clink against the mug. “Fuel doesn’t help if the engine hasn’t been tuned. I got maybe three hours last night.”
Marcus shrugged. “Luxury. I was lucky if I got ninety minutes.”
She eyed him. “Then how and why are you not dead on your feet?”
“Simple,” he said, grinning. “Grease and caffeine. The twin pillars of law enforcement.”
Kate allowed herself a ghost of a smile. Her partner could be infuriating, but sometimes his irreverence was the only thing keeping her from sliding under the weight of their cases. She took another swallow of coffee, feeling it burn down her throat, and reminded herself they had work to do.
Hector Martinez.
A man who had worked long hours at odd jobs—catering, deliveries, and, more recently, a sashimi truck that parked on weekends by the waterfront.
And this morning, they were going to knock on his door.
Martinez’s apartment block stood hunched on the edge of a gray Portland suburb, its concrete walls streaked with mildew, windows patched with duct tape where glass had cracked. The kind of place that swallowed lives whole.
They climbed the stairs, the smell of stale cooking oil and cigarettes clinging to every landing, until they found his door. Apartment 3C.
Kate rapped smartly. “Mr. Martinez? FBI. We need to ask you some questions.”
Silence.
Marcus knocked again, louder. “Mr. Martinez, we’re not here to make trouble. We just need a word.”
Still nothing.
Kate pressed her ear to the door, listening. Faint hum of an old refrigerator. No footsteps. No movement.
“He’s not here,” she said, straightening.
“Or he don’t wanna be found,” Marcus muttered. He glanced up and down the corridor, then out the grimy stairwell window.
That was when they noticed the man with the shopping cart.
He was pushing it slowly along the sidewalk outside, every metal squeak of the wheels echoing up the walls. His coat was patched corduroy, his beard straggly, his eyes bright and shrewd beneath the grime. He looked up at them without surprise, as though he had been expecting their attention.
“You want Hector?” he called, voice gravelly.
Kate and Marcus exchanged a look, then descended the stairs quickly. The man had stopped by the entrance, one hand resting on the cart handle as if to anchor himself.
“You know where he is?” Kate asked.
The man grinned, revealing teeth worn to stubs. “Fish market. Payson. Opens at four in the morning. Hector, he’s always there early. To get the best stuff. Tuna, halibut, crabs, whatever the fancy folks pay for. Mind you, he was late today.”
Payson. A twenty-minute drive up the coast. Kate’s mind worked quickly. “So he was there Friday morning, too?”
The man’s grin widened, revealing more gaps than teeth, but he shook his head slowly. “I ain’t say that. Didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout no Friday nor no other days neither.”
Marcus folded his arms. “Come on, help us out, pal. You see him Thursday night? Friday dawn? You know his schedule better than anyone.”
But the man only chuckled, low and hoarse, and began to push his cart forward again. “Don’t know what I know. Don’t know what I don’t. Hector, he his own man. That’s all.”
Kate stepped after him, her tone sharpening. “A man was murdered, sir. We’re not playing games. If you know something—”
The man turned. “Got a dollar?”
Kate looked at Marcus. Marcus, unhappily, handed over a five.
“Got no change,” said the man, making the note disappear up one ragged sleeve.
“Alright. What do you know?” Marcus asked.
“I know that it’s always a pleasure to assist the Federales.”
After saying that, the man gave them a grave salute, then began pushing his cart away.
“Hey!” Marcus shouted.
Without turning or stopping, the man called out, “Fish market, Payson.”
The cart wheels squealed away into the distance, leaving them with nothing but the cold morning air and a dozen new questions.
Marcus swore under his breath. “He stiffed us.”
Kate watched the retreating figure, her jaw tight. “He stiffed you.”
“You stiffed me.”
By the time they reached the fish market, the sun was just dragging itself above the horizon, casting a pale wash of light across the wharves. The market itself was a frenzy of sound and motion.
Forklifts beeped as they maneuvered pallets of ice.
Crates clattered onto concrete, bursting with gleaming fish—cod, mackerel, flounder, a multitude of weird and bewhiskered species Kate couldn’t even name.
The air was sharp with salt, brine, diesel, and a Babel of tongues.
Men shouted in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Somali and Basque, their voices rising over one another as auctions unfolded in rapid bursts.
Stacks of cash changed hands openly, thick bundles rubber-banded, slipping from one calloused palm to another, men warding off the morning chill with much stamping of feet and swigging of hip-flasks. Buyers scribbled notes in ledgers, barked orders to crews, and vanished into refrigerated trucks.
It was an ancient scene, or like stepping into another land, one where the laws of ordinary time and space had been suspended. Here it was always dawn, always chaos, always the gamble of the day’s catch.
Kate felt eyes turn toward them the moment they stepped inside. Two Feds in suits, even without their badges displayed, stood out like blood on snow.
The first man they asked—a wiry Vietnamese wholesaler with hands like claws—merely shook his head. “Martinez? Go already. One hour before.”
The second—a burly Somali in a knit cap—snorted. “Not here today. Wrong place.”
But the third, a broad-shouldered and ruddy-faced man with a broken nose and a slightly wicked grin, seemed more inclined to assist.
