by Dale Mayer
Axel finally ended up sending Mason a text. Nothing popping on the half brother Rory, practically nothing on the friend Thomas. Almost as if they didn’t exist.
Let me take a look. Mason came back a little later. California license. Thomas would have been 28 years old.
Axel replied right away. Right. So, the brother was 29. They were both about the same age.
Mason continued, Went to the same elementary and middle schools but not the same high school. Reconnected afterward.
Interesting. Where are you getting that from?
Mason phoned him. “Thomas and Rory were both in the navy.”
“Well, well, well,” Axel said, “there’s your connection.”
“Both confirmed deceased, with death certificates, cremations, burials.”
“Shit,” Axel said. “Do we really believe they both died though?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ll have to dig in to look further.”
“I’ve asked the NYC coroner’s office for a redo on the DNA to confirm IDs. They said it could take up to three months, so I’m not expecting anything for at least four months. So if you can speed that up …” Axel said.
“I’m just trying to work out the justification for this,” Mason said, with a note of humor.
“But, in this case, eleven dead navy men is pretty good justification.”
“Very true,” Mason said. “But the brass already thinks they have their man—woman. Remember? So they don’t want any more evidence. Their minds are made up, and they don’t want anybody to distract them from Ally. They think they have enough as it is. Any connection to Hostettler?”
“I was just going to ask if you want to keep looking into that.”
“Yep. Will do. You keep digging too.”
“I’ll chase that one down next,” Axel said. When he hung up, he got up for another sandwich run to the hospital’s cafeteria and sat down there for a quick break. As he did so, his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, but answered it.
“You were talking to my daughter,” said the man on the other end of the phone.
“And your daughter is?” But deep inside, he knew.
“My daughter is Ally. She said you were there today.”
“Yes, I was,” Axel said, speaking slowly. “Did you have a specific reason for calling me?”
“Her brother Rory,” he said. “It’s a bad stage to set for a life, and it ended up even worse. But I can confirm what she said.”
“Well, you can’t actually,” he said, “because you don’t know what she said to me.”
“I didn’t know about my son Rory’s existence until later in his life,” he said. “The affair happened during a bad time in my marriage, and my wife and I had split up for a time. Rory’s mother never told me. When my son came looking for me, he was already twenty-four or twenty-five years old.”
“Interesting,” he said.
“We tried really hard to make a family relationship. My wife obviously had a much harder time with it than I did. Ally welcomed him with open arms.”
“She seems like the type,” Axel said.
“Her heart is big,” her father said. “Unfortunately she trusts a little too easily, like that ex-boyfriend of hers.”
“Right, he seems to have been a number one pain.”
“Lawyer fees, court case, it was ugly, very nasty, and she’s still paying for it,” he said. “That man has no honor and is just drainage under the sewer. If you ask me, he deserves everything coming to him and more. So I hope you go pound him into the ground,” her father said in frustration. “Unfortunately I’m not living near my Ally, still reside here in Australia, and I’m not physically fit enough to do it myself. But, believe me, I’ve wondered about hiring someone else to.”
“Leave that be,” Axel said. “It’s not something you want to get into.”
“No, but he shouldn’t be out walking around after what he did,” her father said.
“Can’t disagree with you there. Now tell me what happened with Rory’s and Thomas’s deaths.”
“They were visiting New York City, walking through one of the worst areas of town. It was a drive-by shooting, and two other people were on the street. They were shot as well. Both my son Rory and his friend Thomas were shot. Neither survived. Of the two other people shot, one survived, and one did not.”
“So there’s obviously a police file somewhere then?”
“Yes, they were visiting at the time. You’ll have to contact the police department there for a case file.”
“Anybody ever convicted?”
“Gang war,” he said. “Nobody convicted. Probably a dozen suspects, but nobody they can pin it on.”
“Got it,” he said. “Typical, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately it’s the innocent who suffer all the time,” he said. “And I’m getting damn tired of it. First, my daughter was victimized by her boyfriend—or fiancé at the time actually. And that was followed by her brother being victimized as well.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ll see what comes out of this.”
“No, we can’t,” he said. “The problem is, she is being victimized all over again,” he said. “I can’t just sit here and let that happen.” Ally’s father got very emotional.
Axel rushed to assure him. “That’s why I’m trying to help, sir,” he said. “I can’t guarantee what’ll happen though.”
“Of course not. The navy does what they do, but that’s no excuse for picking on her. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Then we’ll have to prove it, sir,” Axel said. “I have to trust in what I’m doing. I have to trust that this is possible.”
“Maybe,” he said. “The problem is, when the military wants something to go away, they make it go away. And, if they want a scapegoat, they make a scapegoat. My daughter’s already been traumatized by men in her world,” he said. “I don’t want it to happen again.” Something about the tone of his voice made Axel lean forward.
