Hard-Boiled- Box Set

by Danny R. Smith

  Tina had an image of Carlos in her head, shocked at what he would see happening. She’d have to get control of him fast and get the two of them out of there. She’d drive home; she wouldn’t trust Carlos to keep his cool after seeing Travis killed. She would tell her brother about the abuse she suffered at the big man’s hands, and she’d explain that this was the only way to make it stop without drawing attention to herself. She’d overplay the abuse part.

  Hopefully the army had stopped looking for them by now, but if Travis were discovered murdered, the hunt would be on again. And she would be the prime suspect. They’d have to drag his body out into the forest, away from the clearing. Carlos wouldn’t be happy about it, but she’d retake her control of him once Travis was dead. She used to have her little brother under her thumb, but he’d changed since Travis came into the picture. That could be fixed.

  Travis was strapping his holstered pistol onto his belt at the side of the van. Carlos was loading magazines for the AR-15s. Travis told him to load them full for practice, and for when they went on a job, but to never leave them stored that way. Load the magazines a couple of rounds shy of capacity so that you didn’t store them with full tension on the springs. Travis was disciplined when it came to the handling and maintenance of his weapons, though he was a slob in every other aspect of his life.

  Tina watched the two men speaking civilly to one another, sharing this one interest. Carlos had taken to Travis and likely saw him as a father figure. Travis seemed to like Carlos, though he constantly talked down to him and made disparaging remarks about Hispanics. Yet when they worked together or spoke of working together, it was all business and a cohesive union. She hoped Carlos wouldn’t lose his mind when she did what she had to do.

  And she had to do it.

  Chief Warrant Officers 2 James P. Morgan and Paulina Lazarevic were asked to have a seat in the lobby of the Homicide Bureau headquarters in the City of Commerce. They took the only two chairs for visitors and watched as a steady stream of detectives in suits and skirts passed by. It seemed to Morgan to be the hub of the wheel, the intersection of all traffic within the warehouse-sized office building that sat discreetly among identical buildings housing workers of various private industries.

  Paulina whispered, “Have you noticed their guns?”

  “Well yeah, of course. How could you not?”

  “But, I mean, they are all different. I would have expected law enforcement to be more like the military, where everyone trains with and carries the same weapons. Look, the guy by the fax machine has a Glock. The lady that just walked through had a Smith on her belt. When we were talking to the black guy at the front desk, I was surprised to see he had a Beretta 92F sitting on the desk without a holster. It’s weird.”

  “They’re detectives. It’s probably different than that for the street cops. Besides, they’ll probably wonder why we’re not wearing uniforms.”

  She smiled. “Well, we’re detectives.”

  Morgan thought about that and wondered how many of the detectives in this building would recognize army investigators as actual detectives. He had mostly had good rapport with civilian law enforcement, but occasionally he would get the feeling that many of the local law enforcement officers were unimpressed with anything federal. Especially the FBI. They—the local cops—hated the FBI, or so it seemed.

  A man with a hat popped around the corner, eyeballed Morgan and his partner, and then turned to the black detective at the desk. Morgan overheard him say, “Them?”

  Rich Farris had called me on my cell and said someone was in the lobby to meet with me. When I asked who it was, he said, “army investigators.” What the hell would they want? Farris didn’t know.

  I had just come back from lunch and had seen a slick car with government plates pulling into the lot. It must have been them. When I rounded the corner to the front desk lobby area, I nodded to Farris and asked if it were the two sitting in the chairs in civilian attire. They didn’t appear to be soldiers. Farris affirmed it was them, and I crossed the lobby to meet them.

  The man stood, and the woman followed his lead. “Hello, sir. I’m Chief Warrant Officer James Morgan, and this is Chief Warrant Officer Paulina Lazarevic. We’re with Army CID.”

  I shook his hand, and then removed my hat and shook the firm hand of the woman called Lazarevic. “I thought you guys were feds, when I saw you pulling into the lot.”

