ON The Run (An Ozzie Novak Thriller, Book 6) (Redemption Thriller Series 18)

by John W. Mefford

  “Sure, sweetie. She’s a good friend, isn’t she?”

  She swallowed. “I just know that she lost her mother to cancer, and my mom died too, and we talked some about it. And now…Nicole, so…” Her voice drifted off.

  I called Ervin, and he and Ariel showed up in five minutes, maybe less. The girls hugged like they were sisters. More tears. Damn.

  The girls went to Mackenzie’s room. Baxter and Rainbow were right on their heels.

  I fixed some coffee. I asked Ervin to talk to me about something other than the misery that had engulfed me. He started talking sports, mainly basketball, the ongoing machine that was the San Antonio Spurs and the floundering Dallas Mavericks. I nodded a few times, even asked about the Mavericks’ latest rookie phenom who had been hyped so much. I drained my cup of coffee. Ervin offered to get me a second cup.

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  A moment later, there was a knock on the door. I opened it and was instantly bear-hugged by Tito. My high-school buddy had been a defensive lineman back in the day, but he was really more of a teddy bear.

  “Dammit, Ozzie. I’m so sorry. You and Nicole had overcome so much, shown everyone what it was like to forgive and move on, to create this loving family. Oh, man, how I wish I could bring her back for you, for all of us.”

  He thumped my back, and his golf hat fell off. He leaned over to pick it up, and right behind him was Luella, his girlfriend. We hugged, and she immediately started bawling; then she shifted over to Tito and leaned against him. I was about to shut the door when a foot appeared in the opening, preventing me from closing it.

  “I don’t want to miss out on all the fun.”

  I knew that raspy voice. I opened the door back up and saw Poppy. She of the red dreadlocks and lots of piercings and tattoos. She’d been my second client as an attorney. At the time, she’d been strung out, up on charges of prostitution. She was bone thin and appeared to be ready to give up on life. I didn’t let her. I got her a job and was able to keep her from serving any time. And she’d kicked her drug habit. She was rough around the edges, but if she was in your circle—which I was—she’d do anything for you.

  She gave me a hug. “Fucking A, Oz. I can’t believe what happened. I’m sorry, man.”

  “Thank you, Poppy…everyone,” I said, turning to face the growing crowd. “I appreciate your support.” My voice cracked.

  The group mingled for a few minutes. It was nice to see some movement, hear voices. I knew it wouldn’t last long; they’d be gone soon, and then I’d have to figure what to do next.

  “What you thinking about, Oz?” Tito walked up, put his big mitt on my shoulder.

  I sighed. “A lot of thoughts going through my mind. Planning a funeral—if they find her body—or maybe a memorial service. We have the homes. Not sure what to do there. I guess I need to tell my mom and brother. And then there’s her colleagues at Genbio.”

  “We’re here for you, brother. Today, tomorrow. Anytime, anything. Just reach out and ask.”

  “Thanks, Tito.”

  “You going to get that?” he asked, looking at the door.

  I hadn’t heard the knock. I walked over and opened the door. It was Valentine, flanked by two uniformed officers. I looked at his face. This wasn’t a good-news visit, let alone the one-in-a-million chance that they’d found Nicole alive.

  “We need to talk. Privately,” he said.

  5

  My friends insisted on staying, talking amongst themselves. Ervin turned on the TV and changed the station to some show about antiques. I knew he was just trying to create some background noise to give me the privacy that I could never really have in this apartment—unless Valentine and I were to go into the bedroom that Nicole and I shared. And that wasn’t going to happen.

  Two officers stood like centurions at the doorway leading into the living room as Valentine and I huddled in the kitchen. I wondered what they were guarding, but I didn’t have the energy to ask or care.

  “Glad you have a nice support group,” he said, tilting his head toward the living room.

  He was in delay mode, and I was in no mood. “What is it, Detective? I don’t have much left in the tank, so just be straightforward with me.”

