The edge in her voice seemed to rattle this woman. “Not in so many words,” she answered in a defensive tone. “But it was obvious.”
“Not to me,” Meg said.
Terry touched Meg’s arm. “Did you and Kate ever talk about this again?” he asked.
Scott gave a quick shake of the head. “Never. I think it embarrassed us both.”
“So you have no idea who she was meeting.”
“No.” Scott sounded ashamed of her own thoughts. “But Tom and I talked about it. We figured it must be a military guy.”
Terry caught Meg’s look of dismay—Scott’s suspicions, once expressed, might have spread beyond her husband. “Why did you think that?” he asked.
“It’s obvious,” Scott said with a hint of impatience. “Where else do any of us meet men? Bolton’s like our own city—some of us don’t leave for weeks. What came as a surprise is that Kate would meet a guy so soon after coming here.”
At least, Terry thought, Scott did not assume that it was Brian. “So you haven’t talked to CID.”
Scott looked away, then glanced at her daughter and her playmate. “No. And I’m not eager for that to happen.”
Meg’s expression remained cool. “Have you told anyone else about this?”
“No.” Scott turned to Terry. “Tom’s a captain in the Signal Corps. He didn’t know Kate’s husband, and we don’t really know their friends. It’s not the kind of thing we share outside the family.”
Terry chose his words with care. “That’s a kindness, Lauren. Meg’s right—in itself, this incident means nothing. But talking about it could only hurt Kate and her children, and maybe other innocent people as well.”
Scott regarded him with caution. “I understand. But if the CID asks me a question, I can’t lie to them.” Her voice lowered. “I’ve prayed on this, Captain Terry. That’s why I had to call you.”
Meg stared at the ground. “I appreciate your coming to us,” Terry said. “If CID contacts you, please just let us know.”
AT THE EDGE OF the park, Meg turned to face him. “Whatever else that means, it wasn’t Brian.”
“Are you still so sure?” Terry asked. “This woman’s right—it would be easier for Kate to start an affair with a man she already knew. And who else but someone who cared for her would take that chance? In the army, adultery can end a career.”
Meg’s eyes clouded. “I know my brother, that’s all.”
“Then tell me this: Kate says she never spoke about Joe hitting her to anyone but Brian. But you’ll never convince me she wouldn’t tell whoever she was sleeping with. If it isn’t Brian, then she lied to us. And if it is, she lied about that.” Terry thought swiftly. “Whoever it was, they had to meet off the base, just as Kate told Lauren Scott. Sooner or later Flynn will find out where.”
“If it ever happened,” Meg objected.
“If it happened,” Terry retorted, “it’s time for Kate to tell us. I need to see her right away.”
Meg considered him for a moment, her blue eyes conveying an emotion—regret or perhaps confusion—he could not quite label. Then her expression changed utterly. “You’re right,” she conceded. “Please, let me talk to Kate first. If there’s something about our family, I’m the one she’ll tell.”
TERRY WAS IN HIS office when Meg called. In a tired voice, she reported, “Kate won’t talk about this. Except to say that it didn’t concern Brian.”
Terry felt his own frustration. “Does she acknowledge the conversation?”
“Only to say that Lauren misunderstood it. She sees the devil under every bed, Kate told me.”
“Then why were they friends?”
Meg was silent for a moment. “I talked to Brian,” she said. “He denies it, too.” Her voice softened. “We should leave this be, Paul. If we go around looking for Kate’s phantom lover, we’ll only stir things up.”
This had a certain logic, Terry thought. Then it struck him that Meg had never before used his given name. “Okay,” he allowed. “For now.”
He got off the phone, then called Kate D’Abruzzo’s mother.
ten
ON MEETING ROSE GALLAGHER, TERRY’S FIRST THOUGHT WAS that Kate D’Abruzzo resembled her mother so completely that Kate’s father had left no trace. His second was that Rose was the image of a general’s wife: dignified in carriage and manner, she was quite tall, with a handsome face, perceptive brown eyes, and dark hair streaked with white. In a dry voice with faintly patrician East Coast tones, she said, “You must be Captain Terry.”