  Morgan smiled. “No, sir. Not technically. Army CID.”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. “How can I help you?”

  “We understand you were the detective who made notification of death with the grandmother of Jimmy Ortiz, a man killed by an off-duty deputy sheriff.”

  “That’s right, me and my partner, Detective Sanchez.”

  “We’d like to talk to you about that, if you have a few minutes.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen and grab a cup of coffee. We can talk there, or if you need more privacy, we can go into a conference room.”

  Morgan said, “Coffee sounds good.”

  The three of us started for the kitchen. Lazarevic said, “Is your partner available?”

  I stopped. “That’s an excellent question. I haven’t seen her in a while.” I turned back toward the desk. “Farris, would you mind paging Sanchez and asking if she would meet us in the kitchen, please?”

  “You got it, Dickie.”

  “Dickie?” Lazarevic questioned as the three started again, heading through the hallway toward the kitchen.

  “It’s a nickname my old partner stuck me with. If you’re lucky, you’ll get out of here without meeting him.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  “Well, for one, he’s insane. Also, since you’re an attractive woman with dark hair, he’ll put more moves on you than an all-state wrestler.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me.

  Her partner said, “Lazarevic had no problem handling the Taliban; I’m pretty sure she can handle your old partner.”

  “You haven’t met Floyd.”

  20

  When Sanchez arrived, Morgan had just finished explaining all of the structural nuances of the United States Army, its Cavalry unit, its Criminal Investigations unit—which is called CID because it used to be Criminal Investigations Division. He had just started to explain why he and the light-skinned woman with ink-black hair and a name I couldn’t remember nor pronounce, were here at the bureau to speak with my partner and me.

  Josie Sanchez came to the table, and I introduced her but allowed Morgan to introduce himself and his partner, to save me the embarrassment of having forgotten her name. She sat abruptly, and she seemed frazzled. Her normally cool eyes revealed worry or stress. She avoided eye contact with me and seemed relieved when Morgan began: “Nearly three years ago there were floods in Texas and we lost some soldiers from the First Cav—”

  Being the newly christened army know-it-all, I told Josie, “That’s the legendary First Cavalry Division. Did you see Apocalypse Now?”

  She shook her head.

  Morgan continued: “The soldiers were sent out on a Class One mission—dropping food and water to a unit in the field—and were crossing a creek in an LMTV—”

  “Light Medium Tactical Vehicle.” I had learned that during a previous investigation and wanted the colonel or whatever he was to know I knew what it meant. A suspect in the prior case had purchased one at an army surplus and used it as his daily commuter.

  “—when a flash flood washed them down the river and turned the truck onto its side, killing at least four of the seven soldiers. Three were never found, including Sergeant Travis Hollingsworth and Private Christina Ortiz.”

  Ortiz. I was starting to see where this was going. “She’s related to our dead robber, Jimmy.”

  “Exactly,” Morgan confirmed.

  “I know her,” Josie said.

  I turned my eyes to her. “That’s right, you said you knew the whole family.�
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  Josie looked at Lazarevic and then Morgan. “I worked in North Long Beach where her family lives. I knew the brothers more than her, but I did know her. The brothers were all in trouble, so we knew them well. All but one, the youngest one. And then I remember hearing that she had gone into the army, and I figured she would do good there. She seemed to be on the right track growing up.”

  Morgan made some notes.

  “So, she’s dead?”

  Lazarevic answered her. “We don’t know. There’s reason to believe that she and the sergeant went AWOL.”

  “Absent without leave,” I added.

  “Really?” Josie said, her brows crowding her eyes. She seemed to be deep in thought, or maybe just surprised to hear it.

  “What is it? What’s bothering you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s just not what I expected to hear. I guess you always hope there’s one or two that make it out okay—out of these neighborhoods.”

  Morgan looked up. “She was doing well in the army, so I have no idea. I knew her too. We were at Fort Hood together for a while.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Josie continued.

