"Mr. Chandler, we apologize for being late. There is nothing we can do about it now except explain to you why we were late and promise to not do it again, but I think this is something you may have wanted to hear," Orinda said as calmly and as reassuringly as possible.
Chandler surprisingly didn’t say a word. He was still behind them with his Blackberry in hand, and it appeared that he was sending a message to someone. His demeanor changed, but that didn’t mean it was safe for either Mason or Orinda.
"If I want excuses from you, I would give them to you! Do you understand that?!" Mr. Chandler said as he came back around to his desk. He didn’t look good. He looked stressed. He looked unhealthy stressed, but he didn’t let that allow him to break away from being an asshole to listen to them. At his older age, he was stuck in his ways even during an obviously stressful situation. He only knew how to be who he was and if that wasn’t the only thing making his stress level increase, the news about to come his way would either make things worse for him or depending on his genuine feelings about Mason, make it better.
"M-m-m-mister Ch-Chandler," Mason said but he was immediately interrupted.
"Oh, for the love of God! Here we go again. I don’t have time to listen to you inch out every word, Mason. Spit it out! What the hell is it?!" Chandler said.
Mason sighed in frustration. It wasn’t the first time that Chandler had cut him off while he tried to explain something of importance. He tried to explain to him things that were going on before, but he wouldn’t listen.
“Mr. Chandler, excuse me if I’m out of line, but I think you need to listen to Mason. The situation has changed completely from yesterday. You sent us out on an assignment; the very least you can do is allow us the opportunity to explain to you what we discovered," Orinda urged.
“The least I can do? Is that what you just said to me? The least I can do is listen to this stuttering prick? Are you kidding me?” Chandler said with a scoff. “Whose name is on the door, Ms. Costa? Does it say ‘Costa?’”
"No, sir, it doesn’t but..."
"Exactly, it doesn’t say ‘Costa,’ so I don’t believe you or anyone else who isn’t the boss should tell me what the least it is that I can do. I’m Vernon ‘The Boss’ motherfucking Chandler. I make all of the decisions and call all of the shots. You got that?"
"We know who is next to die," Mason said as clearly as he could without his stutter impeding. The effort put such a strain on him that he had a mild seizure as his eyes rolled back with the annunciation of each word. He knew that if he spoke with conviction or without his stutter, his words would be heard and would not fall on deaf ears.
Still standing, Mr. Chandler looked at both as they sat in front of the dark wooden desk. He placed both his palms on its glass cover and leaned in. His breathing was loud and labored. He didn’t looked good at all, and his attentive silence for the first time was welcoming. He didn’t give a sign that he was waiting for them to give another reason to blow his top. He actually gave them the break they needed, and they took it. They needed to explain to him what was discovered after it was delivered and not just what was discovered at the time they canvased the snow and covered the crime scene.
"There is not an easy w-w-way to for me to tell th-th-this story, so excu-excuse me for this," Mason said as he stood from his chair while Chandler hovered over his.
He looked nauseous as if he were going to vomit and he needed air. So he walked over to the window that overlooked the busy downtown Philadelphia streets and opened it. Older buildings still allowed you to do this unlike newer buildings that had a different safety code. He saw and heard a drummer on the street corner playing the melody of street therapy giving the city a steady tempo. Mason closed his eyes.
He heard Mr. Chandler yelling something, but he did not focus on his words because he needed to collect his own. He reached into his coat pocket and grabbed his box of cigarettes and rattled it again. He then removed one and lit it. It played its magic instantly to calm his nerves. He didn’t have water to take a pill, and he would not take a swig of Slivovica to sooth himself in front of his boss, but the story had to be told.
At that point, he didn’t hear another sound. There was only the sound of the cigarette paper burning and inching toward him with each drag. The sounds of his exhale from his diseased lungs were quieted by the sudden but familiar voice in his head asking for vengeance.
“I won’t give too many details but know that we’re working very hard on this case. You and no one else have the right to speak to us the way you do, and I will not stand for it anymore. We can easily walk away from the story or better yet, we can go to another paper and then they leak it. I’m demanding respect from you, and we will get it," Mason said. He turned and faced Chandler and was greeted by a face of shock.
"I know you are used to being in charge and that’s great, but I have taken your shit for too long. I served my country just like you did, and I have the battle scars to prove it. I have a story for all, but you would never know because you don’t listen to anyone!" Mason reproached, followed by a billow of smoke.
The open window allowed the smoke to escape the room’s confines without choking the others with its second hand. Surprisingly there was no verbal rebuttal from Chandler, but there was a scowl on his face as he finally sat down in his oversized leather chair. Orinda smiled as if she were proud. Over the last few days, she had seen a change in Mason. The once introverted oyster was coming out of his shell because of the pressure building around him.
"Now, like I said, we know who the next victim is going to be and that person is me. I’m next on the list to be murdered, and if it’s okay with you, sir, I’d rather not have to deal with your shit while I deal with being a target of murder."
"What the hell do you mean that you’re the next to die? How do you know this?"
