The Last Hour (43 page)

“Carrie ... are you all right?”
 

“No!” she shouted. “My career is in limbo and you’re on trial and
none
of this was the life I wanted or expected or ... shit!” Her voice broke in frustration.

I leaned against the wall as she came stalking back into the living room, a beer in hand. “I have had it up to here with
all
of it, and then you had to go and do that today. And I’m just like ... why? Don’t you care about us? Don’t you
want
to stay free?”

I licked my lips. I didn’t know how to answer this. I didn’t know how to explain what it meant, why it was so important.
 

“It’s ... not what you think, Carrie. The thing was ... Colton really was insane. I mean ... just fucking gone. But he was like my
dad
.”

She slammed her beer bottle onto the table and said, “No! He was not like your dad. Your father would never turn around and accuse you of a crime that he committed. He betrayed you, Ray.”

“God damn it!” I shouted. “Don’t you think I know that?”

“So you don’t owe him any fucking loyalty,” she screamed back. “It would be like ... it would be like if I were to sit in front of Doctor Moore’s investigation and tell them I’d slept with Ayers!”

I was so angry, the words that came out of my mouth were pure spite. “Well, did you?”

Rage came over Carrie’s features, and before I could even react, she picked up the
head
, the bronzed looking antique head that always sat on the mantelpiece, and with a scream she threw it. I saw it coming and stepped quickly to the right, and tripped and fell on my ass beside the coffee table. The head missed me, and hit the sliding glass door with a huge crash. The door broke in to a million pieces, and Carrie collapsed to her knees.

“Holy fuck,” I said, gasping.
 

The head was on the balcony, and so was most of the door. I was shaking with shock and adrenaline. I looked over at her and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

She looked back at me, shock in her eyes, and said, “I can’t believe I just threw the head at you.”

All I could say was, “It was kind of an ugly head.”
 

She started to laugh, a sort of hysterical laugh.
 

I started to get up, and she said, “Wait. Be careful, there’s glass everywhere.”

Um, yeah, like I hadn’t noticed that.

“I’ve got combat boots on, I’ll be fine. You stay over there.” I pulled myself into a standing position to assess the damage. Most of the glass had ended up on the balcony, except for one or two long, jagged pieces still hanging in the door frame.
 

“I think we’re going to need to get your door repaired, Carrie,” I said, in as calm a voice as I could muster. And then I turned, and walked over to her and pulled her to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. And I put my arms around her. Both of us were shaking.
 

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“We’ll get a new door.”

And then, miraculously, she started to laugh, and I did too, and then we were holding on to each other for dear life, laughing together.

“Oh, God,” she said. “I can’t believe I did that.”

“It’s all right, babe. We’re going to get through all this, and take a long vacation somewhere together. We have the rest of our lives ahead of us. Okay? This? Right now? It’s the worst it will ever get.”

She sniffed and rested her head against my shoulder.

“I love you, Ray. ”

“I know.”

She leaned back and squinted at me. “I can’t believe you did that!”

I laughed. Whenever I quoted a cheesy line from Star Wars it always got a laugh from her.

“Okay ... let me clean up the worst of the glass ... you’re gonna have to call the building and make up something, I think.”

I grabbed my heavy duty gloves out of my duffel bag, and started picking up the worst of the glass and carefully leaning it up against the side of the balcony. And that’s when my phone rang.

Damn it. I set down the last piece of glass, pulled off my glove, then stepped inside and answered the phone without looking at it.

“Hello?”

“Sherman,” the voice at the other end of the phone said. Whoever it was sounded drunk.

“Yeah, who is this?” I asked.

“Martin.”

What the hell? Why was Martin calling me? Then I thought about today, and what he’d said during his testimony. His refusal to ask for a lawyer, his testifying to actions that might see him charged as well.

 
“You okay, man?”

“Fuck no,” he said. He was definitely drunk, and his voice sounded ... I don’t know ... distant. Sad. He didn’t sound like himself at all. Carrie looked over at me from across the room, concern on her face.

“Ray, why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone? Huh? Yeah, I know Colton was wrong, and I feel awful about that kid. But you know what? I’ve got kids too. And how the fuck are they supposed to grow up knowing that ... knowing…”

“Martin ... where are you?”

“Doesn’t fucking matter. It’s where I’m going that matters. It’s where we’re all going. To hell.”

I winced and said, “I don’t believe that. You did the right thing today.”

“Sherman, you naive shit. You know what I did? I killed my military career. I branded myself a war criminal. I ended my fucking life. What chance do my kids have to a decent life when they’ve got me as their father.”

Martin was starting to scare the crap out of me. I waved to Carrie and looked around for something to write on. I gestured, and she grabbed a pen and paper off the refrigerator.
 

The pad of paper had a handwritten message she’d written to me this morning. “I love you GEEK,” it said, and had a heart underneath.

I wrote, in large bold letters. “CALL DICK, AND 911. MARTIN. TALKING SUICIDE.”

I was shaking. Martin continued, “Seriously. You know what difference it would have made if you hadn’t said anything? Not a god damn thing. Speedy would still be dead. So would Kowalski and Weber and Roberts. Didn’t mean a god damn thing. In fact, Speedy would be dead anyway, if not today then next year, the Taliban would have fucking either killed him or recruited him.”

“Martin…” I said.

“Shut the fuck up, Sherman. You know why? Because I don’t have
shit
now. What am I supposed to say? Dad’s going off to war again? And then he finds out I’m in prison?”

Carrie was frantically dialing her cell phone, and pacing.
 

“Listen, why don’t we get together for a drink and talk about it.”

“We’re not getting together for shit, Sherman. You fucked us all. If we’d said something a year ago it would have been different. But we didn’t. You’re just as guilty of that as I am.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said.