  “Is that a bad neighborhood, down there where the grandma lives?”

  Josie smiled. “Well it’s gang- and drug-infested, and we’re usually good for a couple of murders a month down there. Why do you ask?”

  “Because we have a surveillance going at the grandma’s house. That’s how we found out about you guys. Chief Lazarevic contacted the patrol station down there to let them know what we had going on, and they told us we’d better check with Homicide. She called here, and someone said you two had been to the home and met with the family for the death notification, so we thought it would be good to speak with you.”

  Josie looked at me when she said, “There’s not much to tell you. We just talked to the grandma, and she said she wasn’t surprised that Jimmy was killed. We didn’t talk about much else.”

  “She didn’t mention her granddaughter, Tina?” Lazarevic asked.

  Josie shook her head as she answered. “No, she didn’t. But wait, she did mention one of the brothers was in prison, if that helps. But that’s about it. I have no idea what happened with the others.”

  Morgan cleared his throat. “The reason we’re watching the house is we think that if Ortiz—that’s the private, Christina Ortiz—is still alive, and if she has heard about her brother being killed, that she might make an appearance.”

  I agreed. “Seems reasonable.”

  Josie added, “You’ll have trouble sitting down there. They’ll make you for feds in no time.”

  “We figured that out the first day,” Morgan said. “We did okay through the first night, but in the daylight hours, the boys drew too much attention and had to back out. That next night, in the wee hours, we had a pole cam installed across the street. We’ll be watching the location on a monitor from here on out, at least during the day. It’s hard to see at night, so we will probably continue with live surveillance during the night. We’ll at least be doing some random spot-checks.”

  I smiled. “Hope your camera doesn’t get shot out. The fellas down there like to shoot out the street lights, and if they see a camera, it’ll be game on with those fools.”

  Lazarevic finished writing something on a piece of paper. She tore the page out of her notebook and handed it to Josie. “If you need anything from us, we’re staged at this hotel. It’s about two blocks from the target loc.”

  “Jesus, you’re staying at that dump?”

  “No, it’s where we’re staged. Monitoring the pole cam and radios. It’s our command post. The army has us up in the Best Western, down in Long Beach.”

  “I have a question, before we wrap this up. Why would they go AWOL, this private and the sergeant?”

  “That’s an excellent question, Detective, one that we have been asking ourselves for nearly three years. I knew them both. At the time of the accident, I was also assigned to the First Cav, and although they didn’t work directly under me, our paths often crossed. I was a lieutenant at the time. Hollingsworth was a bit of a hothead, a guy who’d been in more than a decade but never made it past the rank of sergeant due to disciplinary actions. Early in his career he had qualified for Ranger school, but washed out. Later, he was sent overseas on a deployment with the First Infantry Division, but when he returned, he reclassified as a fueler after failing multiple PT tests. The army gave him the option to go support, which he jumped on. He’s strong as an ox, but apparently he never worked on his cardio. It was one of the reasons he failed in Ranger school as well. That and he didn’t fit in.

  “Since that time, he has made a career of trying to mentor young soldiers, being the hotshot. He’d invite them over to his house to drink, go out on the town with them on weekends, et cetera. Mostly because none of the other non-commissioned officers would hang out with him. But also because the kids were easily impressed with his tales of having been down range, and they’d eat up the war stories which just fueled his ego. In reality, he had never left the FOB, that’s Forward Operating Base, for more than a few missions. His unit never received contact when they were out, not during his deployment. Not according to the records.

  “Anyway, I say all that, to say this: Ortiz, a young female soldier who was a Private First Class, had somehow fallen under this guy’s spell. The two were dating, or whatever you want to call it, and at the time of their disappearance, there had been a couple of investigations opened up on them. It seems he—Hollingsworth—had got into a few scrapes with civilians in town, and on at least one occasion, she was a participant in a bad beating and had stomped on a man’s head once he was down.”

