Full Dress Gray

by Lucian K. Truscott

  “That was then. This is now, Mr. Rose. Get dressed.”

  IT WASN’T hard to decide where to begin: Ivar. As a star athlete, he would naturally believe himself to be the one with the most to lose. Ivar had played only a minor role in the Honor conspiracy, but his name was found on several of the kangaroo court Honor Boards, and he had signed one of the phony sets of minutes. He was vulnerable to all three charges, even though he had probably not been one of the instigators and had just gone along with the program.

  Kerry had Rose and Favro fingerprinted and made sure they both had access to telephones. He stood guards outside their rooms so they couldn’t communicate. Both Rose and Favro immediately placed phone calls. Kerry had Army lawyers standing by, and when Favro asked for a lawyer, he sent them in.

  Ivar, on the other hand, was under the impression that there had been a mistake. He wanted to talk to Agent Kerry, so he had Ivar brought straight to the interrogation room. He told Ivar to sit down at the small metal table in the middle of the room, while he remained standing. Ivar’s nervousness was obvious. This time the interrogation came with no warning. This time Ivar hadn’t been prepped by Rose or anyone else. This time Ivar was on his own, and he didn’t like it a bit. He was by nature a team player. Going solo went against the grain of the big running back.

  Kerry began by laying the pages from the Honor case files that contained Ivar’s name on the table before him.

  “What are these?” he asked.

  It was just as Kerry had thought. Ivar was a participant but hardly a conspirator. He had done what he had been told to do and signed his name where they pointed on the page. Kerry was certain that he had never read a single document he signed and had probably barely listened to the testimony at the Honor hearings he sat on.

  “These are the documents that are going to determine what you do with the rest of your life, Mr. Ivar. I want you to read them.”

  Ivar looked confused. “I don’t get it. I thought you were bringing me down here to talk about Dorothy Hamner again.”

  “Mr. Ivar, you are under apprehension. The MPs told you that. They read you your rights and had you sign DA Form 3881, did they not?”

  “Yeah, but I thought it was just a formality. I heard Percival told you that you couldn’t talk to us anymore, so I figured you had us apprehended so you could get around his order.”

  “Not so, Mr. Ivar. I had you arrested because you are facing the charge of conspiracy to deprive cadets accused of Honor violations of their rights to due process. You’re also being charged with signing false official statements—”

  “Where’s that? I never signed anything.”

  “Is that your signature right there?” Kerry pointed to a set of Honor Board minutes.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t take that stuff down. They told me it was just a formality. They do it all the time. Somebody’s got to sign the minutes.”

  “Those minutes were falsified, Mr. Ivar. You signed a false statement. You’re also charged with signing false charges against a cadet.”

  “I never did that.”

  “Your name is on this charge sheet right here.” He pointed to another document.

  “That was written up by the regimental rep, Reade.”

  “Yes, but you brought the charge to him.”

  “No, I didn’t. He came to me. He told me this girl in the company cheated on her PT test. He said because I was the company rep, I had to sign off on the charge.”

  “So you didn’t have personal knowledge that the young woman had cheated?”

  “No. I didn’t even know her. She was a plebe.”

  “Mr. Ivar, do you realize how serious this is? You’re facing more than five years in Fort Leavenworth prison on each of these charges.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right, five years.”

  “That’s not right. All I did was do what an Honor rep is supposed to do. I went to the Boards. I listened and I voted. We didn’t find everybody guilty. Lots of people got off.”

  “I know that, Mr. Ivar. But whether they were guilty or innocent, it is illegal to conspire to deprive someone of due process.”

  “They got their rights. They called witnesses. They got to testify.”

  “That is not all there is to due process, Mr. Ivar. You can’t have due process if the charge itself is fabricated.”

  “When did we fabricate charges?”

  “You did the day you signed the charge handed to you by Mr. Reade. That’s five years right there. Unless we can find a way to make the prosecutor understand that you were just going along and doing things the way you were told they should be done.”

