On the third ring, the call is answered.
“Yo,” Wendell Ross says.
Right now, Swinger and Stapleton are both at work on base. Either one would drop everything and come if I asked, just as they have so many times already, but after keeping them up all night, I wouldn’t dream of bringing them in again.
Besides, the agreement was that I would make sure someone was in the loop at all times. Ross might not have been there when it was made, but his inclusion is more of an unspoken understanding.
“Hey, what’s your schedule today?” I ask.
“I’m with the babies now while Bree is out running errands, but I can call her back.”
“No,” I reply. Looking to the rearview, I can see myself shake my head to either side. I can also see the heavy bags hanging under my eyes and the couple of days of growth sprouting from my cheeks.
Less than a week, and already I look like a man that’s suddenly been cut free of the Navy and married life. Untethered.
Lord only knows what someone like Marsh must think when he looks at me.
“Nothing that pressing. How long will Bree be out?”
“Maybe a couple of hours,” he replies. “What’s up? Everything okay?”
I consider filling him in about the night before, but opt against it. If he hasn’t already heard from Swinger or Stapleton, it can wait until I see him.
“Couple of hours is perfect,” I say. “I have a few stops I need to make first. Swing by your place around three?”
“I’ll be here,” Ross replies. He doesn’t bother asking his question directly again, this time opting to come in from the side. “Anything I need to have ready?”
“Just you,” I reply, shaking my head again. “I’ll stop in and say hello to everybody, then was hoping we could take a little drive.”
To that, Ross doesn’t say a word. He knows me well enough to know that I will get to it, will make sure he is provided with all the information he needs well beforehand.
I didn’t bother writing down Lincoln’s address before I left. It is committed to memory, and I wasn’t about to put anything on paper that might be found later. Not with Marsh and his partner still lurking in the background, with the Wolves no doubt around and looking as well.
And it’s not like there’s a chance in hell of me ever forgetting it.
“I have an address for Mike Lincoln,” I say. “I want to swing by this afternoon, see if anything jumps out.”
“Okay,” Ross replies, not a moment’s hesitation. “Who’s Mike Lincoln?”
“He’s the guy.”
It takes a split-second for this to register, for Ross to decode what I am telling him. “Oh. You mean...”
“Yeah,” I say, again glancing to the rearview mirror, noticing the hardened stare that has settled over my features, “I mean.”
Chapter Fourteen
Between growing up in Nebraska, going to college in Oregon, playing minor league baseball in Massachusetts, and now living in California, I have seen pretty much every corner of the country. With that, I have encountered every major fast food chain, every regional preference for architecture, even heard all the ridiculous speech patterns that exist.
And I have visited health care facilities the country over, developing a pretty standard understanding of what is to be expected.
Out front, there is patient parking. On the door is a sign welcoming guests and announcing hours. There are lots of windows and light and a vibe that generally seems inviting.
At the very least, there is something to indicate that the place is what it claims to be.
The address that Valerie Ogo gave me for Dr. Brendan Hoke has none of those things. From where I am parked along the curb, the place looks like nothing more than a standard home. Located in National City, it is two stories tall, a series of dinghy columns in dire need of paint lining the front. An oak tree and a pair of palm trees shade most of the front yard, keeping the sun from getting through, from grass being able to grow.
A chain link fence lines the front, a gate in the middle opening onto a concrete path that goes straight to the door.
If pressed, I would say the place looks like any of a number of houses along the street the Ogo’s lived on, the structure as non-descript as a thousand others in the San Diego area. Twice I check the address she gave me, running the handwritten note against the map feature on my phone.
Both times it comes back telling me I am in the right place.
Exhaling slightly, I step out of the car and circle around the front. Across the street, a pair of elderly men in short-sleeve shirts buttoned to the throat both stare at me from their front porch. What’s left of their hair is white, wary looks on their faces as they watch me go, neither making any effort to return the wave I give them.
Which isn’t terribly surprising. The racial profile in National City is known to tilt heavily toward minorities. Considering where I am parked and the home I am walking toward, I can only imagine who they must think I am or what I am after, the make and model of my car not doing a great deal to assuage their concerns.
Lowering my hand to my side, I hurry up onto the sidewalk and through the front gate. In the distance, I can hear children at play, their preferred tone of speech just south of a shriek. A dog barks nearby as well, no doubt responding to the kids, telling them they are being entirely too loud.
In short, a snapshot of neighborhood life most anywhere in the country. An image that we ourselves were just getting accustomed to being a part of.
An eventuality I will only again experience in moments like this, snippets stolen while passing through, an outsider looking in.
Without my wife, there just won’t be much point otherwise. I will forever be nothing more than an interloper, someone trying to peek over a fence for the sole purpose of seeing what lay beyond.
The faint hum of voices can be heard as I step to the front door and knock. The sound of it no more than falls away before the door is jerked back a couple of inches, a face appearing even with my chest.
