Battle Cry

by Dustin Stevens

  The same thought has been bandied around inside the office for the last couple of hours. Somebody was gunning for them. Choosing their targets with intention.

  “Agreed,” Marsh replies. “Was hoping you could keep an ear out, maybe ask around a little over there.”

  “Will do,” Ramirez replies. “Thanks for keeping me in the loop.”

  Lifting the receiver from his desktop, Marsh drops it back into place. Ending the call, he shifts his gaze back to the sea of paperwork currently spread around them. The complete case files of both recent murder scenes buffeted with excerpts from several others.

  A ton of facts and findings held together by nothing more than theories and conjecture. Plenty of disparate things that draw the eye, but precious little connective tissue to get them where they need to be.

  Rotating in his desk chair, Marsh turns to look at the pages tacked to the wall. Post-it notes of various colors are adhered to many of them, additional bullet points jotted down in black ink.

  Tons of questions with no clear answers.

  Right now, they have cases occurring in various parts of San Diego. Multiple crimes committed by different perpetrators. Assorted styles targeting seemingly unrelated victims.

  A spree of murder and arson that can’t be unrelated, even if he still has no real clue yet how they tie together.

  A position made even more pronounced by the fact that now there is a ticking clock hanging over all of it.

  “Okay,” Tinley begins, breaking the silence. “Let’s start with the doc. That’s the big outlier here. One guy running a small-time practice gets strangled with a damn garrote in the attic of his clinic.”

  Marsh grunts, offering nothing more. For the moment he is content to listen, hoping it might jar something new loose.

  “Last night,” Tinley says. “Another house in a quiet neighborhood, no more than a few miles from the first one. An ambush, a shootout, whatever you want to call it. Six more guys dead, all of them affiliated with a group we’ve been looking at for a week and a half now.

  “The same group that had a couple guys turn up in a hospital in El Cajon two nights ago, beat all to hell. The very same one again that the arson investigator saw leaving the site of Kyle Clady’s home burning to the ground last week.”

  In his periphery, Marsh can see Tinley take his feet. His voice rising, he extends a hand before him.

  Both signs Marsh has seen before, his young partner having a proclivity for occasionally getting worked up.

  “The same Kyle Clady whose wife was shot in Balboa Park, which kickstarted all of this.”

  The summation stops there, frustration seeming to get the best of Tinley. Falling silent, his hand drops to his side.

  Still choosing to not yet respond, Marsh keeps his gaze fixed on the wall. His vision blurs, his mind racing.

  While Tinley hit all the high points for the last couple weeks, there were a few glaring omissions. Facts such as Kyle Clady admitting he knew the doctor and had met with him the week before. And that the man identified as actually pulling the trigger on Clady’s wife has not been seen since.

  Not to mention, they still have no idea why the Wolves were at that particular house in Chula Vista.

  “Have we got anything tying Clady to the scene last night?” Marsh asks.

  Tinley snorts in reply. “You mean besides six dead Wolves?”

  Gaze fixed on his partner, Marsh says nothing. His gaze hardens, letting it be known that now is not exactly the time for sarcasm.

  “Nothing yet,” Tinley replies, the previous mirth evaporating. “Teams are still working the pavement, though. Lab hasn’t come back with their reports.”

  Pausing, he thinks on it another moment before adding, “Hell, we haven’t even been able to get Valerie Ogo on the phone yet.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  So badly I wanted to process what was shared. With the exception of having my Mira back, I desired nothing more than to make sense of everything Daniel Lucero told me.

  To have it all line up, presenting the big reveal I’d been craving before making the trip.

  As much as I wanted it though, my mind refused. Synapses failed to line up, my head settling into a daze as I stared out at the highway before me.

  For the better part of two hours, I replayed the words he said. Recalled the intonation he used. Even the expression on his face.

  Barely did any of it actually manage to penetrate.

  My hope before driving out was that Lucero would be able to give me the key. Already, I had piles of disparate information. Random tidbits that all seemed important, but I couldn’t quite cram into a working order.

  The goal was for him to provide the framework. One big reveal that I could superimpose over everything else and have it suddenly make sense.

  Instead, what I got was a massive piece slammed down into the middle of the board. Something with so much heft, it didn’t allow anything else to lock into place.

  It just managed to toss them all into the air.

  My very first thought after losing my wife was that it was my fault. That somehow, my past had caught up to us.

  Over the course of the last decade, I have been involved in countless missions. Been a part of things that can never be discussed in countries that I previously didn’t even know existed.

  I’m not naïve. While every last one of them might have been in the name of following orders, or serving the greater good, or preserving future life, they weren’t all good things.

  People lost their homes. Their livelihoods. Their loved ones.

  Without a doubt, someone out there was keeping score. Somebody, through a means I could not begin to fathom, had managed to track me down and punish me for the wrong I’d brought upon them.