  Josie said, “Damn, girl.”

  “To look at her, she’s as sweet as can be. Pretty, smart . . . I thought rather highly of her right up until the end when some of these allegations were surfacing. I tried to warn her about him, tried to tell her that he was no damn good, but—”

  “Did they know they were under investigation?” I asked.

  “Right before the flood and their disappearance, they did. In fact, there was an investigation under way and each had been advised of forthcoming interviews which they would be required to participate in, with or without representation.

  “Normally, they may have been grounded pending the outcomes of those inquiries. The floods changed all of that. No soldier was spared from assisting in rescue, reconstruction, water diversion, and aid to local rescue and law enforcement. We were very involved in all aspects of the emergency response, as the army often is with natural disasters.

  “At the time, Private Ortiz was a truck driver—eighty-eight mike was her M.O.S.”

  “M.O.S.?”

  “Sorry, Military Occupational Specialty. The crew she was driving out on the Class One was led by Sergeant Hollingsworth. He was the truck commander.

  “So, to answer your question, Detective, we think she was under the influence of a bad man who had a history of making bad choices. She was young and impressionable, and who knows, maybe in love. We think if the two survived, it would have been a spontaneous idea to go AWOL. One of the two—likely Hollingsworth—may have reasoned that they would be presumed dead and nobody would ever look for them.

  “Which may have been the case, had a motel clerk not been murdered and his vehicle stolen, a short distance from the base. Though they haven’t been positively linked to that murder, a witness reported a man and woman who match the general description of Hollingsworth and Ortiz, and who were undoubtedly army personnel, having been at the motel in the day or two prior to the murder.”

  Now it made sense to me. “That would be enough to keep them underground, I guess.”

  He nodded. “That’s life in Leavenworth.”

  Josie said, “I guess they were all pieces of shit, the whole family.”

  The four of us sat in silence for a moment. I drained the last of my coffee which was now cold and bitter. The thought rattling around in my
head seemed to be quite a leap, but I couldn’t make it go away.

  “Can we get photographs of these two, and physical descriptions?”

  Morgan looked over at Lazarevic who shrugged. His eyes settled on Josie as he said, “I don’t see why not. What are you thinking?”

  Josie said, “We have a man and woman team out robbing and killing folks.”

  Lazarevic began thumbing through a case file. “Do you have a scanner handy?”

  After copying the photos of Hollingsworth and Ortiz, Josie found me at my desk. I shook her off when she began to hand me the pictures. “Put them in the file.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  I looked her in the eyes. “Where have you been today?”

  She puffed at a strand of hair that hung in her face, and sat down. “I had some personal business to take care of.”

  Biting at the end of a pen: “Okay, I have no problem with that. But you should let your partner know. Right?”

  She nodded and looked away. Slowly, she turned to the work on her desk.

  Moby served a cold beer and asked where the lady was tonight. Out of town, I’d told him. He faded away to the unmistakable sounds of U2 starting on the jukebox. I sipped my beer and once again admired the paintings of pirates and their wenches that adorned the walls of my new favorite bar. Chinatown had too much baggage now. Yee Mee Loo’s, my former watering hole, now conjured images of muzzle flashes and the smell of burning gunpowder. No amount of gin could drown those memories, I had discovered.

  I took a long drink of the cold beer, and it felt good. Fixated on the frosted mug before me, I found myself dwelling on our newest case. I thought about the killers, and wondered who they were and what really motivated them. My mind drifted to the witnesses: Latisha Carver, who feared for the lives of her hungry babies. Cedric Staley, the little boy with green eyes and a zest for life, unaware of the shitty cards he had been dealt. And the victims: Ho and Frazier. Especially the victims. Because the dead never leave. Their spirits take refuge in the minds and souls of those who have both the honor and the burden of seeking justice for them. Their presence evokes a range of emotions: frustration, heartbreak, anger, resolve. Of these, it is the resolve that matters.