Julia had first met the historian fifteen years ago, during her first assignment at the Pentagon. During that exciting tour, she’d spent some months working with the senior civilian who collected and catalogued Air Force art. Julia had researched the artists and subjects of the artwork that captured every phase of military flight. Her research had brought her in frequent contact with the Air Force Historian’s office, located on Bolling AFB...and with Dr. Jones Moreton, head of its research division.
The civilian had been only too pleased to take Julia under his wing and introduce her to the incredible treasure house of historical archives. Their acquaintance had deepened during the months that followed. Upon her return to Washington a few years ago as a colonel, it had ripened into a rich, mutually rewarding friendship.
Julia made it a point to invite the widowed Jones to the social functions she hosted, which he always declined. He, in turn, invited her to private showings at the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, which she always enjoyed immensely. More than once, she’d tried to palm Henry the Cat off on the widower. Those attempts had produced the only tense moments in their long friendship.
Jones had been the first to call her when word spread that she was under investigation. She knew he’d be the last to desert her.
“I won’t be long,” she promised, heading for the terminal.
“Take what time you need. I have plenty to occupy me.”
Pulling the yellowed copy of Dean Lassiter’s men’s room interview out of her purse, she laid it beside the computer and started clicking keys. Within moments, she had accessed the Air University Library catalogue.
Julia’s top-level security clearance had been pulled the same day she’d been relieved of her duties. She didn’t need it for entry to AU’s extensive collection of unclassified documents, however. The library contained more than two million items, including military documents, monographs, oral histories, maps and charts, regulations and...she clicked a button on the screen...an index of periodicals. Swiftly, she typed in a string of key search words.
1972.
U.S. ambassador-at-large, Vietnam.
Yakota Air Base.
Seconds later, a list of entries painted down the screen. One by one, Julia opened the articles, skimmed their content, and printed out those that contained information about the ambassador’s trip. Borrowing a highlighter from Jones, she then underlined dates and locations. Then she entered Lassiter’s name into the search function. Within a remarkably short space of time, she’d reconstructed the two separate itineraries.
The special ambassador had flown from Travis to Alaska, then across the Pacific to Japan. He’d spent less than an hour on the ground at Yakota before continuing his flight to Saigon.
Dean Lassiter had flown in the opposite direction, from Saigon to Yakota to San Francisco. When his plane landed in the States, he’d done a gritty story on the shock the Vietnam returnees experienced when they were greeted at the airport and warned to change out of their uniforms before venturing downtown. Julia printed out his article about soldiers coming home to a country that scorned their service and added it to her stack.
Swiveling away from the computer, she crosschecked the two itineraries with intense concentration. Her initial assumption still held. For Dean Lassiter’s path to have crossed that of the special ambassador, he had to have left Saigon a day later than he’d intended.
Why?
What had delayed him?
Her hands trembling, Julia folded the stack of printed articles and stuffed them into the brown manila envelope Jones handed her.
“I have an invitation to a private showing at the Mary Pickford Theater tomorrow evening,” he told her as they walked to the front door. “Would you care to attend with me?”
“No, thank you. I can’t.”
He searched her face, then held out a thin, wrinkled hand. “You mustn’t let this unpleasantness tear you apart, Julia.”
She managed a shaky smile. “You’re probably the only person I know who would categorize a murder charge as unpleasantness.”
He ignored her feeble attempt at humor. “The pain will pass, Julia. If history hasn’t taught us anything else, it’s shown that all things pass eventually.”
“I didn’t kill him. He deserved it, but I didn’t.”
Julia hadn’t meant to say it. She’d sworn not to burden her friends and family with the desperate protestations of innocence that poured out of every accused criminal.
“I believe you,” he said simply. “I’ve believed in you since the first time you came into my office, all eager and enthusiastic about preserving the Air Force’s heritage. I always shall.”
His unconditional acceptance pierced the wall Julia had built around herself in the past few weeks as nothing else could have. Tears stung her eyes. Embarrassed, she squeezed Jonas’s hand gently and stepped into the sharp, biting cold.
The wind off the Potomac knifed through her as she hurried to her car, and frost sparkled on the windows of sleek gray Mercedes two-seater. Huddling in the driver’s seat, Julia switched on the defroster and debated what to do with the articles she’d just retrieved.
She should give them to her lawyer tomorrow, she supposed. Captain O’Rourke would pass them to the OSI to check out the seeming discrepancy. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, impatient now for the workday she’d dreaded only a few hours ago to arrive.
She could expedite the process a little, Julia decided abruptly. Digging through her wallet, she extracted the card Marsh had given her the day of their first interview. She punched in the number, which, as she’d anticipated, rang at a central switchboard. After verifying that a senior NCO was pulling duty at OSI headquarters, she shifted the car into gear and drove the few blocks to building that housed the headquarters of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
Her breath frosting, she climbed the few steps to the front doors. They were locked, but the phone mounted beside them brought a uniformed senior master sergeant to the door.
“Yes, ma’am?”
Julia flipped her wallet open to display her ID. “I’m Colonel Endicott. I have an envelope for Special Agent Marsh.”