A female somewhere around fifty, she presses either cheek tight between the door and the frame, her eyes narrow. “We don’t want any.”
“Any what?” I ask, my brows rising in surprise.
“Any anything,” the woman replies. “We don’t need insurance or candy bars and we already found Jesus.”
For a moment, I have no idea how to respond. My brows track higher as the corners of my mouth rise just slightly, computing what this woman just said to me.
If pulling up in front of this place was a far cry from what I expected, her greeting was even further.
I consider asking her if she sees any candy or Bibles in my hands, if I really look like someone that would be out hawking insurance, but I decide against it. Already the woman is on the defensive, showing me nothing more than her face, making it clear that my presence is neither expected nor wanted.
“Is this the practice of Dr.-“
“Shh!” the woman snaps, bringing a finger up to her lips. “Do not say his name out loud.” Again, she peers out in either direction. “How did you get this address?”
Confusion colors my features, a crease forming between my brows as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing. “Valerie Ogo gave it to me. She’s the granddaughter-“
“Yes, I know who she is,” the woman snaps, again cutting me off. Pushing the door open another couple of inches, she steps back and hisses, “Get inside. And hurry up.”
Chapter Fifteen
The name Brendan Hoke is clearly meant as misdirection. To hear it, one immediately thinks of a heavyset middle-aged white guy in chinos and a button down. Curly hair standing in a short halo around his head. Maybe a five o’clock shadow. Perhaps even throws a bit of Yiddish in to emphasis certain points.
Relies a bit on stereotypes maybe, but it’s not like people don’t immediately have preconceived notions when they hear I’m from the plains, or played baseball in college, or am a Navy SEAL.
/> They do often exist for a reason.
The man I’m standing in front of serves as the exception to every one of those reasons. The only thing about the man that is Caucasian is his name, his thinning hair white combed to the side, his skin three shades darker than my wife or her family. Wearing a thin moustache, he speaks with heavily accented English. What most people would misidentify as Indian, I recognize almost immediately as Pakistani.
Unintentional training provided courtesy of the United States military.
Extending a hand my way, he pumps twice, his grip soft, his skin damp, before releasing. “Mr. Clady, it is so nice to meet. Please, follow me.”
He doesn’t bother introducing himself, bypassing giving me the fake name or providing a new one. Turning back into the belly of the house, he leads me away from the living room and the impromptu waiting area it houses, a small handful of curious stares following me as we go.
The place is designed exactly as the outside would intimate. At one point in time, it was most likely a single- family dwelling, cheap wallpaper on the walls and linoleum on the floors lending themselves to such a supposition.
When that was, though, would be hard to say, the entire place renovated into a working medical clinic.
Pushing straight down the hallway bisecting the first floor, Hoke drops a hand atop the banister at the base of the staircase rising beside us. Using it as a pivot, he spins back toward the front, ascending the steps quickly, not once looking back to ensure I’m following him.
Not that he needs to, the handfuls of people filling what was once the dining room and a bedroom on the first floor doing it for him. In each space I catch glimpses of nurses and patients, all with various shades of skin tone, all openly staring at me.
On their faces are looks that range from curiosity to contempt, all seeming to wonder who gave the secret handshake to an outsider.
Following Hoke’s movements, I spin around the base of the stairs and take them two at a time, rising through the center of the house. Eight strides later, I arrive on the second floor to find it ten degrees warmer, the air musty and dry. Dust motes float through stray shafts of light, illuminating an open floor plan free of walls or partitions.
Most of the area is used as storage, supplies of various sizes and shapes arranged along two of the walls. On the outside of their boxes, descriptions are stamped in a variety of languages, as are their expiration dates.
From what I can see, nothing they are using has been deemed safe for patient care in at least six months.
The third wall in the room is set up with an enormous bulletin board. Stretched from floor to ceiling, hundreds of pieces of paper are tacked up on it, all thrown together in a haphazard tangle. Seeming to lack any sort of cohesive system, they swirl in a random pattern, the sort of thing that would make sense only to the person that put it together.
Not that I don’t have a sharp urge to go over and look, to scour it in hopes of finding my wife’s name on there, seeing how this place fit with her passing.
The final quadrant of the room has been formatted as a makeshift office, a scratched wooden desk sitting along the wall with a mismatched chair on either side of it. A desktop computer that looks older than the model my mother and I had years ago is atop it, piles of files stacked to either side.
Again, the thought I had upon first arriving comes to mind, the place quite a way from any of the health facilities I’ve visited throughout the country.
In truth, it seems to coincide more with some of the places I saw in Guam and the Philippines.
Oblivious to my staring, Hoke walks straight to his desk and collapses back into the seat on the far side of it. The item moans under his weight as he lets his arms drape to either side before raising his hands to his face and rubbing vigorously.
Without being asked, I ease into the chair across from him, the seat every bit as stiff and uncomfortable as it appeared upon arrival.
“Please, forgive the greeting you received downstairs,” Hoke says. “Most of our patients are informed to always come in through the alley and use the backdoor.”
