River Rising

by Merline Lovelace

  She was just turning the MG onto Chennault Circle when she spotted a ponytailed figure jogging along the well-Lighted sidewalk. With the Air War College, the Air Command Staff College, and Squadron Officers' School in full session, in addition to the JAG school and the half dozen other academic institutions that made up Air University, runners were a common sight along the Circle. She stopped for the jogger, who waved a thank you and crossed in front of the headlights.

  Recognizing the sweatshirted figure, Carly hit the window switch. "Hey, Captain. Looks like you're racking up the aerobic points."

  The young helo pilot she'd interviewed yesterday danced over to the driver's side of the MG.

  "Not by choice, Major! Not by choice." Joanna West jogged in place, blowing out a puff of air that lifted her limp, honey-colored hair. "Trust me, I'd much rather fly into a storm to pull a crew dog out of the drink than waste perfectly good sweat like this. What about you? Working late?"

  "Just finishing up." On impulse, she extended an offer to the young captain. "I was thinking about stopping at Tony's for a pizza. Care to join me after you complete your run?"

  "Yes, ma'am! Give me ten minutes to clean up and I'll meet you there."

  "You don't need a ride?"

  "No, I brought my wheels to Maxwell."

  "Good enough. I'll put the order in. What do you like on your pizza? "

  "Everything the law allows," she answered with a grin.

  The officers' dorms lined the circle just past the law center. Carly watched West disappear into the closest two-story building, then turned the MG onto the circle. A quick left took her along "Officers' Row."

  The elegant senior officer dwellings reflected the French provincial style of architecture common to military housing constructed in the Southeast during the '20s and '30s. Symmetrical facades, pitched roofs tiled in red ceramic, dormer windows, and wrought iron columns all gave a sense of grace and dignity to the homes, similar in style to those at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and Langley in Virginia.

  Carly had hers all picked out, a gracious three-bedroom on Inner Circle shaded by massive oaks. Much as she loved the converted carriage house she'd purchased, she'd rent it out and move on base in a heartbeat if given a chance at one of these beauties. She'd qualify for one soon enough. She was already on the list for lieutenant colonel. She should pin on within a year and, with luck, make full colonel while still at Maxwell. That promotion would depend on whether the commandant moved her into the deputy slot, as he'd hinted he would if she didn't step on it.

  Which she could very well do, if she didn't get this investigation wrapped up soon, she reminded herself as she hung a sharp right turn outside the Bell Street gate. Her boss, his boss, and everyone up the chain of command were waiting for the results. The victim's father hadn't made any official requests for information on the case. He couldn't, without risking a charge of undue command influence. Yet the entire legal community felt the weight of his four stars. Carly's reading of the facts in the case and the sufficiency of the evidence had better come in right on target.

  Much would depend on the crucial interview with Smith tomorrow... and on her assessment of McMann's reliability as a witness. She didn't kid herself that her impulsive invitation to Captain West had been motivated merely by friendliness. She wanted to pump her and, hopefully, get a clearer picture of The Mann as others saw him before his fall from grace.

  Two beers, one Greek salad exploding with black olives and chunks of feta cheese, and a half a pizza later, Carly's mental image of the key witness in the Elaine Dawson-Smith murder case had blurred even more.

  "You should have seen him on the ice, Major. He was something. Really something."

  Carly toyed with her half-empty beer glass, content to let the helo pilot carry the conversation. Without conscious direction on her part, they'd drifted from talking about Maxwell in general and Squadron Officers' School in particular to the murder that had shocked the entire base to the key witness in the case. West wasn't at all shy about reinforcing her earlier testimonials on McMann's behalf.

  She slouched against the worn leatherette booth and stretched her legs out comfortably under the Formica table top. A few skeletal crusts littered the tin pizza pan that covered most of the Formica.

  "I remember the first time I saw The Mann in

  action. My dad took me and my brothers to a Black-hawks game in Chicago. The Hawks got waxed that night, and Ryan was the reason. He scored two goals and assisted in two more. I'm telling you, Major, The Mann was fast as well as powerful. His slapshot was timed at one twenty point three."

