A Cold War

by Alan Russell

  “I doubt Mr. Martin thinks he’s lucky. I’m sure he would rather have Elese than the money.”

  The cop pursed his lips and nodded. “I’m sure you’re right about that. He got the short end of the stick for a long time, and I’m sorry to say I probably had something to do with that.”

  “Are you going to retire now?” Nina asked.

  Hamilton shook his head. “I’m an old dog who’s comfortable with my routine. But this summer the wife and I are going to get away for three months. We’ll be going on the trip of a lifetime, traveling to four different continents.”

  “That sounds incredible.”

  “What about you?” he asked.

  Nina patted her stomach. “I was supposed to get married in June, but now I’m going to have a baby.”

  “You’ll be starting a different adventure.”

  “That’s the way I’m looking at it.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Nina’s cell phone began ringing within moments of her returning to her small room at the Chancellor Hotel in Union Square.

  “You promised you’d seek me out after the service,” said Greg.

  “And I tried to, but when I saw how many people were surrounding you, I decided a change of plans was in order.”

  “What about now?”

  “I’m tired,” said Nina, “which means you must be exhausted.”

  “I am,” he admitted, “but we both still need to eat.”

  “I actually ate. Sergeant Hamilton and I dined together.”

  “I thought I felt my ears burning.”

  “He was actually singing your praises.”

  “Coming into a million dollars does change one’s opinions.”

  “I heard. Congratulations.”

  “The reward your fiancé offered had most of Alaska looking for you.”

  “The next time we talk, I’ll thank him.”

  “The next time?”

  Nina was tired of speaking cryptically. “Terrence and I are no longer engaged; that hasn’t been announced yet, so please don’t say anything.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “and I won’t.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Since dinner won’t work, what about breakfast in the morning?”

  “I can’t. Tomorrow morning I’ll be boarding the Coast Starlight to San Diego.”

  “What’s in San Diego?”

  “The weather,” she said. “The forecast is for the seventies. Aside from that I’ll find out.”

  “Footloose and fancy-free?”

  “More like foot with two amputated toes and full of trepidation.”

  “Bon voyage,” he said.

  “Call me,” said Nina.

  “I will.”

  Nina was wheeling her solitary piece of luggage toward the welcoming red letters of Caltrain Station when her cell phone rang.

  “Don’t tell me you walked,” said a familiar voice.

  Nina looked around and saw Greg Martin waving to her from the entrance to the station.

  “You told me to call,” he said by way of explanation.

  Nina put away her phone and started toward him. He met her halfway, and they hugged. “I can’t believe you walked,” he said.

  “It was only a mile and a half from the hotel.”

  “I’ve got a good excuse for not having walked. I was busy getting your breakfast and your lunch.” He shook the paper bags he was holding.

  “That looks like a lot of food.”

  “I was hoping I could eat with you.”

  Nina thought about that. “You want to get on a train just so that we can eat together?”

  “Well, I was hoping some conversation would come with the meal. And to make your decision even easier, my plan is to get off in San Jose unless you indicate you want me to keep riding the rails. Oh, and did I mention that I brought bagels, doughnuts, hot coffee, and breakfast burritos?”

  Nina shrugged and said, “All aboard.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Greg Martin didn’t get off the train in San Jose. At the time he was laughing too hard hearing about how Elese had slipped Waldo into one of her drawings.

  “She might have drawn a picture of Waldo,” said Nina, “but it was also like she was inserting her own picture. And all during my time in Alaska, it was like she was there, even if I didn’t see her.”

  It was a fourteen-hour ride to San Diego, but neither one of them seemed to notice the passage of time.

  “Elese had a drawing of you as well,” Nina said. “I guessed you were a geologist or someone who had something to do with rocks.”

  “Why is that?”

  “She depicted you holding up this rock and looking at it critically—and lovingly. Elese must have taken a long time with that drawing because she captured you perfectly. That’s how I immediately knew who you were. There was no question.”

  “I wish I had that drawing,” he said. “I’d give anything for it.”

  They arrived at the Santa Fe Depot at one in the morning. Since he was familiar with the San Diego area, Nina was happy to let Greg see to their travel arrangements. They stayed in separate rooms in a small lodge on the North County coast, and the next morning they took advantage of the low tide to walk to breakfast.

  Their breakfast had now turned into lunch. The two of them hadn’t given up their balcony table overlooking the Pacific Ocean. They’d watched the surfers ply the waves for hours and had seen a pod of dolphins demonstrating how body surfing was really done. Pelicans had regularly swept by in formations, skimming the tops of breaking waves, while along the shoreline, sanderlings timed the incoming waves with their rapid footwork.

  It wasn’t only the sightseeing that had kept Nina and Greg at their table, though.

  “What do you think?” asked Greg.

  “I think it sounds too good to be true, and my father the businessman always said if something sounds too good to be true, then it invariably is too good to be true.”

  “Nothing up my sleeves,” said Greg, demonstrating. “And far be it from me to contradict your father, but this isn’t a business deal.”

