An Unlawful Order (The Chase Anderson Series) (28 page)

She glared up at him. “Leave. Get out.”

Chase locked the sliding glass door as quickly as she could, and grabbing the cordless phone, dialed the only person on Oahu she could trust—Sergeant North—and in less than ten minutes, North was knocking at her front door. They sat up most of that night, in the living room, drinking coffee, and speaking in low tones so as not to disturb Molly. When she came to the part about Figueredo’s aggressiveness, she knew to soften the story for North’s behalf; she knew her sergeant, knew North would have searched the BOQ (Bachelor Officer Quarters), room-by-room until he located the colonel, and then North would have thrown away his entire military career for her.

But North surprised her with news of his own. He’d gone back to the lance corporal who had once been an 81 mechanic with 464, and this time, sober, the lance corporal revealed he’d actually known Major Anderson in Afghanistan two years earlier. “Pardon the expression, ma’am,” North said, “but he called your husband an asshole when it came to maintenance. He said that after your husband’s crash, the first one, he’d established even tighter regs, and rode the mechanics pretty hard.”

She leaned back into the sofa, grabbed one of the loose pillows, and hugged it to her chest. “Stone always felt so responsible for everyone,” she said. “I can imagine that after he’d lost Mouse and Hammer in that first crash, he did come down hard. He would have blamed himself, though, before anyone else.” She reached behind her, lifted one of the slats to the blinds, and peered outside. Under a streetlamp two houses away was tall Major Sims with his yellow lab on a leash. A little late for a walk, she’d remember thinking later, much later, but for now her mind was on Stone, and she dropped the slat. “You know, North,” she said, “I think Figueredo’s lying about Stone following an unlawful order. The Stone I know—the Stone your lance corporal knew in Afghanistan— would never have taken any action that could have put another Marine in danger.”

North nodded. “I agree, ma’am. Isn’t it possible Figueredo has gotten himself involved in this mess? He seems joined at the hip with General Hickman and Colonel Farris.”

Chase recalled the way the men had looked with each other after White’s memorial service a few days before and even earlier in the day at the Marine Corps Ball ceremony practice.

North leaned over and poked a finger into the pillow on her lap. “I know that look, ma’am. What are you thinking?”

She tossed him the pillow. “I’m thinking we do what I believe Stone was trying to do all along, before his deployment. We do what Stone would want me to do right now.”

North’s eyebrows lifted. “And, that would be…?”

She glanced down at her wide wedding band of white gold and was suddenly stoic while she considered the career risks for both her and North. General Hickman was falling short of ever pinning on a second star, but he still had enough power to bury her. “North, I need you to let me take the lead on this one,” she said. “You keep things running in the office as if nothing’s changed, got that?”

“Okay, ma’am, but can’t I do more?”

“You’re here when I needed you, and I thank you for that. And being here tonight has helped me decide on a course of action.” She extended a hand for his empty coffee cup, and unfolding herself from the sofa, rose to her feet. Her right leg that she’d had tucked underneath her had fallen asleep, and she nearly wrenched her ankle and dropped the coffee cup when she placed her full weight on the foot. North jumped from the sofa to steady her.

He took the cup from her, and holding onto his arm, she tested her sleepy foot by easing her weight onto it. Her toes painfully tingled with the return of circulation.

“Ma’am,” North said, when she turned for the kitchen, “what are you going to do?”

“Probably best you don’t know,” she said, and added, “for now.”

CHAPTER 16

W
hen the alarm clock sounded, Chase awakened, cold. Sleepy and instinctively, she ran her hand over Stone’s even colder side of the bed. When she stretched her arms overhead, outside of the covers, she paused to stare a moment at her wedding ring. She’d stopped wearing her engagement ring shortly after their marriage. It was too uncomfortable, the prongs often snagged her clothing, and besides, in her mind anyway, a large diamond in a princess cut looked fine on the hand of an officer’s wife, but it looked ridiculous on a woman who was not only trained for combat but who had helped fight a war. Stone, if he’d even noticed, had never mentioned the engagement ring tucked into a velvet compartment of her jewelry box that held little more than her favorite pairs of earrings—pearls and gold studs and her favorite silver hoops.