  "One twenty point three what?"

  "Miles per hour."

  She sounded slightly shocked that Carly had to ask.

  "Ryan was named NHL player of the year right after we saw him play, and his team took the Cup."

  "The Davis Cup?"

  "No," Jo said, trying unsuccessfully to smother a smile. "The Stanley Cup. The Davis is awarded in tennis."

  "Oh."

  Taking pity on her obvious ignorance, the young pilot gave her a quick tutorial. "The Stanley Cup is the grandaddy of them all... the oldest continuous award in professional sports. Lord Stanley was the royal governor or something of Canada back in the 1890s and came up with the idea. Since then, the silver bowl's become the ultimate symbol of supremacy in the coolest game on the planet. The players would kill to see their names inscribed on the bowl's little silver plaques."

  "Are we speaking literally here? "

  West's grin flashed. "Well, they'd commit serious mayhem at least, which is more or less what hockey is all about."

  "What about McMann? Did he commit mayhem on the ice as well as off?"

  The laughter faded from the captain's face. "Ryan McMann played the cleanest game in the league. He won the Lady Byng trophy twice for sportsmanship and gave the fans someone they could look up to." Yeah, right.

  Carly kept the thought to herself, but after two sessions with McMann she couldn't place him anywhere near a pedestal, let alone atop it. Jo West remembered the man before his fall, so didn't have that problem.

  "McMann also organized and chaired the Ice Buddies program, where the players sponsor a disabled child for a season. He even got the owners to contribute a percentage of the gate to various charities."

  "Commendable."

  "It's more than just commendable," the captain countered quietly. "I don't know how many kids the program has helped internationally, but I can tell you about one of them. My brother, Jack."

  She played with a pizza crust, her lively face solemn for a moment. "Jack's school bus overturned when he was ten. The accident left him paralyzed from the waist down."

  "Oh, no."

  Shaking off the memory, Jo whipped out her infectious smile once more. "Jack's Ice Buddy designed and procured a specially equipped wheelchair for him so he could participate in our local hockey league. You ought to see him whiz across the rink. He'll mow down anyone who gets in his way."

  Carly believed her. She suspected the captain came from a long line of intrepid Wests. Patiently, she waited while the younger woman washed down a crunchy bite of crust and picked up where she'd left off.

  "McMann raised millions for charity during the course of his career. Whatever he did or didn't do in that hotel room the night before the play-offs, my brothers and I will always respect him."

  "What about his personal life? I understand his wife divorced him."

  "I think the marriage had been on the rocks for years. I remember reading an interview with his wife in People magazine. She described how tough it was being married to a superstar and talked about how much she hated hockey. She didn't exactly come across as a loving, supportive spouse."

  As it had during her previous interview with Carly, the captain's gaze dropped to her left hand. Absently, she flexed her fingers. The diamond solitaire caught the overhead light and threw back tiny colored darts.

  "Some people," she muttered, "can't seem to g
et it through their heads that a profession is more than just a job. It can get in your blood."

  "Like flying?"

  "Like flying," Jo admitted wryly. "And maybe lawyering?"

  Carly acknowledged the hit with a rueful smile. "No maybe about it. Lawyering's been in my family's blood for three generations. And unfortunately, I've still got some to do tonight."

  She reached for the check stuck under the edge of the pizza pan. "Put your money away, Captain. This is on me. I appreciated the company."

  And the insights Jo West had given her into the ex-con who played such a key role in her investigation. The pieces still didn't quite add up to a coherent whole, but Carly found herself giving more weight than she had before to McMann's report of a dark green Taurus driving along River Road at approximately the time Elaine Dawson-Smith was killed.

  She drove home thinking about that Taurus and the air force colonel allegedly at its wheel. As she turned into the narrow alleyway that led to her ivy-covered carriage house, she decided that she couldn't take the time to go through the transcript of McMann's trial tonight. For what was left of the evening, she'd review her notes and prepare for her meeting with the accused.