Standing at the threshold of her town house, he responded, with a slight smile, “And you’re certainly Kate’s mother.”
“I am that. Please come in.”
Her living room was furnished in traditional style and, like her daughter’s, filled with family photographs, including several of her grandchildren and a formal wedding picture in which a proud-looking Rose and Anthony McCarran were flanked by Joe D’Abruzzo and a radiant Kate; Meg, wearing a somewhat forced smile; and Brian at about sixteen. A stranger would have taken them for a single family, celebrating a milestone of their years together. But another photograph showed a young army lieutenant with a bright smile, clear blue eyes, and the can-do look of an American ready for a challenge. Following Terry’s gaze, Rose said, “That’s Jack. The one who grows no older.”
Her tone, mixing sadness with acceptance, suggested a penchant for facing life as it was. Turning to her, Terry said, “I’m sorry for all that’s happened.”
“Thank you.” She waved him to a seat, then said in a softer voice, “I spoke to Joe’s mother, not an hour ago. It’s hard to imagine the devastation they must feel. They never had much—in many ways Joe was their reason for living, the culmination of so many hopes. They revered Tony, and loved all the McCarrans. Now, of course, any fault was Brian’s, not Joe’s. Placing blame is all they have left.”
“How do you feel?”
She gave him a look of striking directness. “Unspeakably sad. For my daughter, of course, and my grandchildren even more. Kate will survive, as I did. But the death of a parent leaves scars in a child that linger, and a violent death all the more so. Then there’s Tony and Meg—and most of all, Brian, facing charges for killing Kate’s husband. For me, there’s no one person to blame, and too many people who are suffering.”
Terry placed his hat on the coffee table, signaling his hope of staying awhile. “I’m all the more grateful for your time, Mrs. Gallagher.”
“And I’m more than willing to give it. If Brian is charged with murder, that will only deepen the tragedy, perhaps in ways that none of us can imagine. Better that we bury this with Joe.”
She spoke in the measured tones of a woman accustomed to loss and what loss leaves behind. “Part of my job,” Terry told her, “involves understanding Brian and how this might have happened. I take it that your family and the McCarrans are very close.”
“More than close,” she corrected. “Intertwined. Tony and Jack were best friends at the academy—the first time I met Mary was on a double date with Tony and Jack. Tony was best man at our wedding, and Jack was Tony’s.” She paused a moment. “When they went to Vietnam together, as infantry platoon leaders, Mary and I saw them off. As you know, Jack died there.”
Even when sitting, Terry noticed, her posture was erect. “That must have been hard,” he ventured.
“It was,” Rose answered simply. “I was eight months pregnant when two men in uniform came to my door. I knew at once that my life had been divided in two—before Jack died, and after. I remember feeling sympathy for the terrible role they had. But I really can’t remember anything I said.”
For an instant, Terry flashed on Brian’s loss of memory. “I gather General McCarran helped you.”
Rose smiled a little. “ ‘General McCarran,’ ” she repeated softly. “He was ‘Tony’ then, a twenty-three-year-old junior officer. When he came back from Vietnam, Tony did everything he could for me—helping get all my benefits, finding a job teaching on t
he base.” She paused, reflective. “On the phone, when you asked how the war affected Joe and Brian, I thought at once of Tony. Jack came back from Vietnam in a coffin; a piece of Tony never came back at all.”
“How do you mean?”
Rose seemed to parse her thoughts. “He was quieter, more distant. He’d suddenly lapse into silence, like Brian does now. When Joe stopped playing with his children, I remembered something odd—that Tony, who had no children then, lost interest in the hunting dog he’d always adored. All three of them were somewhere else.” She paused, as though hearing a question Terry had not asked. “They were volunteers, I know. But I think we have no idea what we ask of them in war, and they only know once it happens. If they ever really allow themselves to know.”
Terry considered his next question. “I’m interested in General McCarran,” he said at length. “I think he’s central to understanding Brian and how he might have reacted to what he experienced in Iraq. As I told Meg, this feels like a family story.”
Rose gave him an enigmatic smile. “How did she respond to that?”
