by Scott Blade
The guy walked up to them and Reid met him in front of the table. They shook hands and hugged like two friends at a high school reunion.
Reid said, “Guys, this is my friend Andy Frost.”
Frost held his hand out to both Widow and Gray. Both of them stood and greeted him.
Frost said, “Hello, guys. I’m Andy Frost retired. I worked for NCIS for twenty years. I was a sailor before that.”
Frost patted his dog on the head and introduced him.
“This is Bluto. He’s an old sailor himself.”
Widow asked, “Was he a Navy dog?”
“Retired.”
The four of them all sat down around the little table on the sidewalk. Gray sipped her coffee while Widow took a few big gulps, finishing his completely.
Reid said, “Frost left us during the Cho investigation.”
Frost said, “They fired me.”
Gray asked, “Why?”
Reid said, “It was all bullshit!”
Frost said, “They gave me a choice. Either retire or get canned.”
Gray asked a question she already knew the answer to.
“What did you choose?”
“They fired me,” Frost said again.
Gray asked, “Is that why we’re meeting here instead of the office in Pendleton?”
Reid said, “Yes. I thought you guys might want the truth. And you’re not going to get it from the case files.”
Frost said, “Not the entire truth.”
“Which is…?” Gray asked.
Frost said, “On paper, the murder-suicide looked open and shut. The evidence was obvious. Cho was murdered by his lover, Dwayne Shore.”
Reid said, “I was green at the time. A new agent. Frost had been my partner for the first year I worked homicide. But Frost never bought it. He kept digging. The higher-ups didn’t like it. He never stopped digging. He became obsessed with it. Eventually, they canned him for it.”
Gray asked, “On what grounds?”
Frost said, “Drinking. They said I was drunk all the time after the case had been officially closed.”
Reid said, “They found alcohol in his desk. And he smelled like it.”
Widow asked, “Someone plant it?”
Frost said, “No. It was mine. I was drunk all the time. Almost for a whole year after. It was true. But that doesn’t mean I was wrong.”
Widow asked, “Wrong about what?”
Frost didn’t answer that. He turned and looked away out toward the ocean and the sky. He stared out for a long moment.
Gray leaned in over her coffee. She studied him. She started to say something. She started to check on him. But Reid put up a hand. Then he reached across the table and touched his old partner’s hand.
Frost turned back and looked at Reid with love in his eyes. It was the kind of love Widow had seen a million times in his life. It was a love built on brotherhood and shared experiences and friendship. The two of them had been NCIS agents together. They were friends, and they shared something else. They shared an experience.
Frost nodded at Reid that he was okay. He pulled his hand away and wiped a single tear away from his eye.
He said, “Someone else killed those boys. Murdered them both in cold blood and pinned it on Shore.”
Forty-Five
Gray asked, “How do you know that?”
Frost said, “The Service identified Shore as the killer, but the more I dug around, the more pressure was put on me to stop digging.”
Frost went quiet. Then he asked, “Did you meet with Shore’s mother?”
Gray said, “Not yet.”
“You should. She lives in Honolulu.”
Gray said, “We plan to. Today, maybe.”
Widow asked, “Is there anything you can tell us about why you think Cho was murdered by someone else?”
Frost looked at Widow. His dog was at his knee, and it also looked up at Widow.
Frost asked, “You got the names in Cho’s SEAL unit?”
Gray said, “Yes.”
“The official list from the criminal report?”
Gray said, “No. We didn’t see a list in the file. We got one later.”
“No list in the reports?”
Widow said, “No. Is that unusual?”
“It was back then. NCIS used to have clearance for everything when it came to a case,” Frost said, “Anything strange about the list?”
Widow said, “It’s missing a name.”
Gray said, “But that could just be someone in transition. That’s what Widow told me.”
Frost said, “Yes. It could be. But it’s not.”
Widow asked, “Who is it?”
“I can’t say.”
Gray asked, “Why not?”
Frost said, “It got me fired. The name is the real reason I was fired.”
Gray asked, “What’s the name?”
Frost looked at Reid.
“Buddy, take my dog down to the corner there and let him do his business. Here’s a bag,” Frost said. He fished a doggie bag out of his front pocket and handed it with the leash to Reid.
Reid didn’t argue. He nodded along and took the dog and walked off with him, all as if he had known it was coming, all like he was trying to avoid this particular part of the conversation.
Frost said, “The name of the SEAL that’s missing is Nick Gaden.”
Gray looked at Widow. They both knew the name but couldn’t quite place it.
Frost said, “I’ve told you both too much already. That’s all I’m going to say on the whole matter. I don’t want Reid a part of this. He’s still got his retirement ahead of him. They ruined me for looking at Gaden. I’m retired now, and I’ve been sober for years. I just got my chip two months back. I’m remarried and happy. Not going to risk it all over Gaden. Not again.
Widow believed him. He knew the look of a man who had lost everything, a man afraid of losing it all once again. Gaden was a big step forward. Before they had no leads and no name. Now, they had both.