“What was her relationship like with her brother?”
“Which one?” the father hedged.
“Don’t mess with me,” Axel snapped. “You want my help to keep your daughter safe and to get her out of all this? Then you need to come clean.” There was a moment’s hesitation.
“Rory resented her,” he said. “He was still paying student loans, whereas I had helped her through school, and she’d gotten scholarships most of the way. So she was free and clear of student debt and had already made it to the military. I think, drawing parallels with her academically—and seeing the potential difference in his finances, lifestyle, and career path—he saw how different it would have been, had he been part of our family from the beginning. The whole thing took a toll.”
“And he resented her specifically?”
“Yes, though I’m not exactly sure why. I think because they were both in the same field, and that bothered him too. Plus both were in the navy, but she was fast-tracking up, and he wasn’t.”
“Was he a bit of a sexist?”
“He was gay,” her father said. “I didn’t mind, but I do think he resented women. He had a tough relationship with his mother as well.”
“Interesting,” he said. “And you’re sure he’s dead?”
A bark of laughter came from the other end of the call. “I saw his body myself. He took one full round to the chest. There was no saving my boy,” he said. A moment of hesitation came before he cleared his throat, and he added quickly, “Please save my daughter.” And, with that, he hung up.
Chapter 6
When the doctor showed up in the late afternoon, Ally immediately asked him, “When can I leave?”
He frowned at her, but she just glared right back. “I’m not sure that you’re being allowed to leave,” he said in a mild tone.
She froze, and her eyebrows slowly lifted. “What? What are you saying?”
“This is a military hospital on a military base. There is some question as to your involv
ement in the scenario that put you here,” he said, “but that’s not my department. However, two naval guards are outside your room now.”
“Are they to keep me safe or to stop me from leaving?” she asked in a low voice.
“I can’t answer that,” he said. “I was kind of hoping you would.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” she said, “but I did think that I saw the shooter here at the hospital.”
At that, he froze, staring at her. “Are you serious? And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“I did tell someone,” she said. “I told the SEAL who was here this morning.”
His fingers tapped on his upper arm. “I wonder if that’s what the guards are about.”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but that shooter visit was also why I was hoping to leave.”
“Meaning that, he knows you’re here, and you may be safer out there?”
“I was hoping so,” she reached up, rubbing her face again, “but I feel like shit. So I’m a sitting duck either way.”
“That wasn’t just a simple break, young lady. The bullet did terrible damage to the femur. It’ll take quite a while to heal. We had to put pins in there and a steel bar.”
“I know,” she said. “And I’m very grateful for what you did.”
“But you’re only grateful in little ways,” he said, with a note of humor. “Understood? That head of yours, on the other hand,” he said, “must be giving you a crazy headache.”
“Well, it was doing okay,” she said. “And then it came back again.”
“Your painkillers are probably wearing off,” he said, checking his tablet. He nodded. “Yeah, you’re due for more.”
“So, that’s what it is?” She groaned as she stared out the window. “I was hoping it was just a temporary setback, and I could get up and leave.”
“Have you tried walking?”
“Yes,” she said. “To the bathroom.”
“And how did that go?”
“I’ve been better,” she said.
“Yes, I’m sure you have,” he said.
“I used both crutches, and it was slow going.”
“The crutches will be a help temporarily,” he said. “We can change that cast to a walking boot after a few weeks,” he added. “But, for now, I don’t want you moving around much or putting any weight on the good leg. And that casted leg needs to be elevated. Meanwhile, we must watch that other leg wound too. There’s always a chance of infection setting in.”
“I could do that at home,” she said hopefully.
“And who’ll look after you?”
Her face fell.
He nodded. “Look. You live alone. You don’t have anybody close who could come and look after you.”
“There are people I could call to help,” she said slowly. She looked down at the leg and winced, thinking of trying to get to the bathroom or getting in and out of bed at her place. “The setup here is better. I get that, but—”
“Stay here for a few more days,” he said. “Whether the guards are here to help you or to keep you contained,” he said, “they’ll stop anybody from trying to get in here.”
There was some wisdom to that, so she sank back against the bed and nodded. “How bad is my head?”
“Considering how close you came to being dead right now, I would say, it’s not so bad,” he said. “However, the bullet ran right along the skull line,” he said, “and packed one hell of punch. But you’re alive.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Sometimes I forget to remember that.”
“Focus on that,” he advised. “There will be another day after this,” he said. “Tomorrow is bound to be better.”
“It can’t be much worse,” she whispered.
“None of that,” he said. “From where I stand, this all could have been a lot worse.”
