An Unlawful Order (The Chase Anderson Series) (6 page)

The base chapel was on a hilltop with an enviable view of the Pacific and of the two dormant volcanoes of Mokapu. Mountains had always grounded her. She’d grown up in the rural side of western Virginia where the Blue Ridge parkway was her backyard, where she and her brother had trekked up and down steep, forested hills, forged streams, and built forts, pretending to be soldiers on secret
missions.

From this height above the Pacific, she could also make out the downtown skyline of Honolulu, even the tip of Diamond Head. Funny, she had never dreamed of visiting Hawaii, much less of living here. After living on the tiny island of Okinawa with Stone, despite its beauty, she’d found herself relieved to be on a more stable surface of the Earth, even if she and Stone had been assigned to Southern California where an occasional tremor reminded her otherwise.

Now in Hawaii, where Chase had been trying to remake a life with Stone and Molly after a year’s separation in the Middle East and until Stone’s second deployment, had she not lost her husband, she might have allowed herself to fall in love with Hawaii, with its enchanting beauty, folklore, and mystery.

Chase glanced at her watch and then back to Perimeter Road. North, Cruise, and Martinez should have arrived with the media. The plan had been to have the media leave their cars at the front gate and then transfer their equipment to the public affairs van that would be driven by North. Cruise and Martinez would use the sedans for any overrun of cameras and miscellaneous gear. Chase had arranged for a section to the rear of the chapel to be cordoned off for the media in an attempt to contain them from disturbing mourners.

She’d arrived at the chapel at the same time as the limousines bearing Major White’s and four other flag-draped caskets. The bodies of the other dead Marines, per family instructions, had been flown stateside for private services. The funeral guard, in dress
blues with white gloves, under whispers of commands, had carried the caskets up the chapel steps and to the altar. A few early folks, three men and two women, had even beaten Chase to the chapel. She studied the faces of the women. Would Major White’s other woman show up for his memorial service? Most likely not, since the woman had cared enough about the major to see that his dog tags were returned to his children. Chase suddenly felt a pang of guilt. Major White’s dog tags were at the bottom of her kitchen trashcan.

Outside, Marines and their families were gathering in groups around the parking lot and under the shady limbs of a banyan tree with roots that had protruded over and down the side of the cliff. Greetings were quiet handshakes and salutes. A few took their last
puffs from cigarettes. Junior Marines somberly saluted Chase before disappearing behind the chapel’s double doors that had been adorned with funeral wreaths. Soft organ music spilled into the parking lot each time the doors opened. Chase quietly saluted the tall Major Sims and several other senior officers as they approached. Colonel Figueredo was now walking up the steps beside squadron CO, Colonel Farris. She saluted both men.

Farris acknowledged, returning her salute, then disappeared into the chapel.

“Captain Anderson,” Figueredo said and pushed a hand toward her. “Not the best of circumstances for an introduction, but I’ll take it.”

She slipped her hand in his. He was smiling with teeth so perfectly straight and
white they could have won him a toothpaste or dental endorsement. Everything else about him was dark—his hair, his coloring, his eyes, even his past, so it would seem.

“A bit belated, but welcome to Hawaii, Colonel—”

“Fig,” he said abruptly. “Everybody calls me Fig.” She tried to withdraw her hand, but he tightened his grip.

She stared defiantly up at him, determined to insert a little sobriety into that mocking smile of his. “Did you actually know Major White, sir?”

“Not in the way your husband did—” She felt her mouth fly open, but before she could respond, he gave her hand a squeeze and disappeared behind the chapel doors. Her entire body was shaking over the
indescribable feeling of—how would she put it?— of having been exposed.

Her staff, with the media in tow, was finally pulling in the parking lot, but behind Hickman’s sedan. Fortunately, North led the group to parking spots in the remote section of the lot. She guessed North, too, had noticed that their arrival with the general wasn’t ideal. In fact, as Chase was making her way across the parking lot, she noticed by the red brake lights that North hadn’t yet shifted the van into park. Cruise and Martinez parked near the van, yet their doors also remained closed. They were stalling. Damn, they were good Marines, astute, always thinking.

