Highest Law: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by R. J. Pineiro

  “Hey Murph,” I say, shaking hands before giving him a man hug. He came back almost a month after I did. As it turned out, the thing with Adanna became more than a lonely Christmas one-night stand, and Murph decided to wait for her to also get released from Landstuhl to return together. Adanna ended up indeed working for the USMC Criminal Investigative Division out of Virginia Beach. As of two months ago, she also shares an apartment with Murph, who was able to swing a Master-at-Arms rating after finishing his PT.

  “Hey, Law,” he replies, dressed in a Navy Working Uniform Type III with the MA patch over his name, a matching cap, and black boots. I’m also in an NWU Type III, which continues to be the standard uniform with the AOR-2 camouflage pixelated pattern.

  “Heard about the shooting?” he asks.

  “Hard to miss,” I reply, not wishing to talk about it. I’m hoping Beatriz will keep my name out of the media.

  “No shit, and by an MA of all people,” he replies. “Gives the rest of us a bad name. We’re supposed to be keeping the base safe. Not the other way around.”

  “Yeah,” I reply while my eyes shift to the passenger side of the Colorado and notice it’s empty. “Say, where’s Adanna?”

  “Working,” he says. “Just got reassigned to a new case, but it’s all hush-hush. She feels terrible she couldn’t make it”

  I blink and am about to tell him that I was just also reassigned, but my gaze is already gravitating down the walkway flanked by bushes that had been let go for some time without trimming. It’s the path that leads to a darkness neither of us wishes to face, but which we do, every goddamned week, without fail, since Dix made it stateside three months ago.

  “Ready for this?” he asks.

  “Hell no,” I say, as we head for the door.

  “Well, the only easy day was yesterday,” he says, deciding to quote our old SEAL motto.

  The problem with that is that I can’t really remember my last easy day, one when I didn’t have to fight off my demons. It was certainly not yesterday.

  But I let that go when facing the door leading to a place far bleaker than mine.

  Although we make it a point to come every week and hang out with them, today is Franky and Dix’s first wedding anniversary.

  Yeah. It’s been a year since I watched them dance to that old Karen Carpenter tune while I hung out at the bar getting shitfaced.

  And this is also why neither of us is wearing sidearms: we’re going to need alcohol to get us through the damn night.

  And to put a cherry on our shit cake, tomorrow is also the eight-month anniversary of our world turning to hell. So, even more reason to drink and be merry.

  But, hey, at least Murph and I have some semblance of a life to live. It’s been a rough road since those early weeks at Landstuhl, barely able to get around. But Murph and I—and Adanna for that matter—are textbook cases of what can be accomplished by powering through months of very painful therapy.

  “We’re early,” Murph says, checking his G-shock watch, before reaching into a side pocket of his NWU and producing a small black jewelry box.

  “What the hell’s that?”

  “I’m gonna do it, man.” He opens it to reveal a round diamond in a simple yellow gold setting.

  I feel a trickle of jealousy followed by a torrent of guilt for feeling that in the first place. Just because I’m pathetically lonely doesn’t mean he should be.

  “Good for you, Buddy… but are you sure? It’s been less than six months, right?”

  Murph makes a face, looks at his shiny black boots, then lifts his gaze, which now has a wide-eyed-stare. “Ah, well… she said, and I quote, ‘that if I like the milk I better buy the fucking cow, or someone else will.’ And, Law, I really, really like the milk, man. So…”

  I didn’t think it was possible to smile today, but the man manages to put a grin on my face, though it doesn’t last long. “Well, that’s reason for a celebration, Buddy,” I say. “But not in there.”

  “Yeah,” he says, putting the ring away. “Definitely not in there.”

  “Alright,” I say. “Let’s get this over with.” And I knock twice, but lightly, in case Dix is sleeping.

  No one answers, so after thirty seconds, I knock a little harder.

