by Jack Carr
Lauren was stroking Lucy’s hair and had looked toward the door, catching her husband’s eye and smiling the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. God, she was gorgeous. Then he watched as she had whispered something in Lucy’s ear and pointed at the door. Lucy had bolted from the couch with eyes as wide as saucers and a smile that would melt a glacier, rushing toward the door as fast as her young legs would carry her, her stuffed green frog clutched tightly in her small hand. Throwing open the door, Reece had taken a knee, Lucy running full speed into his outstretched arms and holding him with the strength only children hugging their parents possess, all the while repeating, “Dada, dada” over and over again like it was the only word she knew. Reece recognized that strength for what it was: a child’s unconditional love. Standing with Lucy in his arms, Reece had moved into the house and met his stunning wife halfway across the living room floor, the three of them holding each other tight, the tears of joy flowing freely. “Welcome home, my love,” Lauren had whispered. “We missed you.”
Later that night, Reece read Lucy her favorite story, Where the Wild Things Are, acting out the goofy dances of the wild things so as to ensure it wasn’t too scary for his daughter, and sang her favorite lullaby, “Hush Little Baby.” As he concluded with “you’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town” Lucy’s eyes had closed, drifting off into the innocent slumber of youth. Reece had tucked the covers around her, smiling down at his little angel and kissing her forehead. He then made sure the night-light was plugged in before carefully and silently closing the door behind him and tiptoeing down the hall to join Lauren in the kitchen for a long-overdue glass of wine before whisking her upstairs to bed.
Turning off the main road and into his neighborhood, Reece was jolted out of his reverie, his heart sinking into his chest, the faint reflection of emergency lights on the treetops making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The lights got brighter as he approached his turn and when the Cruiser made the left, his blood ran cold. Instead of the picturesque suburban scene he’d dreamed about during his entire deployment, his eyes were met by the violent flashing of red and blue lights coming from what appeared to be every police car, fire truck, and ambulance in Coronado. The emergency vehicles were scattered haphazardly in front of his home and a uniformed officer was stringing yellow “police line” tape around the perimeter of his well-manicured yard to keep the gathering of neighbors from trampling the scene. The rational center of his brain knew exactly what that meant but his emotions forced him into immediate denial. His family had to be okay; they were all he had left.
Leaving the Cruiser running in the middle of the street, Reece sprinted toward the front door of his home. He made it about halfway across his lawn when the officers spotted him and began yelling for him to stop. The first to reach him was a zit-faced patrol officer who looked younger than the kids showing up for BUD/S. He stood as if the badge on his chest alone would stop the speed and momentum of the larger man. Panic set into his eyes as Reece lowered his shoulder and sent him flying over a hedge. A second officer drew his handgun but wasn’t prepared to use it and quickly found it out of his grasp. An unseen detective grabbed Reece from behind in a bear hug and got a broken collarbone for his troubles when his shoulder hit the sidewalk. More and more officers piled into the melee and soon all of Reece’s adrenaline and rage-fueled skill was overcome by the sheer mass of bodies. As officers struggled to get control of his hands, someone sprayed his face with a full blast of pepper spray that set his senses afire. The handcuffs were already locked tightly around his wrists when the youngest officer, who had caught his wind and climbed his way out from the landscaping, got his revenge, kicking Reece’s prone body in the face with his black combat-style boots.
A lieutenant grabbed the younger officer and four patrolmen dragged Reece toward the street and into the backseat of an idling Crown Victoria. Beaten, pepper sprayed, and prevented from knowing the fate of his wife and daughter, Reece was suddenly overcome by the events of the past week. He’d lost the SEAL brothers he had sworn to lead, was kept from their funerals, scapegoated by a bureaucracy who helped seal their fates, lost another Teammate to a supposed suicide, and now faced the possibility that the two people he loved most in the world were gone, too. Lying on his side with his hands cuffed behind his back, he began to sob uncontrollably. The overwhelming emotions combined with the effects of the pepper spray turned the hardened warrior into a quivering mess. His body shook, he hyperventilated, and tears and mucus ran down his face and onto the seat of the patrol car. He had nothing left to give and nothing left to lose.