Hickman exited his sedan. She had to admit he looked distinguished with his graying hair and the rows and rows of
colorful ribbons on his chest. She pitied him for whatever demons he lived with, but his disdain for women in the Marines was unacceptable. She saluted as he approached. Hickman returned the salute and gave her a half smile.

The second he disappeared inside the chapel, the car doors across the parking lot flew open as if on springs. Chase choked down a laugh as North jumped out and ran around to assist the reporters from the van. Cruise and Martinez were now opening their trunks, and reporters were pulling tripods, cameras, and camera bags from all three vehicles. They were halfway across the lot when four long black limousines bearing the families rolled to a gentle stop in front of the chapel. Chase feared the media might rush the cars for photographs, but they didn’t.
Instead, they walked as somberly past the limousines as Marines had been walking all morning toward the chapel. A few of the reporters darted looks toward the limousines, but most pretended not to notice at all. The closer they got to the limousines, the more the reporters fidgeted with notebooks or camera gear. Nothing like a funeral to bring out the civil side of people.

North was the first to salute. “Good morning,” Chase said to the group. “We’ve reserved an area for you with electrical support for your equipment.” She glanced at the limousines and felt a protective rush of relief that the families were still sequestered behind black glass. As she turned for the chapel, a gust of wind surprised her. She was mid-stride up the steps, reaching with one hand for the headgear that was slipping away
and losing her balance when Paul Shapiro from the
Honolulu Current
saved her from a fall. He grabbed her free arm and steadied her. “We’re going to have to nail you down, Captain Anderson.”

The double implication of his statement wasn’t lost on Chase, or maybe she was just feeling overly sensitive after the public attack from Hickman during the staff meeting. “Thanks, Paul,” she said, and straightened her cap before heading up the steps while North and Martinez sprinted ahead to open the double doors for her.

After the hymn
Eternal Father
, after the praise for Major White and the others by General Hickman, after the reassurance of God’s healing from the chaplain, after the funeral detail fired three volleys and the solo
bugler played
Taps
, and after the poignant flyover, Chase finally got a good look at Major White’s widow, Kitty. If it were true what they said about men having a type of woman they preferred, then Major White would have been the exception. Kitty was, at least physically, nothing like the woman who had shown up at the Public Affairs office. Where the mysterious woman was all dark hair and shadows, Kitty, though she was dressed head to toe in black, emanated light. She was fair-skinned and blond with the look of someone who had most likely been a cheerleader in college, the sort of preppy and together girl Chase used to envy. Kitty White was not an officer’s wife who would have left her home in jeans and a tank top.

Chase never lost sight of the woman,
tiny as she was, in a crowd that seemed to surround the widow while simultaneously providing her a respectful berth. Several women who Chase recognized as officers’ wives broke from the circle to embrace Kitty. There was Paige Abercrombie— the Martha-Stewart-perfect neighbor who lived next door to Chase and Molly. Her husband, Lieutenant Colonel Abercrombie, was the base ammo officer. Chase swept the parking lot for him, picked him out of a group of officers huddled in conversation outside of the circle that was slowly loosening its grip around the widow and her children. Just like men, Chase thought. They can plan wars and fight them but can’t manage a few words of condolence. Her eyes landed on the arrogant Figueredo who was matching cadence with Colonel
Farris until both men stopped for words with General Hickman.

Chase looked back to Paige, who was now reaching out with gloved hands to the widow: Paige with her sleek, shoulder-length hair and sleeveless black shift, Paige who resembled a modern version of Jacqueline Kennedy. Kitty reached for the gloved Paige and pulled the woman to her. The embrace, several seconds, hinted that the two women knew each other beyond the casual wives’ club meetings Chase never bothered to attend. When the two women pulled apart, Paige delicately stepping backward to the outer edge of the circle, it was Samantha Harold who was next to step forward. She lived with her husband and daughter on the other side of Chase and Molly. Another gust, as if fueling a brush fire, gave life to
Samantha’s prairie-inspired skirt, blousy top, and wild red hair. Samantha brushed the hair from her face and pushed her right hand toward Kitty, who cradled the handshake with two hands. Samantha relinquished all attempt at controlling her hair and cupped Kitty’s hands. For several seconds, the women remained locked in hands and words, oblivious to the cocooning of Samantha’s billowing skirt around the widow’s legs.

