Office Visit

by Dustin Stevens

  Not that Marsh was certain he would consider the Central Division a proper precinct.

  A means to an end for sure, but he would commit to nothing more than that.

  For a moment, the conversation fades as Tinley drops his bag down atop the desk and begins unloading. A ruffling of papers and assorted other objects can be heard as he goes through things before dropping himself down unceremoniously into his seat. With legs splayed before him, he gives the room a quick once-over before settling his gaze on Marsh sitting across from him.

  “Okay,” he says, shoving the word out with a heavy breath, “I’m back. What did I miss?”

  Chapter Five

  Most lists for the best concealed carry handguns on the market recommend the Smith & Wesson Bodyguard .38. Small and compact, it is no larger than the average woman’s hand, fits easily into any purse.

  A similar revolver was the first gun Elsa Teller had ever owned. A gift from her father, she had carried it for over a decade, never once having to fire it, but brandishing it more times than she could remember.

  Young, horny boys might not fully understand the meaning of the word no, but they damned sure knew what the shiny end of a gun pointed at their nether regions meant.

  The weapon had been more than serviceable, but when she moved into her current profession she had decided to move on to the Smith & Wesson Shield 2.0. An upgrade on the traditional revolver, it was a standard 9mm with an extended magazine, giving her eight rounds on standby and another in the chamber at all times.

  Because, as her father had taught her, there was no point in carrying a weapon that wasn’t loaded.

  Still as small and tactile as the former model, it came with the added benefits of less kickback and fifty percent more capacity, since one never knew when they might need a few extras bullets on hand.

  Shit happens – the phrase being the second golden rule of owning a firearm her father had instilled in her.

  The textured grip of the Shield fits perfectly into Teller’s palm as she slides her hand into her purse. This isn’t the first time she has met with Mike Lincoln, but it is the first time she’s been forced to go to his home. Repeated attempts to get him on the phone have proved futile, and while she doesn’t know that anything is wrong, she doesn’t know that it isn’t either.

  Again, shit happens.

  Opening the driver’s door of her Audi S4, Teller steps onto a driveway of equal parts dirt and gravel. Beaten down hard by years of automobile traffic and San Diego sun, it is like walking on concrete, her heels having no problem as she approaches the front of the structure.

  Calling the place a house would be only under the kindest of definitions, requiring a level of empathy Teller simply doesn’t possess. The place is a shit box, the sort of joint she would sooner bulldoze than ever spend a night in.

  Stationed on a side street just outside of El Cajon, the front yard is the same mix of gravel and dirt, with only a few stray succulents dotting it. A single story in height, the front stretches no more than twenty feet, with ripped and sagging screens over the windows. Originally painted white, it has now faded to an indiscernible shade, time and the elements having eroded any sort of actual color.

  In the air is the smell of diesel fumes and gasoline, a garage with a warped door that stops a foot from the ground comprising the east end of the property.

  Pretty much exactly the sort of place she would expect a man like Mike Lincoln to live.

  In her line of work, Teller has come across more than a few veritable truths. None are more prominent than the fact that the whole notion of assassins being suave gentlemen living in sparkling penthouses is a Hollywood creation and nothing more. Without fail, the only types of people willing to engage in such things are men such as Mike Lincoln, someone that is as far away from the word suave as she now is from her own downtown high rise.

  And just as surely, they almost always live in a place such as this.

  Tightening her grip on the Shield, Teller doesn’t bother with the handful of red brick stepping stones strewn across the dirt patch between her car and the front door. Striding straight for the entrance, she keeps her right hand in her purse, the end of it angled so she can fire without having to extract the weapon. With the left, she knocks three times on the door.

  The rattle of the metal frame makes it impossible for anybody inside not to have heard. Taking a half-step back, she waits for any sign of life, the house revealing absolutely nothing. Not the creak of a floorboard or the heavy din of a footstep.

  Considering knocking a second time, Teller thinks better of it, not wanting to set the flimsy door to shaking again. Already a woman that looks and dresses the way she does stands out in such a neighborhood, to say nothing for her sparkling Audi in the driveway.

  No need to draw more attention by rattling once more.

  Easing her grip on the gun, Teller inches her fingers to the side. Moving strictly by feel, she casts a look in either direction, the houses around her appearing just as desolate as the one she stands before. Finding what she is looking for, she extracts an American Express Black card and slides the bottom edge along the frame, giving it just a pair of wiggles before feeling it catch, sliding the top of the deadbolt back.

  Reaching across her body with her left hand, she turns the handle and pulls the door open, holding it just a few inches from the frame as she returns the credit card and resumes her squeeze on the weapon. The front end of the purse before her, she steps inside, a plume of hot and tepid air hitting her in the face.

  The interior of the home mirrors exactly what the outside intimated, just as Teller suspected it would. On the floor is a pair of stained mattresses stacked one atop the other. A heap of rumpled sheets and pillows is strewn atop it, a menagerie of fast food wrappers and assorted detritus on the ground around it.

  Nowhere is there any sign of Lincoln, or that anybody has been by in quite some time.