  A deep breath. “I’ve got a couple of things to show you. And a few questions.”

  “So, you haven’t found Nicole’s body?”

  “The dogs found something.”

  I was confused. “‘Something’?”

  He cleared his throat, which made his Adam’s apple pop out. It was freaky looking, as if a tennis ball were stuck down there.

  I sighed. “Well…” I said, motioning with my hand for him to get to the point.

  He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a plastic baggie, but he kept his hand around it so that I couldn’t see the contents. “They found this in the shrubs along the shore.”

  He held up his closed fist.

  “Is this some kind of magic trick where I’m supposed to guess?” Even in despair, my sarcasm had made a cameo appearance. I put that habit at the feet of my father. God rest his soul.

  “Before I show you, let me tell you first. It’s a finger with two rings on it.”

  I was still processing what he’d said when he opened his hand. I blinked, tried to catch my breath. It was Nicole’s finger and the rings I’d given her, a wedding band and engagement ring.

  “What the…?” Blood drained from my head as if a hose had siphoned it out. I reached for a chair and sat down.

  “Sorry you had to see this,” he said. “But we wondered if this was Nicole’s finger.”

  “It is.” I reached out and grabbed the finger and quickly gave it back to him. My eyes searched for a safe place. They landed on the salt shaker on the table. “Who…how?” I raked my hand through my hair and then leaned my forearms on my knees.

  “Not sure we can answer those questions yet. Hell, we don’t even know when it happened. Before she fell…or after she fell, like somehow her hand got caught in a branch or caught between sharp rocks with the strong current.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. “Something else to show you.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s another body part. Please.”

  “Nothing like that. We’ve got a clue on who did this.”

  I glanced up.

  “After the media aired my press conference, the station started receiving phone calls. This one guy said he was driving his family across the bridge, and his daughter was using his phone to take pictures of the sunset. He checked his phone after he saw the news, and we have a picture of the man with Nicole.”

  He pulled out his phone and began tapping the screen.

  “Yeah, where is it?” I had no patience, and I didn’t give a shit that I sounded like an ass.

  “Okay, okay. Here.” He angled his phone—something the size of a small tablet. I saw two blurred figures in the left part of the screen, the back of a bald-headed man standing in front of Nicole. He was dressed in a black coat that stopped at his waist, but the collar was turned up. I could see the side of her face. One of his hands was holding her by the wrist; the other appeared to be reaching in front of his body.

  “What’s he doing with that other hand?”

  “Hard to say,” Valentine said. “You had said you thought you heard gunshots. Maybe he’s reaching for a gun. But it’s also possible that this was a robbery. Maybe he was after the rings.”

  My mind tried to shift to the logical, but keeping my emotions at bay was like swimming against hurricane-force winds. “If he was after the diamond rings, that wouldn’t be a spontaneous act, right? I saw him approach her. It wasn’t a casual walk. He had a purpose, as if he knew her.”

  “Okay. You said that last night.”

  “Also, if he was after the rings, then why did they end up in the water?”

  “Maybe he lost them in the struggle. She could have tried to get them back—”

  “After he cut off her finger?”

 
; He shrugged. “I don’t have the answers. Just throwing out possible scenarios.”

  Right. Made sense. My eyes went back to the finger for a moment. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stare at it or never see it again. “Any leads on who this guy is?”

  “Not yet, but we’re going through our records to try match anyone with his physical features. Can’t run the image through our facial recognition since we can’t see his face. It’s a start, though. More than what we had last night. Maybe others will come forward and provide more evidence. And then we have the surveillance cameras. We’re starting to look through video feeds to see if we can find a picture of him from the front.”

  I nodded, trying to be more approachable, but my heart was in another place. I was drained, even with this “good news” from Valentine. I was still trying to grasp the impact of Nicole being gone forever. Eventually, though, I’d have more energy, more focus, and I’d find this fucker myself if that was what it would take.

