Spare Change, page 7
part #1 of My Mira Saga Series
“Had a look at the cameras.” Raising his face, Swinger looks to Ross before glancing my way, “The asshole that did this was there.”
There are enormous gaps in the story as Swinger tells it, from the reason we even thought to go back to our scrolling through the footage, but the gist of things is present.
His eyes bulging, Ross says, “Who was there? The, um...”
He catches himself before the last word, not wanting to state the obvious.
“Shooter,” I finish for him.
Flicking his gaze at me, Ross’s eyes grow a fraction larger. “Are you shitting me?”
“Nope,” Swinger answers.
The look on Ross’s face seems to relay exactly what Swinger and I have already worked through. That the man posing as a vagabond in the park was anything but. That as much as this appeared a random act of heinous violence, it wasn’t.
“Did Billy know the guy?” Ross asks. “Did he pay with a credit card, have anything we might be able to track?”
“No,” I reply, letting the single word answer both his questions. They were the same two we had asked before leaving Cartwright’s, neither turning up much information. “Though it doesn’t sound like this was his first time by lately.”
It takes just a moment for the words to find their way in, Ross’s lips parting slightly as he processes the information. “How many times?”
“Enough,” Swinger answers, the perfect word to respond with.
Enough to get a feel for when we may or may not show up. Enough to establish a pattern, for Billy to have seen the guy’s face on more than one occasion and register it, even if he didn’t actually know it.
Enough to signify that there was planning and forethought put into what happened earlier in the night.
“You recognized the guy?” Ross asks.
There is no way I couldn’t, the man’s face seared into my brain in a way that will never be forgotten. “Yeah.”
“From tonight, or before?”
More than once I’ve already asked myself that same question, trying to determine who this man was, why he might have a problem with me to the extent that he would track me to a park and open fire. An anti-military type? Someone that thinks he knows something about one of the missions I’ve been deployed on? Maybe even a guy that feels like I’ve disrespected him at some point?
“Never before,” I say, “at least not that I can recall.”
Silence again falls between us, each of us mulling things over, trying to put everything into context.
As best I can tell, there isn’t one, nothing but chaos controlling everything.
“The guy had a backpack with him,” Swinger says, again pulling our attention his way. “Thing was covered with patches and stickers. Couple of them were from a place called The Wolf Den.”
The confusion on Ross’s face matches the look we both had when we first saw it, zooming the image on screen up to seven times its normal size just to be able to read it. Even at that, it wasn’t until a quick trip to Google did either of us truly grasp what it meant.
“Which is a biker bar outside of El Cajon,” I add.
Seeming to put things together, Ross rocks his head back slightly. “The Wolves.”
“The Wolves,” Swinger confirms.
“Damn,” Ross mutters, at a loss for anything more, the amount of information we’re throwing at him a ton under any circumstances, much less after what we’d just seen a moment before.
It’s a state I trust we’ll all be in for a long time to come.
“I need one of you to run me back to my car,” I say, not wanting to spend another moment standing around in the dark, all of us careful not to say the wrong word. Right now, I have things I need to be doing, items that I have to check off while I still can.
“You’re not thinking-“ Ross says, pulling up abruptly, alarm on his face.
“No,” I reply. “That shit can wait. Right now, I have somewhere else I need to be first.”
Chapter Sixteen
The home looks exactly as it does every single time I’ve ever been to it. Tucked into the outskirts of La Mesa - a suburb on the far eastern reaches of the sprawl spiraling out from downtown San Diego - it is a perfect encapsulation of the Martinez family. A snapshot of the American Dream before every politician with a stump to grind decided it would be easy to focus on the immigrant population and blame them for whatever was wrong with the country.
Thirty-six years ago, Paulo and Angelique made their way across the border into America. How they did so or what their status was upon arrival, I don’t know, and I’ve never dared ask.
To be honest, I never gave a damn.
All that mattered to me was the fact that these two people, nothing more than kids, had come to California and landed in Chula Vista. Spitting distance from the border, they had settled in with fellow immigrants, living in poverty, working hard every day. Over time, they had been able to push a bit further north into National City, where Mira and later her brother Hiram were born.
Three years prior to Mira and I meeting, the family had made one final move out to La Mesa. Further north and east, it was a sleepy town, long before gentrification had started to take hold of the city, the latest travel publication declaring San Diego the place to be and people flocking to it in droves.
It was where Mira and her brother had both gone to high school, where both had learned to drive and gotten their first jobs and gone through all the other formative things that happen during adolescence.
Tucked away on the far end of a cul-de-sac, the home is a single-story ranch. The bottom half is done in brick while the top is pale yellow, the shutters light blue. Out front, the grass is clipped short, flowerbeds overflowing with succulents and a variety of miniature cacti.
A single car sits in the driveway, a Toyota made within the last decade, the exterior clean, the interior no doubt as well.
The place is neat and orderly. Bright and cheerful.
And I’m about to turn its world upside down.