  Franky Hope finally opens the door. She’s barefoot and dressed in a light blue robe. Her once long dark hair now barely reaches her shoulders and is wet, sticking to the sides of her face. It looks like she just showered, probably because she knew we were coming over, but we got here a bit early, so she likely threw the robe on to answer the door. Water beads trickle down her neck, disappearing in the thick terrycloth, and there are wet footprints behind her in the narrow and tiled entryway leading to the living room.

  But the shower could not erase the redness in her eyes. She’s been crying. Her face is also damp but a bit pasty, probably from a lack of sunlight.

  Franky used to have a good smile. Now she seems to live with her lips compressed in a sort of permanent scowl, forcing fine lines at the ends of her mouth on an already strained face.

  “Hey, Law,” she says and throws her arms around me. Her head presses against my chest, under my chin, and I smell the lavender scent infused in her hair. I’m guessing from her shampoo.

  I briefly close my eyes and say, “Hey, you,” returning the hug with just one arm while holding the booze with the other.

  She does the same with Murph and then asks, “Where’s that beautiful girl of yours?”

  “Working late. New case. Sends her apologies.”

  “Nothing to apologize for,” she says, “completely understand,” and leads us to the living room.

  It’s a small and cramped space with a single cream-colored sofa, a matching recliner, and a flat screen mounted on the opposing wall tuned to a local news channel replaying the shooting with the sound muted.

  A cocktail table in front of the sofa holds at least a dozen bottles of prescription meds, plus a pair of IT textbooks next to a small MacBook Pro. Franky is still trying to get her degree from Norfolk State through their online courses since Dix can’t be left alone for very long and his benefits don’t include nursing services. Murph and I have tried to help her financially, but she has consistently refused our offer, determined to get through this on her own. And that alone, in my book, says a lot about her resilience and also about my utter lack of character judgment. Back at Landstuhl, I was convinced she was going to dump him.

  A shadow box next to the TV displays Dix’s various medals, including a Purple Heart and the Congressional Medal of Honor, which the president himself placed around his neck while he was unconscious following one of his surgeries two months ago.

  Beyond the living room is a small kitchen and dinette. To the right is a hallway leading to the single bedroom and bathroom.

  It isn’t much, but it’s the best they can afford on Dix’s long-term disability pay since she had to quit her job at the club to look after him. And trust me, Franky’s nightly tip jar amounted to a small fortune. Plus, the place is close to the VA hospital, where he’s spent a considerable amount of time since returning from Germany.

  “How was his week?” I ask as she points to the sofa. Murph and I sit there and set the drinks on the table.

  “Good days and bad days, like always,” she says, sitting at the edge of the recliner. “Not so good today. Took a while for the pain meds to kick in. He’s finally sleeping.”

  Unlike Murph and me, who had our final surgeries back in Germany, Dix continued to go under the knife at Landstuhl and also at the Hampton VA, as surgeons worked to remove the dozens of steel fragments lodged in his spinal cord.

  You know, the sizzling metal that he took for me.

  The last cut was over a month ago, a seven-hour ordeal that involved six surgeons and which left him in a significant level of pain, from which he is still recovering.
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  I grab one of the Buds, twist off the cap, and hand it to her. I do the same for Murph and then me.

  “Law, is that the good stuff?” Franky asks, pointing her chin at the brown paper bag next to the two six packs.

  I nod and produce the half bottle of Cava de Oro, which cost me a pretty penny.

  But hey, we’re celebrating. Right?

  Franky’s face brightens up as much as can be expected. “Must be a special occasion,” she says before walking over to the kitchen and returning with three shot glasses.

  I pour and we chug them in unison and chase them with the Buds, just like I did with her the night we met. But there is no laughter or dancing this time. We drink in silence. We all know what day it is, but no one seems willing to mention it or suggest a toast.

  I keep my eyes on the table, though I can feel Franky’s blue lasers on us. I finally get the courage to lift my eyes.

