by Scott Blade
Both Chos nodded and accepted it, but didn’t say anything back.
Widow said, “This is a nice house. How long have you lived here?
Jessica Cho said, “Thanks.”
Jim Cho said, “This year will be twenty years.”
Gray said, “So right after Cho passed?”
Jessica Cho said, “Yes.”
Jim Cho asked, “Why are you looking into our son?”
Gray said, “We don’t have a good reason. Just working another case.”
“Involving my son?”
Widow said, “A man from your son’s platoon died. We’re just getting a sense of everyone who knew him.”
Jessica Cho said, “Oh. What was his name?”
“Eggers,” Widow said.
Gray asked, “Did you ever hear of him?”
Jim Cho said, “No. Can’t say we have. Henry didn’t speak about his teammates. He was all secret about it.”
Jessica Cho said, “Guess he had to be.”
Jim Cho paused a beat as if he was trying to stay composed, but he couldn’t keep a grip, not totally. A single tear edged near the corner of his eye.
He said, “Henry loved it.”
Widow and Gray didn’t bring him up for a while. They were on the same page about that. They drank their tea and talked with the Chos for a long time.
Everything stayed casual and light until Jessica Cho started to get up and circle around to Widow. She showed him pictures of Henry on her phone. There were photos of him as a kid, a teenager, and the day he went off to basic. Then she had some photos of Henry from an unnamed desert country. He was strapped with combat gear. There was one photo of him with a platoon of guys. Widow scanned the picture and didn’t see Eggers in it. Then she showed one last picture that was similar but with fewer guys. And there he was.
Widow said, “That’s Eggers. Right there.”
He asked for Jessica’s phone. “Ma’am, can I show this to my friend?”
“Of course,” Jessica Cho said, and she released the phone into his hand.
Widow crossed his hand over to Gray, who leaned in and looked.
“That’s Eggers,” she said.
Widow said, “That’s him. A lot younger than he would’ve been now, but that’s him.”
Widow gave the phone back to Jessica.
Gray asked, “Ma’am, do you know that guy?”
Jessica looked at the phone and said, “No. Henry never introduced us to any of the guys in his squad.”
Platoon, Widow’s brain corrected, but he stayed quiet.
Gray asked, “When is this from?”
“Months before he died. He was in love. Talked about getting married, if it ever became legal.”
Jim Cho said, “Which he never lived to see.”
Jessica Cho pulled up a second photo. It was two men, both in Navy whites, both happy and smiling. They were out in public. It looked like a graduation ceremony. She held her smartphone out in front of her face and stared at the screen. She smiled at the photo.
After a long second, she leaned across the bar and showed it to Widow and then to Gray.
“That’s my Henry!”
Gray said, “He was handsome, and he looks happy.”
“He was happy. Very happy.”
The face of the guy he was with looked familiar to Widow. Then he recognized him the second that Jim Cho saw the picture and said the name.
Jim Cho came up off his feet for a moment to reach across the bar. He tried to swipe Jessica’s phone away from her, but she pulled it back. Suddenly, he became visibly upset. His heart rate picked up. His cheeks flushed. His temples hardened like he was grinding his teeth together.
“That’s him! That’s Shore!”
Cho paused a beat, trying to calm himself. It didn’t work. He was visibly fuming after seeing a picture of his dead son with the man who had killed him.
Jessica Cho said, “Henry loved Dwayne!”
“He murdered our son!”
Jim Cho slammed his open palm down on the bar top.
Widow and Gray looked at each other. Widow knew there was some kind of paragraph somewhere in the NCIS field manual that referred to how to deal with upset parents, but he couldn’t remember it. He had been out of the job for way too long.
Gray stayed quiet. He wasn’t sure she could remember it either.
Jessica Cho said, “He didn’t kill our son! I don’t believe that for a second! Dwayne loved Henry!”
Chang remained in the far reaches of the kitchen and stayed quiet, like she knew the drill. She knew the best thing to do whenever the Chos fought was to stay out of it.
Jim Cho stared at her with a look like he was bubbling up with anger. He stepped back from the bar and turned to walk away and then stopped and turned back one last time.
He took a deep breath, and he kicked them out.
“I want you two to leave, please. I’m not angry with you personally, but seeing you guys has brought up stuff I’d like to leave buried. Finish your tea and get out.”
Cho turned to leave the room, but Widow stopped him.
He said, “Before we go, mind if I ask about your business?”
Jim Cho rubbed his face hard with one hand. He looked back at Widow from across the kitchen.
“What do you want to know?”
Widow said, “This is a nice house. Hollywood Hills. It’s an expensive area. Business must be pretty good?”
“It is.”
“Has it always been this good?”
Jim Cho asked, “How do you mean?”
“How was it before?”
“You mean when Henry was alive?”
Widow nodded. Gray lowered her hand under the bar top and grabbed Widow’s leg. She dug her fingers into his thigh and squeezed, seeming to be warning him to be careful.
