Mortal Allies (33 page)

“I’m career Army, Tommy. I’m pushing truth, justice, the American way. I’m opposed to bending the rules or trying to beat the system. I don’t judge-bait. I don’t play games. If you’re innocent, we try to prove that. If the prosecution makes a procedural mistake, that’s fair game. We’ve got the best and fairest legal system in the world. You pay your nickel, you take your ride. Don’t try to cheat the turnstile.”

“Let me see if I have this right. She’ll sell me upriver if I harm the movement, and you’ll sell me upriver if I threaten your principles?”

“No, Tommy. Nobody’s selling you upriver. But just like all judges are predisposed, so are us lawyers. There’s one other thing I have to warn you about, too. Katherine’s emotionally entangled in your case. She’s taking it personally. Don’t take that as a good thing, either. Lawyers are supposed to operate from cold hard logic.”

Tommy stood up and began pacing his cell. Given the size of the room, he could only go three steps this way, three steps that way. But even in such a compressed space, he still moved like a caged panther, sleek and muscular, with long, graceful strides.

“So I’ve got one lawyer who’d do anything to win and one who’s afraid to step on cracks. I’ve got one who’s emoting and one who could care less about me. I’ve got one who’s a fanatic for the gay cause and one who hates gays.”

I didn’t want to admit this was a fair summary, but it was damned close. Except for that last crack, anyway.

“Tommy,” I said, “I don’t hate gays.”

“Don’t kid yourself. We gay people, we can smell homophobia. It’s got a real nasty odor.”

“I’m not a homophobe, Tommy. I’ll admit it makes me uncomfortable, but that’s as far as it goes.”

“Okay,” he said, not like it was really okay, not like I was telling the truth; more like he wasn’t willing to argue about it. “So I make you uncomfortable.”

“Look,” I said, “it’s no big thing. Christ, my own mother makes me uncomfortable. Combat boots on a hot day make me uncomfortable.”

“But you don’t think your mother or your combat boots murdered and then raped somebody.”

“No, you’re right,” I told him. “But I don’t think you did, either. And that’s the thing that makes me most uncomfortable.”

He stopped dead in his tracks. He turned and stared at me. “You believe I’m innocent?”

“I didn’t say innocent, Tommy. You’re an officer who was having an affair with an enlisted soldier. And it happened to be a gay affair. I said I don’t think you killed and raped him.”

“Okay, why?”

“Call it instinct. I mean, every piece of evidence screams it was you, except one.”

“And what would that be?”

“You.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you don’t fit the crime. Because you’re too smart to have let it go down the way it did. Because I think you’re probably a pretty decent guy. Because the key in No’s possession proves you were lovers, and maybe, if you’re telling the truth about that, you’re telling the truth about everything.”

“Then what do you think happened?”

“I haven’t got a clue. But Katherine was right about one thing.”

He chuckled at that, which was the last thing I expected him to do. “And what could Katherine possibly be right about?”

“You were framed. You were set up. Not by a rookie, either.”

I
heard the church bells pealing over the pounding on my door. I peeked angrily at the clock: 5:15 A.M., Sunday morning. If I had a pistol I would’ve shot the bastard at the door. I’d fallen asleep only two hours before, because there’s nothing I hate more than an innocent client who hasn’t got a chance in hell of winning.

I threw on my pants and, since one punch in the nose was already one over my weekly allotment, cautiously spied through the peephole till I saw the top of Imelda’s head. In case I haven’t mentioned it, Imelda’s only five foot one and maybe 140 pounds, although a hell of a lot of cordite is packed inside that tiny shell.

When I opened the door, she stomped in without asking. Another damned thing about Imelda: She thinks she owns the world. Somebody, someday, ought to disabuse her of that notion. It certainly won’t be me, though.

“Okay,” she spat out by way of introduction, “Keith Merritt.”

“Right. Keith Merritt.”

“This guy ain’t named Keith Merritt.”

Having already ably established that verity myself, I said, “Right. Keith Merritt is not the name of the guy in the hospital bed.”

“Passport’s phony, too.”

“His passport’s phony, too,” I repeated. Now, how the hell did she know that?