Widow had finished his coffee and was now looking yearningly at Gray’s half-full cup. She smiled and asked if he wanted to finish it for her. He obliged. Reid returned with Frost’s dog and handed the leash back over to him along with the doggie bag, unused.
The four of them shook hands.
Reid hugged his old partner and wished him goodbye. They watched Frost walk away with his dog, back down the street that he had appeared on, back toward the beach and the ocean.
Reid said, “Did he tell you anything you didn’t know?”
Gray said, “He mentioned a name.”
Reid put up a hand.
“Don’t say the name. I already know it, but the less I know of what you guys are investigating right now, the better.”
Widow said, “That’s why you wanted us to meet you here and not back at the office. You wanted us to meet Frost. You wanted him to tell us what we weren’t going to get in the file.”
Reid nodded along.
“We got threats from that name. From his family. Let’s just say they have a lot of clout in the military world,” Reid said, and he looked off in the distance, back down the street where Frost had vanished.
He said, “I didn’t back Frost up when he was on the job. Not like I should have. Like a good partner would have. The drinking was something I could’ve stopped. Maybe if I had backed him up before it got out of hand. I was new back then. Scared. I had a wife and a kid to think about. I needed my paycheck.”
Gray and Widow stayed quiet.
Reid turned back to them.
“Can I tell you both something? Off the record?”
Gray nodded.
“Frost isn’t wrong. He didn’t buy it that Shore killed Cho. We interviewed Shore many times, as you know. I wasn’t sure at first, but I knew in my gut that that boy didn’t kill Cho! He loved him like I love my wife and my kids. I saw it. Frost saw it. And we knew we had made a horrible mistake by following the evidence that led us to arre
st and convict Shore of the murder. The evidence was so overwhelming; it seemed too good to be true. And I think it was. We found the knife in Shore’s apartment. It was still soaked in Cho’s blood. We found Shore asleep on his bed in clothes that were also covered in Cho’s blood. Plus, Shore’s fingerprints and DNA were all over Cho’s apartment. But he claimed not to remember anything from the night before. He claimed he was drugged.”
Widow asked, “Did you check his blood?”
“We ran tox screens on him.”
Gray asked, “And?”
“Inconclusive. But there were signs of a large number of sleeping pills, over-the-counter stuff. And we found a bottle in his apartment. Half empty. We guessed that he murdered Cho and then was so ashamed of what he had done that he took half the pills, maybe to kill himself. But…”
Gray said, “But what?”
“I don’t think he did it. At the time, I went along with it. Our bosses had said that was the case. We were to arrest him and prosecute him for murder. But I was wrong.”
Reid looked at both of them. Then he looked around.
He said, “Frost told you about Gaden?”
Gray nodded.
Reid said, “He’s evil. Pure evil.”
Widow asked, “What got Frost to think of him in the first place? Why was he on Frost’s radar?”
“Look into him. If you dig back twenty years ago, you’ll find plenty of dirt that never stuck,” Reid said. Then he stood up, indicating the meeting was over. He offered them both his hand to shake.
Gray and Widow both stood and took his hand and shook it. Reid turned away, shoved his hands in his coat pockets, strolled off down the street to the south, and vanished over a hill.
Gray said, “I can get Cameron to assign someone back at Unit Ten to put together a profile on this Nick Gaden.”
Widow said, “Tell her to look for connections with Eggers and Cho other than all being SEALs. See if she can find out why Gaden’s name is missing from Cho’s team roster.”
Gray said, “We could go back now? Back to Quantico, I mean.”
“No. I want to talk with Shore’s family. Like Frost said.”
“You believed him then?”
“I do. I know what it’s like to have cases go unresolved. They can haunt you.”
“Do you have cases that haunt you?”
Widow said, “I do.”
Forty-Six
After San Diego, Widow and Gray drove two hours back to LAX because they had to return the car before flying on to Hawaii.
They turned the car and the keys back in to the rental counter. They had carried their old clothes and the toiletry items that Gray bought all in one large shopping bag from the store where they bought their new clothes. They lifted it out of the backseat of the car and Widow carried it with them through the airport.
They had a flight booked by Cameron to leave for Hawaii from American Airlines. They got their tickets and passed through security with both of Gray’s weapons. She had to flash her badge multiple times throughout the procedure, but eventually, they got to the gate all in one piece.
They ended up getting there right at the start of boarding. They followed their group and boarded the plane.
As Gray was figuring out whether to stow the shopping bag under the seat in front of her or up in the bin, a phone noise buzzed in Widow’s old pants pocket.
Both Gray and Widow looked at the shopping bag, confused. She reached in and felt his pockets and pulled out two smartphones, both cheap, both in black shells. One was buzzing and vibrating with incoming text messages.
She climbed over Widow and dumped herself down in the window seat and stared at him. She handed the buzzing smartphone over to him. He took it and stared at the screen.
“Who’s that? Your girlfriend?” she asked.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said and smiled.
“So? Who is it?”
He read it out loud to her.
“It says, ‘Is target retired?’ and ‘Where the hell are you?’ and it says, ‘Sathers, check in!’ It goes on and on like that several more times.”