  Stepping forward, Teller crosses the threadbare carpet into the kitchen. Stopping on the edge of the room, she has no desire to enter the stained linoleum, seeing a stack of dirty dishes in the sink, some already in the early stages of growing homemade penicillin.

  Pulling back, she descends a short hallway, peering into an empty bedroom and a bathroom with pissy water in the toilet, before heading back out the way she came.

  She doesn’t bother locking the door behind her. There is no need.

  Mike Lincoln is gone.

  Chapter Six

  A black Lexus is sitting in front of my house as I return from lunch. Bypassing the driveway, it is parked on the curb, all glossy black paint and dark tinted windows. A vehicle I recognize at a glance, I can feel my stomach tighten slightly as I ease into the drive and kill the engine.

  Stepping out, I circle around behind my car, making it almost to the curb before realizing that the vehicle is empty. Turning on a heel, I head toward the front door, grasping the knob and finding it locked tight.

  There is nowhere else in my neighborhood close enough to stroll to, as if that would even be an option. Never in my life have I known the owner of the vehicle to be much of a walker, ardently avoiding anything that might be considered exercise.

  Which leaves only a single option.

  Retracing my steps, I circle past the front grille of my car and around the garage. Coming up on the far edge of the property, I walk past the garbage and recycling bins sitting tight up against the building before reaching the wooden gate that opens into the backyard.

  As I suspected, it is unlocked, the latch flipped open.

  The hinges make a slight moaning sound as I push through, the full intensity of the midday sun hitting me square in the face. Raising my body temperature more than five degrees, I peel off the outer blue shirt of my uniform as I stride across the short expanse of field turf that comprises my backyard. Another step takes me up onto the expansive back patio overlooking the pool below, as quaint a picture as exists of suburban Americana.

  All except f
or the two people sitting in deck chairs waiting for me.

  The car out front belongs to Hiram Martinez, my brother-in-law, younger sibling to my deceased wife. Two years younger than she was, he is four years my junior, though the last few days seem to have aged him immensely.

  As it has us all.

  Never a small man, he looks heavier than usual sitting in a polo and khaki shorts, leather loafers on his feet. Per usual, his hair is gelled into place, though his eyes look as if he hasn’t slept in days.

  Beside him sits his mother Angelique, her features as hard as if cut from stone. Her hair is done and makeup applied, her gaze staring straight out at the pool and the fence behind it. Whether she even sees the Tecolote Canyon or is merely lost in a memory, I can’t tell, and don’t have the heart to ask.

  A few feet is all that separates them, their chairs pulled close together to take advantage of the single patch of shade provided by the umbrella in the center of our outdoor dining table. Despite it, Hiram appears to be sweating profusely, his forehead and the armpits of his pink polo both wet.

  “Sorry,” I say, easing into a third chair around the table but making no effort to pull it over into the shade. I drape the blue shirt over a knee, dressed only in a white t-shirt and my uniform trousers. I motion to the clothes and say, “Had another psych eval today.”

  “It’s okay,” Hiram replies. “We just got here. Hope you don’t mind us coming around back.”

  I shake off the apology. Of course I don’t mind. The key was hidden so her family could use the pool whenever we were away.

  This wasn’t quite what we’d had in mind, but it doesn’t mean the invitation was rescinded.

  “Everything go okay?” Angelique asks, her eyes shifting toward me before her head follows suit. The question is left open-ended, though I know what she is alluding to.

  “All routine stuff,” I reply. “Required when getting out. They don’t know any of this has happened yet.”

  A tiny, stiff nod of the head, almost imperceptible, is her only response. Like me, she is still trying to make sense out of everything that has happened. Opening it up to the world, trying to sort through the impressions and influences of people that didn’t even know Mira, won’t help in the slightest.

  “Mama asked if she could come along and give us a hand,” Hiram says. His voice is borderline apologetic as he says it, the layers of meaning almost palpable.

  There was no way in hell she wasn’t coming. She needed to be doing something to feel useful. She was getting stir crazy around the house.

  Every single one of which I know intimately. In a way, I’m in the same exact headspace, doing the same exact thing.

  “Glad to have the help. Fair warning though, the place is a bit of a zoo in there. Whoever went through it knew what they were doing.”

  A few lines appear around Angelique’s eyes, a bit of a wince and nothing more. A few feet away, Hiram’s response is more pronounced, sucking air in between his teeth.

  “Anything there?” Angelique asks.

  Matching her gaze, I eventually shift my focus out to the pool, to the sunlight shimmering off the surface. This outdoor space was the reason we bought the house. A pool was something Mira had always wanted, a place that was literally a built-in excuse for gatherings. Our first two acquisitions after moving in were a grill and a firepit, both made before even a television.

  Nine months out of the year, Mira made a point to at least put her feet in the water every single day. Even now, sitting here, I can hardly look at it without seeing her sitting along the edge, her knees folded over the side. With her palms braced behind her, she would face the heavens, letting the sun hit her full.

  The things I would give to see it just one more time in reality instead of my mind.