“Sure. Just a minute.”
She returned her wallet to her purse and was digging for a pen to scribble a note to Marsh when the NCO stepped outside and pulled on his hat.
“His office is right across the parking lot. I’ll escort you.”
“Mr. Marsh is at work?”
“Has been all weekend.”
Hiding her surprise, Julia followed the sergeant across the lot to a long, single storied building. A sign above the entrance identified it as the Investigative Operations Center. Her fingers clutched the envelope as the NCO escorted her down the hall and stopped before an open door.
“You’ve got a visitor,” he announced, stepping aside.
Marsh glanced up, his eyes widening in surprise when he caught sight of Julia. Hastily, he shoved his chair back and scrambled to his feet.
She felt a dart of satisfaction at having caught the imperturbable Ted Marsh off guard. From her personal experience with the man, she suspected it didn’t happen very often.
Thanking the sergeant for his escort, she strolled into the cluttered office. If the OSI agent had access to a secretary or a file clerk, he obviously didn’t make use of their talents. He’d stacked folders and files on every level surface, including the two visitors chairs beside the door. An empty pizza carton sat atop the small table between the chairs, adding a pepperoni tang to the faint, spicy scent that emanated from the crumpled Taco Bell sack on the corner of his desk.
“The sergeant wasn’t kidding?” she asked. “You’ve really have been here all weekend?”
He raked a hand through his disordered hair. “Most of it.”
For the first time, Julia saw him in something other than his usual suit and tie. The thin January sunlight streaming through the windows behind him picked up the dark red tint to his rumpled
hair and the swell of muscle under his blue, open-necked Oxford shirt. A light dusting of the same reddish-brown hair curled on his forearms under his rolled-up shirtsleeves. Like Julia, Marsh wore jeans. Unlike hers, his rode low on his hips and hugged trim, muscular thighs.
“Why are you here, Colonel?”
Remembering her mission with a small start, she stepped forward to hand him the envelope. “I wanted to drop this off for you. Since you were in your office, I decided to...”
She stopped in her tracks, her jaw sagging as she spotted the grainy, blown-up color photo that had been hidden by the open door. She barely heard Marsh’s muttered curse as her breath whooshed out in a small gasp.
Stunned, she stared up at herself. It took a moment to place the dress and the seventies make-up and the hard, unsmiling look in her eyes.
“Wh... Where did you get that picture?”
“From Claire Hunter.”
Surprise gave way to hurt, then to swift, searing anger. “What is this, Marsh?” she sneered. “The latest addition to your own private rogue’s gallery? Or is this your sick idea of a pin-up?”
Red singed the tips of his ears. “Neither. A photo helps me remember that the suspect in my case is a living, breathing human.”
Julia flinched. Although she’d accepted that she was, in fact, a suspect, hearing it stated aloud still stung.
“I’m sorry if the picture offends you, Colonel. I didn’t intend it as an insult or an invasion of your privacy.”
The sincerity of his apology defused some of her anger. She fought to bring the rest under control. For a woman who prided herself on her cool, calm approach to issues and problems, she’d been riding a roller coaster these past weeks. When would she regain control of her emotions and her life?
When this ended, she promised fiercely...if it ever ended...she’d reclaim her life. She’d walk away from the shambles of her career. She’d lie on a beach somewhere for weeks. Maybe months. Then she’d put her past behind her and start building a new future.
“Is that what you wanted to give me?”
“What?”
Marsh nodded to the envelope clutched in her fist. “You said you stopped by to drop something off. Is that it?”
“Yes.”
She handed him the clippings, lingering just inside the door while he slid out the articles. She should leave. She had no business discussing the investigation in her attorney’s absence. Yet Julia couldn’t bring herself to walk out the door without seeing Marsh’s reaction to the discrepancy in the dates. Her pulse skipped a beat or two as he unfolded the top article.
“That’s a copy of an interview Dean Lassiter did the day he left Saigon. He cornered President Nixon’s special ambassador to Vietnam in the men’s room during a stop-over at Yakota.”
Marsh scanned the article, his dark brows creasing.
“The content doesn’t matter,” she said. “Look at the date on the bottom of the page.”
He held the article up higher to the light. His frown deepened, then his gaze slashed to a dry board on the opposite wall. Julia’s throat constricted as she interpreted the data on the board.
There they were. Her. Claire. Gabe. The cataclysmic events that had changed their lives had been reduced to a few initials, some cryptic notes.
“Let me make sure I understand this,” Marsh said, planting himself in front of the board. “Dean Lassiter invited you to dinner the night before he left Saigon. You almost accepted. It was the night before your birthday, and you were feeling down. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
Julia edged past his desk and stood next to him. The hair on the back of her neck tingled as she stared at the dates.
“Lassiter leaves the next afternoon, the llth,” Marsh murmured, almost to himself. “Hunter flies a mission that night. The following night, he fails to show for his mission brief.”
“What if Dean didn’t leave on the 11th?” Julia asked softly. “What if he left on the 12th?”
His eyes fixed on the board, the investigator didn’t reply.
