Warning Shot

by Dustin Stevens

  That leaves only the third most usual prospect for motive, the one Marsh has been rolling around since first walking through the impromptu medical clinic set up on the first floor below.

  Power.

  Or, more likely here, someone trying to maintain it.

  Hand still pressed to his face, Marsh flicks his gaze around the room. He again takes in the small cache of outdated medical supplies piled against the wall before letting his focus drift to the opposite side of the room. There it falls on the single desk with the mismatched chairs shoved tight against the wall, a flurry of papers and folders piled high atop it.

  In the days ahead, there will be a tremendous amount to sift through. A clinic like this, set up in a neighborhood like Chula Vista, means there will be dozens - if not hundreds - of things to track down. People to talk to, false leads to sort past.

  For the time being, though, Marsh is content to let all that wait, his interest more aimed at the one entry in Hoke’s datebook that his partner pointed out the night before.

  Chapter Three

  Small puffs of dust rise with every step I take. Each time the soles of my running shoes mash down into the narrow sandy trail, I can feel particles rising around my ankles, clinging to the sweat lining my skin despite the cool morning air.

  Some even make it much higher, resting like a film on my skin. Burning my eyes. Settling into my throat.

  Ignoring all of it, I keep my pace even. My first run in over a week, lactic acid courses along my calves and quads. My lungs feel raspy.

  After a solid decade in the navy, the effects I’m feeling have nothing to do with a few days off. Rather, they are a direct result of everything that has happened in the last week. The lack of sleep and constant stress since losing my Mira. The physical altercations with various members of the Wolves. The anger and frustration and adrenaline that comes and goes from my system with clockwork regularity.

  The latter of which being the reason I am out here now.

  After leaving Mike Lincoln’s house last night, my friend Chief Petty Officer Jeff Swinger and I were too wired to even consider going home and sleeping. Not on the heels of the brief interaction with the pair of Wolves that came looking for us, and definitely not after speaking to their leader, letting him know exactly what had happened.

  In the wake of all that, my system had been redlined. Both of us flush with adrenaline, we had started out driving north. Pushing for the better part of an hour, we’d found ourselves in Temecula, a town we were reasonably certain nobody we would know or that might be looking for us would turn up.

  From there, we had picked up food and driven to a local park. Neither of us much up for conversation, we’d put a college football game on the radio and sat and ate, waiting until we felt our bodies start to come back down to neutral before returning home.

  Or - in my case - the cheap motel that is currently acting as such.

  Completely accustomed to the cycle after years of going on deployment, I’d gone inside and waited as the tremors that marked the last of the adrenaline leaving my system set in. Propped up in the only chair in the room, once it had passed, I’d stumbled into the shower before collapsing face down on the bed, not to move for another six hours.

  A period of time that ended abruptly this morning as I shot straight upright. Armed with more food and rest than I’d gotten in over a week, there was no way sleep would find me again. There was also nothing for me to be doing in the moment, the early hour and day of the week meaning much of the world was still asleep.

  A sum total that now has me out in the desert, picking my way over the uneven trail. Needing to be moving, to be doing something, to burn away some of the excess energy to help me think, I’d known better than to even consider running along the road. In the aftermath of what happened, I can only imagine every man in a Wolves vest is out roaming the area, looking for any sign of me.

  Even at that, I run with my t-shirt peeled off. Bunched up tight in my hand, I use it to obscure the Mark 23 I have gripped by the barrel, the added weight tugging my right hand downward a couple of inches.

  Just minutes after daybreak, the temperature sits somewhere in the sixties. Days away from Halloween, the omnipresent heat has finally started to subside for the year, each day now marked by peaks and valleys depending on the position of the sun.

  Free of most clothing – and the twenty pounds of gear I’m accustomed to – I barely even break a sweat. Using long strides, I can feel muscles I haven’t used much in the last several days starting to reawaken. It is a welcomed strain, a comfortable contrast to most every other feeling that seems to have gripped me over the past week.

  Not greatly concerned with the time or distance, needing the movement more than anything, by the time I return to the Valley View Inn and Suites, my legs feel heavy. The sun sits a full inch above the horizon, having already lifted the ambient temperature a half-dozen degrees.

  My eyes and throat both burn, dust from the run mixing with the tears and smoke and everything else that seems to have demarcated the last days.

  Dropping my pace to a walk along the edge of the lot, I step over a wooden railroad tie meant to act as a parking bumper. My breathing sits just beneath a pant as I scan in either direction, seeing that the same dented green minivan is still the sole other vehicle present aside from my own and that of the manager.

  Nowhere do I see any other signs of life. No rumble of traffic or even a television set can be heard in the distance.

  Fingers tightening slightly on the Mark 23 in hand, I make my way to the end of the sidewalk running the length of the building. Slowing my pace again, I listen carefully as I move past the room currently housing Fran Ogo and her granddaughter Valerie. Hearing nothing, I move onward, coming to a complete stop outside my door and peering the length of the sidewalk before me.

