I hopped in my car and revved the engine, hoping I wasn’t too late. Pulling quickly out of the station parking lot, I earned an angry bleat of a horn from an Escalade that had slammed on its brakes in the near lane. Pressing the gas, I thumbed information on my phone, looking for the number for the Ocean House, a small boutique hotel near the boardwalk at the north end of Wolf Hollow.
After punching through an automated menu while trying to navigate the afternoon traffic, I finally got a ring tone.
“Ocean House, find your bliss by the beach!” A perky female voice answered.
I pulled the phone away from my ear. Bliss? I thought. Who says bliss?
I got back on the phone and rapidly explained who I was and that I was looking for Marshals Devlin and Chu.
“Let me see…” she responded brightly, and I could hear her tapping keys in the background. After a moment, she got back on the line. “It looks like they checked out about an hour ago, Detective. All paid up.”
Shit! I thought quickly. “Do you have phone numbers for them? Copies of their drivers’ licenses?”
“Of course we do Detective, we can’t check them in without that information.” She replied somewhat tartly. Then she asked, “Is everything okay?”
Bristling slightly at her tone, I ignored her question and asked, “Can you give me their phone numbers? It’s an urgent Wolf Hollow police matter!”
A pause, then, “I’m sorry sir, but we cannot give that information out over the phone. If you were to come here with your credentials…”
“Okay, okay I’m on my way!” I interrupted, punching my phone off and returning my attention to slaloming through the afternoon traffic.
I hadn’t worked it all out yet, but suddenly I had a feeling that Devlin and Chu were involved somehow, and I wanted to confront them before they left town. One scenario I could think of was that they were dirty Marshals, and they had some reason to murder Anders. Drugs? Working for a cartel? Was Anders working a secret investigation that I didn’t know about? There did happen to be a certain “retired” Italian living in Wolf Hollow who still had questionable connections. Devlin and Chu were based out of Houston, a few hours drive from the Mexican border. But then how did Alison fit in?
Or they were imposters posing as Marshals, maybe hitmen who had carried out a contract on Anders. They murdered Alison to lure him to their kill zone and then assassinated him. And now they came back posing as Marshals when Alison was dug up, concerned that the investigation into Anders’ killing would be re-opened. But why did they kill Anders? And who did they work for?
I shook my head furiously. Too many questions, too many threads. Was Alison just bait, an unlucky pawn that got used by forces greater than her? And then there was Medora, who came from Cedar Creek, Texas and dated a Marshal who had ostensibly accessed unauthorized files, and then died in a single car accident. Was she somehow tied up in this too? And Anders, was he running some sort of secret investigation for our old Chief Haskins, and he paid the price? Was that why he was assassinated?
I blew out my cheeks as I turned onto Ocean Avenue. Suddenly I had people to talk to. Devlin. Chu. Haskins. Medora. Then I grinned smugly to myself as I briefly thought about Barnes and his mandates. And none of it has to do with Jericho, Chief.
Ten minutes later I pulled into the small parking lot of the Ocean House, a charming, 40-room hotel that backed up to the seaside boardwalk. Its parking lot was made of crushed pink seashells and sand, surrounded by large chunks of gray veined granite mined from the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains.
The hotel had two large gable roofed structures on either side of an entrance with bay windows fronted by a large deck with four stained oak pillars and a small set of flared stairs in the center.
An elderly couple was sitting outside on the deck playing cards, with two large glasses of iced tea sweating in the late afternoon sun as I pulled up and hopped out. The woman, with soft gray hair pulled back in a ponytail crinkled her eyes at me and gave me a warm smile as I bounded up the stairs. I gave a quick return smile as I pulled open the attractively framed wooden double doors with large oval panes. Entering a richly furnished atrium with soft pink and brown terra cotta tiling, I quickly focused on the small desk straight ahead, where a young woman in a white dress shirt and an aqua blue sleeveless vest was just finishing up a phone call.
“Welcome to the Ocean House, where you find-“she began cheerfully.
“Yeah, I know, I have plenty of bliss, thank you.” I cut in, a tad rudely, slapping my badge down on her sand-colored marble desk. “I just called about two of your guests. Devlin and Chu.”
The front desk clerk was momentarily taken aback, but to her credit she recovered quickly and after glancing at my badge, she tapped a few keys on the laptop in front of her.