  Chapter Five

  "I didn't leave the library until after five on the afternoon of April twelfth, I didn't drive down River Road, and I didn't kill my wife."

  Carly acknowledged the assertion with a neutral nod. "So you've told me, Colonel Smith. What you haven't told me is why no one can verify your presence at the Fairchild Library until you checked out at five-twelve p.m."

  Michael Smith sat ramrod straight across the conference table from Carly. With his neat buzz cut, his Steve Canyon jaw, and his shiny brass accoutrements perfectly aligned on his uniform jacket, he might have modeled for a recruiting poster. An engineer by training and a tanker pilot by profession, he sported several rows of ribbons on his chest. Only the small, still-angry scar cutting a jagged track through his left eyebrow marred his looks and gave mute testimony to a marriage that had spun completely out of control.

  "My class at the War College includes more than three hundred colonels and lieutenant colonels," he replied. "The other schools on base, including your JAG school, bring in dozens more. I wouldn't expect the staff at the library to notice one among those hundreds."

  He was as cold as his classmates and neighbors described him. Maybe he'd learned to wrap himself in that icy shield, Carly surmised, to keep from getting burned by his wife's scorching flames. Always remote and self-contained, he'd reportedly pulled more and more into himself as the academic year had progressed. At the same time, Elaine seared across the landscape of the school, brilliant, beautiful, driven, leaving her indelible mark on faculty and fellow students alike. Michael Smith barely rated a footnote when people spoke of the couple.

  Standing accused of his wife's murder seemed to have driven Smith even further into himself. Carly struggled to find a weak spot in his impenetrable shield.

  "What about the other patrons at the library? You didn't see or talk to any of your classmates?"

  "No."

  His attorney made a show of shuffling through a stack of papers and plucked one out with a flourish of a manicured hand.

  "The Fairchild Library encompasses more than one hundred thousand square feet. I checked it out myself. It's easy to get lost in there or tuck yourself away in a study carrel out of sight of others."

  "I'm familiar with the facility, Mr. Jones."

  G. Putnam dipped his head. "I'm sure you are, Major Samuels."

  Their civility barely ran surface deep. Privately, Carly neither liked nor respected Jones. He made no secret of the fact that he accepted only cases he felt confident of winning, or that his talents came with a hefty price tag attached. Briefly, Carly wondered how Lieutenant Colonel Smith could afford the man's fees. Making a mental note to check into Smith's finances, she picked up where they'd left off.

  "The library's computers showed you didn't log on using your student ID until three-twenty."

  "As I said in my previous statements, I brought my notebook computer with me. I used it to polish the final draft of my research paper, which I worked on from noon until about three. Then I logged onto the Library's computer to search for additional references. I checked them out a little after five and drove home."

  "At which time you were notified of your wife's murder."

  He didn't flinch, didn't blink, just drilled her with his gaze. "That's correct."

  As a prosecutor, Carly had to admire his control. As a defense counsel, she would have advised him to show some emotion, any emotion. Granted, more than two weeks had passed since his wife's murder, two weeks in which Colonel Michael Smith had seen the thin curtain veiling his marriage ripped to shreds and his career, if not his life, put on the line. He'd been questioned, re-questioned, charged, arrested, and placed under a pretrial restraint that restricted his movements to the local area. Yet his face showed no signs of strain or sleeplessness. His gray eyes displayed not a flicker of panic or remorse.

  "If you remained at the Fairchild Library from noon until five, Colonel Smith, can you explain why a witness spotted someone wearing silver oak leaves driving a vehicle identical to yours on River Road at approximately two o'clock?"

  G. Putnam had been waiting for exactly that question. Leaning back in his chair, he steepled his fingers across his stomach. It was, Carly knew, his favorite pose, one that played well to juries. Calm, confident, almost paternal.

  "The explanation is simple, Major. Ryan McMann is lying."

  "Why should he He?"

