THE MURDER OPTION
by
Richter Watkins
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* * * * *
Killing Charlie | Killing Freddie | Killing Harry
To all those folks who have suffered at the hands of evil and dreamed of justice.
KILLING CHARLIE
* * *
1
Becca Renato, her heart filled with a bitter sorrow and eyes with tears, watched as the funeral procession passed solemnly through the Garden of Heroes, bringing the remains of her fiancé to final rest.
The love of her life was dead. Murdered. Not in war, but in peace. Not in a foreign land, but at home.
The funeral was one of the first waves of casketed military burials to be allowed at the Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego since 1966. During that period, nearly a fifty-year stretch, only cremation burials in columbarium walls were allowed until the expansion.
But then, in the periphery of her vision, as if the gods wanted even more horror, she witnessed—just beyond a leaf that fell lazily from a tree across the road—a man.
She knew him. And she knew he was the worst of men—his presence sent a shock wave through her.
She blinked to focus through wet eyes as the leaf fluttered in the breeze toward the road. The man she saw was her ex-husband, the brutal bastard who had done what he said he would. He’d murdered Jess, her fiancé, and had gotten away with it because he was very smart and because he had been one of the most decorated of detectives in Carlsbad before starting his own security firm. When he saw that she’d spotted him, almost as if they were really the only two there, he vanished beyond the parked vehicles.
She was shocked and outraged. Even here? The monster had no boundaries.
“You leave me for somebody else, you idiot bitch, you’ll be sorry. I’ll get him, and I’ll get you.”
The last thing Becca had expected was that he’d come to the funeral of the man he’d killed.
But now she realized how naïve she was. And always had been.
For a moment, standing with the family of her fiancé, Becca stood emotionally frozen. A collective reaction to the misery, fear, and the helplessness that took over her.
Her ex had never been a serious “person of interest” in the investigation. Her war-hero fiancé had been gunned down in a rear parking lot. No witnesses. No camera. No clues.
Nobody could protect her. Not from Charlie Meltzer. He’d told her when she’d filed for divorce that she’d never escape him. That she was making a fatal mistake.
And there he was, letting her know his victory at her moment of horrific grief. A grief his jealously had created.
The leaf finally drifted to the ground and was crushed under the parade of cars. The military funeral continued.
Becca experienced it all in a painful daze, the emotions of burying a loved one now overwhelmed by fear.
I’m next.
He’d called her a dead woman walking, and Charlie was not a man to let promises go unfulfilled. To escape him after the divorce, she’d gone to a man who was strong and superior to her ex in every way. But that would-be savior was now dead, murdered. A man who’d survived four tours in harm’s way, shot down in a parking lot in San Diego like a dog. Not in a fight, but in an assassination.
It was not normally in Becca’s nature to give in to destructive anger. She had never been confrontational. It was one of the reasons she chose strong, aggressive men. They made up for her sense of vulnerability.
But that had backfired in a big way. Surrounded at the moment by his grieving military family and friends, it did little to assuage the sense of isolation and vulnerability. Becca held her arms tight against her body—a friend’s hands touching her gently with reassurance in this moment of her grief—still felt utterly lost.
Even as they interred Jess in the ground where others from his military family were buried, the reality of the moment had taken on a very different texture. As the flag was folded and given to her fiancé’s mother, as the final salute was given, she had only one thought in her mind as she gazed back across the three-hundred-thirteen-acre Garden of Heroes. It wasn’t revenge so much as it was survival. She was next.
He would wait, mock, plan, and then he would strike. Nothing could save her, and she knew that. As long as he was alive, he’d get her sooner or later.
A thought that came uninvited and repugnant to her nature, settled, and wouldn’t let go. Her gaze shifted to where she’d seen Charlie and she knew that for her to have any life, any peace, any justice for Jess, Charlie had to die. It was as simple as that.
One way or another, he had to be killed.
2
Nine days after the funeral, holed up in her condo in South Park above the distant skyline of San Diego, the idea of having Charlie killed had taken a solid hold over Becca’s mind. With each day, it just grew stronger. Becca knew if she did nothing, she’d become a morbid, depressed recluse until he got her.
Finally, she climbed out of the dark retreat of shock, denial, anger, self-recrimination, and a growing paranoia and returned to the only option available to her. And then back to a reality she’d been denying for so long—who she really was and how that person, so fearful and so weak, had become a victim of her own fears. Becca knew…as Jess was dead, so was she.
I’m pathetic, she thought. I’m a weak, pathetic mess.
Getting drunk didn’t do a damn thing but leave misery in its wake. Xanax leveled the emotional insanity for a time but solved nothing. Sleeping with a gun that she didn’t really know how to use wasn’t much of an answer either. She knew the origin of her weaknesses came from the violence of her childhood but had never known how to deal with that. She’d just accepted it as who she was.
Unable to take it any longer, Becca decided to reach out. She’d refused at least a hundred unanswered calls. Avoided all social media. Had hidden away.