"We know this because we have the proof, and it’s been confirmed by Detective Griffin of the Pennsauken Township Police Department. We weren’t able to retrieve the original evidence from the lab because it’s still being used to investigate the case, but we brought something of our own to compare and contrast to the letter found with the dead Marine that you sent us to cover yesterday," Orinda said.
She put her hand into her purse to remove the contents of the letter and envelope. She slid them on the desk in front of Mr. Chandler and allowed him to read the letter and view the envelope while Mason picked back up from where he left off.
"The killer has some affiliation with me from my Marine Corps days. The victim from the murder that we went to yesterday also served with me in the Marine Corps."
"What do you mean he served with you? I was told that he was a sailor from the joint military command upstate New Jersey," Chandler said as he continued to look and analyze the letter. He didn’t take his eyes off it once and he noticeably gulped after he asked his question. The question he wished he had never asked.
Orinda looked at Mason, but she wasn’t sure if he heard what she had. She distinctly remembered Chandler adamantly yelling about the discovery of another dead Marine before he sent them on the assignment. Now he mentioned that the information he received was the dead body of that sailor. It could have been a slip of the tongue, but it didn’t appear he remembered his initial statements either. Mason continued on with his story and his cigarette as he began to pace back and forth from the window to the office door.
"Yes, the bloody body recovered yesterday belonged to a sailor, but before he joined the Navy, he served with me as a Marine in the Kosovo conflict. I know you don’t believe Kosovo was a real war especially since you served in Vietnam, one of America’s bloodiest wars but to the region that was once One Slavic, it was gruesome. Stockton and I served together on a special operations detail that even to this day, the details of our excursions have been sworn to secrecy and remain classified. Just know that war is ugly when you are sent to liberate a people you do not understand against an enemy that you do not know yet vehemently loathe." Mason reveal
ed as he ashed his cigarette into the fern pot on the bookshelf. Whenever he spoke about his experience, the agony on his face confessed regret as much or sometimes more than guilt.
"Is that what this means in the handwritten letter?" Chandler asked interrupting Mason’s story. He read the letter and reread it again trying to understand its cryptic message.
"That’s what we aren’t sure of. We aren’t sure if the killer was once in the Navy or if the killer is connecting his victims to the Navy because the Marine Corps is a part of the Navy," Mason proposed.
He finally sat back down in front of the desk to join his boss and his partner. He felt lightheaded from smoking his cigarette too quickly, but he needed to calm himself quickly in order to assert himself to tell the story the correct way.
"Where did you get this, Sessions, and did you report this to the police? I know I run a tight ship here, but as a Senior NCO I don’t want any of my guys in any danger," Mr. Chandler said as he gave the letter and envelope back to Orinda who put it back in her purse. She couldn’t wait to get out of the office to talk with Mason about what she heard. At this point, her intuition told her no one could be trusted until it was confirmed they were either not the killer or some type of accomplice.
"We did go to the police. That’s what we were trying to tell you before you ripped us a new one for being late. We weren’t late to be fashionable. We were late because Detective Griffin needed to make copies of the letter to add them with the evidence collected from the crime scene. At first this morning we planned on going back to do another walk through but before we could leave my place, that plan changed. This was delivered to my door this morning along with these lapels. The letter from Veteran Affairs came yesterday,” Mason disclosed showing the lapels from his pocket.
"Why is the envelope still closed? Don’t you think you should open it?" Chandler asked.
The thought never occurred to Mason to do so. Before he just wanted to hide it from Orinda, and he was afraid to open it. Any communication from the Department of Veteran Affairs would be unwanted.
Though his discharge was general under honorable conditions, the Marine Corps failed to provide him with a medical discharge though at the time he qualified for 90%. He had not gone to any appointments in some time though the nightmares and the voices that no one else heard except him were a direct reflection on the impact from his Corps services. They were never addressed. If the killer was able to gain access to his VA files, there was a high probability that they would know his pains and ailments and could use them as leverage.
"I was afraid to open the letter because I thought it was going to be the end of my benefits. The VA had been paying for all of my medical expenses for years even though I was not discharged with a medical discharge. I can’t afford the psychotherapy sessions, the Ativan or the stress retreats or my living arrangement without them. What makes it worse, I know that most of—if not all—my mental and physical ailments are because of the military. I was just afraid to have to come out of pocket for the expenses."
"How do you figure the letter is about cutting your benefits, Sessions? Open the damn envelope, and let’s see what it says," Mr. Chandler demanded.
"I’m sure the letter is just for that because you and I both know after you serve this country in combat, you are expected to come back home and then rejoin society without missing a heartbeat. They forget about us. They leave us alone to fend for ourselves with no help adjusting back to regular life, but once a crime is committed by someone damaged by war, we as the media immediately reveal two things, and those are military experience and mental health history, but the reality is that the both never intermix. That’s evident from your war, too," Mason said as he put his head down in his hands.
Vernon Chandler and Orinda looked on at the other tormented soul in the room.