When she thought of the plan she was going to put into action against Figueredo, Farris, and Hickman that day, and the fact that North, who had slept over on the sofa, had to sneak out undetected by her neighbors, she threw off the covers and leapt from the bed. Down the hall, Molly was still asleep, half under her blanket, her tiny legs exposed and cold. It was Halloween, and Molly’s grass skirt was hanging on the knob of a louvered closet door. Chase sighed. There was just too much going on to think about trick-or-treating, but she’d somehow have to get through it. Whatever was going on wasn’t Molly’s fault, and besides, Chase needed to maintain as normal an exterior life as possible for another few days. If her plan worked and Paul Shapiro came through as she hoped, all of this would soon be over.

Chase tucked the blanket around her daughter and followed her nose toward the smell of coffee.

North was standing in the middle of the living room, folding the last of her linens. “Heard your alarm. Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m almost out of here.”

She peered between the blinds. The street at 0445 was still empty, but in another half hour, it would be teeming with life. “Sleep okay?” he asked, placing the pile of pillows and linens into her arms.

She grinned. “Sure. All two and a half hours.

He’d been gone about fifteen minutes when she heard a strange buzzing. She looked around the kitchen for the sound before it occurred to her that it was coming from her cell phone, which she’d left on vibrate mode on the living room foyer table. She missed the call from Paul Shapiro, but he’d left a voice mail to say he had news.

Well, so did she.

Since it was her turn at morning carpool, she waited by the rental car while Molly rang the doorbell next door for Sara. Samantha in a robe, her red hair like a wildly burning bush, waved as Erin ran over. All three girls climbed into the rental car, chattering about the Halloween costumes they’d wear that night. As they approached Major Sims’ house, Chase noticed his two sons standing in the driveway by the front of their SUV, the hood raised. Chase slowed and lowered the passenger window. “Car trouble?” The boys answered yes, and Major Sims’ tall frame suddenly loomed above the raised hood.

“Morning,” he called with a hint of Irish.

“Not a good one, I see.”

He was dressed in his cammies and boots and loped down the driveway toward her, wiping his hands with a rag. “Your Jeep still in the shop, Skipper?”

Chase was about to correct him, to remind him the Jeep had been impounded by the Honolulu Police as they determined whether or not her brakes had been cut, but she caught herself. She wasn’t sure why, but something instinctual rose up to silence her. Not a good idea to give the major any news that could be forwarded to General Hickman. Of course, Figueredo knew, and since she was certain he was somehow much more involved in all this than he wanted her to know, the chances were good that Hickman knew already. Still, she’d keep to herself everything she could.

So she answered, “Afraid so, sir. Probably another week.”

He smiled at her passengers in the back seat. “Don’t suppose you’ve got room for two more?”

Three little girls groaned in unison at the thought of a boy invasion. Over her shoulder, Chase shot them a warning glance.

“Sure. No problem, sir.”

Sims waved his boys down the drive. They moped down the sidewalk toward the car, as unhappy as the girls about co-ed carpooling. Sims yanked open the car’s side door, and the boys tossed in their book bags and climbed in. Chase instructed Sara and Erin in the back seat to lengthen their seat belts to accommodate two more. The boys groaned.
Give them a few years,
she thought.

Sims closed the door and leaned in through the open passenger window.

“Can’t thank you enough. Their mother’s under the weather this morning, and I want to leave the car for her in case she decides to go to the doctor, but now my car won’t start …”

“Typical,” she said, smiling.

“You boys had better behave Mrs.—I mean,
Captain
Anderson,” He grinned at Chase.

From the back of the car, “Yes, sir.”

Before driving off, Chase asked, “Would you like me to call our mechanic for you? He’s someone Stone used to trust.”

“Thanks anyway,” he said, “but I’ll be able to fix her myself. Tinkering on cars is a hobby of mine.”

“Really?” But of course. How many times had she passed the Sims’ home to see the major bent over the hood or under one of his cars?

First to arrive at the Public Affairs Office, she unlocked the front glass door and sprinted up the stairs. She closed her office door and dialed Shapiro’s cell phone number.

“Thanks for calling Okamoto yesterday,” she began.

“We’ve been friends for years.”

“What are you doing in DC?”

“Right now? Searching for the earliest flight out of here.”

“I talked to O'Donnell yesterday.” She wished she could see the reaction on his face. Surely he was surprised his mystery source had contacted her directly.

“Who?”

“O'Donnell … the …” and then she realized she probably shouldn’t have revealed O’Donnell’s true identity. Perhaps he’d given Shapiro the name Jimmie Arnold. “You go first,” she blurted. “Tell me everything about Sunday night.”