Taking it that I committed a bit of a faux pas, I dip my head and reply, “Apologies, I wasn’t informed. I’ll be sure to do that from now on.”
If this conversation goes as I hope it might, there will be no next visit, no need for us to ever speak again, though I don’t point that out.
Something tells me he doesn’t need to hear it, anyway.
Waving a hand, he props his elbows on the arms of his chair and drops his hands into his lap. “Valerie Ogo called me earlier and said you would be stopping by. How can I help you?”
The crowd downstairs and the exhaustion on his features tell me he is the definition of the harried physician, with far more patients than time.
“Thank you for meeting with me. I know this was short notice, and I promise to be as quick as possible.”
Once more, he waves a hand at me, dismissing the comment. What he means in doing so, I’m not sure, and not overly keen on finding out right now.
We both have more important things to get to.
“My name is Kyle Clady. My wife was Mira Clady.”
I pause there, looking to get a sense of his reaction, to determine if it is overwhelming shock or exaggerated sorrow.
To my surprise, it is neither, at most a hint of confusion coming to his face.
“Clady,” he says, repeating the name twice more. “It sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it right off. Is she a patient here?”
“No,” I reply. “She was a social worker helping with Fran Ogo.”
The mention of Ogo seems to be the words he needed, his face alighting with recognition. Sliding his hands up onto the arms of the chair, he adjusts himself in his seat, sitting up higher.
“Oh, yes! Yes, yes, yes. She was the woman that we were supposed to meet with on Friday, but unfortunately, she never showed.” Stopping himself, as if realizing the next step in the sequence just as the words left his mouth, he looks up at me. “I hope everything is okay?”
It’s not. In fact, nothing is okay. Has not been since last Thursday night and never will be again.
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head slightly. “She passed away late Thursday night.”
His eyes grow wider, a bit of color draining from his features. His mouth sags slightly for an instant, searching for the correct words, before he manages, “I am truly, very sorry.”
I can tell the man’s sentiments are sincere, but I need to keep pressing. I need to throw things at him quick and hard, keeping him off-balance, making sure the information I receive is unfiltered and true, that he has no chance to formulate any sort of narrative in his head, whether it be to protect him or me.
“She was shot,” I say, watching as more color drains from his face, “by the same people that attempted to do the same to Fran Ogo last night.”
By the time I am done, Hoke has leaned forward onto the front edge of his seat. Beads of sweat underscore the thin shafts of white hair that lay across his forehead. His mouth and eyes all seem twice their usual size.
“I...I...” he stammers. He looks around the room, eyes wild, trying to piece together what he’s just been hit with.
Watching him, I can’t help but feel bad about what I’ve done, of the way I’ve almost assaulted this man with the information, though there is nothing I can do about it. I meant no malice in doing so, merely putting together the best way I knew how to get the information I needed.
If it’s any consolation to him, I can guarantee it all hit me infinitely harder a week before.
“Is Fran okay?” he finally manages to get out, swinging his attention my way.
“She is,” I reply, “but only barely.”
The look on his face tells me there is more he wants to ask, follow-ups dying to be lobbed my way, though I have no interest in letting those get out. I feel for the man and what he must be thinking, but he’ll have time after I go to sort through things.<
br />
For now, I need to be as efficient as possible before being on my way again.
“The reason I am here now is that the two had never met before a couple of weeks ago, and that was only after Fran Ogo paid a visit to this office,” I say. “The very same office they were all scheduled to return to less than eighteen hours after my wife was murdered.”
The full range of human emotion seems to pass over Hoke’s features as he stares at me. Beginning with sympathy, he cycles through shock and eventually horror before managing to stifle some tiny bit of it. Drawing in a pair of deep breaths, he again slides himself back in his seat before fixing his gaze on me.
“Mr. Clady, are you familiar with the Compacts of Free Association? Sometimes referred to as COFA?”
A day before, the question would have surprised me, but after speaking with the Ogo’s already, I am ready for it.
Chapter Sixteen
As a rule, Elsa Teller never puts any names in her telephone. It is a small step to protect her contacts, a much bigger one to cover her own ass should anybody she doesn’t want finding out who she’s talking to comes snooping around.
Instead, she uses pictures. Not of the person in question – that would be equally foolish – but of small things that would instantly remind her of who it would be.
For Ringer, that image is the front tire of a motorcycle. For Myles Morgan, a pitchfork.
The image that pops up on her screen this time is a small shih tzu puppy. Charcoal gray, just a few stray white hairs frame its mouth and eyes, head tilted to the side, staring into the camera.
Despite the sound being turned off, the instant it shows up on the screen, the flash of color draws Teller’s attention down. A single eyebrow rises slightly, staring at the image, knowing at a glance who it is. A tinge of surprise passes through her, fading quickly with the realization there is no chance she isn’t taking this call.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” she says, rising from her seat and snatching the phone off the table before her, “I really must take this.”
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