“Fuck off,” he said. “I’m doing the only thing I can now.” I heard, low in the background, the sound of a round being chambered in a pistol.

“Martin, you don’t have to do this!”

“Yeah, whatever. Tell that to my kid. Tell that to fucking Kowalski.”

The shot when it came was eerie, a clicking sound, and I heard the shell eject from his pistol. The sound was too loud to be picked up by the microphone on his phone. But I heard the pistol fall, and then the phone hit the floor.

I couldn’t help it. I let out a scream, and collapsed to the floor.

M
ajor Janice Smalls stood across the living room
from Ray, pacing. She turned back toward him and said, “So, did he actually say he was going to commit suicide?”

Ray shrugged. It had taken me nearly twenty minutes to get him from the floor to the couch.

In my life, I’ve never seen a grown man break down and cry. But whatever Ray heard on that phone call had broken him. He’d stayed on the floor, slamming his fist into it, his face twisted in rage, with the most horrible choking sounds coming out of his mouth while I held him as tightly as I could. It was an ugly, deathly painful grief, and I’d have done anything in the world to take it away from him.

Now he sat, looking shell-shocked, his eyes unfocused, unclear, red-rimmed.

“I told him we should get together for a drink and talk about it. And he said ... we weren’t going anywhere but hell. I tried to keep him talking and on the line.”

He looked away from her. I passed to Smalls the pad of paper he’d written his note on. She looked at it and said, “So you called Major Elmore first?”

“Yes,” I said. “I didn’t know where Martin was, so I thought that made the most sense.”

She nodded. “It did. Martin was staying at the guest house at Fort Myers. Major Elmore got a hold of the base Provost Marshal’s office, but it was too late.”

She sighed then said, “What a waste.” Her voice was grim as she said the words.

She eyed the broken glass of the doorway, and the head that was sitting in the midst of it. “So what happened in here?”

Ray didn’t move, didn’t say anything. So I answered, “We’ve been under a little bit of stress. If anyone else ever asks this I’ll lie. But I threw the head at Ray.”

Her eyes went to the head, and back to me. “A little bit of stress,” she said with a sigh. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you’re having to go through this.”

Her sorry feelings weren’t going to do me or Ray any good.
 

She sighed again. “There’s really nothing you could have done, Sergeant. But what you did do was the right thing. I’ll get out of your way now. If we have any more questions, I’ll let you know. The Fort Myers Provost Marshall will do the investigation, but they asked me to come see you given the circumstances.”

She left, and I slid onto the couch next to Ray and put an arm around his waist.
 

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No.”

I winced. “Maybe you should come to bed.”

He nodded, and I half lifted him from the couch. He shuffled to our bedroom, and collapsed on the bed, still in uniform, and curled up on his side.

I’d never seen him like this. But then again, given the circumstances, what kind of shape would I be in? Slowly, I started to unlace his boots.

“No…” he said, struggling to a sitting position. “I’ve got that.”

“Shut up, Ray. Lie down.”

He collapsed onto his back, and I finished unlacing the boot and pulled it off, then started working on the other one. “You’ve said it over and over again,” I said. “We’ll get through this together. Okay? I’m right here.”

I got the other boot off of him and tossed it to the floor with a thump. Then I stood, and turned out the light, and slid onto the bed next to him and pulled his head to my shoulder.

The moment I did that his body started to shake in silent sobs again. And we stayed that way until his breathing evened out and I was sure he was asleep.

Then I slid out of the bed.

It was almost midnight, but right now that didn’t matter. I dialed my phone, and Alexandra answered.

“Hello?” she asked in a sleepy voice.

“Alexandra, I’m sorry to wake you. But I need to talk to Dylan right now. It’s urgent.”

She groaned, and a few seconds later I heard Dylan’s sleepy voice on the phone. “Hello?”

“Dylan, it’s Carrie. Listen ... I know this is crazy, but ... I need you to come to Washington. Tonight. Ray needs you.”

“What is it?” he asked. He was alert, near instantly.

I sighed. “Staff Sergeant Martin shot himself after testifying at the hearing today. He was on the phone with Ray when he did it.”

There was a short pause, and then Dylan said, “Fuck. Where’s Ray now?”

“Asleep.”

“I’m on my way. If I can catch a train tonight I’ll be there in the morning. Alex, you want to take a trip to DC?”

I had to suppress a sob. “Thank you, Dylan.”

“I told you before. I’d do anything for Ray. Just ... keep an eye on him, okay? I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s probably going through his head right now, and it’s not pretty.”

“I will,” I said.

We hung up, and I walked back into the bedroom.

Ray had thrown the covers off the bed. Sweat was beaded on his forehead, and he moved slightly, and the words escaped his mouth. “Colton, he’s just a kid!”

My hand rose involuntarily to my mouth. Oh God, he was dreaming about it. Again. I started to shake, because I’d learned the hard way to not wake up Ray during this dream. Because he’d wake up fighting.
 

He shouted, “Colton, no!” and slammed a fist into the headboard. I slid to the floor, beside him, and I would have done anything, anything in the world, to help him escape the hell he was in right now. Keeping my head low, below the mattress, below anyplace he could accidentally hit in his sleep, I very carefully reached up with my right hand and rested it on his arm.

Instantly, I felt his left hand grab mine, and hold it, frozen, squeezing painfully, twisting. I suppressed a gasp of fear and pain, and then he suddenly relaxed his grip, and I heard his breathing smooth out, slowly. I tried to swallow the bowling ball in my throat, and not make any noise, but the silent tears running down my face wouldn’t stop as I slowly slid into the bed beside him. He was calm now, his eyes closed, the dream gone. For now.