Jim Cho said, “When our son was alive, we struggled. For many years. The only good that came out of what happened was this.”
Cho put his hands up like he was presenting his wealth to them.
“This house, all our money, it’s all from when he died. We wouldn’t have made it without his murder.”
Widow looked at Gray. She dropped her hand from his leg and stared back at him, puzzled.
Widow asked, “How do you mean?”
“Our son is responsible for this place and our success.”
“How?”
Jessica Cho said, “Henry left us a generous life insurance policy.”
Gray asked, “You mean the Navy paid for all this?”
Jim Cho said, “No. The insurance money from the Navy was hardly enough to buy a one-room apartment here. We mean the insurance policy that Henry bought outside of the military.”
Widow and Gray stared at each other again. They had the same question on their minds, as if they were totally in sync.
Widow thought, Why the hell would a twenty-eight-year-old, unmarried, healthy SEAL buy an outside policy?
Widow asked, “How much was in the policy?”
Gray put her hand back on Widow’s leg. This time it wasn’t to squeeze his thigh. It was tender but professional, like she might do to her partner just to get him to slow down a bit.
Gray said, “I’m sorry for the direct question. We’re looking at all the information we can get. So how much?”
Jessica Cho looked at her husband lovingly and without judgment of his outburst.
“How much was it, darling?” she asked.
Jim Cho said, “It was five million and change. We used it to get our productions off the ground, paid all our debt, and purchased this house. It was truly life-changing.”
Jessica Cho got up and walked over to her husband. She put her hands into his.
She said, “We’d trade it all back for our son to be alive.”
Gray said, “Of course.”
She stood up from her stool and tapped Widow on his lower back. He got the clue and stood up with her.
Gray thanked the Chos for their time, took Widow by the
forearm, and led him back out of the house.
Widow saw more photos of Henry in the hallway that he hadn’t noticed earlier. There were photos of Cho as a kid, doing kid things. They looked like a happy family before he died.
Jessica Cho walked them out, thanked them for coming, and closed the door behind them. They walked back along the stone walk back to the driveway and the Charger.
Gray said, “Nice people. What do you think?”
“I think we definitely should talk to Shore’s parents.”
“I agree.”
Widow looked up at the night sky and over the city again. He doubted he would ever see this view again. He tried to take a mental picture of it. It was really something spectacular. He knew he would never be able to afford a house like that with a view like that.
Finally, he asked, “Where to now?”
“We should drive to San Diego.”
“Tonight?”
“No. First thing in the morning. Let’s grab some dinner and then get to sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”
They drove back down out of the Hollywood Hills and onto Sunset Boulevard. It didn’t take ten minutes for them to find rows of hotels and restaurants. They found a Best Western next to a Chinese restaurant and decided that both would do.
They checked into the hotel, all on Gray’s credit card, and they got separate rooms. They ate dinner together at the Chinese restaurant and returned to the hotel an hour later.
They said their goodnights, and both went into their separate rooms.
Widow stayed up an extra hour, thinking about Eggers, thinking about the BAM guy, and thinking about Gray. It was the later thoughts that helped him slip into a good sleep.
Forty-Four
Gray woke up bright and early the next morning. She surprised Widow at his door with two hot coffees in paper cups with lids, stuffed in a carrying tray, and purchased from a gas station nearby. The coffees were in a carrying tray so she could carry them one-handed while she held a white plastic bag in the other hand.
The contents of the white plastic bag were for Widow. Inside were a new foldable toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, a pack of disposable razors, a small can of shaving cream, and a comb—all travel-sized.
He thanked her, especially for the new toothbrush, because the new one he carried wasn’t foldable. He preferred the foldable travel kind—easier to carry.
He washed his face, combed his hair, brushed his teeth, shaved, dressed, and joined her at the car. They checked out of the hotel, not knowing if they would be back, and they got on the road.
Southern California was famous for a lot of things, some good, some bad. The one good thing was the weather. And today was no exception to the rule.
They drove the speed limit along the Pacific Coast Highway. Gray pulled her hair back into a ponytail. When Widow got into the car with her, she pointed out a pair of sunglasses that she had also bought for him. She wore hers and he wore his. They were matching aviator-style glasses. He was grateful; he needed them because Sunny California was indeed sunny.
They drove the whole way with the windows down and listened to what she called an old rock station on satellite radio. Only it wasn’t old rock to Widow. It was all music from the nineties, with some eighties mixed in.
They drove like two people out on a short road trip, two friends, two potential lovers. There shared a lot of good conversation and a lot of laughing and a lot of smiling and a lot of flirting. Widow noticed all of it. He didn’t complain.
Their conversations started with a question.
Widow asked, “Are we going to Camp Pendleton?”
“No. We’re meeting Agent Reid in Little Italy in Downtown San Diego.”
“Oh, great!”
That started them down the road of conversation that got them talking the whole drive. They got to know each other better. Widow learned more about Gray. She was a great addition to Unit Ten. He could see her ending up with Cameron’s job in the end.