One of the few feelings I haven’t felt in the last six hours manages to wrestle its way to the surface as I ease along the curb out in front of the house. Self-loathing settles in my stomach as I stare out through the open lot separating the Martinez home from their closest neighbor. My eyes are burning and bloodshot, my stomach nauseous from everything that’s taken place. My arm continues to ache.
God, how I wish I was anywhere else in the world. Or if I had to be sitting where I am, that the news I was there to deliver was anything else.
For my sake as much as the woman I’m about to face.
Cutting the front headlights, the world retreats to almost darkness. Far enough from the epicenter of the city, out here the stars are able to poke through any residual glow, dotting the sky stretched before me. Staring out over the canyon that falls away behind their home, I can’t help but think of the way Mira used to describe the place, how much it meant to a self-made family just a few decades removed from a third world country.
How much she would love to have a place like it one day.
More moisture underscores my eyes as I glance to the rearview mirror, my face barely visible in the dim light. For a moment, I hold the pose, that same bit of self-loathing creeping in, before reaching out and unlatching the door. Closing it quietly, I step around the front of the car and head diagonally across the lawn, my feet moving quickly.
Every step feels as if I’m exposed, as if the neighbors can see me, know the message I’m coming to deliver. My throat constricts to just barely wide enough to let air pass as my path connects with the front walk, funneling me straight for the door. Adding an extra hop to my pace, I cover the pair of short steps up to the front and knock quietly, making it through no more than two taps against the wood before it swings open.
Standing before me is the spitting image of Mira in twenty-five years. Or, at least, what Mira would have looked like in a quarter century.
An inch shorter than her daughter, her dark hair hangs lank on either side of her head, just barely mussed from the slumber my lights must have pulled her from. Wrapped in a fuzzy yellow robe, she clutches it closed before her chest, her eyes wide as she looks at me.
In an instant, she seemed to gather that something is wrong, her jaw sagging slightly. Grasping the edge of the door, she leans out, peering in either direction, before motioning me inside.
“Come in, Kyle. Come in.”
For the first time since knowing her, I don’t bother removing my shoes upon entering. I don’t even wipe them as I step inside, moving straight past her and stopping, my back to the door as she closes it behind me.
My eyes slide shut and I raise my face to the ceiling, my every thought on how I’m supposed to say the words I know I have to. Whatever her reaction is will be justified. Any anger she has, any lashing that follows, I will understand.
I failed her. I failed her daughter. I failed her family.
I just don’t know how I’m supposed to actually say any of that.
“What happened?” Angelique asks. Rotating out to the side, she folds her arms, her mouth drawn back into a tight line.
Remaining in place, I can feel my face begin to quiver. My eyes slide open, lubricated by fresh tears, the liquid hanging from my lashes, fighting against gravity to stay in place.
Everywhere I look, Mira is present. From the photos of her hanging on the walls to the lumpy afghan she knitted for her mother’s birthday a few years prior on the arm of the sofa. It is impossible to be in this space and not feel my wife.
And at the same time, it isn’t lost on me that it’s the first time I’ve ever been in it without my wife.
“I’m...” I begin, feeling whatever resolution I’d mustered through the evening begin to wane. “I’m so sorry.”
The weight of the water in my eyes becomes too much, twin lines streaking down my face. Cleaving wet trenches over my dirty cheeks, they go straight to my jaw, dripping to the floor.
I raise a hand, searching for the words.
Shifting her gaze to it, Angelique sees the pink stains still covering the skin, her eyes growing wide.
“Oh, no,” she whispers. Her head moves to either side, her breath becoming labored. “No. No no no.”
I have no words. No nothing. Tears, saliva, snot, it’s all right on the surface, my world crumbling.
I can’t hold it back. Cannot.
“I’m...”
“You’re what?!” Angelique yells, her own voice breaking, her eyes glassy with tears. “Sorry?! You’re sorry?!”
Rushing forward, she slams both her palms against my chest. They collide with a dull thump, followed by a second and then a third as she whacks away at me.
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry! Don’t tell me my baby...my baby’s...”
The anger passes quickly. Her hands land on my chest a final time, bracing her upright as she stares up at me, the anguish on her face the perfect depiction of exactly what I feel inside.
“Gone,” I whisper, the word barely out before we fall into each other. Wrapping our arms tight, we sway in place as long as possible, each weeping with an emotion I never knew possible, before eventually, our strength gives out.
At which point we crumple into a heap together on the floor.
And continue sobbing.
My body was turned perpendicular to the line so I could still watch the flat-screen video broadcast that was being shown in the underbelly of the stadium. For the last hour, I’d been trying to stave off the encroaching need to visit the restroom, the combination of a few beers during tailgating and a few hot chocolates throughout the first quarter having combined in a large way in my bladder.
Two people away from the front, I still had a few moments, my focus on the live feed being shown nearby.
The game was known as the Civil War, a not-so-subtle moniker given to the annual Oregon-Oregon State clash. Started almost a century before when the two schools were on at least quasi-even footing, the last decade had forced things into being quite lopsided. The recent advent of Nike funding and audacious uniforms had pushed the Ducks into the stratosphere while we were still stuck with the scraps.
