The Mourning Mail (FINAL)

Chapter 46

After my flight landed back in San Diego, I spent the rest of the day catching up on forsaken odd chores and clearing my freelance work for the coming week. I was up bright and early the next day, a Thursday. At first, I struggled to get out of the motel bed and thought I might have overtaxed myself the day before. But once I was active, I felt closer to normal—until my ribs or thigh spoke up to curb my enthusiasm.

My first task was to repay Marci for letting me in on the tipline call that led to the interview with Mark Christensen. I left a message on her office line since this would be official business.

As I scanned my messages with my morning coffee, I saw a text from yet another unknown number. It read: "Fortune smiles on the brave. The OxyContin and cocaine they found were pure dumb luck. We had no information that the driver was dealing drugs on the side."

A link to another Union-Tribune online piece followed it, time-stamped yesterday afternoon. The article revealed that the alleged theft of weapons and ammunition from Strike Response's warehouse was insurance fraud, the entire thing staged. The 'missing' guns and ammo had never left the company's property and had been recovered. Police learned from an anonymous tipster that the weapons had been split up and secreted in the trunks of the company's fleet of vehicles.

In the passenger compartment of one of those, a 2022 Dodge Charger, officers also discovered twenty-five hundred OxyContin pills and a half kilo of cocaine with an estimated combined street value of approximately ninety thousand dollars. The operative to whom the vehicle had been assigned was arrested, and charges were pending. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) revealed that Strike Response had not registered several of the recovered weapons, and many had inaccurate or missing importation records. The agency also discovered illegal post-market automatic-firing modifications to those and other weapons.

More text followed the link to the news article. "We used a back channel to send SDPD our GPS tracking data for that Dodge. That data puts it right at the time and location down the street from where the truck driver struck the Uber and witnesses saw the Dodge picking him up. Our sources say the Dodge driver is singing the authorities an opera, dropping dimes on everyone. He's turning on anyone involved in the murder of the Uber driver and the cleanup after Julius Cantor's homicide. The operative claims Ainsworth did the neighbor. He's saying Strike Response handled the Pierce body dump at Seaver's request. However, the flipped witness claims the agency had no contact with Pierce's killers. And he says Strike Response operatives had nothing to do with the execution of Seaver's wife or moving her body.

"'It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.'"

Ahhh, Dietrich—the ending quote confirmed Harry as the sender. I'd been afraid that those pursuing Seaver and Ainsworth for their crimes might lose sight of Brian's and Antara's murders. With Harry's message, I felt an enormous weight lifting from my shoulders. I'd unwittingly put that Uber driver in harm's way, and while the guilt hadn't fully subsided, it was comforting to know that Antara would get justice.

And this article, too, had Doug Stein's byline. I forwarded Harry's message to Doug in case there was something in it that the reporter didn't know.

I knew what I wanted to do now that my health and pain tolerance had improved. It was long past time for me to run Seaver's girlfriend, Sheryl Jansen, and then Ricky Mason, to ground.

But before I could start on either task, Marci returned my earlier call.

"Hi, girlfriend, thanks for calling me back," I said as I picked up. "I wanted you to know that what you remembered from the Chicago tip bore fruit. The man who called is a material witness to the murder of Brian Pierce. I committed to protecting my source, but my companion at the time of my interview didn't, and he happens to be a retired Chicago police officer. His name is Dale Newsome. I texted you his contact information. He helped me locate the witness, so he knows everything I know."