  For more than a solid day, I walked around carrying that belief, beating myself up for corrupting the purest thing in my life. Not until my friends and I had strapped Mike Lincoln to a chair in a forgotten shack in the desert did it even occur to me that Mira herself might have been the intended target.

  For more than a week since, I have tried to wrap my head around that. Attempted to sift through her life, ferreting out who might wish to do her harm.

  I’ve been to her desk at work. Spoke to her colleagues. Tracked down people she was working on behalf of and those she was later set to meet with. I’ve even gone to church for the first time in ages and now driven out into the desert.

  Not once, even after all that, did I consider what Lucero just told me.

  To even think such a thing was possible seemed nothing short of laughable. A mixture of fantasy and self-importance with no place in this conversation.

  To say I was in a daze would be an understatement of the highest order.

  So much so that I’m not sure how I even ended up here. Barely do I even remember most of the drive. Definitely not flying right past my turn to head north toward Santee and the Valley View.

  Still, of everywhere in the world, I can think of nowhere better than this spot.

  “Are you okay?” my mother-in-law Angelique asks. Perched on the edge of the couch beside me, her fingers are laced tight together. Inches away from them is an overflowing ashtray, remnants of a habit that has resurfaced in only the last couple of weeks.

  Proof that we are all trying to deal with this in our own way.

  What exactly she is getting at with the question, I can’t be certain. Most likely, it is meant to be vague. An open-ended inquiry I can take however I would like.

  Physically, I am fine. The trip to the desert has me a little parched. The drive back, a bit sunburned.

  Neither are worth mentioning.

  Emotionally, she already knows the answer. I am a wreck, fighting a constant battle between sorrow and outrage, wanting nothing more than to grieve for my wife, but knowing I have to figure this out first.

  Guessing that she was referring to mentally, I reply, “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Her gaze flicks my way. A computer-aged
image of what my Mira would have looked like in twenty-some years, the same dark eyes settle on me. “Meaning it was a waste of time?”

  “Meaning...” I begin. “No. Definitely not a waste of time. I just have no idea what to do with what he shared.”

  I’m not trying to be deliberately vague. I know she is as vested in this as I am. It’s just that right now, I have not yet had enough time to put all this in order.

  “Which is why I’m here.”

  What insight she may have, I can’t know for sure. Whether I should even be sharing all this, I am equally uncertain.

  If the ashtray is any indicator, she’s having just as much difficulty with things as I am.

  I just know that I can’t continue carrying this alone. Not something this large, with potential ramifications far exceeding anything I could have thought possible.

  Not when I keep waffling between how to process the enormity of it and wanting to laugh at the sheer absurdity of such a proposition.

  Seeming to sense what I am thinking – the turmoil if not the substance, anyway - Angelique keeps her focus leveled on me. For the second time in the past week, she says, “Start at the beginning, and tell me everything.”

  And just like that last time, I do exactly as she instructed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Daniel Lucero wasn’t able to tell me the exact words the woman used. He wasn’t even able to remember the name she gave him.

  When she first arrived, he had assumed she had the wrong address. Or was there to sell something. Or one of a hundred other reasons why a woman that looked like she did would be standing on his front porch.

  So much so that he had even expressed as much. Smiled and offered to give her directions. Point her where she intended to go.

  Not until she didn’t just refuse the offer but informed him she was right where she needed to be did trepidation set in.

  Trepidation that quickly devolved into outright fear, heightening with every subsequent word she uttered.

  By the time she was finished and on her way, he was so shook that he couldn’t recall much of anything. Not well enough to relay to me a transcript of what was said.

  All he had was the general gist. The underlying threat and the promise of bad things that would be levied upon him.

  Which, in turn, was all I had to share with Angelique.

  Even without it, the two of us sat for more than an hour. I perched in the armchair in front of the living room windows. She on the couch.

  Where Hiram – her son, my brother-in-law – was, I didn’t know. Didn’t even bother to ask.

  Side by side, we allowed the conversation to form into a stream of consciousness. A verbal spilling of everything we were thinking, from Lucero’s words to how - or even if - they applied to Mira.

  By the time I rose to exit, it was clear there were no conclusions to be drawn. No final verdicts or marching orders moving forward.

  Trying to wrap our minds around such a possibility was going to take time. First to process, and then again to act.

  Leaving her seated on the couch, I made my way out to the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. A spot I have now been in for more than ten solid minutes. Wheel gripped tight in both hands, I stare straight out, still fighting to work through everything learned and discussed throughout the day.

  Something I don’t even realize I am doing until a faint buzzing pulls me from my thoughts.

  In the wake of leaving Slab City, I hadn’t bothered to power my phone back up. Far from the closest tower, there wasn’t much of a signal to speak of. Leaving it on would have just drained the battery.

  And it wasn’t like I was in any state to speak to anybody those first couple of hours anyway.

  Only after arriving at my in-law’s did I even think to turn it back on, waiting just long enough for it to power up before depositing it in the middle console.

