Chapter Three
The next morning, after another sleepless night jerking upright at each sound from outside, Letty made her way by Lyft down to Long Beach to the scene of the shootout, along with hundreds of others. The Looky-Loos were kept two blocks away from the site, even out of camera range, although that didn't prevent a half-dozen local TV reporters from occasionally firing up their cameras and doing an on-air update on the latest nothing. Letty was about to give up when she glimpsed a flatbed tow truck snaking its way past the crowd. Secured on the back was Javier's car, the same red Ford Escape they had driven across the country. Several windows were smashed out, and two marks that looked suspiciously like bullet holes marred the polished driver's door.
She couldn't breathe. Turning slowly, she watched it with huge staring eyes until the truck turned a corner and disappeared. She started to swing back – and then she saw him. Javier was standing a dozen feet away in the crowd, staring right back at her. She took a step... but then as someone passed between them, Javier morphed instantly into an old man, a random stranger, who only glanced at her and then away.
Letty froze in place, screwing her eyes shut and covering her face with her hands. "Not now, not now, not NOW!" she whispered fiercely to herself. "NO HALLUCINATIONS! STOP IT!" She made herself take a deep breath and drop her hands – though she couldn't keep from looking all around the area she thought she had seen him, just to make sure.
One of the reporters was a few feet to her side, talking loudly on a cell phone, apparently to his producer. She mentally tuned in just as he said, "No, all the bodies have been removed. There's nothing left to see here. I'm headed over to the hospital to see what I can pick up." He paused, listening. "Yeah, the next police news conference is at noon. I'll be there."
She swiveled around in time to catch him as he started to walk past. "Excuse me," she brushed his sleeve and he halted with an annoyed look. "What hospital were the wounded taken to?"
He looked her over, evidently trying to decide if she was a rival reporter. When he didn't see any equipment – and she wasn't made up for TV, he growled, "Mercy General," and stalked rapidly away, his cameraman scrambling after.
Pulling out her phone, she looked it up and discovered Mercy General only a few blocks distant. She could walk that far. Along the way, she tried once more to reason things out.
Neither of the two unidentified bodies was Javier. If he was dead, but ID'd, they would have contacted me, wouldn't they? The news anchor that morning had said no victims' names were being released until all the next of kin had been notified. Although how police would have found her to notify her, she didn't know. So he must have been wounded, or else he would made it back 'home' by now. He's GOT to be in the hospital! Again, though, why wouldn't he have contacted her himself? Or told the hospital to do so? She wanted to shy away from the answer, but couldn't: Not if he were badly wounded and still unconscious.
Walking in through the Emergency doors a few minutes later, Letty fearfully approached the check-in desk. "Can I help you?" the nurse asked. She seemed bright and caring.
Letty took a deep breath. "My husband is missing," she began in a low voice. "He hasn't come home in two days. I'm afraid he might have been mixed up in..." She couldn't finish, but the nurse got the gist.
"What's his name? I'll check in the patient register."
"Javier Pereira." They had been using their real names since arriving in LA, as neither had been very far west before.
The nurse asked her to spell both names to be sure, then checked several screens before shaking her head. "I'm sorry, we've had no one by that name – ever." She looked up at Letty kindly. "Any other name I should try?"
Letty gave her a couple of the aliases he had used in the past, but they didn't show up either. "Is there anyone who came in the last couple of days, who's unconscious, and hasn't given a name?"
The nurse checked. "No, we've no John Does here currently."
"What about..." Her voice trailed off, but she tried again. "Have any of them... not made it?"
"I don't know. If so, though, they wouldn't still be here. The coroner would have taken them to the county morgue."
Letty bit her lips, blinking back tears. "Were you here the other night, when they came in?"
The nurse nodded. "We pull twelve-hour shifts."
Pulling out her phone again, Letty called up the only picture she had of Javier – their wedding shot – and showed it to the nurse. "Did anyone look like that?"
To her credit, the lady took the phone and looked carefully at Javier's face, searching her memory, but finally shook her head again. "I haven't seen anyone who looks like him, honey. I don't think he came in here." She handed the phone back, then said thoughtfully, "But you know, there were a LOT of victims. Maybe he was taken to another hospital?" Turning her head, she consulted with another woman out of sight, then gave Letty the names of two other places that might have gotten some of the wounded. "Or if he wasn't wounded, of course, but arrested, he would have been taken to the county jail. Or..." Realizing what she was about to say, her voice cut off, but Letty finished it for her.
"The county morgue."
She got the same results at the other two hospitals, only one of which had gotten any gunshot victims on the night in question anyway. And if he had been arrested, he would have called me, no question. Which left only one place to try.
She tried to fortify herself with a burger first, but it tasted like ashes so she threw it in the trash after a couple of bites. She walked into the building where the morgue was located on leaden feet, and found the front desk. The officer behind it was used to family members coming to identify bodies, and treated her with both kindness and respect – even if it fell on unappreciative ears.