  “Is that all, Detective?”

  “Well, I’ve done some homework, and I just wanted to bounce a few things off you.” He started tapping his phone screen.

  “Homework. Okay. Whatever.” That was my code phrase for “I’m done with this discussion, so please leave and let me try to cope with Nicole’s death somehow, someway.” I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped that he would be gone when I opened them again.

  I opened my eyes, and Valentine was staring at me, like he was waiting for me to get my shit together. Then he looked at his phone as he said, “As a former lawyer, you’re aware of how this process works. Me, my colleagues…we ask a lot of questions. We gather evidence, ask more questions. We dig into the evidence, into certain historical events, and ask more questions.” He looked up. “You get my drift?”

  “You had me up until you used the term ‘drift.’” More sarcasm. My brain was functioning on some level at least. “You want to ask me more questions. What haven’t I already shared, though, two dozen times?”

  Internally, I answered my own question the second it left my lips. He’d used the term “historical events.”

  “A number of months ago…”

  Just what I thought. I did my best to keep a poker face. But I was so out of touch with my body right now, I could have been sticking out my tongue at the guy.

  On he went. “Your wife had an affair with a man named Calvin Drake.” He paused.

  I said nothing.

  “Can you confirm that for me, please?”

  Just what I needed—someone prying into my private life. Nicole and I had gotten past this. It had been a gut-wrenching time in my life, and there were moments when I didn’t think we’d make it—I didn’t think I wanted us to make it—but we had. And now, here’s this guy, dredging up the crap.

  “Confirmed.” I tried the succinct response.

  “And if I were a fly on the wall, would I have heard you guys fighting a lot since then?”

  He was really going there. I puffed out a breath. “Look, Detective, I’ll save you the trouble of working through questioning methodology. We had a tough stretch. What relationship doesn’t? We just weren’t into having fights.”

  A long nod. “So, even though you were probably embarrassed by her very public affair, you carried no grudges?”

  “No, not in the past tense or present tense. Look, I know you have to do your job and all, but this is really just wasting your time and mine. I love Nicole, plain and simple. If you can’t tell, I’m devastated by her…her death.”

  Her death. The words had come out on a shuddered breath. Tears threatened.

  Valentine stood. “I know, I know. I just have to get through this and say we chased every lead right in front of us. Because…I mean, someone who came in here cold, they might say that you held this grudge and picked out your anniversary date to manifest your outright hatred for her by having her killed.”

  Did I just hear what I thought I heard?

  “This is fucking ridiculous.”

  “Just to cross this off my list and not have to keep badgering you, are you okay with signing off on us getting access to your phone records?”

  “Hell, I’d give you my phone if I had it. It’s somewhere in that damn lake.”

  He pulled out a form, and I signed it. “What else?”

  “Your computer and email account.”

  “Fine.” I verbally gave him my email ID and password. “My laptop is in the bedroom. I can get it for you.”

  I pushed out of my chair.

  “One more thing,” he said, glancing at his phone. “For the record, you weren’t involved in any type of lover’s triangle, were you?”

  “Bald men aren’t my type.”

  He smirked, leaned his head to the side, waited.

  “No.”

  “And you’re not aware of Nicole being romantically involved with another man?”

  That question hit like a bout of acid reflux. “No, of course not. She’s been pushing for us to get back together, to buy this old house. She even told me recently that she wanted us to start trying to have kids.”

  “Oh, wow.”

  I’d made my point. “I’ll get you the laptop.”

  I grabbed the laptop out of the bedroom and walked him and his bodyguards to the door.

  “How can we reach you with updates since you lost your phone?” he asked.

  I gave him my home phone number.

  “You still have one of those?”

  I just stared at him.

  He held up a hand. “I should be able to get this laptop back to you quickly. And I’ll let you know if we find more evidence on this person in the picture.”