  I was still with Swinger last night when the minivan arrived. The first visitor outside of myself and the Ogo women all week, there is absolutely no reason to think anything is wrong. And even if there was, they would have had more than ample opportunity to act, either while I was asleep last night or out running this morning.

  Still, I commit the numbers of the Nevada license plate to memory just in case. I also note every dent and rust mark on the exterior, should they decide to try and switch the plates in the time ahead.

  Habits my training instilled long ago, countersurveillance never to be confused with paranoia.

  Leaving my recon at that, I turn into my room before I am spotted lingering outside. One of the last motels on the planet to still use actual keys, I push inside and quietly close the door behind me, making it no more than a few steps before the sound of my phone buzzing snaps my attention toward the nightstand.

  Flicking my gaze from it to the digital alarm clock posted nearby, the short list of people that might be calling at a quarter after seven riffles by in short order. None more likely than the others, I cross over to the phone, expecting to see the name of one of my friends staring up at me.

  What I find instead is just as recognizable at this point, even if infinitely less preferable.

  Leaving the phone to pulsate once more, I pull the Mark 23 from the wadded ball of my shirt. Placing it down on the nightstand, I take up the phone with the same hand, staring at it another moment.

  Sighing, I accept the call, pressing the phone to my face.

  “Good morning, Detective.”

  “Oh, good morning,” Detective Malcolm Marsh replies. It is clear he was not expecting me to answer.

  Just as I was not expecting him to call.

  “Sorry about the hour, but I was hoping you might be available to stop by the station this morning.”

  Left as vague as humanly possible, any further explanation stops there. Instantly, warning signs of all kinds begin to flash in my mind.

  “Did something happen?” I ask. “Were you able to find Mike Lincoln?”

  As far as he knows, the sum total of everything I know about Mira’
s death is this one name, an accidental slip-up by his partner on my last conversation at the station.

  An encounter I have zero interest in recreating, if at all possible.

  Especially considering I know exactly where Mike Lincoln is and what happened to him. Just as I know there is one more of the Wolves already joining him in the afterlife, and two more that aren’t only because Swinger and I were wanting to send a message through them.

  “No,” Marsh replies, “but something did come in last night, and we were hoping to ask you a few follow-up questions.”

  Again, every mode of self-preservation I have seems to respond at once. I have no idea what he could have found, but his open-ended answers and cagey demeanor seem to hint something is wrong. As does the fact that he called at such an hour, something either being extremely urgent or he was simply wanting to catch me off guard.

  “Okay, but it will take me some time to get there. What time were you thinking?”

  “Whenever you arrive,” Marsh replies. “Or I can even come to you, if you’d rather.”

  There is zero chance in hell I am telling him where I am, a fact I’m positive he already knows, that being the reason he even suggested it.

  Bastard.

  “Just let me jump in the shower and I’ll be on my way.”

  Chapter Four

  Of my three closest friends, there is no doubt which is the one to call this morning. Right now, Swinger is probably still in bed. Last night after dropping me off, he most likely sought to offset his own adrenaline comedown by finding some form of life affirmation. Booze or women, if previous experience holds.

  Or - as often ends up being the case – both, meaning at the moment he is either tangled up in a bunch of sheets or nursing a massive hangover.

  On the complete opposite end of that spectrum is Emily Stapleton, an ensign at the base I have known almost as long as Swinger. With it being half past eight in the morning, she is assuredly on her way to church, if she hasn’t arrived there already.

  In hand is almost definitely a list of prayer requests, my name right at the top, below only asking forgiveness for what we all did to Mike Lincoln a week ago.

  Falling in the middle is the man I opt to call instead. As the sole family man among us, there is no question Petty Officer Wendell Ross is at home right now. Probably making breakfast for his wife and daughters – one of which I am a godparent to – he is the most likely to answer.

  And considering what I am about to ask is a relatively small request, I actually don’t mind making the call.

  Especially considering how all three will respond if I don’t alert somebody.

  The traffic on the I-8 coming into town is almost non-existent as I work the cellphone from the middle console over onto my lap. Alternating glances between it and the road, I find the name I want and hit send.

  Two rings later it is picked up. In the background is the sound of fading voices, their din completely falling away before Ross says, “Good morning.”

  “Morning,” I reply. “Sorry if I interrupted.”

  “No need,” he answers. “Everything okay?”

  The answer to that, I don’t quite know just yet. Refraining from replying for a moment, I swing onto the 805, switching to a southwestern diagonal across the eastern edge of the city.

  “Not sure,” I say. “Marsh called me a few minutes ago, said he had something and asked me to come by for a few follow-up questions.”

  Even as I say the words out loud, I can hear how thin it sounds. Most likely, he has set a very obvious trap, relying on his position as law enforcement or my not thinking clearly in the wake of Mira’s death to spring it.

  Complete silence follows for several moments before he asks, “Did he say what it was?”

  “No,” I reply, “and believe me, I asked.”

  “Do you think-“

  “No clue,” I answer. I don’t know exactly which thing he is about to mention, the list too many to try and parse through. In the last week, I haven’t exactly been a boy scout, the number of things he could be looking to pin on me quite lengthy.