“Who is it from?”
“It’s the boss man. The bad guy.”
“What?”
“I took the phone off the dead guy in the bathroom in Greensboro.”
“You’ve had it this whole time?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know it’s his boss?”
Widow showed her the screen. It read out the contact name for the sender of the text messages.
Gray read it out loud.
“Boss Man,” Gray said, “Okay. There’s a village missing its idiot.”
Widow said, “Could be worse. He could’ve just written the guy’s real name.”
“The question is, who is the Boss Man? Is it the BAM? Or this Gaden guy? Because we’re talking two different people here. Right?”
“I think so. Yes. I think BAM is the guy in charge on the ground in DC. But Gaden is the money, the man behind it all.”
Gray said, “The head of the snake.”
Widow nodded.
Gray asked, “Are you going to respond?”
“No. At this point, he doesn’t know his man’s dead. Let him keep texting and worrying. Besides, we’re about to take off. They’ll tell me to turn my phone off.”
She nodded.
Widow went ahead and turned off both phones.
Gray said, “I’ve never been to Hawaii before.”
“You’ll love it!”
“I think so! Kind of afraid I won’t want to go back to Quantico.”
“You can always put in a transfer later on. Work Unit Ten for a year or two and do a good job, and they’ll send you anywhere you want.”
After takeoff, Gray stared out the window at the end of the continental United States and the Pacific Ocean.
Widow checked behind him and asked the guy seated behind him if he would mind if Widow reclined his seat all the way back. The guy nodded. Widow reclined as far back in his seat as it would go and shut his eyes. He napped the rest of the flight.
They landed in Honolulu at three fifteen in the afternoon. Widow woke just as the tires hit the runway.
Gray stared out the window at the blue skies, the white clouds, and the green and blue colors of the island state, which were so different than the trees in a New England autumn.
Widow sat all the way upright, surprised that a flight attendant hadn’t woken him up with instructions to do that before. Usually, they were sticklers for that. He must’ve slipped under the radar.
The plane taxied up to a gate and stopped. They got off the plane with their shopping bag and followed the signs to the car rentals. At the counter, Gray asked for a Dodge Charger, which they didn’t have. So she settled on a Ford Mustang. Widow recognized the sports car pattern for her. Not that he complained. She looked good in a sports car.
They drove out of the city to Mokulua Drive in Kailua.
The houses were amazing but not as good as the view.
Widow said, “The Shores live here? Are we sure about this?”
“I spoke to Dwayne’s mother on the phone. She gave me an address out here.”
Widow buzzed down the window on his side. The sounds of crashing waves and birds and wind rushed into the car. Gray stopped the car. She stared at a driveway with a wooden fence covered in vines. There was a curbside security buzzer.
Widow said, “Is this it?”
“That’s the address.”
“Okay. Another millionaire family.”
“Yeah,” Gray said. She turned the car and pulled up to the security buzzer. She buzzed down her window and pressed the button.
A female voice came on over the intercom and said, “Come on in.”
Next, there was a loud buzz. A mechanical arm on the interior of the gate started winding, and the gate opened up in front of them.
Gray took her foot off the brake and eased forward.
Beyond the gate, the
y drove along a short driveway past green grass and green palm trees.
As soon as they cleared the first set of trees, they saw a million-dollar view. The house was nestled back against the shore. They could see the blue ocean crashing into rocks beyond the house. Even with the night sky just around the corner, they could see how blue the ocean was.
Gray said, “Wow! I thought I had a good view!”
“This is something.”
“Never in a million years will I make enough in the Navy to afford this.”
“Maybe not. An admiral could pay this off in about fifty years when you include interest. Maybe forty, if somehow the interest was dropped.”
“Wow! Whatever this family does, I need to switch careers.”
They drove up to the front of the house and parked, leaving the car in the driveway. Hawaiian music played from inside the house. It was low but audible. The bass echoed throughout the house indicating a good sound system installed throughout the place.
They walked to the front door. Before they could knock, a woman with a martini glass filled with olives and vodka opened the door. She was about the same age as Jessica Cho. She wore colorful clothes that were good enough to go to a fancy restaurant but maintained a Hawaiian sense of casual wear.
She was a black woman, about five feet even. In the background, a much younger man was shirtless in white chinos and house shoes. He was built somewhere between a new sailor and a male model. He disappeared behind a wall as soon as he saw Widow and Gray.
The woman extended her hand to Gray.
She said, “You must be Detective Gray. I’m Sheila Shore. My son was Dwayne.”
Gray took her hand and shook it, didn’t correct her on the Detective title. Instead, she said, “You can just call me Sonya.”
“Okay, Sonya. Just call me Sheila then,” Shore said. She turned to Widow and looked him from bottom to top like she was tracing a tree from its trunk to the leafy summit high above.
“This is Jack Widow, ma’am,” Gray said.
“Sheila, remember. It’s just Sheila,” Shore said. She extended her hand to Widow, but not for him to shake, rather for him to kiss the back of it as if they were now in some kind of high-society universe, and she was royalty.