On the football field, anyway.
Well into the second quarter, our little-squad-that-could was hanging in there, down only a field goal and driving to take the lead.
“Can you tell me what the score is?”
The voice was one I’d never heard before, with a decent amount of accent. Middle-aged and female, I pulled my attention down to the woman beside me, a smile coming to my face.
“Ma’am, you look cold.”
Doing the best she could to match the smile, the woman peered out at me from deep inside a parka, fur lining encircling her face. Dark eyes crinkled slightly as she nodded.
“I am freezing.”
Everything about the statement, from her word choice to her delivery, forced the smile larger on my face. Most folks I encountered in the Pacific Northwest made it a point of pride to never acknowledge the elements, no matter how wet or cold or otherwise perilous.
What this woman was doing was a breath of fresh air.
“Not from here, I’m guessing?”
“Not even close,” the woman replied. “San Diego.”
“Oof,” I answered, pushing the sound out several syllables in length. Beside me, the door to the restroom opened and the next in line entered, making me the next one up. “From San Diego to Corvallis this time of year is no joke. My condolences.”
Bringing her mitten-covered hands together before her, she rubbed them vigorously, the heavy knit material making a deep sound. “Thank you.”
“Dare I ask what would make a person do such a thing?” I asked.
This time, the dark eyes rolled to the side, her brows rising in unison. I couldn’t hear a sigh escape beneath the scarf wrapped around her neck and lower face, but I knew it was there.
“My daughter,” she said. “It’s her first Thanksgiving away from home and I didn’t want her to be alone.”
Shifting to check the door beside us, I let her see my smile grow as I shook my head. “I think next year you might just want to bring her down. Planes do fly both directions, you know.”
“Oh,” the woman replied, holding up her hands to let me see her palms, “I tried and tried, but you don’t know my Mira. She can be very persuasive when she wants to be.”
My smile waned slightly as flashbulbs went off in my head. Bits of data lined themselves up, pointing the way toward a moment of clarity.
San Diego. First Thanksgiving.
My Mira.
Chapter Seventeen
Waking up in strange places seems to come with the job description of a Navy SEAL. I’ve slept in positions and locations that most citizens would refuse to believe even existed, let alone would subject themselves to resting in. So long as I had something to lean against and somebody to watch my back, there never seemed to be a reason not to.
A man has to rest, isn’t a damn bit of good without it.
Even at that, it takes me a moment to acclimate to my surroundings as my eyes peel open. Lashes crusted shut from a variety of bodily fluids, they feel like a handful of sand has been lodged under each eyelid, my nose rife with crusted snot.
Not until I see the television stand before me, the pictures of Mira and Hiram lining the top of it, do things snap into position.
The night in the park. Visiting the coroner. Coming out to the Martinez home to share the horrific news.
Pressing my left hand into the carpet, I push my body to sit upright. Using the same hand, I rub at the side of my head, Mira’s afghan sliding from my shoulder as I do so. My fingers wrap around the back of my neck as I sit and massage at the sore muscles running along it, the smell of cigarette smoke in the air.
My right arm throbs, the trench of the gunshot wound angry, seeming to pulsate with every heartbeat.
It is impossible to know how much time has passed. Judging by the faint light coming in through the front windows, I would venture to guess at least a few hours, but I have no way of knowing for sure. Not that it greatly matters.
Remaining seated, I twist on my backside to face the couch, Angelique sitting on the edge of it, her eyes locked in a faraway trance, her head turned to the side. In front of her is an ashtray, a lit smoke held between her fingers despite the fact that I know she quit the day she found out she was pregnant with Mira.
A sad commentary of things coming full circle if there ever was one.
“Sorry,” I mutter, releasing the grip on my neck. Drawing my knees up before me, I wrap my arms around them, grasping my left wrist with my right hand. “I don’t even remember falling asleep.”
“You didn’t,” Angelique says, still not looking my way. “Your body gave out.”
Never once have I heard it explained in such a way, but I can’t argue she is wrong. After hours of forcing myself to compartmentalize, on trying to harness the training I’d been given, the biggest enemy I’d ever faced eventually won out.
Just as I know it will a great many times in the coming days.
“You okay?” I ask.
Flicking her gaze to me, she remains still for a moment, as if she’s debating whether I just asked that question and if she should actually answer it.
“I called Hiram,” she says. “He’s on his way down now. Be here in an hour or two.”
A financial broker in LA, the drive down at this time of day will be torturous. Knowing how close he and Mira were, there is nothing that will keep him away, but it’s going to take a while.
I nod. “Did you want to-“
“Yeah,” she replies. “Hiram said he’ll take me if you don’t want to.”
Whether or not I return to see Mira’s body has nothing to do with wanting to. It’s more a question of if I can handle it right now, especially given what I know the day ahead will hold.
“I have to go to the police station this morning,” I reply. “They need a full statement from me.”