  Lincoln’s demise being at the top, but a host of others falling in right behind.

  “That’s why I’m calling, though,” I reply. “If you don’t hear from me in an hour...”

  My friend isn’t a lawyer, but he is as resourceful as anyone I’ve ever known. If there is a problem, he’ll figure out a way around it. And probably make Marsh and a lot of other people extremely uncomfortable in the process.

  “You got it,” he replies, neither of us saying another word as we end the call.

  Flipping the phone back into the center cupholder, I maneuver off the freeway. Beginning on the side streets surrounding Golden Hill, I wind my way past a series of small apartment buildings and neighborhood restaurants. The latest enclave in the city to be the target of gentrification, the effects of new money are obvious, even with just a smattering of foot traffic out so early.

  Five minutes later, such investment becomes even more obvious as I push onto Imperial Avenue. Crossing over into the northernmost edge of Chula Vista, there is a distinctly dated vibe to everything. Many of the buildings look to have been built in the seventies or eighties. Most of the signage is done in Spanish.

  More than a few people openly stare as I roll past, pulling up in front of the Central District precinct of the SDPD a little over an hour after first hearing from Marsh. Sliding into one of the vacant visitor stalls, I go straight for the front door and step inside to find the place almost as deserted as the surrounding streets.

  Stopping at the front desk, I look for a bell to ring before giving up on it and simply calling, “Hello?”

  Focus turned toward the side, attention aimed at the hallway with the small room we used in both of my previous visits, it isn’t until Marsh replies that I even notice him fifteen feet in front of me, top half extended out from a doorway.

  “Morning,” he replies. The first half of his greeting from earlier has been dropped, as has any pretense of collegiality.

  On sight, my stomach pulls tighter.

  Whatever he has, it likely isn’t good.

  “Thanks for getting here so soon,” he adds. “Come on back.”

  As fast as he arrived, he disappears. Leaving me to make my way back, I circle around the front desk sitting silent. Beyond it is a bullpen area filled with desks arranged in short rows facing one another. Atop them is a menagerie of papers and files, lamps and paper cups and various personal tchotchkes.

  All of it hints at an organized chaos that was dropped in an instant sometime before, will be picked up in much the same manner as soon as the clock demands.

  Moving past all of it, I head toward the light spilling from a doorway carved into the side wall ahead. As I approach, I can already smell coffee, passing inside to find the source of it gripped in Marsh’s hand.

  Standing behind his desk, it appears at a glance that he is on the back end of last night rather than the front end of today. His tie is loosened at the neck and his shirtsleeves rolled up, both harsh contrasts to the meticulous look he normally maintains.

  Taking a long pull from his coffee, he uses the same hand to gesture toward a single chair opposite him. Steel-framed and padded with black leather beginning to crack at the corners, it appears that the item doesn’t belong in the cramped space, instead pulled inside for this conversation.

  When I am gone, it likely will be too.

  Doing as instructed, I linger a moment, waiting until he lowers himself into his desk chair before settling in.

  “Have you found something about Mira’s killer?” I ask.

  I have no idea why the man has asked me here. What I do know is it behooves me to keep as much focus as I can on my wife and her murder, both to keep his attention aimed there and to deflect any potential suspicion he might have of me.

  Something he hasn’t exactly been shy about sharing up to this point.

  A flash of annoyance seems to pass
over his features. Another thing that seems different from our previous encounters, I can’t tell if it’s the lack of sleep or if maybe he actually has been working the case and he’s finding it as frustrating as I have been.

  “In a manner of speaking,” he begins, managing to pull his features back to neutral upon replying.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the man was a politician.

  “We have obviously continued to look into the matter and have come across a few things I wanted to speak with you about.”

  The reply is just as vague as most every other comment he’s made since calling this morning. Like him, I can feel annoyance starting to spike, his speaking in code fast growing old.

  Unlike him, I’m good enough at this stuff to keep any hint of it off my face.

  “Happy to help in any way I can.”

  Elbows resting on either arm of his chair, Marsh sits with fingers laced before him. He taps the pads of his thumbs together slowly, seeming to weigh something in silence, before asking, “Does the name Brendan Hoke mean anything to you?”

  Of the myriad places he could have started, not once did I ever consider this even making the list. My eyebrows rise slightly as I respond, “Dr. Hoke?”

  Marsh’s features remain placid, the top of his head moving a half-inch to the side. “You know him?”

  “I’ve met him,” I reply. “My wife was a social worker, helped a lot of immigrants in the area. They overlapped from time to time.”

  It is a pretty blatant escalation of things, but it isn’t entirely a lie. The two did both work with similar populations, but never did they actually meet.

  They were scheduled to, but that was before Mike Lincoln intervened.

  Flicking his eyes to the pen and paper before him, it appears Marsh wants to make a notation of some sort before thinking better of it. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  I still have no real idea where any of this is meant to be going, careful to hide the growing suspicion I feel.

  “Earlier this week,” I reply. “Or, I guess, last week? Tuesday or Wednesday?”