  "For any number of reasons. Maybe he saw Elaine Dawson-Smith walking in the woods when he drove out to the prison. Maybe he followed her. Maybe he shot her."

  "His prints weren't on the murder weapon, Mr. Jones. Nor do the polygraphs support that hypothesis."

  With a wave of one hand, G. Putnam dismissed the fact that both McMann and his client had submitted to a polygraph, and only one had passed.

  "The whole issue of whether or not Ryan McMann saw my client driving along River Road is a moot point. His testimony is impeachable under Subsection A, Rule 609, of your Military Rules of Evidence."

  Dragging a copy of the Manual for Courts-Martial from his monogrammed pigskin briefcase, he flipped it open to a premarked page.

  "As you know, Subsection A applies to witnesses convicted of a crime punishable by death, dishonorable discharge, or... and I quote here, Major... 'imprisonment in excess of one year under the laws which the witness was convicted.' "

  It hadn't taken them long to reach the bottom line of the case. Carly didn't have to read from the manual. She knew it by heart.

  "If you read further, sir, you'll see that Subsection C states that evidence of a conviction is not admissible if said conviction has been the subject of a pardon, annulment, or... and I quote here... 'certificate of rehabilitation of the person convicted.' "

  "As of this date, Mr. McMann has not been rehabilitated," Jones countered. "There's no guarantee he'll satisfactorily complete his probation, much less receive a certificate of rehabilitation."

  "But if he does and if he's called to testify," she shot back, "he'll state that he saw an air force officer wearing lieutenant colonel's rank drive a dark green Taurus along River Road at approximately two o'clock on the afternoon of April twelfth. At which point, the members of the court will have to weigh his testimony against Colonel Smith's assertion that he didn't leave the library until sometime after five."

  It kept coming back to that. Smith's word against McMann's. A respected air force officer's versus a one-time hockey star and convicted felon. Even if the trial attorney successfully suppressed information regarding McMann's conviction, the odds were that one or more members of the court had heard of him and would know his background. Not everyone was as ignorant as Carly had been about hockey or its superstars.

  G. Putnam had figured the odds, too. With a casual move, he smoothed the ends of his red silk tie inside hi
s suit coat. The diamond-encrusted coin ring on his pinkie winked in the early morning light.

  "Even with Mr. McMann's testimony, the case against my client rests solely on circumstantial evidence. No one saw Lieutenant Colonel Smith pull a gun on his wife. No one heard the shots or placed him at the actual scene. No jury will convict... if the case even comes to trial."

  "That's up to the Air University commander to decide."

  "I didn't kill my wife."

  The stark assertion cut through the legal wrangling. Smith sat forward, a muscle twitching under his left eye. Sensing a crack in his impenetrable armor, Carly jumped to the attack.

  "At this point, Colonel Smith, you've given me no reason to believe otherwise."

  "I admit our marriage was coming apart at the seams..." he said stiffly.

  "Why?"

  "Time. Distance." He hesitated. "Other interests."

  "On whose part?"

  "Both of us, I suppose."

  The terse reply carried a dismaying ring of familiarity. The officers selected to attend the War College in residence were top performers, driven by both ambition and demonstrated skill. They had reached that critical midpoint in their careers and, for many, their marriages. All too often at the War College, the fabled seven- or ten-year itch blossomed into a fatal rash.

  Those officers who chose not to uproot their families and move them to Maxwell for the year found themselves at loose ends at nights and weekends. Those wives and husbands who accompanied their spouses spent months without the demands of their normal activities. For some, it was a time to socialize, to indulge in hobbies or hone their tennis and golf games. For others, the temporary idleness could lead to boredom, restlessness, and gnawing dissatisfaction.

  The unique circumstances in the Smiths' situation added to those natural stresses. Two officers, each on their way up. One brilliant and, to all reports, close to the edge, the other quieter but no less ambitious, overshadowed by his wife's dominant personality. Both, it had been hinted, looking outside their marriage for whatever was lacking in it.