Battle Cry

by Dustin Stevens

  Even with the clouds continuing to steadily push in from the coast, the promise of rain imminent, his skin is bathed in perspiration. Soon, he will need to retreat to plan and replenish.

  But not just yet.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I can taste sweat as I work my tongue around the inside of my mouth. Fighting the urge to spit it out, having no place to fling it inside the narrow confines of the teepee, I instead swallow it down.

  The flavor is as bitter as expected, matching my immediate reaction to what Daniel Lucero just shared.

  I met my wife in college. I was a junior at the time, she a freshman on campus no more than a couple of days. In the more than twelve years since, we have both been many things.

  Students. Athletes. Lovers. Friends.

  A sailor. A social worker.

  Neither of us have ever been lawyers. The topic of taking the LSAT or attending law school has not once come up. Never have we been a named party in a case, civil or criminal.

  All of which makes what was just shared that much harder to believe, the look on my face relaying as much.

  Picking up on it, Lucero extends his hands before him, patting the air.

  “Allow me to explain,” he says. “You mentioned last night when we spoke that your wife and Dr. Hoke both helped COFA migrants. I’m guessing that means you have at least some working knowledge of the topic.”

  The phrasing makes it difficult to determine if it is a question or a statement, though I nod anyway. One of my deployments was to Guam, a COFA country. While there I got a very limited exposure to the concept, the rest filled in during a conversation with Dr. Hoke a week before.

  Even at that, at no point did anybody ever mention a court case.

  Or how that could lead to my wife currently residing at the coroner’s office.

  “So you know the gist,” he says. “Residents can come to the United States as lawfully-present migrants and receive education and health benefits.

  “That’s how my wife and I ended up here so long ago.”

  At mention of his wife, he again flicks his gaze to the side. Takes a moment to compose himself.

  “After that is where things get tricky,” he eventually continues. “While the Compacts are a federal mandate, turns out it wasn’t much more than lip service. They wrote it down, but left actually having to provide all this up to the individual states.”

  It sounds a lot like what Dr. Hoke explained to me a couple of days before. The whole thing is nothing more than a paper tiger. Something that sounds pleasing to the ear, but nobody actually wants to support.

  A back-and-forth that doesn’t just let a lot of incoming migrants – people like Fran Ogo and Daniel’s wife – slip through the cracks, but actively tries to force them there.

  “Dr. Hoke - rest his soul - did what he could,” he presses on. “But he was one man working out of a makeshift clinic with limited supplies. He wasn’t fixing anybody. He was just delaying the inevitable.”

  The depiction is quite indelicate, though if anyone has earned the right to say as much, it is him.

  And it isn’t like he is wrong, my own trip to visit Hoke last week confirming as much.

  For a moment, the man referred to by the people at St. Mary’s as Father Dan falls silent. His eyes glaze, his mind no doubt in a different time, reliving something he’d rather not.

  When he begins to speak again, his tone is different. Detached.

  “Keani – my wife – was a devout woman. Each time I brought up this issue, she’d just tell me that what was happening to her was God’s plan.”

  His eyes glass over with moisture, his focus still shifted to the side. “I probably should have tried harder. For years, I’d had to sit and watch friends pass on as the system failed them. After it got my wife too...”

  Gravity wins out. The moisture lining either eye streaks south, melding with the sweat already painting his skin.

  Not once does his voice break as he continues.

  “I started making the rounds. City council. State legislators. Anybody I could get in front of. Anyone I thought might be able to do something.

  “They all expressed their condolences. Told me how much they wished they could help, but their hands were tied. It was a federal issue.”

  Twice he blinks, clearing his eyes of any moisture. His gaze shifts back to me, his voice hardening.

  “So that’s where I went.”

  A muscle bulges in his neck as he stares at me. He moves his lower mandible to either side, his expression much like mine after tasting the sweat just a few minutes ago.

  Last night, I sat outside the Valley View and told Valerie Ogo that I couldn’t help but feel something big was coming. After a week of pounding my head against a wall, finally some tiny crack was about to form.

  For whatever reason, I’d been sure of it.

  Never would I have imagined this, though.

  “After weeks of getting nowhere, I was frustrated,” Lucero continues. “I felt like I was wasting my time, being constantly pushed from one office to the next. So, I went straight to the top.

  “Carter Flynn.”

  Much like the legal sector, politics is something my wife and I generally steered away from. She worked for a non-profit. I am employed by the United States government.

  Not a good look for either to be openly opining on such matters.

  Even at that, I am aware of Carter Flynn. One of the longest sitting Senators in the country, the man is a California institution. Someone that has refused multiple requests to run for President so as to maintain his grip on the largest concentrated market in the country.

  My initial reaction is something akin to disappointment. Just a moment before, I was so certain that this was about to lead somewhere. That I was about to find a sliver of motivation behind what happened to my Mira.

  With just one statement, Lucero managed to dash that.

  Never in my life did I hear my wife mention Flynn in any way more than passing. General malaise about campaign ads on loop on television or the ridiculous amount of work that had left him looking like a wax figure.

