An Unlawful Order (The Chase Anderson Series) (9 page)

Instead of the picnic table in the open-air side where she, Stone, and Molly had sat almost a year ago, Chase opted for a booth near the front that would provide her a side view of the front door. The woman set menus and utensils on the table. “Something to drink while you wait?”

“Unsweetened iced tea, please.” Chase let her gaze wander back to the picnic table, where she was trying to picture her old
self—happily reunited with her family, so hopeful, so utterly unsuspecting of the sadness and emptiness that lay ahead for her.

The front door squeaked opened, and Paul Shapiro entered. He halted a few feet inside the restaurant and rubbed his eyes as if he were having trouble readjusting from the brightness of the outside world. “Paul,” Chase called out, “over here.”

He seemed even taller and thinner than usual. Paul Shapiro, in his short-sleeved Tommy Bahama-style shirt and khaki trousers, seemed gaunt and unhealthy. He slumped against the booth and pushed the menu aside. “I can’t believe you came in uniform.”

Chase was forming a comeback when he held up a hand. The waitress had returned
with Chase’s tea. “Something to drink?”

“A Coke.” When the woman was out of earshot, he said, “And you picked a table near the front door?”

Now Chase was growing angry. She grabbed two packets of an artificial sweetener, ripped them open, and poured them in her glass. “I didn’t come here this afternoon to play CIA bullshit with you—”

The waitress was back with a Coke. “The special of the day is ahi, cooked—”

“We’re fine,” he interrupted.

The waitress glared from Shapiro to Chase, who tried to muster a sympathetic thank-you-anyway smile. The woman walked back to the counter and to her magazine.

“C’mon,” he said, grabbing his Coke and whispering, “let’s at least move back a
few booths from earshot range.” He stood without waiting for Chase’s response. She didn’t feel like moving. In fact, the only thing she felt like doing was paying the tab for her iced tea and driving back to pick up Molly from the aftercare. Shapiro stopped at the booth in the far corner of the room. He turned to face her. Worry turned to agitation when he realized she wasn’t directly behind him. He set his Coke on the table and slid into the booth.

Chase looked over at the young woman behind the front counter. “We’re going to move back a few,” she called out.

The woman did not look up. “Suit yourself.”

At this booth, only one person had a view of the front door. Chase would have preferred to face the door, but Shapiro
slipped in so quickly she hadn’t a chance. Stone would have done the same thing, insisting on facing the door. He knew Chase hated her back to the door as much as he did, and he would only occasionally give in. She could no longer dismiss that they both had issues when it came to their fears of vulnerability. But what were Shapiro’s issues? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She slid across the cold vinyl bench of the booth. “Okay, Paul, what’s this about?”

He tore off several napkins, placing one under his drink and handing the others to her. “What can you tell me about plans to ground the 81s?”

Chase rolled her eyes. “Paul—”

“No, listen,” he said, leaning across the table. “This is important, and off the record.”
She must have signaled a look of skepticism. “I
swear
, Captain Anderson, this is off the record.”

She leaned across the table. “Off the record?”

He leaned closer. “Off the record.”

“Relax,” she said, leaning back, trying to suppress a grin, but honestly these Deep Throat antics had gone far enough. “Off the record is the same as on the record, and so is my comment. We have no plans, according to headquarters Marine Corps in Washington, to ground the fleet. The recent accident, though tragic and unfortunate, is under military investigation, and—”

“Look,” he lowered his voice and pointed a finger at her, “there’s a lot going down Captain
Public Affairs
, and you’re going to walk right into a blow-up if you don’t wake
up.”

For the first time, his tone carried a note of dread and alarm that caused a shiver to run down her back. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about, Paul.”

He leaned back and glanced around the corner of the booth over her shoulder at the front of the restaurant, staring, until Chase was compelled to look over her shoulder. The woman at the counter was on the telephone. When she made eye contact with her staring audience, she turned her back. Shapiro leaned across the table and waited for Chase to reciprocate. She did, thinking how ridiculous this would look to a stranger, let alone to someone like Figueredo or Hickman. How would she explain this look of coziness to anyone she knew?

“I don’t believe Major White’s death
was an accident any more than I believe Melanie committed suicide.”