“Sometimes I’m underwhelmed by her enthusiasm. Because of Brian, and perhaps for reasons of her own, I think she finds the subject of family painful. That’s part of why I need your help.”
Rose nodded her understanding. “Meg can be a hard one. Though, for reasons I doubt she’s shared with you, she comes by that honestly. But you were asking about Tony after Vietnam.”
“Yes. Among other things, I’m curious about whether he appreciates what happened to him there.”
“In other words,” Rose inquired pointedly, “does he also grasp what may have happened to Brian? To a degree, ‘yes’ to both. Tony never talks about Vietnam. But after Brian returned from Iraq, Tony admitted to me that his experiences affected him for a time. What he may not perceive is that the change was permanent. Even now, sometimes Tony just shuts down. That’s when I know to give him solitude, and silence.”
She sounded like a wife, Tony realized. “How did that affect his marriage?”
The keen look she gave him suggested that she had followed his thoughts. “You are curious, aren’t you? I suspect that extends to Meg as well.”
It was time, Terry realized. Instead of answering, he tried his most disarming smile. “I’m knee-deep in McCarrans,” he said. “There’s a lot to unravel—including why Brian’s first call after the shooting was to Meg.”
Rose studied him for a moment. “Perhaps we share a common sensibility, Captain Terry. Sometime after Mary died, I began working toward my master’s degree in child psychology. What got me started in that direction was Kate, Meg, and Brian.
“But you were asking about Tony and his marriage to Mary. After Vietnam, Tony wanted peace. Mary had none to give. She had always been histrionic and somewhat needy—what she needed was a husband who expressed his feelings openly and made her the center of his life.” Rose shook her head. “From the beginning, the expectations she had of Tony were impossible. In the end, the gap between her fantasies and the reality of her marriage nearly destroyed them both.”
Rose Gallagher, Tony judged, was not prone to melodrama. “General McCarran,” he observed, “doesn’t strike me as easily derailed.”
“He’s not. But Mary was a force all her own.” Rose’s tone became ironic. “You’ve heard all the clichés about army wives, I’m sure. Many are true. My father was a two-star general, and my mother helped make him one. When you marry an officer with ambitions, she told me more than once, you find that he’s really married to the army and that you’re the other woman. You get the time that’s left after he’s met his spousal obligations.
“I was prepared for that. To succeed, you enjoy the time your husband can give and fill the void with family and whatever activities the army offers wives.” She angled her head, attuned to Terry’s thoughts. “That sounds antiquated, I know. But back then most officers’ wives didn’t dream of working. Your job was to help your husband rise as far and as fast as he could. For Tony, nothing less than the top would do. That was another way in which Vietnam defined him.”
“How so?”
Her gaze became distant, pensive. “I don’t believe Tony thought he’d survive the war. Instead, Jack was the one who died. After that, I think Tony felt impelled to fulfill the potential that his father and grandfather and Jack, by dying, never could. When you’re from a line of heroes, that means achieving nothing less than the highest rank the army has to offer.” She shook her head in wonder. “Whatever it took, Tony did—not just combat but eighteen-hour days, six to seven days a week. Success was nonnegotiable. And now he’s very close to achieving all his dreams—head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apex of our military. Unless this tragedy takes it from him.”
“It shouldn’t,” Terry responded. “Viewed rationally, Brian killing your son-in-law has nothing to do with that.”
“I hope you’re right. Tony has wanted this so badly for so long, and at several points Mary nearly lost it for him.” She paused, studying his face. “How old are you, Captain Terry?”
“Thirty-one.”
“Then you may not know that once it was common practice to include positive comments on spouses in an officer’s fitness report. If there was nothing good to say, nothing was said—which screamed that the wife was a real problem. Everyone knew of cases where a superbly qualified officer lost a command to a man not quite as good, when the only apparent reason was a woman who had come unglued. A few men tried to keep their wives hidden from view, like Mrs. Rochester in Jane Eyre. It never worked.”
“That sounds like a lot of pressure on everyone.”