“I checked at the embassy. There’s a Keith Merritt with that passport number, only he’s a lawyer down somewheres in Florida,” she quickly added, accurately reading my thoughts, as she usually did, which I found incredibly disarming.

“So who’s this guy?”

“Nothin’ too hard ’bout that.”

“No?”

“Boy’s got fingerprints, don’t he? Fingerprints can be checked, can’t they?”

“Of course,” I said. “And have you done that?”

“ ’Course I’ve done that. The man’s in a coma; what’s so hard? Go into his room, roll his finger in ink a few times. Not like he noticed. Only hard thing was getting a friend in CID to run the check.”

“So who’s this guy calling himself Keith Merritt?” I asked again, playing along, but of course I knew what she was up to. It was the old sergeant’s trick of making me go through a lengthy disposition to find out exactly how clever and resourceful she was, how many strings she had had to pull. That way I wouldn’t get any dumb ideas, like maybe I didn’t need her or something idiotic like that.

“Name’s Frederick Melborne.”

“Uh-huh.”

“As in Melborne and Associates.”

“This is not a brokerage house I take it?”

“You take that right,” she frostily announced. “It’s a private detective agency in Alexandria, Virginia.”

“So he’s a PI?”

She drew in her chin and stared down her nose at me. “Well he probably ain’t the receptionist.”

It struck me the reason she was busting my balls might be because she was still sore about this gay thing. I’m very perceptive that way.

“And does Melborne have a license?”

“ ’Course he’s gotta license,” she barked, withdrawing a slip of paper from her pocket and reading from it. “Number AL223-987 issued by the state of Virginia in the year 1995.”

“So he’s real.”

“Ex-Army, too. Used to be a lieutenant in the MPs. Penn State, ROTC grad, three years at Fort Benning, got out and went into private business. Should know his way around.”

“Imelda, you do very impressive work,” I said, offering her my most suave grin. I was trying my utmost to mend whatever little problem we were having here. That suave-grin thing works wonders for Eddie Golden, right? Why can’t it work for me?

“I’m not done,” she grimly replied, stubbornly oblivious to my charms. “Melborne got here before Miss Carlson even. Two weeks before.”

“Interesting. Do we know what was he snooping around for?”

“ ’Course we know,” she announced like it was the stupidest question in the world. “Some friends say he was askin’ around about where gays go to party, that kinda thing.”

“So it looks like he was either out for a little fun or he was trying to infiltrate the local gay community?”

“Ain’t that what I said?”

“Why would he be doing that?”

She blew some air through her lips. “Want me to go back there and ask him that? He’s in a coma. Not like he’ll answer.”

I went over and sat on the edge of the bed as Imelda studied me from behind her tiny glasses.

What I wanted to say was, “See, Imelda, just like I told you. That bitch Katherine’s been sandbagging me, uh, you . . . uh, us.” That’s what I wanted to say. But she was tapping her hand on the side of her leg in a pent-up way, so I controlled myself.

What I said instead was, “I’ll tell you what I think. OGMM hired Melborne and gave him the names of some local gays so he could come over here and infiltrate the local rings. Katherine was using him to run discreet background checks on Lee, Moran, and Jackson.”

“Might be that,” Imelda noncommittally replied.

“And I think Melborne found something, or got close to finding something.”

Imelda indifferently said, “Maybe.”

“So who used him to buff the front of that car? Some gays who got bent out of shape that he was looking into their affairs? Some fanatical antigay group that decided to make an example of him? Or somebody else?”

Imelda was still tapping the side of her leg. I could tell by her expression I wasn’t getting her full cooperation here.

It was starting to distract me, so I said, “You got something you want to say?”

She lowered her glasses down the bridge of her nose, an apocalyptic sign, like a battleship raising its colors to signal it’s ready for combat.

“You sure you wanta hear it?”

I wasn’t, but I’d brought it up, so I said, “Sure.”

“What I think is you and Miss Carlson oughta have your sorry asses kicked. That’s what I think.”

“Huh?”

“You oughta be ashamed of yourselves. Playin’ all these games with each other, while you got a man facing the executioner. How’d you like to be that boy? How’d you like to see the two lawyers who’re supposed to be savin’ your ass running about pissin’ on each other’s backsides?”