“Forget Melanie Appleton for now,” Chase said. “You think the crash that killed White and eighteen other Marines was deliberate? That’s crazy talk, Paul.”

“The service contract for the 81 is under review, right?” Chase nodded. “What happens if National AeroStar doesn’t get the additional contracts?”

Chase was growing cautious. She’d learned a long time ago that her internal voice was most often right, even though she didn’t always follow it, but this time the voice inside her was alarmingly clear, urging her to watch her words to this reporter. “What do
you
think will happen?”

Shapiro glanced toward the front of the
restaurant and back. “Not only will National AeroStar lose the contracts for the new 81s, like the new minesweeper, and thanks to the war it’s the most in demand, but an investigation could cause a look at other contractors. God knows the Osprey’s in trouble.” The Osprey, jointly manufactured by Bell and Boeing for twenty-five years, was the Corps’s boast of a revolutionary aircraft that could lift and land like a helicopter and once in flight, maneuver like a plane. There had been glitches since the first model. Already the new prototype had computer chip problems. Several had crashed. Marines had been killed. Still, the birds were rolling off the assembly line and directly into the line of fire. Chase knew from Stone’s complaints more than a year ago that word of the clash between design and
function had spread among pilots, eroding confidence.

“But Paul, what does any of this have to do with Major White’s crash or Melanie Appleton’s suicide?”

Shapiro leaned over the table. “Did you know Tony White had a hard landing in an 81 just weeks before his crash?”

“If that were true, my office would have been notified.”

“Unless someone didn’t want you to know. You’d have recommended a release, right?” What—he was testing her now?

“It’s kind of hard to keep something like that under wraps, Paul. We have set procedures.” She was thinking about Stone’s former role in the squadron and about how his job included reporting hard landings to headquarters, even to her office.

“White tried to complain. He even threatened to notify the Pentagon about the swash plate duplex bearing.”

Chase leaned back, sipped her tea, and set the glass on the table. “Who’s telling you this?”

Shapiro glanced around her again to the front of the restaurant. When his eyes darted around the room, Chase turned to see that they were still alone. The young woman had disappeared, probably into the kitchen. “Look, this is silly, Paul. What do you want from me?”

“
Silly?
People are dead and you call this silly?”

Chase decided to use Molly as an excuse. “I have to pick up my daughter,” she said, tapping her watch. “You still haven’t
answered me. As the Public Affairs officer, what can I do for you? Do you want info on the 81, the Osprey? I’ll have North send it to you.”

Chase heard the shuffle of footsteps behind her. The young woman had returned. “Would you like a refill?” she asked of Chase, refusing to look at Shapiro.

“No, thanks,” Chase said, “we’re leaving.” When the woman walked away, Chase grabbed her things and slid from the booth.

“Captain Anderson,” Shapiro said, “be careful.”

Chase’s first reaction was to take the comment as a threat. She bristled until she read the actual worry within the lines of Shapiro’s tired face, maybe even fear. “You too, Paul.”

When she started for the door, he said, “I don’t think Melanie Appleton’s death was a suicide.”

“Why?” Chase pulled three dollars from her wallet and set them on the table.

“I knew her too well.”

“I thought you two looked a bit chummy at Major White’s memorial service yesterday.” When Paul buried his face in his hands, Chase felt a flood of remorse, and sank back into the booth. “I’m sorry, Paul. I’m being insensitive. She was a good friend?”

He nodded and leaned back. Chase’s path crossed Paul Shapiro’s three or four times a month, and she’d never seen him look like this. Haggard. His clothes were too wrinkled for a single day’s worth of wearing. He had the puffy look of someone who had not slept well in a long time. He took a long
swallow of Coke before speaking. “Melanie Appleton,” he said, “was my twin sister.”

Chase sat in a sort of memorial silence. Yes, of course. Now she could see the family resemblance. Paul was much taller than Melanie, but they shared the same thin build and the same doe-brown hooded eyes that to Chase appeared on the perpetual edge of giving in to life’s exhaustive choices. She would have guessed Shapiro, though, with his receding hairline, to be years older than his sister. Chase mentally pictured brother and sister together as they had been just the morning before at White’s memorial service. No wonder Melanie Appleton tried to run when she saw Chase approaching them. She was grieving and must have been terribly
uncomfortable with the idea of possible reproach in front of her brother.