  “That’s what happened.”

  “So maybe we can get the prosecutor to understand.”

  “What can we do to make that happen?”

  “He’s got to know that you’re sorry, and that you understand the mistakes that you made. And he’s got to be able to get the guys who led you to believe that what you were doing was right.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Mr. Rose, for one. And Mr. Favro for the other.”

  “Man, I can’t do that.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll just call the prosecutor and tell him to start drawing up the formal charges. You’re going to have to read and sign the charges. It’s going to take a while. Do you want some coffee?” Kerry reached for the phone and started dialing.

  “Wait. Are you calling the prosecutor?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I thought you said we could talk to him.”

  “We can. But only if you are willing to tell him how you came to sign these false statements.”

  “Man, Favro never told me anything. He just put stuff in front of me and I signed.”

  “Was it only Mr. Favro? Didn’t Mr. Rose hand you the minutes to sign? He was the one who presided over the Honor Board that night.”

  “Yeah, I guess he did.”

  “See, already you are being cooperative. Why don’t I sit down with you, and we can go over these documents, and you can tell me who handed them to you, and what they told you when you signed them.”

  “I guess . . .”

  “It’s either that or I call the prosecutor, and you’re going to be signing a whole new stack of documents, Mr. Ivar: the charges he’s bringing against you.”

  It was funny how it happened when they folded. It actually looked that way. Ivar’s shoulders seemed to sag, and he put his hands in his lap, as if in prayer. Kerry sat down and slid the first page in front of him. Ivar looked at his signature and read a few lines of the document.

  “Favro called me one day, and he said he needed to see me up at the Honor offices, so I went up there, and he handed me this and told me to sign it. He told me the guy who was supposed to sign was on leave, and all they needed was an Honor rep’s signature.”

  “And you signed, just like that.”

  “Just like that.”

  ***

  FAVRO WAS next. When Kerry walked him out of the room where he was being kept, he made sure to parade Favro past the open door of the office and give him a look at Ivar sitting there as the clerk typed up his statement.

  Favro had quickly lawyered up, taking one of the JAG lawyers as his defense counsel. Kerry called in the trial counsel from the SJA’s office who would prosecute the case. The defense counsel, Captain Fleiss, sat next to Favro and listened as the trial counsel, Major Harriman, read the three charges: conspiracy to wrongfully interfere with an administrative proceeding, signing false official statements, and dereliction of duty. Kerry sat down at the table across from Favro to explain his situation. With Ivar’s confession, Favro was facing a very grim reality. It would be difficult if not impossible to convince a military court-martial that the star running back on the West Point football team was lying to cover his own ass, when in fact his ass wasn’t covered, but fully exposed.

  Then he laid out the case files that Favro had forwarded to Rose. All ten of them. His name was everywhere. He h
ad even signed one of the sets of phony minutes. Kerry explained what Ivar had told him. He started with the meeting in the Honor Committee office, when Favro had lied to Ivar, telling him one of the Honor reps was on leave and all they needed was the signature of an Honor rep. Ivar had signed a trumped-up charge against a female yearling. It was another one of the PT test charges, accusing her of lying when she gave her time in the two-mile run.

  “That’s conspiracy, Mr. Favro. It’s falsifying official statements, it’s depriving a cadet of due process, and I think we can even make a case that you solicited Ivar to sign the charge by lying to him, and if we want, we can throw in a charge of conduct unbecoming.” Favro’s face fell. “What have you got to say, Mr. Favro? Ivar’s in there right now making his statement. He’s going over every one of the things you got him to sign, and he’s telling the clerk what you said to him, how you got him to do it. This is some serious business here, Mr. Favro. You’re looking at the kind of prison time that will have you out of Leavenworth about the time we put a man on Mars.”

  The defense counsel whispered to Favro and asked for some time, so Kerry escorted the two of them into a private office. When they returned to the interrogation room, Favro’s face had lost its color. He was shaken up. They sat down. “What’s the deal?” asked Captain Fleiss.