Now, I could’ve told Imelda she was exaggerating, only that’d be splitting hairs. Or I could’ve tried telling her this was all Katherine’s fault — which, believe me, it was — except Imelda Pepperfield was a throwback to the old Army. And in the old Army, there were only two colors, black and white, and any attempt to find cover in the middle could prove lethal.

So all I said was, “Okay, okay. I’ll work on it.”

“You better,” was all she said before she stormed out.

She was obviously in a gnarly mood, partly because she’d just spent the entire night on the phones tracking down Melborne’s true identity, and partly because, well . . . I guess, just partly because. You gotta know Imelda.

I got cleaned up and went downstairs and had breakfast. When I got back to my room, an envelope had been slipped under my door. I tore it open. In a tight scrawl it said I had an eight o’clock appointment in the office of General Spears. This time, “8:00” was underlined about ten times in thick marker, like, Don’t be late again, Drummond.

It was already seven, so I killed thirty minutes spit-shining my boots, combing my hair, and meticulously pressing every square inch of my uniform. Although actually that’s not true; that’s what I should’ve been doing if I was an earnest, ambitious officer. Instead I watched some inane Sunday morning sitcom before ambling over to the big cheese’s office.

The same colonel was seated at his desk, only this time he was the one wearing civilian clothes and I was the one in uniform, because it was Sunday morning.

Remembering our last tepid encounter, I ripped off a salute. It was an awesome salute, too. It left a smoke trail in the air. The most incurably fussy drill sergeant would’ve swooned.

I said, “Major Drummond reporting as ordered, sir.”

I said it loud and crisply, too, and just knew the man would be impressed as all get out. West Pointers are so damned easy to please.

He shook his head and gave me a scowl ugly enough to melt tulips. “Drummond, you’re a lawyer, right?”

“Yes sir. JAG Corps all the way, sir. Hoo Rah!” I popped off. I was Johnny Gung-ho this early Sunday morning.

“Then you should know that when inside a building, you don’t salute a higher officer who is not in uniform.”

My hand was still stuck to my forehead, and I all of a sudden started scratching a non-itch over my right eye.

I was frostily instructed to go to the general’s door and knock twice. The colonel even quizzed me to make sure I understood it was knock twice — not once, not three times, but twice. He was a real sweetheart. We were getting along famously.

Spears glanced up from some papers after I knocked twice, not once, not three times. I walked straight to his desk and noticed he also was wearing mufti on this grand Sunday morning.

Knowing military etiquette like I did, I merely nodded and politely said, “Good morning, General.”

He pushed aside his reading materials, got up, and walked around his desk. “Please, sit down,” he said, gesturing at a couch group near the door.

We quickly positioned ourselves so I was sitting across from him, while he eased into his chair, hoisted up his trouser leg, and studied me.

After a moment, he said, “How’s it going?”

“Fine, General. Couldn’t be better,” I lied.

He awarded me a nice grin. “We’ve got a long week ahead. The judge arrives tomorrow. Press people have been flying in by the planeload. By Wednesday there’ll be more reporters in Korea than soldiers.”

“It’s the big show,” I said, which was a needless remark, obviously, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“You ever handled a case this big, Drummond?”

“Like this? No sir.”

“You feel like you’re under a lot of pressure?”

“Like a bicycle tire that’s been placed on a ten-wheeler.”

He chuckled briefly. “And how’s your client doing?”

“Could be worse, General. Not a lot, but could be worse.”

He nodded. “Korean prisons aren’t for the fainthearted. But they’re good people, you know. The Koreans. This is my third tour over here. I was here as a new lieutenant, back in the early sixties. And I commanded my brigade here, back in the late eighties. It’s miraculous what the Koreans have accomplished. Really miraculous. They’re incredible people.”

“Yes sir, they’re admirable folks.”

Then came a quiet lapse, because we’d obviously exhausted the let’s-pretend-we’re-comfortable-with-each-other chitchat and it was time to tend to the nuts and bolts. Whatever that was.

He went right for the jugular. “Drummond, I have to tell you, I’ve been very unhappy with the way your defense team has conducted itself. And I mean,
very unhappy
.”

“Anything specifically?” I asked. Like I didn’t know.

“Start with Miss Carlson’s infomercials. I told you I didn’t want this case carried to the press. This is not the time to be fanning the flames.”