“Paul,” she said, “I’m sorry. I had no idea. The different last names—”

His eyes were forming into large brown pools. “She was married once. Didn’t last long. Her patients knew her as Appleton, so she kept it.” He tore off another napkin and wiped his eyes.

“She must have taken White’s death hard.”

“Yeah, she did, but I’m telling you, Captain Anderson, Melanie would never have committed suicide. Even if she had, she wouldn’t have done it … that way … without leaving a note.”

Chase recalled the article about Melanie’s death. The woman’s body had been
recovered by EMTs from a lookout summit on the windward side of Diamond Head. During their first month on Oahu, Chase and Stone had taken Molly to Diamond Head. Molly was as determined as Chase had ever known her daughter to be to reach the top. In the end, Stone had placed her on his shoulders for a good part of the hike up and down. And later, they’d stopped at one of the lookout points to take in the view. Chase had insisted on holding Molly’s hand.

Chase checked the time. If she left that minute, she could still make it early enough to ensure Molly wouldn’t be the last child picked up.

“I’ve got to go, Paul,” she said. “Have to pick up my daughter. Do you have kids?” He shook his head.

Chase glanced over her shoulder at the front counter. The woman was wiping fingerprints from the front glass door. “You probably know this—Melanie came to my office the day of White’s crash.”

“She did?” His mood suddenly transformed from grief to suspicion.

Chase nodding. “I thought she was Kitty White when she showed up that morning.” She hesitated about telling him she’d recognized his sister from the photograph White had in his cockpit. “She gave me Major White’s dog tags.”

He looked confused. “That’s impossible—”

Chase stood to leave. “I assure you it’s not. I figured White must have left his dog tags behind by mistake.” There was another
pang of guilt over throwing them away. By now, they were in the city landfill.

“But you didn’t take the dog tags—” he said.

“She didn’t give me much choice. She shoved them in my hand and ran off.”

He looked as if he were struggling to complete a puzzle.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, suppressing the urge to sink back into the booth now that she was standing and holding her ground for escape.

“Well, there’s something I managed to keep out of the newspaper this morning, and now I’m confused.”

“What?”

“When they found Melanie? Major White’s dog tags were around her neck.” He
reached into his trousers pocket and laid White’s dog tags on the table.

CHAPTER 7

C
hase downshifted through a curve and stepped hard on the gas as she made her way back down the steep H-3 and over to the Likelike Highway to pick up Molly. She was too numb this time to appreciate the lush landscaping, the glimpses of ocean that glimmered like shards of glass. In fact, for a few minutes after learning that Major White’s dog tags had been found with Melanie Appleton, she had been too numb to leave
the restaurant. Shapiro must have read her shock, must have suspected she knew more than she was telling, for he had pressed her about when she had last seen Melanie.

“I need your help in constructing a timeline,” he’d said. “Melanie gave you the dog tags Saturday after she learned of the crash—when did you give them back?”

Chase had only been able to muster, “I didn’t see her, Paul. I never gave the dog tags back to her. Maybe White had more than one set.” She knew better, though. Marines got issued one set, period.

Paul Shapiro called her on it. “You think I’m an idiot? Please don’t treat me like I’m an idiot. If you didn’t give them back to her, then who did?” Her mind replayed the
scene of scrounging through the trash the night before. “Who else knew you had them?”

All Chase wanted was to get away from Shapiro. She needed to be alone to think about what all this meant, and so Molly was once again an excuse to flee The Hungry Fisherman. “My daughter’s waiting for me.” The weight of her thoughts had transferred to her body, and she’d found it difficult to move toward the door. She heard Shapiro’s heavy footsteps behind her.

When Chase pushed open the front door, he called out, “Wait, I have to know—you can’t just walk out like this.” To an outsider, she and Shapiro must have appeared as lovers who had been forced to rendezvous in a back booth of a hideaway restaurant. Any other time, while wearing a
military uniform, Chase would have been concerned about this image. Not today. She only wanted to reach her car and slam the door on Paul Shapiro so that she could be alone with her thoughts.