  He wasn’t someone she was openly targeting. She wasn’t operating a concerted effort against him, hadn’t gone to the press demanding his removal.

  Whatever Lucero is now speaking of is on an entirely different level. Carter Flynn is a ranking senator. There is not a chance in hell he even knows my wife existed. Or the Wolves for that matter.

  Never would he have contracted one to take out the other.

  All of this passes through me in short order. Unlike with Botkins this morning, I make no effort to hide any of it.

  Seeming to pick up on it immediately, Lucero extends a hand before him. “I know how it sounds, what you must be thinking, but let me continue.”

  Without waiting for a response, he presses on, “I remember it was a Monday afternoon. I called his office, explained that I was a constituent, and asked if I might be able to get a few minutes with him or somebody on his staff.”

  He fixes his gaze on me. Sweat bathes his features, the multi-color hue of the meager structure we are in spread over his skin.

  “At first, they were as nice as they could be. Some young kid, told me they loved meeting with voters. Asked all about me, where I was from, what I did for a living.”

  He leans forward a few inches, imparting the importance of his next words.

  “And then he asked what I wanted to discuss.”

  I can feel as that initial disappointment begins to shift. Not yet has the man even told me the meat of the story, and already I can tell where this is going.

  The foreboding in his tone mixes with the growing clench in my stomach.

  “The instant the word COFA was out, you would have thought I said I needed to know the Senator’s schedule so I could show up to shoot him.”

  Not sure how else to respond, I nod.

  “That was it,” he says. His eyes widen, his focus never leaving me. “We got of
f the phone, I went back to trying to figure out where to look next.

  “Eighteen hours later, a blonde woman shows up on my doorstep. Fancy car, fancy outfit, the whole deal.”

  He leans forward again, cutting the space between us to just a couple of feet. Nervous energy seems to roll from him. It almost seems he wants to reach out, grabbing my wrist.

  My body clenches, my mind racing to compute what he is saying.

  “How she found me, I still don’t know. I never gave them anything more than my name, yet there she was less than a day later. Showing up to let it be known there was no COFA issue, and it would be in my best interests to remember that.”

  The tension from a moment before breaks. He blinks several times in succession before leaning back. His gaze moves to the walls around us.

  When he speaks, his voice has changed again. Bled of the previous urgency, it is replaced by resignation.

  “I know how all this appears,” he says. “The makeshift teepee. The cellphone I only turn on for an hour each night. Living out here without any utilities.

  “But you have to understand, I come from an island where all of this is normal. I slept on a woven mat as a child. Never even saw a television until I landed here.

  “All those luxuries, I can do without. If getting rid of them means I don’t have to worry about someone showing up like that ever again, I am glad to do so.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  For Detective Malcolm Marsh, there is no such thing as business hours. No arriving, coffee in hand, each morning. Taking a stroll to the local taqueria for lunch. Punching out mid-afternoon in time to fall in with other commuters anxious to get home for dinner.

  Crime just doesn’t work that way.

  Most days, he doesn’t arrive before noon. A direct result of the fact that most of his cases have him out after hours, meaning the night before rarely ends before midnight.

  Given the choice, nothing would thrill him more than for drunken brawls to erupt at one in the afternoon. It’s just that they seem to be much more prevalent after a long day and a few beers. Or the underdog team pulling an upset in the big game. Or the wrong person winning an election.

  Or any of a hundred other reasons why people come to blows, none more logical than the next.

  Almost all happening well after the sun goes down.

  Because of that, Marsh’s schedule is often staggered to begin midday. An equal split of business and after hours. Time to speak with the labs about a report that comes back or contact a medical examiner on their recent findings.

  Freedom thereafter to visit a recent scene or a crime in progress.

  The only difference between today and usual is the fact that he’s working on just two hours of sleep. Barely more than a catnap grabbed in the time after being summoned to meet with Captain Friedlander this morning.

  A quick shower and a change of clothes thereafter.

  A hundred different thoughts running on loop through his head almost the entire time.

  Unable to turn them off, to focus on much anything else, Marsh is already back at his desk by the time his partner appears. Swinging through the door of their shared office, Mark Tinley goes straight for the miniature table in the corner that serves as his desk. Looking to have gotten only nominally more rest than Marsh, he falls sideways into his chair.

  Waiting to make sure the initial show is over, Marsh arches an eyebrow. “That good, huh?”

  Tinley responds with a smirk. His head rocks back slightly as he presses his thumb and forefinger over his eyes.

  “You first,” he replies. “How did it go with the captain?”

  Opening his mouth to respond, Marsh thinks better of it. Rising from his seat, he peers out into the bullpen, ensuring that no one is listening, before quietly shutting the door.

  In today’s age, with everybody on the planet seeming to have listening and recording capability on their phone, and tablet, and whatever else they carry, one can never be too prudent.

  Especially one with designs of quick ascension, not needing a viral video of him trashing his immediate supervisor on his record.

