“Prudhomme tells me Jacey Slaight knows about the party.”
“She fucking knows?” It was Ivar, the running back on the football team. It was the conceit of skilled athletes to believe that because of their physical prowess and the popularity that flowed from it, they had the most to lose when something went wrong in their lives.
Rose held a finger to his lips, silencing Ivar. “You never know who’s around,” he whispered. Then, to Ash: “How much does she know?’’
“She knows about the party and that Dorothy was there. She’s really far gone, because I didn’t tell her about it. She thinks I betrayed her.”
“How did she find out?”
“She got ahold of Dorothy’s E-mail.”
“Shit.” Favro paced back and forth along the row of wood handles. “There was stuff from me, if she saved it.”
“Well, it’s there all right, because Jacey read it. All of it.”
“Oh, Christ, that’s all we need,” said Lessard.
“Wait a minute. We’re jumping way ahead of ourselves here,” said Rose in measured tones. He was the most powerful man in the room. As Chairman of the Honor Committee, his power transcended battalions and regiments. It was Corps-wide. “What’d you tell her about the party?”
“I told her the truth. We had a couple of kegs, we rented a cabin, we went swimming, guys had dates. She’s been to enough cadet parties to know the score. I even told her Dorothy wasn’t drinking. But I mean, she knows stuff was going on . . .”
“What kind of stuff are you talking about?” asked Rose.
“People were fucking in the cabin. She’s been to cadet parties. She knows what goes on.”
“Did she tell you anything else about the E-mail?”
“No. The only thing she was pissed about was me not telling her about the party, ‘cause she said the investigation is trying to look at everything that happened to Dorothy in the hours and days before she died.”
Rose looked over at Favro, and then the two of them exchanged glances with Reade.
“I’m not sure there’s a whole lot to worry about here,” said Rose. “All we were doing out there at the lake was drinking beer and partying. Listen, Ash, I want to thank you for telling us about Jacey. We owe you one.”
The others in the room stood around Ash in a semicircle. It was clear that they were indicating he should leave. “I guess I’ll be going,” he said, a little uncertainly.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll handle it,” said Rose. “Thanks again, man.”
“Sure.” As he headed down the stairs, Ash heard the door click closed behind him.
Favro was pacing the room. “Christ, Jacey’s gonna take Dorothy’s E-mail to her daddy, and all hell’s gonna break loose.”
Reade walked into the middle of the room and addressed the others like he was playing the role of adjutant at parade. “We’ve got to do something. We can’t let her go blowing us out of the water. We’ve got to talk some sense into her.”
Ivar was rolling his shoulders and fidgeting and scratching his crotch.
Rose walked over to him and threw an arm over his massive shoulder. “Listen, man, I think you ought to get back to the barracks and get some sleep. You’ve got a big game coming up. You don’t have anything to worry about. All you were doing was hanging out and having some brews and swinging on that rope swing and dropping into the water, remember?”
Ivar nodded.
Rose’s tone was soothing. “Leave it to me. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. I’m going to talk to Jacey myself. She’ll understand.”
Ivar’s face brightened. “You mean it, man?”
“Sure. Get some rest. I want to see your numbers up another hundred yards on Saturday, man. I don’t want you worrying and breaking your concentration.”
“Okay, man.” Ivar moved to the door. “See you guys,” he said maneuvering his broad shoulders through the narrow door. Reade stepped over and closed it behind him.
Now there were just four remaining in the organ practice room: Rose, Favro, Reade, and Lessard.
Favro was still pacing. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Rose, the bitch is going to fuck everything up for us.”
“Yeah, man. We’ve got to do something,” Lessard whined.
Rose walked slowly into the middle of the room. “You idiots have got to get your wits about you and look at this thing logically. What’s she got? She knows we had a party. Big deal. She’s been to our parties. What’s she going to do? Go to her daddy and tell him there are these guys she parties with, and Dorothy went to one of their parties and then she dropped dead? I don’t think so.”
Favro stopped pacing and turned to face him.
“Now listen to me,” said Rose. “She’s got some stuff off Dorothy’s E-mail she’s going to have to take to the CID, or she’ll be derelict in her duty, and I think we all know that’s not going to happen. I think we can assume that the CID is going to question us. So what? We can handle it. All we’ve got to do is get our stories straight.”
“What are you gonna tell the CID?” asked Reade in a tone of desperation.
“We tell them we had a party and Dorothy Hamner was one of the girls who were there. We don’t know anything about why she died the next day at parade. What are they going to do? There’s no way they can prove any different.”
“We’re going to have to tell Gibson,” said Lessard. “This whole thing could come apart. The Supe’s going to be calling him in, and he’s got to be prepped. Slaight’s going to ask him what all of his six-stripers were doing out there at Greenwood Lake with the dead girl.”
“You let me deal with Gibson. That’s my job,” instructed Rose.
“You think Gibson can handle Slaight?” asked Reade.
Rose snapped his fingers. “Like that.”