  “Not yet,” I eventually reply. “I admit I didn’t make it that far this weekend.”

  The reason I didn’t is the same reason we’re now sitting on the deck facing away from the house. Behind us is Mira. Memories and photographs and smells and possessions that none of us are quite ready to face just yet.

  The only reason any of us are even sitting here contemplating it right now is that the house holds the potential for one other thing we all so desperately need.

  Answers.

  Chapter Seven

  The house is exactly as I left it the day before. Present no longer than it took me to grab my uniform and a couple of other essentials, I had locked the place up tight and been gone in under twenty minutes.

  Three times in the last couple of days I have attempted to do what we are about to. The first was Saturday morning, a train wreck in every sense of the word. Coming on the heels of what occurred the night before, the images were still too strong for me to be in the home. I felt dirty, unclean in a way that only seemed to besmirch Mira’s memory.

  I’ve never been one to put much stock in energy, or juju, or whatever else people like to call it, but stepping foot inside the home, the smell of her killer’s burnt flesh still in my nostrils, it felt like an affront to our home to step foot inside.

  The second attempt was later in the day. Ross and Swinger and Stapleton had all offered to come with me, but I had begged off. They had done more than I could ever expect already, and I still wasn’t sure how I would respond to being in the place.

  It wasn’t the pictures that got me. It wasn’t our bedroom. It wasn’t even the closet with all her clothes hanging in a row. It was the dog collar on the dresser, the final remnant of our departed Molly, the critter that she had raised from a pup in Oregon to an octogenarian in California. Less than a year before she had left us, taking no small part of Mira’s heart with her.

  Seeing the braided pink and lavender collar, I couldn’t tamp down the fact that both were now gone, taking away the entirety of mine.

  That night, I had called and asked Hiram to help me. He had readily agreed, both of us eventually coming to the conclusion that waiting until today, giving us each the weekend to ground us a bit more, was the way to go.

  Standing on the metal threshold from the sliding back door separating the outdoor from within, I can feel my inner resolve quivering. For so long, I have been trained in how to push aside emotion, on how to compartmentalize and focus on a task at hand, but never have I been faced with an obstacle quite this daunting.

  Shoving the door open wide, I can feel warm air rushing out from the home, bringing with it assorted scents and smells, all of them tied to my Mira in one way or another. Moisture lines the bottom of my eyes as I draw in deep breaths, waiting for the moment to pass.

  Before it does, I can feel slight fingers against the small of my back. Starting with just the tips, they press into pads, and then fingers, and then a full hand, ignoring the dampness of my t-shirt.

  Tears bely Angelique’s eyes as she looks up at me, her bottom lip quivering slightly before straightening. “Come on, let’s get to work.”

  Buoyed by her resolve, I take in one last gulp of air. Using it as pressure to force down the initial wave, I step forward into the house, my boots echoing against the wooden floor.

  “Where do you want to start?” I whisper.

  Taking a step to come up alongside me, Angelique replies, “Where would do the most good?”

  I have no idea. I can still barely fathom the thought of anybody wanting to harm Mira, can certainly not conjure a single reason why.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you gone through anything yet?” she asks.

  These are reasonable questions, rational ones, things that I have asked myself, would be asking if I were in her position. Still, they do little to loosen the vice that seems to have my core, squeezing it tight.

  A common cliché is that nobody should ever lose a child. That’s true, certainly, but I don’t think it does justice to everybody else in the world. No child should ever lose a parent. No person should ever lose a sibling.

  But the part that people so often forget is when someone loses a spouse, th
ey also lose their best friend.

  “Not really,” I admit. “I tried, but...”

  Angelique looks up to me, the façade cracking just slightly, letting a bit of understanding shine through.

  Locked in that position, the sun is blotted from view, the room becoming much darker as Hiram steps up onto the threshold. He makes it just a single step before pulling up short, drawing in a sharp breath.

  Already knowing what is coming, I clamp my jaw down tight, waiting for the telltale signals that are due next. Like the sharp exhalation of breath. The ragged pull of dragging air back in through his nose.

  The sputtering gasp of trying to stifle a sob.

  As fast as the room darkens, it is light again. Hiram is gone, having retreated just as I did a few days before.

  Locked in the same position, I can see Angelique’s eyes go glassy, mine doing the same, as we stand and stare.

  “I’ll start in the bedroom,” I whisper.

  Technically speaking, blackberries are a weed. They are an invasive vine that starts out innocuously enough, soon spreading to the point where it can take over an entire swath of ground in no time flat. One branch becomes another becomes another, too thick to ever penetrate, the only effective way of removing them being to dig or burn them out.

  That all, of course, is if one is a homeowner. Or if they exist on private land.

  In the areas surrounding Corvallis, the wild vines and the fruit they provide are nothing short of a godsend. Butting up tight to the fair majority of hiking trails, they provide sustenance for wildlife and hungry hikers alike, first starting to produce thick dark berries in August, the fruit reaching peak freshness sometime in early September. Loading down branches to the point they almost touch the ground, they practically begged to be picked and eaten.