Because of Jess, she knew a lot about the military world in San Diego, both the visible world and the invisible world, and she decided to contact a woman she had met causally several times. Her name was Gail and she was the wife of a Navy officer stationed on Coronado. Jess had talked many times about her and her husband and how, if Becca was ever in any trouble and he wasn’t there to help, she was to go to Gail.
They met in a coffee shop two days later on Coronado. After some small talk, Becca explained her situation, which the woman was already familiar with, and then got right to the point.
“I need to stop my ex-husband before he fulfills his promise. Jess told me once, when he understood what the situation was with Charlie, that if something ever happened to him, and I needed help, you were the person I should contact. Jess said there are people who can handle what he called special problems. Military people who help each other.”
That’s how the conversations began. They went on for a few days. Becca sensed from their second meeting that Gail had people watching them, making sure Becca wasn’t going to get hit when they were together.
They met mostly in Coronado, walking the beach near the famed Coronado hotel or on the bay side near the park.
“Okay,” Gail told her after the fourth visit, “it’s very important that you understand what you want, and what you are willing to do. And, truly, you feel you have no hope at all that the system can help you?”
“No. None. Law enforcement can’t do anything other than put a stupid restraining order on him. He has to be taken care of outside the system.”
Gail met her gaze. “You need to understand up front that you will be required to be effectively involved in what is to take place. There’s no hero who’s just going to drop in and
solve your problems. You need to be clear about that.”
“I am,” Becca said. “I’ve been down that road too many times to want to do it again.”
“I’ve talked with my husband, and he’s talking to people. You have to be willing not only to go way out of your comfort zone, but you may not be coming back there. You need to be ready.”
Becca nodded. “I have no comfort zone. I’ll do whatever I have to do.”
***
When they met again, Gail told her she could take the next step.
“What’s going to happen,” Gail explained, “is that you’ll meet with some people who can help you. As I said, you aren’t hiring somebody and then just sitting back. It doesn’t work that way. Because this is very unusual, because of Jess, they are going outside the usual rules to help you. It’s not normal for a civilian to be accepted, but they’re making the exception for you because of how Jess was killed and because of the threat to you. Just know this: once you go in, it changes everything. So don’t go if you really aren’t absolutely ready to shed the skin of your former life.”
“I understand. And I can tell you this with all honesty—I’m as ready to shed my old skin as anyone can be. I need to be somebody else. Believe me.”
Gail studied her for a moment. “Good. This will happen very fast. But don’t do anything that makes it look like you’re preparing to leave. I mean anything. Don’t pack. Don’t hire a cat sitter. Don’t prepay bills. Don’t talk to anyone about anything that we’ve discussed. You’re ex is a professional, and he knows all the ways to track your activities. The next time we meet will probably be the last time. If, between now and then, you change your mind, when I call you, just say you’re too busy. And…if you do something I’ve asked you not to do, we won’t call you.”
3
Becca met Gail two days later in a coffee shop on Fourth Street. She parked around back and went in through the rear door, as instructed, and up to the balcony, which had six empty tables. Her friend came up a few minutes later.
They sat with a view of the coffee shop interior and the street. The shop was all about the sea. Tall-ship models on shelves, anchors, nets on ceiling beams, and wall paintings gave the feel of the inside of some old sea vessel.
Gail said, “There’s a guy who’s willing to talk to you about the program. He’s a very serious individual. Former Special Forces. He trains the best of the best in the trade. If you want to learn how to handle any situation, deal with somebody you need to deal with, then he’s your man. As I told you before, they don’t normally take clients off Civilian Street, as they say. This is a favor off-book. When you see him, you have to be willing to surrender to whatever he demands of you. As I indicated before, once you’re in, once you’ve accepted, you enter what is euphemistically called the Dark World. It will change you and change your life. There will be no going back.”
Becca nodded and said, “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
“Then you’ll be leaving today. Actually, in about ten minutes.”
“Going where?”
“You’ll start in Las Vegas. From there, I don’t know. You’ll have a new identity, new look, and people babysitting you through the whole process.”
The coffee shop filled up now, but somebody had put the upstairs tables off limits. The people at the tables below were reading, on their iPads, talking. They existed in the normal world where problems were jobs, incomes, lovers or the lack thereof, career decisions, or just kicking back for a bit.
A man looked up at them and nodded.
“It’s time. They have a car ready for you. Yours will be taken care of. As will everything else, from your cat and bills to rent. Don’t worry about anything. From this moment you won’t contact anyone. Including me.”
Becca nodded.
“You need to start thinking differently about every move from now on. That includes credit cards, phone calls, buying gas. Your ex was a detective and is in high-end security. He knows all sorts of people, and he knows how to track physically and electronically. You have to look at yourself as hunted, which, of course, you are. The people we’ll connect you with can change that. But it will take dedication and determination on your part. I believe that you want to come out on top, stay alive…but you are the one who must choose. Once you go down this road, you won’t come back to any semblance of normal life. You are going to a boot camp unlike any other. When you come out, you’ll be as prepared to do what you need to do as is humanly possible.”