  “You know,” she says, shifting her stare between us while holding the beer with both hands. “I appreciate the thought of you guys coming here regularly, but I know you’re busy with your new lives. You have that pretty girlfriend, Murph, plus the new job, and you got that gig at NCIS, Law, and I’m sure the girls are all over you. While Dix and I… well… we’re just fucked.” She pushes her empty shot glass toward me. “Hit me again.”

  I pour her another shot and then tilt the half bottle toward Murph, who shakes his head. “Gotta work tomorrow, man. Bright and early.”

  I’m about to say that I, too, have to be up and about early, but the look in her eyes makes me pour myself a second shot. This time she clinks her glass against mine while holding my stare.

  “Bottom’s up, Marine,” she orders, and I obey. We chug them together and chase them with more beer.

  “Dix is our brother,” Murph says as we set the shot glasses on the table. “We’d do anything for him.”

  “And you,” I add. “You’re our sister. Family.”

  “I…” She takes a deep breath, followed by a gulp of her beer, closing her eyes as she swallows. “He’s in so much pain, guys,” she finally says. “He was doing so well, until the last cut. It really fucked him up. But if they didn’t remove the shrapnel, he would have died from the infections. But it kills me to see him like this, you know?”

  Murph and I nod in unison, and I know he’s thinking the same damn thing we think every time we visit. Why, oh, why, did we manage to fuck it up at Landstuhl? Had we done our jobs right, like Dix wanted us to, neither of them would be in this predica—

  A window opens on the top right hand side of the TV screen depicting a wide-angle video of Dix sleeping in his bed as he moves his surviving arm on his lap. His mouth is wide open in what looks like serious snoring, but the sound is mercifully muted, though we can still hear him through the closed bedroom door. I’ve slept next to the former Jersey giant enough times to know just how damn loud the man can get. He can truly wake up the dead.

  “That’s new,” I say, stretching an index finger at the screen.

  She slowly nods while looking at it. “Installed it earlier this week. I can’t spend all day in that room, guys. And he snores more now than ever before because he doesn’t move much, so he’s always congested. The camera has a motion sensor that warns me when he’s moving so I can see if he needs anything.” She then points at the books. “I need time alone to study. Otherwise, I’m afraid I’ll go bat-shit crazy.”

  We stare at the image, and it disappears after a few more seconds.

  “Just shifting in his sleep,” she adds.

  “Does he know?”

  She shakes her head. “Don’t see the point in telling him. And it’s very small. Hidden on one of the shelves, between my textbooks. Bluetooth interface to the TV.”

  “Sound, too?” Murph asks.

  She nods. “But I keep it muted. I need to study.” She points at the open books again. “It automatically records to the DVR, and it has a low-light mode since his room is always dark.”

  “Fancy,” I say.

  She shrugs. “I was just going to buy a baby monitor but web cams are cheap these days, and the rest of the hardware I already had in that smart TV and the DVR, so, I just interfaced—”

  Murph’s phone starts to vibrate.

  He looks at it, mumbles, “Shit,” followed by, “Sorry. Gotta take this. Probably about the shooting.”

  Franky points him to the front door.

  Murph steps out, and for a moment I wish that it was my phone that had gone off instead. But then a twinge of guilt rakes me for thinking that.

  I’m staring at my beer, but once more I can feel Franky’s eyes on me, and as of late I’ve had difficulty holding her stare. Not sure why. And that also leads to uncomfortable silence, which is exactly what’s happening now.

  So, I say the only thing that comes to mind that could get me out of my predicament. “Okay if I see him for a moment? Promise I’ll be quiet.”

  She was indeed staring at me, and continues to do so. The woman has this weird power she exerts when aiming those lasers in my direction, almost as if she can see right through me. And I feel completely powerless.

  After torturing me for the better part of thirty seconds, time when she finishes her beer and calmly sets it on the table, she says, “Sure thing, Law.”

  She then motions for me to get her another longneck. I set mine down next to her empty one, and was about to grab a fresh one from the six pack, when she just reaches down and snatches mine.