  “Uh-oh,” Tinley says. He pulls the hand from his eyes, adjusting himself to sit a little higher in his seat. “That bad?”

  Retaking his seat, Marsh replies, “Worse.”

  “Really? Friedlander? He doesn’t seem like the ass-chewing type.”

  That much, Marsh can readily agree on.

  Which is exactly the problem.

  Getting reamed is nothing new. Coming up as a young black man in a decidedly white profession, he’s been down that path more times than he can count. Years of taking jabs and comments have leathered his skin.

  At this point, words merely roll off him.

  A verbal berating this morning would have been fine. It would have sucked in the moment, but he would have endured it, knowing it also carried with it some level of protection.

  No supervisor, in any profession, yells unless they care. About the task at hand. The outcome of the assignment.

  Hell, even their own reputation.

  And if that supervisor cares enough to yell at him, they also care enough to fire back at others when they see something that is bullshit.

  Something like the higher-ups downtown calling and telling him that multiple murder investigations should already be closed just barely a week after occurring.

  “He isn’t,” Marsh agrees. “And he didn’t.”

  A touch of confusion colors Tinley’s features. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning he brought me in to tell me that we should already have a case report on his desk.”

  Tinley’s eyes bulge. After a moment, disbelief turns to mirth, his mouth curling into a half-smile.

  A response Marsh recognizes, even if his initial reaction was one a little further to the opposite end of the spectrum.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope.”

  Since leaving the precinct earlier today, Marsh’s reaction has vacillated. Like a pendulum, it has swung between confusion and anger.

  More than once, he has thought of jumping out of his chair and marching upstairs to tell Friedlander off. Flinging his computer monitor through the glass lining either side of the door.

  Even going to the tiny precinct gym in the basement and unleashing on a heavy bag until his knuckles are bloody.

  When this all started eleven days ago, it was supposed to be his big finish. The crescendo piece to his time in the Central Precinct. A great story he could tell during his next round of interviews.

  A Navy SEAL on the verge of retirement killing his wife in the most public place in the city. Attacking the first responders that arrived to try and help her.

  The headlines had practically written themselves.

  After those first couple of hours though, not one thing has turned out as expected. From finding out Clady’s outlandish story was true to the multiple murders Marsh is now being pressed to solve, everything has gone sideways.

  “Who’s this coming from?” Tinley asks.

  Marsh spreads his hands wide before him. “City Hall, but he pointblank said they were nothing more than a relay.”

  Tinley sighs, shaking his head. “Great, another weigh station as shit rolls downhill.”

  No matter the veracity of the statement, Marsh lets it go. The last thing they need at this point is for the conversation to devolve into a venting session.

  Not with so much to do.

  “You able to find out anything?” he asks.

  Tinley takes another moment before shoving aside the previous topic. He glances to the bag on the floor by his feet, though makes no effort to reach for it.

  “The house from last night is owned by Ken and Shelly Brohm. Two people that lived there for nearly twenty years before relocating out to Palm Desert three years ago. Now it’s purely a rental property.”

  Marsh takes in the information, a bit of dread settling in. Renters tend to make his job more difficult. They’re unt
ethered, making it infinitely easier for them to disappear.

  “Tenants?” he asks.

  “That’s the thing,” Tinley replies. “I talked to the wife, and she seemed genuinely shocked. Even asked if I was sure I had the right house.

  “Renters are a young woman named Valerie Ogo and her grandmother. Both as nice as they can be, pay their rent on time, haven’t had a lick of trouble since they moved in.”

  Marsh adds the information to what he already knows. One more disparate piece of data that makes no sense, directly contradicting everything he would have expected.

  Walking into the scene last night, his initial assessment was a drug deal gone wrong. Maybe some sort of gang warfare ambush, The Wolves receiving the worst of it.

  Based on everything else that has occurred lately, the notion of Clady and some of his SEAL buddies going after the Wolves even entered his mind.

  A young girl and her grandmother doesn’t fit any of those.

  “When was that?” he asks.

  “End of summer,” Tinley replies.

  Taking a breath, Marsh forces himself to slow down. Not to jump to any conclusions. More than once, he has been surprised by things. People he would never think capable performing a truly vile action.

  This seems like a stretch though, even for that.

  “Did the woman have a contact number for Ogo?” Marsh asks.

  “She did,” Tinley replies, again glancing to his bag. “I gave a call an hour or two ago, didn’t get an answer.”

  Tracking his focus from Tinley to his computer, Marsh checks the time.

  “Let’s try them again.”

  Just minutes after six in the morning, the sun had not yet crested over the western horizon. Nothing more than a pale smudge in the distance, the ground temperature hovered somewhere in the mid-fifties.

  Several thousand feet up in the air, it was significantly colder, the wind whipping through the open doorways on either side of the helicopter. Pushed through in a swirling pattern by the blades overhead, it tugged at the lapels of my uniform jacket. Buffeted the legs of my BDU trousers against my thighs.