With his head still in his hands, Mason slid the envelope over to Orinda who looked at him. Her heart hurt for him. She saw a man who had gone through so much in life that needed to be happy and free. He needed a reason to smile because he had none. She wanted to be that for him. She wanted to be there for him. She saw the good in him just as she saw it in her father underneath the cloak of government-issued insanity. She knew that she was strong enough to be the person he needed. She needed him to allow her to be that in his life.
It would make her father proud to know she embraced those crippled by post-traumatic stress disorder before their end came. As she received the envelope, she put her hand on Mason’s back and rubbed him. The hurt in his eyes as he lifted his head told her that he needed her touch and her nurturing. She removed her hand and then opened the letter. That’s when the room shrank in size. All three were on the edge of their figurative seats. When she opened the envelope, the letter she removed wasn’t an official document on a Department of Veteran Affairs letter head with a memorandum. It was a rule lined page with very familiar words and familiar handwriting. Fear made Mason sit up in the seat and his heart beat aloud as she read out the words:
"To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die but he can never know he is dead. Had I been some young sailor, continent. Perforce three weeks and then well plied with wine. In due time you will dance the last dance, Slivovica, and I will watch and count the seconds before you have no time."
As Orinda read the words, it suddenly felt cold in the office. It felt like someone else had joined them; someone with no body heat. Maybe it was cold because Mason forgot to close the window when he sat down after he smoked his cigarette or maybe it was because Death joined them in the office and changed the room’s dynamic.
"I’m confused. Only part of this sounds familiar but not the other," Chandler said as he stood up from his desk. He began to do knee bends in place before standing tall and then stretching. He walked over to the window and closed it before he continued. "What the hell is all of that jibber jabber?" he asked as he turned to face them but sat on the inside window seal. His Blackberry buzzed in his hip holster, but he didn’t reach for it immediately. He was trying to figure where he had heard these words from.
"If the words sound familiar to you, sir, it’s because they are the exact words on the letter that came to Mason’s home this morning. Well not exactly, they are altered just slightly, but the handwriting is the same. The writing doesn’t have any obvious characteristics, but certain words are a little more polished, specifically the ones that identify Mason and that relate to death. This letter doesn’t mention ‘her’ like the one that came to Mason’s home. It must have been written before you assigned me to help with the investigation which is odd because the very next day it was altered. Someone has been watching us," Orinda said. "The other part of the letter is something we need to discuss with Detective Griffin. Those were the exact words found at the crime scene. The person doing this combined the messages into one."
"You mean this is what was found at the murder scene, and it was sent to your home as well? Who would do this, the sick fucks?!" Chandler said. He seemed genuine in his concern and disbelief, but to Orinda he was still suspicious, and it was not in her Latina genetics to not say what she was thinking. At first she wanted to wait and run it by Mason, but after she read the contents out loud, she could no longer hide what she was thinking.
“Didn’t you tell us that you wanted us to assist with the investigation of a murdered marine, Mr. Chandler? How did you know that the victim was a marine if you didn’t know his past? He reenlisted in the Navy after being discharged from the Marine Corps. That’s why he’s a sailor but before you sent us on our way, you were adamant that we find the killer of another one of America’s Finest Marines. Do you remember?" Orinda asked.
The pseudo accusation made Mr. Chandler raise his head from his phone. He stood up with a look of anger and disbelief.
"What the hell are you getting at, Costa? Do you think I have anything do with this? Is that what you are telling me? You think I have a hand in the killing of Marines and that I’m trying to get Mas
on killed as well? I thought you were supposed to be a smart college woman? That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard in all my years," Vernon Chandler said but Orinda had a valid point.
Mason suddenly stood up. He turned to face Chandler as he still stood in front of the window. He put himself in between Orinda and their suddenly suspicious supervisor as a barrier because something didn’t feel right.
"Is there a problem, Sessions? What do you think you are doing? Did I dismiss you? I don’t recall doing so. At ease! Have a fucking seat. We aren’t done here! We have to get to the bottom of this," Chandler ordered.
"How can we get to the bottom of this until you tell us everything we need to know? You tell me how? If you sent us into an ambush, then you are no different than the men in that dark room!" Mason exclaimed.
The standoff was intense as he squared himself to make himself appear larger. He was ready for any sudden move while he allowed Chandler to explain what was going on. If it wasn’t sabotage, this was the best time to explain because the coincidences were all too much. Orinda was right. He did use the word “marine” when he first told them about the crime. He did select them to help investigate a murder story and not to report the story to the press. Why would professional detectives need the assistance of two journalists to investigate the death of one military man when it was not their expertise? It didn’t make any sense to them then, but it made sense now.
"I can’t believe I have to explain myself to you or you. I had nothing to do with the death of anyone, sailor or marine. You got that? You got that?! I was given the inside track that there was a murder of someone who serves our country; that is it. I would have sent you there if it were an airman or coast guardsman and you know how I feel about them. Now, have a fucking seat. Now!"
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