After a moment, she looked up at me and spun around her computer so I could see the screen. “As I said on the phone, they checked out a little while ago. But here are the scans of their drivers’ licenses.”
I looked at the screen. The licenses did indeed look like the Devlin and Chu that I had met, and both had addresses in Houston, Texas. “Great. Can you print me out copies of those? And do you have cell numbers for them?”
Melissa, as I read from her name tag, spun her computer back around, hit a few keys, and a second later, I could hear humming from below the counter of a printer doing its job. Then, she grabbed a pen and a sticky pad and quickly jotted down something. Bending down, she retrieved a sheet of paper with the license pictures and handed both the note and paper to me.
“They had two rooms, but the same contact number was for both rooms.” She said brightly. “I hope this helps.”
Taking the papers, I thanked her, turned, and took a seat in an espresso-colored basket wicker chair with plush cushions in the lobby. I quickly snapped a photo of the licenses, then called Barnes.
“Jones! Where are you?” Barnes demanded the instant he picked up.
“At the Ocean House, where I told you I was going!” I retorted, suddenly feeling unreasonably untrusted.
“Well, with you, I feel I always have to ask.” Barnes muttered. “Now what the hell is going on with the Marshals that’s got you so worked up?”
I quickly recounted my thoughts about Devlin and Chu’s possible involvement in Anders murder.
There was a minute of silence on the phone as Barnes processed my theories. They sounded wilder when I said them out loud, and Barnes affirmed this when he got back on the line. “I don’t know, that sounds like you’re maybe stretching facts to get to a truth.” He said skeptically. “I called the Marshals main office in Houston, and they confirmed that they do have two agents named Devlin and Chu. But for security reasons, they weren’t able to confirm their current assignments, and when I asked for facial pictures, I got the same response.”
“Can you send them photos of the drivers licenses that I have, and ask them to verify?” I asked quickly.
“Should be able to do that.” He responded. “Send them to me. What else?”
The phone number that Melissa gave me I was fairly certain was going to be the number from their main office, and Barnes confirmed as much when I told him.
“I’m going to try and contact Clem.” I said, referring to Barnes’ predecessor. “See if he had Anders working on anything on the side.”
“Okay let me know what you find out. He didn’t leave any secret files or projects in this office that I’ve found since I’ve been here.”
I hesitated for a moment, trying to decide if I wanted to tell Barnes my concerns about Medora.
“Chief,” I said carefully. “How much do you know about Detective Dunning?”
Barnes was silent for a minute. “Not much beyond what’s in her transfer file from Cedar Creek. Why?”
I explained my concerns about the handcuffs the night of Abbot’s Trail and my phone call to Captain Mendoza. “And she was dating a Marshal who may have been accessing unauthorized files, and now he’s dead.” I paused. “I don’t know if Medora is involved in any of this, or even if Devlin and Chu are crooked. But Anders’ murder never made any sense, and now this whole Alison and Jericho case has brought up a bunch of common threads.”
Barnes was silent again. Then, “why would Detective Dunning lie about cuffing Brian? What purpose did bringing him up the mountain serve?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. All I know is that there were no unlocked cuffs in my car and Brian didn’t have them on his body when he was killed by Jericho. And then, the Texas connection…” my voice trailed off.
“That is strange.” Barnes conceded. “Okay, see what Clem has to say, and I’ll try and get an answer on a photo match for the Marshals.” Then his voice hardened. “And leave Detective Dunning alone for now. She’s on Angie’s protective detail until we can get her into Witness Protection and get this thing resolved. And I meant what I said earlier, I don’t want you near Jericho.” Another moment of silence. “And last I checked, my inbox doesn’t have your report from last night yet.” He finished.
Oops. “Almost done Chief.” I lied smoothly. “You’ll have it by the end of the day.”
Barnes grumbled something unintelligible, then said “See that you do.” And hung up.
Clicking off, I thought, Medora’s part of Angie’s security. Undoubtedly in a cheap hotel somewhere in town, of which there were maybe twenty or thirty likely possibles. If I don’t have time to track them down, then Jericho certainly won’t before the FBI descends on Wolf Hollow in full force. They both should be safe for now. Or so I thought.
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