But before Shapiro could even start, her office door was pushed open by an apologetic Sergeant North. “A Detective Okamoto insists on talking to you, ma’am. Line two.”

Chase had asked Shapiro to hold, and now she found herself holding for Okamoto and being forced to listen to a taped community service announcement about Halloween safety. She glanced down at the phone. A blinking light indicated Shapiro was still holding. She tried to imagine him in a rental car, somewhere in a DC parking lot, a cell phone pressed to his ear.

She was about to hang up on Okamoto when he finally picked up.

“Is this about my Jeep? I have another call waiting.”

Okamoto said, “I’ve just received a report from our mechanics. When do you think you could meet with me today?”

“Meet with you? Today? Couldn’t you just explain the report over the phone, and release my Jeep?”

“I’d prefer to talk in person. And I’d prefer we not talk anywhere on the base.”

Chase glanced at her watch. It was 0815. “I’m not sure I can even leave the base until lunch.”

“Noon, then?”

She glanced at the telephone. Line one was no longer blinking. Paul Shapiro was gone.

Chase failed to reach Shapiro, other than through his voice mail. She tried again and again. Finally, on the fourth attempt, he answered.

“Can you talk?”

“Sure. I’m in the hotel restaurant. Just ordered dinner …” She instinctively glanced at the clock on her desk and added six hours.

“I should have called you from my cell phone,” she said and told him about the appointment downtown with Okamoto.

“What did he say about your Jeep brakes?”

“He won’t tell me over the phone. Now, fill me in first about what happened Sunday night.

“Nothing. The guy never showed. There was no VIP pass.”

“What?”

“There was an envelope with my name on it, though. Had
Public Affairs
written in black marker in the return corner.”

Why, she wondered, would Major O’Donnell, aka Jimmie Arnold, have done that? “I know what you’re thinking, Paul … I had nothing to do with that.”

“I figured as much. You may need to start considering that someone may be out to frame you, Captain Anderson. Either that or they’re just trying to throw off suspicion for why a reporter would show up to the gate.”

Her mind was reeling with the possibilities, most of which circled back to Figueredo, and now, O’Donnell. “What was inside?”

“Two maintenance records, dated the same day—the week before White’s crash.” Chase mentally guessed what was coming next. “An original showing White’s hard landing and the same record—all other events being equal—without one word of White’s incident.”

“But what are you doing in DC?” She’d started collecting her keys and her purse after noticing the time.

“My editor pulled me into his office first thing yesterday morning. Told me I was to get on the next plane here to interview the first Hawaiian soldier back from Iraq who’s getting a prosthesis tomorrow at Bethesda. I fought it, but the editor said I needed to get away for a few days … Melanie’s death and all. The more I protested, the madder he got. So, I thought while I was here …”

Chase took a deep breath and exhaled. Had Shapiro’s editor known what his reporter was about to uncover, Washington, DC would have been the last place he’d have sent Shapiro. So, Shapiro was on the up-and-up about this being more about his solving the mystery surrounding his sister’s death than about gaining glory from a high-profile story—and no doubt about it, this was going to be a high-profile story.

She took another deep breath, trying to slow her racing heartbeat. What she was about to do would either one day be viewed as the bravest move or stupidest move she’d ever made. She preferred to think of it as selfless: a metaphorical jump on a grade to save her fellow Marines. If Hickman, Farris, and Figueredo—maybe even O’Donnell—were out for themselves, and this involved framing Stone for false maintenance reporting, then she couldn’t see how she had any choice.

“Paul, what I’m about to tell you, what I’m about to recommend, if it’s discovered I helped you, it could end my career …” Was there really no other way? She thought of all the bullshit she’d put up with over the past year and a half with Hickman. And then she unloaded everything she knew, courtesy of Colonel Figueredo and O’Donnell— even from North’s talk with the former 81 mechanic—to Shapiro. She purposefully omitted Figueredo’s sexual advances, but was talking so fast as she spilled the details of all she knew and all she suspected that she occasionally had to pause to catch her breath. Shapiro was so quiet that several times she had to stop and ask, “Are you still there?” thinking the cell call on his end had been dropped. Each time, Shapiro encouraged her to continue, and at some point, she realized he was taking notes. Not once did he ask her to slow down or repeat herself, nor did he offer any surprise over the discovery of his sister’s affair with Colonel Figueredo. Chase talked and Shapiro listened. “Get to a computer,” she said, “and search 81 crashes. Jot down about twenty separate incidents—Navy and Marine Corps—that go back over the last ten years.”