CHAPTER 11
UNLIKE THE MANIPULATIVE interrogation he’d faced at the hands of the NCIS investigators in Bagram, the questions posed by the local detectives were nonaccusatory. This physical evidence made it clear that this was not the act of a jealous husband or a guy looking to rid himself of the responsibilities that life had heaped upon him. The full-auto gunfire reported by the neighbors made the timeline for the home invasion and subsequent murders clear, and his alibi at Balboa was rock solid. The investigators had spoken to his CO before they’d even questioned him and were already familiar with how Reece had spent the day.
Reece sat emotionless as the detectives described to him the horrific crimes that would shock his serene community. Three to four men, undoubtedly armed with AKMs, judging by the steel 7.62x39mm cases that littered the scene, began firing into the home as they approached the front door. They kicked it in and continued firing as they worked their way through the rooms of the home, spraying rounds indiscriminately as they went. His wife was found facedown in the bedroom closet, shielding little Lucy’s body with her own as she took her last breaths. It appeared as if she’d wounded at least one of the shooters with the handgun she’d hastily grabbed from a small gun safe close to the bed. There was 9mm brass inside the closet and a blood trail that led out of the house. Lauren’s wounds indicated that she was hit in the hands and arms while defending herself before she moved to cover her daughter and was killed by close-range rifle shots that took both of their lives. An entire thirty-round magazine appeared to have been emptied into Lauren at point-blank range. Death would have been more or less instantaneous from the multiple hits to her vital organs.
Lucy was still clinging to life when the ambulance arrived, but her badly broken body could fight no longer, and she died on the way to the hospital. The paramedics fought like lions to save her, but the trauma was too great. There was no indication of sexual battery on either body or any sign of theft, probably due to Lauren’s brave resistance that wounded one of the shooters.
Neighbors saw the men flee the scene in a black Cadillac sedan. The detectives’ working hypothesis was that this was the work of a crew of gang members from across the bay in Barrio Logan. They’d been increasingly suspected in “taggings” and property crimes in otherwise crime-free Coronado and had obviously upped the ante in committing such a brutal home invasion.
Reece listened to their narrative, knowing full well that this was no random act of violence by a crew of gangbangers, but neither was it the work of trained professionals. There was one last thing, the detectives told him, almost hesitatingly: Lauren had been pregnant. The little boy had been conceived just before Reece’s deployment, according to how far along she was. Lauren had kept it a secret, a surprise to make his final homecoming especially memorable. He thought the pain couldn’t have been any greater, but the news drove him deeper into despair.
• • •
While Reece met with the investigators, the crime scene team continued to process evidence at his home. Phillip Dubin had wanted to be a police detective as long as he could remember. He came from a long line of Boston cops and, much to his mother’s chagrin, had never changed course. She had a momentary glimmer of hope when he had enlisted in the Navy, hoping he would use his GI Bill to become a doctor or a lawyer, but instead, Phil used his GI Bill to attend John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, graduating
at the top of his class. As upset as his mother was that he chose the family profession, she was even more dismayed that he decided to settle down across the country in San Diego, where he had spent the majority of his Navy time. He had caught the tail end of the First Gulf War, spending most of that time in the bowels of a minesweeper, which did nothing to encourage him to pursue a career at sea. Stationed on the west coast, he fell in love with the weather, the beaches, and the laid-back atmosphere, which were all in stark contrast to his upbringing on the streets of Boston. He met his wife while she was working in the district attorney’s office; she now ran their household full-time. After twenty years on the San Diego Police Department, he had attained the rank of lieutenant in the Homicide Division. Happily married and with three kids of their own, Phil could not imagine a more ideal life. He had a job he loved and a family he loved even more.