And, with that, he turned and walked out. She realized she was being selfish and feeling sorry for herself, remembering the other men from the sub. Besides, it wouldn’t help anything. But all the thoughts of everything that had gone on continued to circle in her head. Nothing made any sense, and she desperately needed it to. She liked things that were logical—like code, where she could see a problem and fix it. Lines of code made sense, or they didn’t. And, as soon as she saw something wrong, she could apply her knowledge and figure out how to make it right. But this? There was no making it right. She didn’t know what the hell was going on, but something was seriously wrong that defied logical explanation, and she couldn’t see her way out of it.
Just then her father called her. “I spoke with him,” he said abruptly.
She frowned. “I only told you about him being here,” she said, sitting up straight, “so you wouldn’t worry.”
“Well, I know how this works,” he said. “I’ve watched my children go through hell like this and have a bad end,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that I put in a pitch to see that you came out on the right side of this.”
“Oh, Dad,” she said, with a heavy sigh, as she sagged against the headboard. She reached up a tired hand and brushed her hair off her face. “Did you tell Mom?”
“Not the details,” he said. “I didn’t want to upset her any more than I had to.”
“She’ll have to know sometime though,” she whispered.
“Maybe not,” he said. “Maybe this will all be over, and she won’t have to know anything about it, until it’s done with.”
Her father was nothing if not an optimist. But, after his son Rory’s death and what happened to Ally with her lowlife boyfriend, her father was no longer the same believer in humanity. Not like before. “I think Axel is working in my favor,” she said, “but you know how these guys are. It’s just so hard to know what they’re thinking.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on it, and I’ll hound him too.”
“I doubt if that’ll help,” she said.
“It can’t hurt,” he replied. “Somebody’s got to look after you, and I can’t do much from Australia.”
“Dad, I’m fine,” she whispered.
“You’re stuck in a hospital bed with busted-up legs,” he said. “They won’t even let you leave the hospital because you can’t look after yourself,” he said. “You probably have to be in traction with your leg elevated, don’t you?”
She chuckled. “Did you talk to the doctor too?” she asked.
“No, but maybe I should.”
“Don’t bother. I just spoke to him,” she said. “He repeated almost exactly what you just said.”
Her father chuckled. “Medical advice is pretty well universal,” he said. “I am concerned about the head injury though.”
“I’m normal. I’m talking. I’m rational. I don’t even have a concussion. I just have a bunch of stitches on the side of my head. And, of course, they shaved my head. At least that strip.”
“That’s to be expected,” he said. “Right now, it’s probably still numb too. That’ll hurt and itch like hell before long. Guaranteed to drive you crazy.”
“Great, thanks,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to that.”
“It will be fine,” he said humorously. “At least you’ll know you’re alive at that point. Right now, you probably feel like you’re half dead.”
“I do,” she said. “It’s kind of frustrating. But I’m working on it. I just want answers.”
“We all do,” he said. “We all do.” And, with that, he hung up.
*
Axel got water-cooler word from Mason that the navy had two guards on Ally’s hospital room. Well, I don’t need to stick around here so much then, Axel thought. Now, besides digging into Hostettler, that ex-boyfriend of Ally’s was a piece of information Axel wanted to deal with personally. But how the hell would he get to the bottom of that?
Then he decided that the best tactic was forward movement. He’d look up the ex’s address, remembering that he had a wife and a little girl, as Ally had said. Finding the directions, he h
opped into his Jeep and left the base’s hospital and headed into San Diego. It was another fifteen minutes across traffic to get to the small bungalow. He walked up to the front door, and a woman answered. He smiled and introduced himself. “I’m looking for Carl. Is he home?”
“Yes, he’s out back,” she said, frowning.
Axel nodded. “I’d like to speak with him,” he said easily.
Still frowning, she closed the door partially and called out, “Carl, somebody’s here to see you.”
“Can’t even get a day off, can I?” he said humorously. She opened the door when Carl arrived, and Axel stared at him.
“Who are you?” Carl said, frowning.
“I’m involved in the investigation of an accident that happened recently,” he said and introduced himself with his name and base.
“So, connected to the base?”
“Yes, that’s correct, related to the base,” he said. “And it involves Ally.”
With that, Carl’s face drained. He looked nervously at his wife and then said, “Well, maybe we should take this outside and not disturb my wife with it.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure this is something your wife needs to know about and to deal with,” he said, taking a step inside. He looked over at her and smiled. “Ma’am.”
She looked at him hesitantly and asked, “Why would you come after Carl?”
“Just some questions,” he said. “I need to know his whereabouts during this incident.” He quickly noted the date with a notepad and a pencil in his hand. “So where were you during this time?”
Carl stared at him and said, “I was here at home,” he said.
“The whole time?”
He frowned. “Well, I was at work too.”
Axel jotted down where he worked and who could vouch for him at the job. And then he said, “And the rest of the time. Who can vouch for that?”
“My wife, Mary, here,” he said. “I was here with my wife and my daughter.”
“The entire time?” Axel asked, looking at him.