As they neared San Diego, Widow changed the subject, changed the focus in his mind from Gray and back to Eggers and the BAM guy and he started to think about the end game.
He asked, “What are we going to do when we catch whoever these guys are?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re a cop.”
Gray glanced at him.
“Yeah?”
Widow said, “I’m not. I haven’t arrested anyone in years. What are we going to do? We going to arrest them?”
“Of course. What would you do?”
He looked out the windshield at the road and the cars and the beautiful sky.
“I’d do whatever needed doing.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Widow went quiet for a long beat and then he changed the subject.
“Where exactly are we going?”
“We’re meeting Agent Reid at a café. Would you like to drive?”
Widow looked at her.
“You want me to drive?”
“Yeah. I can navigate.”
“Okay.”
Gray slowed the car and pulled off onto the shoulder outside the exit to Mission Valley, and they swapped. Widow had to rack the seat all the way back and tilt the steering wheel and adjust the mirrors more to his height needs. They were back on the road.
They drove to Downtown San Diego and got off the freeway and merged into traffic. Gray used her phone to navigate the one-way streets and told Widow where to turn and where to go.
After about fifteen minutes of circling and turning and traffic lights, they entered Little Italy.
“Turn here,” Gray said.
Widow turned the car, and she pointed up at a café on a street corner.
“Right there.”
“Where do I park?”
“Good question. I wish we had a car from the motor pool. Then we could park anywhere.”
They had to circle around the block several times before they found parking on the street. They parked and got out. Widow offered the keys to Gray, but she told him to keep them.
They walked side by side around a building and down the block back to the café. The café was just one small room with a counter and tables outside on the sidewalk.
Inside they only served Italian-style coffee and Italian-style food.
They were instantly greeted by a hearty smile belonging to the owner. He was a young guy with long hair. He greeted them and welcomed them and invited them to have a look at the menu.
Gray glanced around and didn’t see the agent she was looking for. So they ordered coffees and took a table outside on the pavement.
Gray kept looking at her phone like she was patiently checking the time.
Widow said, “Why are we meeting the guy here and not at the local office?”
“I don’t know. He just insisted on meeting here.”
“He knows what this is about?”
“He knows. I sent him a workup of Eggers and that we’re looking into his death as a murder.”
“It was a murder.”
“He knows that.”
“He knows about the fifty million dollars in stocks?”
“He doesn’t know that part.”
A minute later, two men in a navy blue Ford pulled up to the curb and stopped in an Emergency Vehicle Only space. The man in the passenger seat got out, said something to the driver, and the driver nodded and pulled away from the curb.
The man walked over to the café and saw Widow and Gray and waved to them. Gray stood up, and Widow stayed where he was.
“You must be Agent Gray?” the man asked.
Gray shook his hand.
The guy was about sixty years old but had a youthful appearance indicating he was still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He had fair hair, losing it in some places, but not enough to cause worry, not yet.
He invited himself to sit next to Widow, across from Gray at the little table. He offered his hand to Widow, who took it and shook it.
“I’m Sonya Gray, from Quantico,” Gray said. She gave no unit name, just the vague Quantico.
“Christopher Reid,” the fair-haired NCIS agent said.
She said, “And this is Jack Widow, retired.”
Widow and Reid exchanged nods and nothing more.
Reid looked at Gray and said, “Your request to meet me must’ve come from high up? I have never gotten a direct request to liaise with another agent directly from the director’s office before.”
Gray smiled and added nothing else.
Reid asked, “Do you guys like coffee?”
Widow perked up just at the mention of coffee, even though he already had some in front of him.
“I like this place. I love coming down to Little Italy. I hope you guys enjoy it,” Reid asked and looked at Widow.
Widow said, “I love coffee. This is pretty good.”
Reid nodded and smiled.
“Yeah. I like it here.”
Reid looked at his watch and gazed down the street and sidewalk to the west. At first, Widow thought he was glancing at the ocean view. It wasn’t a direct, oceanfront view, but the Pacific could be seen from where they were partially because they were on a hilltop and partially because the ocean wasn’t far away.
Gray asked, “How long have you been in the NCIS?”
Reid looked at her.
“I’ve been an agent now for twenty-one years.”
Widow asked, “So, you had only been an agent for a year before you got the Cho case?”
“Yeah. That’s right,” Reid said and glanced again down that street.
Widow took a look. He saw nothing but a regular San Diego street. There were cars and pedestrians. He saw a guy walking a dog up the street and a couple of office workers crossing the street and some tourists taking photos.
Only the man walking the dog was coming up the sidewalk toward them.
Gray said, “Reid, you waiting on something? You seem spaced out.”
Reid turned and looked at them.
“You guys have called to meet with me about a case I worked twenty years ago. It was the one that stuck with me all these years. The Cho case was brutal. I figured the man you really need to talk to is that man.”
He pointed at the guy walking the dog. It was an old German shepherd. The man was older too. He looked early to late seventies, but still spry and wiry and full of life in his walk.