No, they had no bodies identified as Javier Pereira. They had four John Does from within the last two days – could she give a description? The one she gave didn't seem to match any of them, but the officer called a technician up to the desk and had Letty show the man the picture on her phone. He took a good long look, and then to Letty's incredible relief, shook his head. "No. We don't have anybody here who looks like that. Sorry."
Letty stood for a moment as the tech walked away, fighting back tears. Then she bit the bullet. "Where's the jail?" Maybe he had been arrested, but hadn't called her for some reason.
But no, there was no one named Javier Pereira, or – she took a deep breath before she tried it – any of his other aliases in the jail. Nor did the officer on duty recognize his picture.
Javier had vanished, leaving his car behind.
Two thousand miles away, a flag popped up on an FBI computer. Someone in LA was making inquiries about the name Javier Pereira. An eyebrow was raised, an email was quickly composed, and it and the data were sent to the Los Angeles Bureau.
Back in the hotel, Letty plugged her phone in to power up, and then began prowling the police and news websites while CNN played low on the TV. As the list of deceased was released, she pounced on it – but none of the names was his, or any of his aliases. The same with the separate lists of wounded and arrested, or those still being sought, apparently escaped unharmed from the "battle". She counted them up and compared them with the tallies here and there again and again, until they all agreed – everyone was accounted for except those two originally unidentified from her first broadcast – who, even as she watched, they matched names to.
No Javier.
Phone fully charged, she dressed up and went out that night, hitting all their favorite places and asking all their acquaintances if they had seen him. Word spread that she was searching, but she got nowhere. There was no sign of him anywhere, nobody had seen or heard from her husband in two days.
Worried past frantic and wearied beyond exhaustion, she fell into bed long after midnight and actually slept hard until mid-morning. She turned on the TV to the local CNN affiliate when she got up, certain there'd be nothing new.
But there was.
Another body had been found, floating in the water beneath the pier. Currently unidentified, and due to the state it was in after being in the water for two days, the police did not release a morgue shot, but only a description: white male, possibly hispanic, five-foot-eight to five-foot-ten, build uncertain but probably slender, brown eyes, brown hair, full but closely-trimmed beard.
And Letty's world was ripped apart.
She managed to make herself return to the morgue mid-afternoon, and the officer at the desk remembered her, giving her a small sympathetic smile. "I thought you might be back." He asked her to have a seat in the shabby waiting area. As she turned numbly away, she didn't see him signal silently to a middle-aged man in a three-piece suit already sitting across the way, nor did she notice the Suit quietly folding his newspaper and watching her out of the corner of his eye.
A female officer with the name tag Blaine came out to greet her. Letty managed to choke out that she was there looking for her missing husband, that he'd been gone two days, and might possibly match the description of the body from beneath the pier. Officer Blaine asked for her name, and his, and then the spelling, then took Letty down a long hallway, turned a corner, and down another, stopping finally at a window covered with curtains on the other side. Letty still didn't register the Suit trailing discreetly along behind.
She was left at the window for a moment, as Blaine disappeared briefly into the room behind it, then returned to wait beside her. A few long minutes passed, and then the curtain was pulled back, revealing a sheet-covered body on a gurney on the other side, a man in scrubs attending.
"Mrs Pereira..." Blaine began hesitantly. "You do understand that the body is in terrible shape from the immersion? Discolored, swollen... It will be VERY traumatic to view it. You might not even recognize him, even if it IS your husband."
Letty nodded, staring at the sheet. "I've seen enough CSI. I understand. I have to know," she whispered, her voice raw.
Finally, Blaine turned and signaled Scrubs, who gingerly turned back one top corner.
Letty screamed. "NOOOOO!" Hands flying to her mouth, she continued to sob wildly, alternatingly scrunching her eyes shut to block the view, and flinging them wide again to verify. Bloated, greenish-white... but it was definitely Javier. After only a few seconds that felt like months, Officer Blaine motioned sharply to Scrubs, who lowered the sheet again to cover the face and then closed the curtains. Letty turned then, leaning back against the glass, covered her entire face with her hands and bent over, keening. Blaine reached out awkwardly and touched Letty's shoulder, repeating, "I'm so sorry, ma'am. I'm so sorry."
Finally, Suit stepped up closer. "Mrs. Pereira. I'm very sorry for your loss, and I know this is an awful time..." He ignored the glare shot at him by the tender-hearted Blaine. "... but I need to ask you a few questions about your husband."
Letty pulled herself up and lowered her hands below her eyes. She finally took in Suit, giving him a outraged, disgusted once-over. "Who the FUCK are you?" she spat out.
"Special Agent Danvers, with the FBI. We've been tracking your husband. We just need to ask you..."
That was as far as he got.
"I'm not telling you anything." Letty rasped out, pushed far beyond anything resembling patience or understanding. "Ever. Leave me the fuck alone!"
And with that, she turned and fled, shoving past the startled Danvers and down the hall. She was running by the time she reached the front door, and she didn't slow down for blocks.