  “You’re right, it’s not. But what is it?”

  “It’s what Elese would want me to do.”

  “So you’re willing to buy a house somewhere around here, and then let me and the baby live rent-free?”

  “You forgot the part about me having claim to the master bedroom. And in a weak moment, I did volunteer to take you to Lamaze classes.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m looking to start over. So are you. Besides that, I benefited financially from finding you. Why shouldn’t you reap some of those rewards?”

  “I don’t like making hasty decisions.”

  “Then don’t. Think it over. It’s not like I’m buying a house on a whim. My financial advisor has told me it’s a no-brainer. By having a dedicated work space in the house, I can take all sorts of write-offs. So with, or without, you and the baby, I’m still going to buy a home. I always wanted to get back to California anyway.”

  “It’s tempting,” said Nina, “but I’m thinking it’s wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m damaged. I know that. Like Humpty Dumpty, I don’t know if I can be put back together. Will my sex drive return? Will I be able to love a man? Only time will tell. And so if you have any romantic illusions, I need to dash them right now.”

  “At this time the only thing I’m offering is a helping hand,” he said, “not a groping one.”

  Being six months pregnant, Nina knew she wasn’t exactly pinup material for most men. Maybe Greg didn’t have any romantic designs on her.

  “There’s one thing I haven’t told you,” she said, “and that’s what I plan to do in the future. It might very well be a deal-breaker for you.”

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She did.

  He didn’t interrupt her, but listened to her plans about getting involved in the fight against human trafficking. When Nina
finished talking, he said, “That sounds—dangerous.”

  “I’ll do my best to minimize any risks.”

  “Is this plan of yours why you broke it off with Donnelly?”

  “It was a major reason, even though he didn’t know that.”

  “I’ll need to think if I’m okay with this,” he said. “I’m not sure living with a hatchet-wielding Carrie Nation is something I want.”

  “At least you didn’t liken me to Lizzie Borden.”

  “If the ax fits,” he said.

  “There are plenty of other women who inspired me,” Nina said. “Think of Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, and Margaret Sanger.

  “And most of all,” she said, “think of Elese Martin.”

  Greg nodded.

  Nina took off her shoes and socks. She was unmindful of her two missing toes, or at least didn’t let them get in the way of her walking in the surf on the way back to their motel. Greg kept his Docksides on and stayed on the sand side of her.

  When Nina’s cell phone rang, she mentally berated herself for not having turned off the ringer. Beach walks weren’t meant to be interrupted by phone calls. But when she looked at the display, she decided to take the call.

  “I didn’t think I would be talking with you again so soon, Ms. Granville,” said Sergeant Hamilton.

  “I didn’t think so, either, Sergeant.”

  “Evan, please. And I know this news is going to make your day. We finally found his remains.”

  Damn raging hormones, she thought. Tears had already started falling down her cheeks. The bogeyman was really dead. Maybe now she wouldn’t have to check the locks over and over before going to bed with a loaded gun under her pillow. Maybe now she wouldn’t have all those nightmares that he was still pursuing her.

  She tried to speak without Hamilton knowing she was crying, but knew he wasn’t fooled. “Where was he found?”

  “He was about a mile from where we think you shot him.”

  “That far?”

  “It looked like he was helped along a ways.”

  “Wolves?”

  “I’m surprised any critters could stomach him, but yes, they got themselves a meal.”

  “And you’re sure it’s him? There’s no possible question as to his identity?”

  “Even though the body was chewed up, the cause of death was still visible. Both bullets were recovered. There’ll be ballistic tests, of course, but it’s our man.”

  “What about doing a DNA test on him?”

  “You’re about as suspicious as I am, young lady. Yes, that will be done as well. It will probably be a month or two before we get the results, but I can tell you this, Nina, he’s our guy, and he’s really, truly, completely dead.”

  “Anything new on his identity?”

  “He’s still a John Doe.”

  “Did you get anything on the background information I provided?”

  His voice held nothing but sympathy. “There are lots of missing women, Nina. And nothing has come in on a mountain-man father and missing wife.”

  “We might never know who he is.”

  “We know he’s dead. That’s what matters.”

  “Yes, that’s what matters.”

  She thanked Hamilton for calling and put away the phone. When she turned to Martin, he nodded and said, “I heard.”

  “I can’t tell you how relieved I feel,” she said, wiping away a few remaining tears. “I mean, I knew he was dead, but I also needed the proof that he was really gone.”

  She lifted her face up to the sun. It was a cloudless day; the shadows had lifted.

  “Hold up a second,” said Greg.

  Nina stopped walking while he took off his Docksides and socks and joined her in the surf.

  “I think we need to celebrate,” he said. “And we also need to get a Realtor to start looking for that house of ours.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Five weeks after their train ride, Nina and Greg moved into a 4,000-square-foot Carlsbad home that was two and a half miles from the ocean. It was perfect for Nina; she was now in the eighth month of her pregnancy, but every day she ran to the ocean. On some days she also jogged the six-mile sandy stretch of South Carlsbad State Beach.