“It was. But some women stepped up to the challenge. They could function as a single parent—disciplinarian, leader, shopper, and car pool driver—while their husbands were at war or on an assignment somewhere else. They could bond with other wives to find common values or sort out common problems. They could deal with dislocation, the uprooting of an entire household.” Rose looked at Terry intently. “For someone like Tony McCarran, there’s no such thing as maintaining a balance between career and family. For the right couple, the rewards can be great. But the demands can be hard on new marriages, and young families. There’s a high divorce rate, a fair amount of infidelity, and more depressed or damaged children than anyone cares to admit. Some women fall apart.”
“Like Mary McCarran.”
Rose nodded slowly. “She was a striking blonde, used to attention, who resembled Brian much more than Meg. She was also very high-strung. Three early miscarriages made that worse—even though I was a widow, it was plain she envied me for having Kate so easily. All too often the sight of a pregnant woman would upset her to the point of spite. Empathy was not her strongest quality.”
Nor, it seemed clear, had Rose Gallagher much liked her. “How was she as a mother?” Terry asked.
Rose gave him a sour smile. “Empathy,” she responded, “would have been particularly helpful there. But Mary believed that having Meg would make her feel whole. It didn’t. That was when she began to drink in earnest—in private and, later, in public. One never knew where or when her inner Zelda Fitzgerald would emerge.” Rose’s tone became quieter and sadder. “Tony tried to be patient. He’s a devout Catholic, as am I—leaving the marriage was out of the question for him. But I knew how angry he was beneath his surface calm, and knew that she’d get no better.
“She never did. As a mother she was volatile and erratic—losing her temper for no reason, forgetting birthday parties or play dates, passing out when she was supposed to pick her children up at school. The impact was worse on Meg—in fact, I believe it shaped her. She was the oldest, the one who learned to call me if Mary didn’t show up, the one who started remembering things so Mary wouldn’t forget, the one who watched out for Brian when Mary failed. Mary McCarran turned her sweet-natured baby daughter into a small adult.”
“Did the general understand that?”
“As best he could. Tony’s a kind man, at ti
mes a very sweet one—though I suppose few people really see that. He was always solicitous of Kate and tried to serve as a substitute father.” Her voice softened. “I’m sure fatherhood was strange for him. He was the first McCarran in three generations to actually be a father, as opposed to a myth who’d impregnated his wife before dying.”
Listening, Terry thought of Rose’s own husband, even as he absorbed that, for her, Tony deserved more compassion than did his wife. “Tony,” Rose continued, “experienced his father only in terms of abstract values—courage, honor, fidelity to God and his country. He tried to pass those on to his children. But, as individual people, I think they often mystified him—Meg most of all. Tony had imagined creating a model military family, not the family he had.”
“Which also made things harder for Mary, I assume.”
“Oh,” Rose said dryly, “I’m not unsympathetic. But where I found community among the wives, she saw gossip and negativity, even when it wasn’t there. Most of us tried to support her: no one wanted to see Tony McCarran’s wife stumble and fall. But the monthly luncheons, the scholarship fund-raisers, the holiday crafts fairs—it all drove her insane.
“At bottom Mary, like Tony, was deeply lonely. But Tony had his work. Unhappy wives drink or turn to other men. The whole truth about Mary didn’t emerge until the end. But it was clear to everyone that she’d turned away from Tony and her children.” Rose’s tone took on the weight of memory. “Over time, Meg came to be much as she is now—serious, determined, self-reliant. Brian was more obviously vulnerable. I remember him as a solitary little boy who looked up to his father but kept his thoughts to himself. He learned at a pretty young age to rely more on Meg than on either of his parents.”
“What role did you and Kate fulfill?”
A mirthless smile played on Rose’s lips. “A highly relevant inquiry, if I follow your train of thought. But Kate’s role in their lives was far less complex than mine. Especially before Kate went to college, she’d watch them quite a lot, or drive them somewhere when I couldn’t—Brian more than Meg. She had a gift for listening to him, and Brian talked to her more openly than he did to adults. Later on, I suppose he might have had an adolescent crush on Kate.” Her voice flattened. “But nothing more. Long before she married Joe, Brian had come to see her as an older sister.”
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