  I shut the front door, the weight of the world dragging me down. I waved to my friends in the living room, who silently watched me as I stumbled to my bedroom. Collapsing onto the bed, I pondered the weirdness of a detective named Valentine pursuing the killer of my one true love.

  6

  When I woke up, my first rational thought was recalling Poppy last night singing “Who Let the Dogs Out?” While I had actually laughed at the time, right now, each bark was met with a resulting thud in my head.

  I turned over, draped an arm across my eyes. My mouth was as dry as the Dead Sea. Then I really remembered last night.

  My friends had stayed, looking in on me after the officers had left. Eventually, they’d dragged me back into the living room.

  Wine. More wine.

  And then Poppy singing that damn song as she let out the dogs.

  Wait, are the dogs barking right now? I leaned up on one elbow about ready to call out for Mackenzie when she barreled into my room and jumped on the bed.

  “Do you mind letting out Baxter and Rainbow?” I asked in probably the whiniest voice I’d ever used.

  She ignored the comment and instead shoved the home phone in my face. It was ringing. “I don’t know how to use this,” she said.

  A cordless phone. So twentieth century. “I’ll take the call if you handle dog duty.”

  “Okay.” She climbed off the bed, snapped her little fingers, and called Baxter and Rainbow to follow her.

  I clicked the green button on the phone, and tried to ignore that evil little man playing bongos inside my head. “Yeah.”

  “How about ‘Hello’?”

  “Arie?”

  “That’s me. I would ask how you’re doing, Ozzie, but I think I know.”

  Everyone seemed to know—even my dad’s former law partner, Arie Steinberg. Of course, the odd part was that he’d been a partner in a firm called Novak and Novak. See any mention of Steinberg? Long story…but I held no bitterness toward Arie. He was nice enough, but that didn’t mean I wanted to replay the worst twenty-four hours of my life.

  “How’s retirement, Arie?”

  “Good, except when the wife badgers me to get off my ass and do something. Which is every day.”

  Glad I asked. “Look, I have a lot going on, so—”

  “Oz, this isn’t a casual call to tell yo
u I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Okay. Why are you calling me…on my home phone, no less?”

  “You never picked up your cell.”

  “So, what is it?”

  “The DA’s office. I got a call from someone I know who works there, and…” He paused.

  “And what?”

  “They’ve been in discussions all night, Oz. They have evidence that points to you hiring a hitman to kill Nicole.”

  I snapped out a quick laugh. “Funny, Arie. Not a good time for a joke.”

  Silence.

  “Arie?”

  “Ozzie, I wish it were a joke. Did you give the cops your computer, access to your cell phone records and email account?”

  “Yeah.” It took a few seconds, but I could see the phone trembling in the grip of my hand. My entire being was teetering on the edge of a cliff where I couldn’t see the bottom. I just knew that somewhere down there were jagged rocks that would break me into a million pieces.

  Arie mumbled or spoke at a level I couldn’t hear.

  “Are you talking to me?”

  “I’m just talking to myself. Ozzie, you of all people, should know how to respond to the police when they’re actively working a homicide investigation.”

  Arie’s words felt like a bucket of ice had just been poured on my head. Nicole had been murdered. It was a homicide. They’re looking at every possible suspect, including me. Those were the facts, although I knew yesterday I was mixing fact with countless memories and emotions.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you, Arie.” I threw off the covers and sat up. “Tell me again what your source said.”

  “The DA’s office has been talking to the lead investigator, some guy named Valentine.”

  “I know him. He’s been talking to me since they pulled me from the water.”

  More mumblings. It sounded like he was speaking Yiddish. He, like my mother and father, was Jewish. Well, my parents were Jewish when it mattered most to them, usually around the holidays and in certain social circles. I had been adopted by them when I was two weeks old, so I just went along for the ride.

  “Arie?”

  “My source told me that they found incriminating evidence showing you hired a hitman to kill Nicole. Apparently, a series of emails.”