Favro had been looking out one of the windows. He turned around. “What’s going to happen if Jacey figures out that five or six members of the Honor Committee were at the party? Don’t you think this thing is cutting a little close to the bone? I mean, it’s not about Dorothy Hamner. We’ve got a lot to lose if she puts two and two together and she stops worrying about the dead girl and starts looking at us.”
“Trust me. Nothing’s going to happen,” commanded Rose. “Everything we did was under the orders of the Commandant of Cadets. We’re covered.”
“I wish I was as confident about that as you are, Rose. But I’m not.”
“You don’t know Gibson like I do. Do you think he’d ask us to do anything which dishonored West Point? He’s the one who’s trying to save West Point, Favro.”
“I know what he stands for, Rose. But I’m starting to get the feeling he’s standing on our backs. You tell me why we should trust him to protect us.”
“Because he’s an honorable man and because there isn’t a tougher son of a bitch on the face of this earth. We are his warriors, Favro. We follow orders without question. Every single weakling we ran out of here on Honor failed to measure up to the warrior standards General Gibson has returned to West Point. Not only have we done our duty, we have upheld the ethos of the warrior. Only the strong survive. We are strong. We are warriors. General Gibson would die before he would allow us to be dishonored.”
“I sure as hell hope you’re right about Gibson,” said Favro.
“I know I’m right.”
Reade checked his watch. “We’d better get going. Taps is in ten minutes.”
Rose walked to the door and then turned to face the others. “I’ll talk to Gibson. He’ll know what to do.”
The others nodded their heads in agreement. Rose opened the door of the organ-practice room and they filed down the stairs, one after the other, behind the Chairman of the Honor Committee.
CHAPTER 17
* * *
SLAIGHT CALLED to Melissa through the open door of his office. “Get me General Gibson, will you?”
“Right away, sir.”
In a moment his phone buzzed, and he picked up. “Jack,
have you got a moment? Something has come up I need to talk to you about. Okay. Ten minutes.”
Melissa was standing in the door. “More coffee, sir? I’ll put on a fresh pot.”
“I think you’d better. Gibson’s going to need a jolt when this is over.”
Slaight picked up his copy of the Times. There was a front-page story on the findings of yet another Pentagon commission on women in the military. This one was chaired by a former senator from Kansas. Problems between young men and women in basic training had persuaded the commission to recommend to the Secretary of Defense that all basic and advanced individual training in the services should be segregated.
Brilliant, he thought, recalling the problems he had encountered between black and white soldiers when he had first entered the Army as a lieutenant back in 1969. He served as a platoon leader in an infantry division that had suffered race riots, racial beatings, and several racially motivated slayings. He recalled one murder that had happened in his brigade. Four white soldiers had jumped a black soldier on guard one night and beat him to death with baseball bats. They caught the four eventually, and they were tried and convicted of murder, but that didn’t stop the killing. Three more soldiers would die in racial incidents before he was transferred, and the place he went next was hardly better.
He marveled at the commission’s recommendation that training should be segregated by sex, and thought back to what would have happened if a similar commission had recommended that the races be segregated when race was such a painful problem in the military. The lid would have blown off the country, that’s what would have happened. The return of racial segregation to the military would have produced riots that made Watts and Newark look like playground tussles.
He heard a tap at the door and looked up to find Melissa escorting Gibson into the office. He stood up as Gibson saluted. He pointed to one of the armchairs. “Have a seat, Jack. Coffee?”
Gibson nodded. “I’d like that, sir.”
Slaight made a mental note that at least a modicum of respect had returned to Gibson’s manner. Melissa poured coffee and they sat down, again facing each other across the coffee table. Melissa left, closing the door behind her.
“I’ve thought this thing over, and there isn’t any good way to go about the business we have this morning, so I’m going to cut out the bullshit and get right down to it. I know you’re having an affair with Helen Messick, and I want you to knock it off.”
Gibson sipped his coffee. If he had been startled, he didn’t show it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“All right then, maybe I can refresh your memory. I’m the one who saw the two of you in her garage Monday night.”
“I was at home Monday night. My wife will back me up.”
“We’ll deal with your wife when the time comes, Jack, but I can tell you that your Porsche was most definitely in Helen’s garage, and a man who looked just like you was standing there next to it kissing Helen Messick. It has been reported to me that you were seen with her late at night entering a hotel room in New York City. Is that any help to you?”
Gibson put down his coffee cup and glared at Slaight. “You don’t have shit on me, General, and even if you did, you wouldn’t bring charges.”
Slaight chuckled. “I knew you’d stonewall me, Jack. You’re right. I won’t bring charges against you because I don’t want to drag West Point through an adultery investigation. But I’m here to tell you that I know what you’re up to with Helen Messick, and I am giving you a direct order to knock it off. Is that clear enough for you?”
“Quite clear.”
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen if it comes to my attention that you continue to carry on an affair with Helen Messick. I’ll fix it so the star currently perched on your uniform epaulet is the last star you’ll get. Do you understand me?”
“I don’t cotton to threats. Not from you, General. Not from anybody.”