Chase had been encircled with these same expressions of grief after Stone’s death. She turned away from the scene, too consumed by the picture of grief. She’d taken her eyes off Paul Shapiro for less than two minutes and now he was AWOL from the group. Her eyes darted through the crowd. She found General Hickman talking with
Colonel Farris, and she exhaled.

North was with the reporter from the Associated Press, Cruise was with two television crews, and Martinez was with a reporter from CNN. But where was Shapiro? She willed herself to walk calmly through the crowd, willed herself to suppress the rising hysteria that was reminding her of the time she and Stone had nearly lost Molly at King’s Dominion in Virginia. Molly had wandered off toward a koi pond while Chase and Stone were fishing for money to pay for shaved ice cones.

Her eyes finally landed on Paul Shapiro. He was standing under the banyan tree across the parking lot, though he was not alone, and she panicked to think who he had sequestered for one of his man-on-the-street
interviews. She was heading in his direction when she felt a soft touch on her arm. She turned and came face to face with Kitty White, this time the real Kitty White, whose blue eyes were forming pools large enough to drown both of them. A speechless Chase could only stare.

“I’m sorry,” Kitty White said. Her voice had the warmth and richness of a woodwind, an oboe. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Chase extended a hand, rather reluctantly, into the widow’s soft warm flesh, as if the handshake might be a conduit for transferring Kitty’s recent bad fortune upon Chase, and she’d had all she could handle. Molly was all she had left, and God help her if anything ever happened to Molly. “Please don’t apologize,” Chase said, slipping free her hand the second she thought it acceptable. “I
hope the media haven’t been too intrusive.”

Kitty let her newly freed hand rest upon the purse strap that was draped over a forearm. “No, they’ve been fine, which is what I wanted to tell you. Thank you for—everything you’ve done.” There was an unmistakable emphasis on that word,
everything
, that sent Chase’s mind into a flashback of throwing away the dog tags belonging to Kitty’s husband.

“You’re welcome,” Chase managed to mutter. “And—I’m so sorry about your loss.” She was a Public Affairs officer, and this was the best she could offer?

The woman’s eyes, rimmed with the longest lashes Chase had ever seen, fluttered quickly until tears trickled over the rims and down her cheeks. “Oh no,” Kitty said,
reaching inside her purse for a tissue. “The dam is breaking. I promised myself I wasn’t going to do this, not here—”

“I’m sorry to say I know what you’re going through.”

“Of course you do,” Kitty said. “Tony and Stone flew a lot of missions together. All this time, and this is how we finally meet. Hysterical, isn’t it?”

Chase sensed the reprimand, the insinuation that it was her fault she remained outside the circle of wives’ club activities that included teas and bridge and emotional support. But Chase’s identity wasn’t wrapped up in being an officer’s wife. “I suppose we’re all a little guilty of taking too much for granted.” And then, remembering Major White’s mistress, immediately regretted the
comeback.

A woman who was holding a hand of each of Kitty’s two children approached and stopped short of interrupting. Kitty turned from Chase to her children.

To reach Paul Shapiro, who was still chatting away under the banyan tree, Chase decided she’d have to sidestep the crowd as far right as she could to keep from being noticed by Hickman, who seemed, for once, to be doing all the listening in the conversation with Farris and Colonel Figueredo. Oddly, Figueredo appeared to be doing all the talking. From the way Hickman continued to glance out toward the ocean instead of directly at Figueredo, and from the way Hickman would begin to place his hands on his hips, then cross and uncross them over
his chest, Chase had the impression the conversation was much terser than any of the three men was willing to give away in public. At any rate, Hickman was too preoccupied to notice Chase.

She was twenty yards or so away from Paul Shapiro and still couldn’t make out the conversation he was having, thanks to the uncooperative direction of the breeze. He was practically head-to-head with a woman in a black-and-white bold print dress and wide black hat that the woman was forced to clutch to her head from time to time. At least she wasn’t a Marine he’d be quoting on tomorrow’s front page.