  The same place it is still stowed as I pull it free and stare at the screen. Across it is spread a now-recognizable string of digits. Just seeing them, my chest tightens. One more thing in what has already been a whirlwind day.

  Fighting against every inclination I have, I accept it.

  “Hello?”

  “Kyle, Detective Marsh here.”

  It isn’t the four words that causes my entire body to clench. I knew who the number belonged to even without a name assigned. Even had a moment to brace myself before accepting the call.

  It is the voice that says them. The all-too-familiar tone that is now synonymous with everything bad that has happened the last week and a half.

  The first time I ever heard it was within minutes of my wife’s passing. Since then, it seems to surface each time there is some new bit of bad news to share.

  My house has been torched. Dr. Brendan Hoke has been killed.

  Whatever the hell he is calling about now.

  “Listen,” he continues without waiting for a response. “We’ve had something come up in the course of our investigation and we were hoping we might be able to ask you a few more questions.”

  The line is the sort of typically vague thing I’ve been getting from him for over a week. A thin excuse to get me back to the station so he can accuse me of something and pretend it is nothing more than a conversation.

  It has been proven at this point that I did not kill my wife. Marsh knows that. He’s seen the surveillance footage from the park, has gotten statements from witnesses and first responders that were nearby that night.

  Just like he knows I didn’t kill Dr. Hoke.

  Still, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s never taken his focus away from me. For whatever reason, he has fixated on trying to take down the husband, intent on proving the easy answer is the correct one.

  “Were you guys finally able to find Mike Lincoln?” I ask.

  I already know the answer to the question. That is one body that will never be found, his remains by now likely nothing more than coyote shit.

  I need to play the part, though. I need them to think I am still the concerned spouse, waiting for word back.

  Not the guy that has gotten much further in my investigation than they could ever hope to.

  “No,” Marsh replies, “this is something else that has come to our attention.”

  My hand tightens around the phone. Tension runs from my knuckles all the way to my shoulder, my teeth coming together.

  The earlier conversation with Lucero was a revelation. Even if I still haven’t figured out what to do with it, I will. The enormity of it is too much not to.

  As fantastical as it might sound, it could also be the centerpiece I’ve been searching for. The only thoroughfare, connecting each of the separate parts.

  Now that I have that, I can maybe start putting things in order around it. Correct all the misassumptions I’ve been carrying for the last several days.

  I don’t have the time or the energy for another fishing trip from Marsh.

  At the same time, he isn’t going away. The last thing I need is to give him reason to intensify his focus on me. To give myself the headache of looking over my shoulder throughout whatever may come next.

  “Okay,” I mutter. “Would you like me to come by the precinct? I’m at my in-law’s, but I can be there in an hour or two.”

  “Actually,” Marsh answer, “we were just on our way out to El Cajon to meet with someone. Where are you staying now? We can just swing by when we’re done?”

  Lifting my gaze, I stare out at the canyon behind my Mira’s childhood home. Above, the sky has started to fade, a combination of the impending storm and evening fast approaching.

  Long shadows stretch across everything, shrouding the world in semi-darkness. Punctuating it are warning lights flashing across my mind, igniting behind my eyelids each time I blink.

  No part of me wants to share with him where I’ve been staying. The reason I picked the Valley View is because it is far away from everybody and because they allow me to pay in cash.

  A pla
ce for me to effectively hide, while still having access to the city.

  In no way do I want to give that up, especially to one of the very people I’ve been hiding from.

  “Valley View Inn & Suites,” I whisper, my voice just barely audible. “You know the place?”

  “Sure,” he replies. “We’ll see you at, say, seven o’clock?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Byrdie is careful to stay well back from the windows. Far enough that his shadow can’t be seen through the thin curtains hanging lank over the tinted glass.

  Standing in the center of the room, his body is turned at an angle. Eyes narrowed, he stares out, willing the person that he spotted just a few moments before to reappear.

  Not because he needs him to, there being no doubt about the identity of the man that just pulled up.

  Because he wants him to.

  When the manager at the front desk first mentioned two rooms being occupied, Byrdie had tried to tell himself not to read too much into it. There were two Ogo women. It wasn’t inconceivable they would take different spaces.

  Just as likely was that there were two different parties staying at the place simultaneously. Or that other rooms had been rented over the weekend, those just being the last to still linger.

  One at a time, he had run through the various possibilities. A few, he’d even tried to believe.

  All the time avoiding the most obvious. The one that if he spoke aloud, or even permitted himself to focus on too much, might not be true.

  Reaching to his rear pocket, Byrdie slides out his phone. Barely glancing down, he hits the most recent call in the log.

  A moment later, Snapper is on the line.

  “Yeah?” Unlike earlier, the word is clipped. The sound of voices in the background can be heard, making it clear he isn’t at complete liberty to speak.

  Not until he hears what Byrdie is about to unload, anyway.

  “I’ve got eyes on,” Byrdie says.

  The voices fall away, gone in an instant.

  “Yeah?” Snapper repeats. “Ogo?”