Detective Dubin had a tough time separating the cop in him from the husband and father as he slowly made his way through Reece’s front yard. He had been called to the beautiful resort town that was Coronado on a few occasions for work, once for a brutal murder-suicide and another time for a questionable suicide by hanging. Coronado had detectives to handle such investigations but when there was a link to the city across the bay they would reach out for assistance from the SDPD.
After checking in and nodding to a few familiar faces, Phil climbed the front steps, knowing that the grislier parts of the crime scene awaited him. He had seen a lot in his career as a cop, but no father could ever get used to something like this. The nights he spent on murder investigations where young lives had been taken always caused him to pause and appreciate his own kids just a bit more when he got home.
“Hey, Phil.”
“Hey, Chuck,” Phil responded to the local detective. “How bad is it?”
“This one is rough. We don’t get a lot of this over here, as you know. Thanks for coming.”
“No problem. What do you have?”
“Looks like a home invasion, though we’ve never seen anything like this before out here. Hard to believe it’s random. I just don’t know why a bunch of gangbangers would want to hit a small house in Coronado.”
Phil nodded and looked past the small town detective, who continued to fill him in.
The carpet was soaked in blood and the room was littered with shell casings marked by numbered yellow markers. Watching the medical examiner bag up a dead body was something Phil never got used to, and seeing the lifeless form of what had only hours before been a vibrant and beautiful woman caused the Boston native to look away.
“That was Lauren Reece. She was Signal Seven when the first units arrived on the scene. They found her daughter under her, still alive. The paramedics rushed her to the hospital but she didn’t make it: multiple bullet wounds. Looks like the mom got a few rounds off with a Glock. We found a 19 and some spent brass close to her body, some blood in the hallway, and some more by the front door. The mom and daughter were shot in here, so we think she hit at least one of them.”
“Any chance this was the husband?” Phil asked. He had seen his share of domestic problems turn violent.
“Surprisingly not. A neighbor gave us a good vehicle description and multiple perps. The husband is a Navy guy and was at Balboa Hospital all afternoon. We are interviewing him now but it looks unlikely.”
“Thanks, Chuck. I’m just going to look around a bit. Our gang task force guys will be here soon.”
“Okay. Let me know if you figure anything out.”
Phil began to explore the home, trying to get a sense of what this family was like when they were alive. He wanted to understand them so he could make assessments and attempt to decipher what had caused their lives to end so violently in this normally safe section of San Diego. He entered a room off the bedroom that looked to be the home office.
Why would a gang hit this particular home?
When Phil had started in police work he would always go straight to the family photo albums. More than once the story he gleaned from those family memories helped connect certain dots and allowed the young police officer to break a case. These days, hardly anyone kept family albums. Photos were spread out over different computers and hard drives and online accounts, making it exceedingly difficult to use them the way he had back in the 1990s. Now he used the photos on the walls and desks and dressers instead.
Phil took in the room methodically. Not messy but not particularly clean; “lived-in” would be the more apt term. Things looked organized but not remarkably so. At first glance, it looked like a typical home office, but it quickly became apparent that there was something different about this family.
Phil’s eyes were immediately drawn to a wall containing three tomahawks of varying sizes. You don’t see that every day in San Diego. Though he knew next to nothing about the weapons mounted to the office wall, he thought one reminded him of something out of the movie Last of the Mohicans. A more modern-looking one was attached to a plaque above a group photo of men in full military battle gear standing around a bombed-out building. Operators. Two of the men held a black flag with Arabic writing. All looked like serious people you’d want on your side in a fight. The plaque read, “To Lieutenant James Reece from the men of Alpha Platoon.” A skeleton of a frog was engraved under that with the warning, “Don’t Fuck With Us,” above a list of close to thirty names.
Phil stepped back and took in the remainder of the room. Who is this guy?