  “This will do,” she says. “Go on. See him.”

  I quickly obey and leave her in the living room, stepping down the short hallway and inching open the door on the left.

  The smell of body odor hovers in the air with that of urine and a strong disinfectant. I let my eyes adjust to the twilight in the room, though my mind wishes they didn’t to keep me from seeing what could have happened to any of us.

  The room finally resolves, and the fact that it took me a moment gives me a good idea of the quality of that webcam. A small rollaway hugs the left wall. It looks big enough for a kid, or an adult the size of Franky, yielding most of the space to the full-size hospital bed monopolizing the middle of the room.

  Dix continues to snore away with his mouth open in a reclining position. A line of greenish drool trickles down his left cheek. A clear tube runs from a portable oxygen concentrator to the nose cannulas feeding his surviving but damaged lung. He’s still permanently dependent on the humming machine in the corner.

  A white sheet covers him up to his belly button, exposing a chest which has lost most of its muscle mass. I can see his ribcage now as his chest expands with every breath. It amazes me how much weight he has lost. And he no longer bothers with the pirate patch to cover the scar tissue marking the spot where he lost his right eye.

  I also see that Navy SEAL trident tattoo under his left pectoral, just like the one everyone in the team got after a mission in Manila two years ago. Only Dix decided to add the words CLOSE TO YOU beneath his right pec the week after the wedding to commemorate the first song they danced to as man and wife—and for which he caught endless shit from the guys during our last tour.

  His one good arm is resting just beneath those words and his hand is holding the remote control for the TV hung on the wall, next to the shelves above the rollaway.

  But like the rest of him, his once muscular limb is thin and quite pallid, and marred with scar tissue from the blast and the multiple procedures. But at least he was able to keep it and it is still functional, allowing him to hold drinks and even feed himself, and apparently change channels. However, he has to wear adult diapers because the recent round of surgeries to remove the shrapnel have left him paralyzed from the waist down for the time being. He has no control of his bladder, bowels, or…

  I sigh.

  But the doctors are hopeful that he will—


  “Hey… Boss.”

  I look down just as he lifts his gaunt face toward me while wiping the drool with a corner of the sheet, before letting it fall back to his waist, exposing the top of his gray adult diaper. His left eye stares at me.

  It takes loads of visceral fortitude not to cry each time I see him.

  “Hey, Buddy,” I reply, forcing a smile which I hope doesn’t look fake. “Good to see you.”

  “Not much… to see,” he says, his eye blinking rapidly, and I remember Franky saying that he had just gotten his meds and should be out until the am.

  “Don’t say that man. The doctors—”

  “Don’t know shit… I can see it in their eyes, Boss. They stand there… with their fucking stethoscopes hanging… from their necks… and their fucking attitudes stuffed inside those… lab coats… that’s why they call it… medical practice. Assholes get to practice on poor motherfuckers… like me.”

  I shake my head at that, but he does have a point. “Well, I’m here for you, man.”

  “I know,” he says, setting the TV remote on the small table next to his bed, which also houses a half-dozen bottles of prescription meds and a bottle of water.

  He then lifts his open hand. I clasp it, noticing his grip is very weak. It’s hard to explain, but I can almost feel his frailty through his bony hand.

  After a moment of silence, he says, “I’m not getting… any better, Boss.”

  “What are you talking about, man? The doctors—”

  “They really fucked me up removing that metal… from my spine. I’m pissing… and shitting on myself. The smell… it’s so gross, Boss. And poor Franky… she didn’t sign up… for this. And you promised me.”

  And there it is, the conversation I have hoped to avoid with this man.

  “I know that.”

  “But you didn’t do it.”

  “I know that, too.” Murph and I never saw the point of telling him that we did try but failed.

  “I’d do it for you, Boss.”

  Oh, God.

  “Dix, I really can’t—”

  “You… owe me, Boss.”