  It was because of her running that Nina first saw Marisol.

  “Greg!” Nina called.

  She heard a muffled answer coming from what had formerly been the master bedroom. Greg had converted the space into an area the two of them called Alcatraz, the former penitentiary known as the Rock. It was an appropriate nickname; the room housed Greg’s huge rock collection.

  Museum-style cabinets lined the walls. Greg’s finds were separated into the categories of rocks, minerals, and fossils. There were also numerous subcategories. The museum drawers were long and wide and pulled out to allow maximum visibility. Greg’s finds were mounted inside those drawers. Each had its own display card, which identified the object, the GPS coordinates of where it had been found, and the date it was collected.

  Nina would never have imagined that rocks would need any kind of special care, but Greg had told her that because some sulfides tarnished, they were best kept in dark places, and that certain minerals were prone to disintegration if it was too dry. Because of that, Alcatraz was climate-controlled with special lighting.

  Lighting was also put to good use in those glass display cases housing fluorescent minerals. By daylight there was nothing to distinguish the minerals, but under ultraviolet lights, they exploded in colors, offering a rainbow of reds, blues, and greens, along with pinks, whites, and oranges.

  Greg was sitting at his workstation. By the looks of it, he was packing his internal-frame backpack for his next rock outing. Depending on where he was going, Greg would fill his pack with hammers, chisels, pry bars, screen sieves, loupes, brushes, a folding shovel, safety goggles, a headband magnifier, his altimeter watch, a mineral test kit, gold pans, miner’s headlamp, various pocket tools for extracting quartz, and even a battery-operated diamond saw for making cuts in the rock. His pack could weigh sixty pounds or more, and that didn’t include food or water.

  He looked up from his packing and smiled at Nina. At his work table was lapidary equipment, which included rock tumblers, saws, and polishing machines for such finds as thunder eggs, agates, and geodes, which he sold through a website, although Greg was quick to say it was more a labor of love than a big moneymaker. Geological consulting was where he made his money. Unfortunately, most of those jobs didn’t involve working with the rocks that he loved. The majority of his work was in environmental due diligence, an area he said was a “yawner.”

  “Marisol’s story made the paper,” Nina said, handing him a copy of the Union-Tribune.

  Greg read aloud the headline: “Doctor Charged in Human Trafficking.”

  Then he scanned the article and said, “Here’s a surprise: his attorney says he’s innocent.”

  “Read a little further and you’ll see where his CPA wife is quoted as saying Marisol is an ‘ingrate.’ I guess she was supposed to be grateful for being an unpaid sex slave.”

  It was during one of her runs that Nina had noticed the young woman staring out the window, looking at nothing. There had been something about her despair that was palpable and had reminded Nina of her time in Alaska, when she had despondently stared out of the cabin’s sole window. A few days later, when Nina was sure the woman was home alone, she tried talking with her. Using a translator app on her portable phone, Nina was able to translate Tagalog. In the days that followed, she’d gradually gained the young woman’s trust.

  The young Filipina had confessed to Nina that she was in the United States illegally. She’d entered the country thinking she would be working as a domestic in the house of the doctor and his wife, but her employers had other ideas. For almost two years, she’d been kept as a virtual slave, abused physically and sexually. She didn’t speak English and was afraid of the police. Her captors had warned her of terrible consequences should she try to ale
rt anyone.

  “I’m feeling guilty not being there to help her through every step of the process,” said Nina.

  “You have good reasons for staying in the background, but at least you didn’t leave her high and dry. You made the call to Health and Human Services, got her a lawyer, and then put a support system in place for her.”

  “If at all possible, I want to keep flying under the media’s radar.”

  “Is it the Alaska and Donnelly story you don’t want to talk to them about, or are you worried that any notoriety might interfere with your plans to be this avenging angel?”

  “I prefer the term ‘advocate,’” said Nina. “I want to be a resource for women in need. And that means keeping my private life private.

  “Marisol was being held two miles from here, Greg. This is supposed to be an affluent community where things like that don’t happen. In a multimillion-dollar home a few blocks from the beach, a board-certified doctor held a woman prisoner, and no one even noticed.”

  “I know. It’s shocking.”

  Nina shook her head. “What’s shocking is that situations like hers are more common than anyone thinks. Human trafficking is a thirty-two-billion-dollar-a-year industry.”

  “You’ve made me aware of that. You’ve also made me aware that violent gangs and criminal families are running these slave rings. And that’s why I think it makes a lot more sense being a human-rights lawyer with the power of the government behind you. You know what’s a lot scarier than being an advocate? A lawyer.”

  “It would be years before I could act, and there are hundreds of thousands of women like Marisol who need help now. Besides, a lawyer is supposed to be an officer of the court.”

  “You make that sound like it’s something bad.”

  “No, but it is something that’s limiting.”

  “Then get involved with one of those groups you keep talking about.”

  Nina had researched The Hope Project, Polaris, and The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. She’d also considered getting a position with the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. All of them did good work. But she wanted to do more than apply Band-Aids to gaping wounds.