What Phil recognized as a samurai sword rested under glass in a presentation frame on the opposite wall. It looked old, not like the imitation ones Phil had seen for sale in shops downtown. A small brass plate was glued inside the glass under the sword. Phil bent forward to look more closely:
LTJG THOMAS REECE
SCOUTS AND RAIDERS
1945
Not a normal house and not a normal guy, Phil thought, moving to the desk and picking up a family photograph, James and Lauren Reece looking back at him. Even in the picture, he could tell these were special people. Both were beaming with joy, James holding his young daughter in his arms, Lauren’s arm around him with her head on his shoulder. It must have been before some sort of formal event since James was wearing his dress blues, the unmistakable SEAL Trident gleaming off his chest. Phil pulled the photo closer. Was that a Silver Star? And next to that a Bronze Star with V adorned with two stars on either side? Though Phil had only served four years in the Navy, he knew the Trident well. His time on the minesweeper was spent with a few guys who had tried the famed SEAL training program and failed out for various reasons along the way. Phil looked back to the medals on Reece’s chest and then back around the room, noting that none of the medal citations were displayed on the wall. Humble guy, Phil thought admiringly.
Opening a desk drawer, Phil rummaged through the contents: pens, some random business cards, and a few nice knives. As he was about to shut the drawer, Phil stopped and reached inside, a worn silver lighter catching his eye. Turning it over in his hand Phil looked at an enameled emblem of a beret-clad skull hovering over the letters “MACV-SOG” and the year “1967.” The initials “T.S.R. III” were engraved beneath the image. Phil assumed that the lighter had belonged to Reece’s father, based on the date and the last initial. Though he would have to do some research, he seemed to recall that MACV-SOG was some sort of covert action or special operations unit in the Vietnam War. Flipping it over, he was surprised to see an engraving of what appeared to be a strange-looking chicken with the words Phung Hoàng above it. Odd.
Returning the old Zippo to the drawer, Phil turned his attention to the bookshelves.
This guy sure likes to read.
Books, or lack thereof, often gave him an insight into the mind of a suspect. Phil had been in a lot of houses over the years, but he couldn’t remember many like this. This guy was a student of war. The books seemed to be arranged loosely by topic and period. Titles such as The Accidental Guerrilla, War of the Flea, Counterinsurgency, The Sling and the Stone, Co
unter-Guerrilla Operations, and A Savage War of Peace jumped out at the detective. Right next to Machiavelli, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius were books on the Boer War, the Rhodesian Selous Scouts, and various other conflicts spanning both recent and ancient history. Phil pulled a book titled The Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi, and cracked the cover. It was obviously well read, as the binding showed signs of wear, but what was most interesting to the detective were the page numbers written inside the front cover. Flipping through the book, Phil noted that these page numbers corresponded with highlighting and underlining, the margins filled with notes. Flipping randomly to one, Phil read a note that made him shiver.
Deliberately closing the book, Detective Phil Dubin returned it to its home on the shelf with respect. Looking back at the menacing-looking tomahawks on the wall, Phil had a thought he had never had on a crime scene before: God help whoever did this.
When his kids woke up in the morning, Phil would be there to hug them even tighter than usual.
• • •
The events of the next few days were a blur. Reece was in too much shock to even help with the funeral arrangements. Lauren’s family lived in Southern California and her sister, a prominent L.A. attorney, handled all the details.
As it is when young people are taken before their time, hundreds attended the memorial service. Both caskets were closed, due to the severity of their brutal wounds. Reece was numb. The pastor, in whose church Lauren had grown up, gave the eulogy. It seemed like just yesterday that he was conducting their wedding ceremony. He did a good job of immortalizing the wonderful human being who Lauren was, and he tried his best to reconcile Lucy’s death as part of “God’s plan.” Reece appreciated the kind words heaped upon him by well-meaning friends and relatives, but the “they are in a better place” comments nearly sent him into a rage.
The graveside ceremony was a private affair, but the SEALs from the other platoons at Team Seven showed up anyway. They were family. They all knew and loved Lauren and Lucy. She was the kind of SEAL wife who was always there for the other wives and girlfriends when times were tough and the guys were overseas. Lucy was Reece’s constant companion between deployments and every man had melted at least once before her angelic smile. Lucy’s tiny casket flanked that of her mother’s, her beloved stuffed frog tucked inside at Reece’s request.