“Ah, Hector,” he drawled, loud enough for a circle of men around him to hear. “Now, that’s a relatively common name amongst them of a Hispanic persuasion, so would that be the short Hector or the tall Hector?”
“Um.” Kate didn’t know how to answer: the photograph she’d obtained of Martinez’s driver’s license didn’t reveal that kind of detail. She turned her phone towards the man so that he could see.
“Aah. That’s Little Hector. But you mustn’t ever call him that. He’s sensitive about it, ain’t that right, boys?”
Laughter erupted around them. The man spread his arms wide, enjoying the show. “The size don’t matter, honey, it’s what you do with it. Ask Officer Dibble over here!”
More laughs. Marcus’s jaw flexed. Kate held up a hand to keep him back. The laughter was a wall, and the more they pushed against it, the stronger it would get.
She was about to steer them out when something caught her eye.
Beyond the auction floor, down a narrow slip where trucks lined up with their engines idling, a food truck eased into motion. She recognized it at once: the colours, the kanji characters and manga-style illustrations, an octopus dancing with a shark.
“Martinez,” she breathed.
Marcus turned. “Where?”
She pointed. The truck was pulling away, its brake lights flaring.
“Damn,” Marcus muttered. “Let’s go.”
They jogged across the lot, slipping slightly in some fish guts and drawing more jeers from the crowd, but Kate ignored it. Her focus was on the truck easing out of the slip, merging into the trickle of early-morning traffic heading back toward Portland.
By the time they reached their sedan, the truck had to be two blocks ahead already.
“Hold tight,” Marcus said, throwing the car into gear.
The chase was not cinematic. The streets of Payson were narrow, lined with parked cars and delivery vans, the air stinking of fish and diesel. The food truck lumbered through, not reckless but determined, weaving between vehicles.
Kate kept her eyes locked on the license plate, calling directions as Marcus maneuvered. “Left at the light—he’s pushing it—watch the van—”
The truck swerved suddenly, clipping a dumpster at the corner. Metal screeched. One tail light shattered, red plastic scattering across the street.
“That’s it,” Marcus growled. “We got him marked now.”
They kept on him until traffic thickened closer to the city. Finally, Martinez pulled into a side lot and braked hard.
Kate and Marcus were out of the sedan before he could move, guns holstered but hands ready.
“Hector Martinez?” Kate called, voice sharp.
The man climbed down from the cab slowly. Early fifties, lean from labor, face lined deeper than his years. His apron still stained with fish blood. He raised his hands slightly, palms outward.
“Don’t shoot. I didn’t do anything.”
“We just want to talk,” Marcus said, though his tone was iron.
Martinez’s eyes darted between them, wary. “You’re Feds.”
Kate stepped closer, her voice measured. “You ran from us, Mr. Martinez.”
“I didn’t run,” he snapped. “I just drove. I thought you were someone else.”
“Like who?”
He shrugged. “I might owe a bit of money to a few people down on the market. People who don’t send you a final reminder.”
His defence wasn’t the greatest, but it wasn’t the worst. Kate saw the fear beneath it, the weariness. She lowered her voice. “We’re not here because of money. Talk to us. Tell us why you were at the Whitfield party Thursday night.”
At the name, his expression twisted. Bitterness, sharp as bile.
“That man,” Martinez spat. “That thief. That liar.”
“Tell us,” Kate pressed.
And the story came tumbling out.
How Whitfield had promised multiplication of seed money, blessings tenfold.
How Martinez had emptied his family’s savings—fifty thousand dollars—because the pastor said faith must be shown, tested.
How the money had vanished while Whitfield paraded a new Italian sports car.
How Martinez’s wife had left, taking the children to live with her sister, leaving him with nothing but a one-room apartment and debts that clawed at his heels.
His voice cracked once, but he recovered quickly, bitterness hardening into stone. “You think I don’t know what he did? He destroyed me. He destroyed us. And now he’s dead. Good. God’s justice, maybe.”
Kate let the silence stretch, watching him. “Where were you Thursday night, Mr. Martinez?”
His eyes flicked away. “Home.”
“Alone?”
“Yes. Watching tv.”
“Watching what?”
“Stuff. News, sports, I don’t know. Just television. To be honest most nights I’m so tired it just goes by in a blur. You got your phone in one hand, looking at funny cats, some dumb cop show on the tv… you’re not really taking in either.”
Like his explanation for running away, his answer had that rare quality of being both plausible and doubtful at the same time.
Marcus stepped past her, opening the back of the food truck. A single glance was enough. He gestured for Kate.
Inside, amid crates of fish and knives wrapped in cloth, sat a folded electric bike, its frame scratched but sturdy. Its wheel muddy.
They looked from the bike to Hernandez. He said nothing.
The silence told them enough.
Kate nodded to Marcus. “Take him in.”
Martinez sagged as they led him away, but his glare burned with the fury of a man who had already lost everything.
As they guided him toward the car, Kate felt a pang of guilt twist in her chest. A man broken by Whitfield’s lies, a family ruined. Maybe he had killed. Maybe not. But one thing was certain—his faith had died long before the pastor ever did.