  Major Harriman was blunt. ‘‘The deal is, Mr. Favro gives us everything he knows about the Honor Committee and we’ll see what we can do about the charges in the death of Dorothy Hamner.”

  “What charges are those?” asked Fleiss.

  Kerry put the vial containing the rave drug down on the table in front of Favro.

  “Recognize this?”

  Favro looked at the vial, then at Kerry.

  “You should. You used this substance to render Miss Hamner so drunk and incoherent that you and Rose and Ivar could have sex with her, knowing there was a good possibility she wouldn’t even remember it the next day.”

  Kerry pulled up a chair and sat down across from Favro. “With the permission of your counsel, I would like to tell you what I think is going through your mind right now, Mr. Favro. Can I do that for you? Can I help you out here?”

  Favro looked up at the lawyer. Fleiss leaned down and Favro whispered something and Fleiss nodded. “Go ahead, Mr. Kerry. We’ll listen, but we’re not making any promises.”

  “Good enough. All I want to do is tell you honestly where I think you’re at. Okay, let’s start with what I believe you’re thinking right now. You’re sitting there and you’re wondering, How come it’s me? How did I end up sitting here, when it wasn’t even my idea? Hell, look at you, Favro! I’ve heard about your reputation! You’ve got girls coming out your ears! What do you need with this kind of stuff? So maybe one of the other guys, they suggested it, because it was a little something extra, something different. A goof. And here’s the great part, they told you. It’s legal. You’d get in more trouble for screwing a plebe than you would for this stuff. Am I helping you out, Mr. Favro? Are we getting anywhere?”

  Favro nodded. “Yeah,” he said flatly.

  “You want me to go on, Mr. Favro? Or do you want me to stop?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “That’s good, because the thing is, I happen to agree with you. I don’t think you should be the one sitting here looking at this vial of semilegal drugs. You want to know why?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because in fact it wasn’t your idea. You were just along for the ride. The whole thing wasn’t your idea, was it?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want me to tell you why you’re sitting here looking at this drug vial, Mr. Favro? There’s a reason, and I can tell it to you.”

  “Yes. I want to know why.”

  “Because I have a witness who can put a vial just like this one in your hand. Somebody ratted you out. Now you’re thinking, was it Rose or was it Ivar? That’s what you’re thinking, aren’t you? Here’s the other thing, Mr. Favro. I don’t believe it was your idea to snatch Jacey Slaight. And I sure as hell don’t believe you were the one who assaulted her. I think I know you better than that by now. You’re just not that kind of guy. But I think you know who is that kind of guy. And I think I can do something for you here, something that will make it go a hell of a lot easier on you when this whole thing is done with. I’m going to help you out if you help me out. Do you understand where I’m coming from here? If you can help me out, then I can help you make it clear to Major Harriman here that you weren’t the ringleader, and it wasn’t you who had the idea to pull this kind of shit. When Major Harriman listens to you being cooperative, and when he knows that you really helped us out, then Major Harriman, he’s going to step up there and he’s going to recommend that some of these charges against you are dropped, and that you should be shown leniency, because you were a good soldier, and you stood up and you admitted that what you did was wrong, and that you are sorry for it. I’ll be honest with you. The charges are not going away completely, but at least you will not be facing the great many years behind bars at Fort Leavenworth that you are facing right now.”

  “We’re disadvantaged here,” said Captain Fleiss. “You clearly didn’t get anything out of Ivar about the Jacey Slaight incident, or you wouldn’t be offering a deal to Mr. Favro. Yet I can’t counsel Mr. Favro to cooperate unless we know what charges he’ll face.”

  “This will take us a minute or two. Please relax,” said Kerry. He and Harriman went across the hall and called Colonel Bassett. He was waiting for the call in the Superintendent’s office. Harriman explained the situation and made a recommendation, and Bassett said he would get right back to them. Bassett would consult with the Superintendent, the court-martial convening authority for West Point, because the decision to take a plea in any case under his jurisdiction was his. After a few moments, Bassett called back with the news that the Supe concurred. They could proceed.