Becca felt a strange elation at the prospects. “I’m ready.”
“Time to get going. The moment you walk out the back door, you leave your old life behind. Learn to forget it. Good luck.”
“Thank you,” Becca said. She got up and went down the steps to the short hall that led to the back door…where she hesitated.
Jess had tried to get her to bungee jump last summer, and she was so petrified, she could hardly breathe, let alone jump. That’s exactly how she felt now, facing the door. But then she imagined the moment when Charlie had shot Jess dead in that parking lot, and fast-forwarded to the moment when he’d get her.
She walked out the door.
4
It wasn’t until she left the San Fernando Valley and headed up over the mountains, over the summit near the high desert town of Hesperia, that Becca really began to feel this was real and not a dream. That she was exiting one life and heading into the unknown.
The car they gave her was a simple Ford Escape. Inside, she found a travel bag. Within the bag she found cash, clothes, a wig, a new ID that matched the insurance card and the car’s registration, and a credit card.
Becca knew it shouldn’t amaze her how they could do this. Still, it did. It struck her as astonishing. They created a new identity just like that. But then, these people were high-tier military operatives, as Jess had called them. They could do things.
She’d been told by the man who’d given her the car and keys that she’d be followed as far as Victorville to make sure nobody else was following her. The motel where she would be staying had already been paid for, and the room keycard was in the purse in her shoulder bag. Their competence and babysitting, whoever they were, gave her a powerful sense of security.
She was no longer Becca Renato. She was, now, Viera Ferran.
I like the name, she thought. It had a ring to it.
She headed past Barstow in the small SUV with heavily tinted windows, saying her new name over and over. Getting the feel of it, making it her. Her straw-blond hair was now buried under a dark, reddish wig that actually looked okay. It was to be used until she had a chance to color her hair at the motel. These people had changed her whole world.
When she drove past Baker, the little desert town ninety miles from Vegas that bragged about the world’s tallest thermometer at one hundred thirty-four feet tall, she saw that the icon was blank and for sale. That’s my life, she thought. Blank and for sale. But not for long.
She reached the outskirts of the Strip at 4:30 in the afternoon, turned off on Rose Parkway, and then took Las Vegas Boulevard to the Silver Palm Motel, south of the Strip. The sun was well beyond its peak, but this was the middle of May, and the hot season was almost upon the desert.
Her room was in back, an end unit. It had a small kitchenette, bed, and a table with a chair. About as sparse as they come, she thought. In the refrigerator, she found juice, apples, cheese, and milk. On the door of the refrigerator was a note with a phone number. On the counter, a box of hair color.
She called the number on the paper and followed the instructions, asking for Sal.
“What are you calling about?” an ice-cold, female voice asked.
“I’m thinking of attending a lecture on desert architecture,” Viera said. “I was recommended to Sal.”
The rude-sounding woman said she had the wrong number. “Don’t call again. If anyone wants to talk to you, they’ll call you.”
Well, fuck you, bitch, Viera thought with a smile.
She hung up and sat and waited as the sun slipped over the mountains, leaving a hot glow behind. Sitting here in this room, the desert outside, the lights of the Strip soon to be on, it was like some Blu-ray episode of the Twilight Zone series that Jess loved.
Thinking of him sank her towards misery and anger. Made her recoil against what she’d brought him. But she recovered, reminding herself that she was not that woman anymore.
I’m Viera Ferran. Viera Ferran doesn’t know any Jess. She does know Charlie, and she’s going get rid of that bastard.
***
She colored her hair in the bathroom. Afterward, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her breasts were still nice and taut. I’m not a bad looking chick as a redhead, she thought.
A phone call finally ended her self-appraisal. It was a simple call with a simple message that a cab would pick her up in half an hour. She looked at the clock by the bed. It was nine-thirty.
A cab pulled in exactly thirty minutes later. She went out, got inside it, and the driver took her, without a single word, to a parking lot on a small strip mall across the street from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
Was she to pay? His meter was off, so maybe not. Nobody had discussed money with her. They would, no doubt, in time.
For a moment, she didn’t know what to do. How to act.
The driver said, indicating the vehicle in front of them, “That’s your ride.”
A man was sitting in a black Ford pickup looking back at them.
She got out, went over, and climbed into the passenger seat. The man watched the cab leave and then said, “Somebody wants to meet you at the Point Blank Sports Club. If he doesn’t like you, you go home.”
These are very abrupt people, she thought.
It proved to be a short distance away, in another small strip mall on a side street. The man pulled in and parked.
“Ask for Duncan.” He didn’t look at her. He was busy with his rearview mirror, his side mirrors, keeping tabs on everything out there in the Vegas night.
The Murder Option Page 1