“Look at the other articles,” she urged. “I’ve highlighted the dates. Dean’s flight from Saigon touched down in Yakota just minutes before the ambassador’s. On the 12th, Marsh. The 12th!”
He thumbed through the stack of articles, then lifted his head. He stood so close to her, Julia could see the bristly shadows on his chin and cheeks...and the doubt in his steel gray eyes.
“All right. Let’s assume for a moment Lassiter left Saigon a day later than he’d planned. How does that tie him to Captain Hunter’s disappearance?”
She’d asked herself the same question repeatedly during the drive from her townhouse to Bolling. Hearing it from another person, Julia realized how desperately she’d been clutching at straws.
“I don’t know how,” she admitted. “I haven’t been able to get beyond this mix-up on the dates. I just... I thought...” She stumbled to a halt, unwilling to articulate her wild supposition.
“I’ll check it out.”
The quiet promise gave her more hope than it should have.
“Thank you.” She hitched her purse strap up her shoulder. “Well, I’d better let you get back to work.”
“Colonel...”
“Yes?”
“I was just getting ready to close up shop. Do you want to grab a sandwich and a cup of coffee somewhere? We could talk this out a little more.”
Marsh could have kicked himself when he saw the blank astonishment in her eyes. She wasn’t any more surprised at the offer than he was. He was trying to think of a way to retract it without making himself look like a total ass when she giggled. There was no other word for it. The colonel giggled.
Her laughter caught Marsh completely unprepared. The rippling, girlish sound took the mental image he’d formed of Julia Endicott, broke it down, and rearranged it. The result took his breath away. How in the hell had he ever thought the younger version of this woman more seductive than the one who now grinned at him?
“You ought to see your face,” she told him, her green eyes dancing. “When you realized that you just invited your chief suspect to dinner, you looked like you swallowed your pepperoni pizza whole.”
“Well...
Her grin faded. “Don’t worry. I won’t embarrass you by taking you up on your rash invitation. I know what people might say if they saw us having coffee together.”
Marsh felt the loss of her laughter like a blow.
“I’ve never particularly worried about what others might say.” Snagging his sheepskin jacket from the back of his chair, he shrugged it on. “A friend of mine owns a place not too far from here. Joey Pastore serves up the best Italian subs you’ll taste in this lifetime. Are you hungry?”
She blinked at the question, as though the idea of nourishment hadn’t entered her conscious thought process in weeks. From the hollows under her cheeks, Marsh guessed it hadn’t.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”
He cut the office lights and ushered her out. “Good. Me, too.”
“You’re going to eat a sub after downing a pepperoni pizza?”
“I’ll work it off later.”
She was more than hungry, he discovered twenty minutes later. She was starved.
Not for food, though. She barely touched the thick, crusty roll heaped with meatballs, green peppers, fried onions, and Joey Pastore’s famous marina sauce. Her coffee cooled in its cup. Instead of food, Marsh discovered, the colonel craved someone to talk to.
“I can’t discuss the investigation with anyone,” she admitted in response to his subtle probe. “Certainly not with Claire. It hurts her too much. Nor with the man I’ve always turned to for career advice and planning. General Titus will be my accuser, if it comes to that.”
They both knew it could well come to that.
“What about your friends?” Marsh asked.
What about a lover? was what he wanted to ask. Someone close enough to calm her fears and share the black r
eaches of the night. The detailed background brief he’d put together on Julia Endicott showed that several men had drifted into her life in the years since Vietnam, but none had stayed very long. Had Gabe Hunter made her afraid to trust herself or other men?
“I won’t talk about the case to my friends,” she replied with a lift of one shoulder. “I don’t want to put them in the awkward position of pretending they believe me.”
Marsh couldn’t say much for her friends. He and Barbara Lyles knew the weight of the evidence against this woman, but few others did.
Resolutely, he pushed aside the thought of his partner’s reaction when she found out about this little off-the-record session with the suspect. As he’d told Julia earlier, he’d never particularly worried about what others might say. He’d been a cop too long to ignore his instincts. More and more, those instincts were questioning whether Julia Endicott killed her lover.
“You’re doing it again,” she commented with a small smile.
“What?”
“That thing with the coins.”
Sheepishly, Marsh pulled his hands from his pockets. “Sorry. I forget how annoying the noise can be.”
“Actually, I’m starting to get used to it.”
A small shock rippled through Julia as she realized the truth of that statement. She was getting used to more than just the irritating little clink of coins. She was starting to get used this strange, symbiotic relationship she and Marsh shared.
Smart, Endicott. Real smart.
Disconcerted, she reached for her jacket. “I’d better get going. The cat who condescends to share my townhouse gets downright nasty if he misses his meals.”
“Take him the rest of your sub,” Marsh suggested.
“Onions and peppers? I don’t think so.”
“Trust me, he’ll love it.”
“Do you have a cat?”
“No.”
“Do you want one?”
Laughing at her hopeful expression, he shook his head and reached for his sheepskin jacket. She rooted around in her purse and extracted her wallet.
“This one’s on me, Julia,” he said easily, tossing some bills on the table.
Duty and Dishonor Page 18