  Kerry and Harriman went back into the interrogation room. Harriman did the talking, addressing the defense counsel. “You’re looking at involuntary manslaughter and rape in the death of Miss Hamner. We’ll take manslaughter off the table, and we’ll take away rape and make it indecent assault. But negligent homicide stands. We’ve got your client dosing the girl. He had no way of knowing what the condition of her health was, but lack of knowledge is no excuse here. Giving someone a drug, any drug, even a legal substance as innocuous as aspirin, without their permission is negligent behavior. If Mr. Favro had informed Miss Hamner that she was drinking some kind of so-called party drug along with the Evian, and she had agreed to take the substance, we would have another matter before us. But we’ll put a witness on the stand who will state that Favro has used this drug in such a manner previously, that he dosed her without her knowledge. That’s a pattern of behavior, and that’s negligent homicide. I personally think we can make manslaughter stick, but we’re willing to deal it away, along with the rape, if Favro opens up and tells us everything he knows about the Hamner case and about the assault on Jacey Slaight.”

  The defense counsel whispered to Favro, who listened intently. Then both men looked across the table. “What are you looking for in terms of jail time?”

  “You’re looking at three years max for negligent homicide and five years for indecent assault. We’ll go for a year on the homicide and two years on the assault and you’ll serve two years. The Supe has authorized me to offer you these terms.”

  “I want it in writing.”

  “You’ve got it,” said Major Harriman.

  Kerry couldn’t keep himself from rubbing his hands together as he dug into Favro’s story about the night at the lake with Dorothy Hamner, but what he really wanted to hear were the details of how they pulled off the kidnapping of Jacey. When Favro was finished, it was almost noon. They broke for lunch, and afterward, Kerry and Harriman called for Rose. He had retained two lawyers, Captain Lamb, a JAG from West Point, and a civilian by the name of Hoffman. Both men had been with him all morning.

  When
Rose and his lawyers reached the interrogation room, Rose whispered to Hoffman, who turned to Agent Kerry. “I’m going to make a suggestion that we take this up tomorrow. We need time to consult with our client.

  “I’m going to respond by saying that we will go forward with our business right now,” said Agent Kerry.

  The military lawyer whispered to Hoffman, apparently explaining the rules that prevailed on an Army post, and Hoffman nodded. “Very well.”

  Major Harriman read the Honor Committee charges against Rose. Then he read the charges in the death of Dorothy Hamner. Rose’s face was unresponsive. He had been expecting the Hamner charges, and now here they were.

  Kerry stepped forward when Harriman was through running down his set of charges. “Now comes the part you’ve been waiting for, Mr. Rose. I’ve got you on kidnapping Jacey Slaight. That’s a life term. I’ve got you on indecent assault of Jacey Slaight. When you tie that in with the rape charge in the Hamner matter, you are looking at life without parole. How does that sound to you?”

  “You haven’t got shit,” said Rose.

  “I told you to be quiet, Mr. Rose,” said Hoffman. He turned to Major Harriman. “We want to know the deals you gave the other two.”

  “New man, new deal,” answered Harriman.

  “No way. We want to start with at least the same thing the others got.”

  Agent Kerry addressed the civilian attorney: “Let me explain something to you, Mr. Hoffman, so you can explain it to your client here. It’s my way, or it’s a highway heading straight to Fort Leavenworth. You’re at West Point, Mr. Hoffman. People believe in the ideals of duty, honor, and country here. They tend to believe that individuals like your client Mr. Rose would best serve their country by serving lots of time. You’re not going to run across any O. J. juries at West Point, Mr. Hoffman. You won’t find any bleeding hearts at this little outpost on the Hudson. Perhaps you should consult with Mr. Rose. I’m sure he can enlighten you.”