“I’m not threatening you, Jack. I am promising that you will end your career as a brigadier general, and that your next commander will know exactly how you carried out your duties as Commandant here at West Point. I am promising you that while I will not drag West Point’s good name through the mud, I will be delighted to sully your name in every precinct of command which exists in this Army. And if you don’t think I can do this to you, then you didn’t pay much attention when I was your battalion commander. I’ll do it, Jack, and I’ll take great pleasure from it.”
Gibson leaned back in his chair and cracked a little smile. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
“Oh, yes, I do. You’re Cecil Avery’s pet general, and you’re buddies with Congressman Thrunstone, and you think you’ve got the Pentagon wired, and you think your career’s on fire and not even a goddamned hurricane could put it out. Well, I’m not a hurricane, Jack. All I am is a lieutenant general who has ordered you to cease your affair with Helen Messick. But you’d better get this straight before you walk out of my office. I’m the Superintendent of West Point, and when I give orders, I expect them to be obeyed, and if my orders are not obeyed, I will do what I have just promised you. I’ll cut you down like a sapling, Jack, and there won’t be a goddamned thing you can do about it. Now get the hell out of my office.”
Gibson started to say something, but Slaight pointed silently at the door. Gibson walked out without a salute.
CHAPTER 18
* * *
GENERAL SLAIGHT opened the Scott Place gate to the garden and made his way down its winding pathways to find his wife sitting on the back patio with a large metal bowl between her knees shelling peas. He kissed the top of her head. “Where’d you find those, Sam?”
“Farm stand up in Vails Gate. Last of the season. I thought I’d throw them in a pan with scallops and a little white wine and cream and mint and toss in some linguini and see what happens.”
“Hmmmmm. I know what will happen. It’ll disappear down a couple of gullets in about ten seconds.”
She laughed. “Does anybody like food more than you?”
“Cliff Bassett.”
“Besides him.”
He thought for a moment. “You.”
“I’m not even in the same county as you. You’re like the fifty-first state of food. There should be a star on the flag for your stomach.”
He cracked up. She was right. As a cadet he had set records for inhaling incredible quantities of food. He and Buck and Luger used to go down to New York to a little hole in the wall called Puglia’s just off Mulberry Street, where for about three dollars you could eat enough eggplant parmigiana and throw back enough coarse Sicilian red to bring on the DTs the next day. While his palate had become more refined over the years, the simple fact was, he just plain liked to eat.
“Where are the scallops?”
“In the fridge.”
“I’ll slice ‘em up and get a pot of water going for the pasta.”
“Not yet you won’t. I haven’t had a spritzer yet. And you look like you could use a martini. Why don’t you get cleaned up and come back with the drinks?”
In a few minutes her husband reappeared looking refreshed. “You took a shower,” she said approvingly.
“And brushed my teeth and cleaned my nails, sir,” Slaight barked, imitating one of the reports plebes were required to give nightly to their squad leaders in his day. They laughed. He was carrying a tray of drinks and hors d’oeuvres. She followed him to a wrought-iron table and chairs that were tucked into a little grove of boxwood at the back of the garden. They sat down, and he handed her a spritzer. He picked up his martini and took a long sip.
“Boston P.D. picked up four of our hockey players around three A.M. last night down in the Combat Zone. They had a preseason game with Boston College earlier and skipped out of the team hotel and decided they needed to see what the inside of a strip club looked like. There was an altercation with the club’s bouncers. One of our boys has a broken jaw, but apparently the bouncers fared much w
orse. Three of them were hospitalized.”
“They arrested the cadets?”
“Yeah. I had the SJA airmail two of his best JAGs up there this morning, and they’re working on it. I think what’s going to happen is, the strip club will press charges, and the cadets will press countercharges, and the cops will drop the whole thing if we get the cadets out of Boston and promise they’ll never return to the Combat Zone.”
“Sounds like a fair deal to me,” Sam said, spreading some soft cheese on a cracker. “What’s going to happen to the hockey players when they get back here?”
“I’m sure they’ll face at least a regimental board. I don’t think they’ll be spending much time on the ice this winter. Not wearing skates, anyway.”
“Well, it could have turned out a lot worse. That’s a bad area in Boston. They could have gotten themselves killed.”
He swirled the ice around in the martini pitcher and poured himself another glass. “So how was your day?”
“I took Helen Messick with me to the farm stand this morning. We had lunch afterward.”
“Really? Did she call you?”
“I called her. She’s a lonely woman, Ry. That husband of hers is no prize, and I don’t see Gibson providing much in the way of warmth and affection.”
“You didn’t sound like you felt very sorry for her before.”
“I thought about it some. I wanted to leave the door open a crack for her, you know, Ry? She’s not a bad person. I even kind of like her.”
He leaned over and kissed her. “Again,” she commanded when he pulled away. This time he grabbed her under her arms and lifted her into his lap and held the back of her head with both hands and kissed her nose and her cheeks and her chin and her neck and her lips, and when they parted, she licked her lips, and said, “I don’t like martinis, but you taste good.”
They sat there for a while like that, sipping their drinks. “I wonder what’s going to happen to Jace when she leaves here next year. I wonder if she’ll find a guy like you and end up as a middle-aged woman who feels as lucky as I feel right now.”
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