She dropped her billfold back into her purse with a smile and a murmured thank you. They were halfway to the door before either of them realized he’d called her by name, instead of rank.
Chapter Sixteen
Marsh spent the next three days reviewing the transcript of his interviews with Julia. He also read every story Dean Lassiter had sold to various print media during his months in Vietnam and Cambodia. He wanted to understand the mind of the man he would interview again on Friday.
No student of journalistic art, Marsh nevertheless quickly grasped Lassiter’s skill. The correspondent painted vivid, startling pictures with a minimum of words. Just as skillfully, he buried his cutting political commentary in the drama and pathos of the events he described. Although Marsh dissected each of the articles Julia had given him, he kept returning again and again to the story that had won a Pulitzer.
He picked it up a final time Friday afternoon, an hour before his scheduled interview with the correspondent. Planting a foot on an open desk drawer, he pushed his chair back and read once more the stark account.
ROCKETS HIT DANANG
DaNang Air Base, South Vietnam, Mar. 29
A barrage of 107 mm rockets rained down on the base last night, destroying an ammunition storage facility.
The story absorbed him, as it had every time he’d read it. So did the setting. They’d all been together in DaNang...Lassiter, Hunter, Julia. Not the night of the attack, but the next.
Had the seeds of Hunter’s murder been sown then? Or had they already germinated and started to show green? Was there any significance to the fact that the journalist left Saigon the same day Hunter failed to show for his mission and not the day before, as he’d planned?
Frustration ate at Marsh as he tossed the article onto his overflowing desktop. He was running out of reasons to delay finalizing the investigation. His boss had started to get nervous, real nervous, about the White House interest in the case. Although General Titus hadn’t applied any pressure, the OSI commander felt it.
Just yesterday, Pfligerman had reviewed the status of the investigation and pointed out that evidence still pointed to Julia Endicott as the prime suspect in Captain Hunter’s death. She had the means, the opportunity, and certainly the motive.
Marsh didn’t need his boss to interpret the facts in the case. He carried them in his mind constantly, and felt their weight every time his eyes drifted to the photo of Julia still taped to his wall. He knew how easily a good trial lawyer could weave them into a picture of guilt.
Lieutenant Endicott had been having an affair with her best friend’s lover. She’d left the party at the Caravelle with Hunter. She’d had sex with him that night, either voluntarily or otherwise. Jealousy and rage had come together when he married another woman. Sometime before June 12th, she’d shot Hunter on a deserted stretch of road a few miles north of Saigon and buried him in a shallow grave. She was tall enough, and strong enough, for the physical effort required. She’d disposed of the murder weapon and reported it stolen to cover her tracks.
Unless this interview with Lassiter turned up a new lead, Marsh didn’t have anywhere else to go with his inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Captain Hunter’s death. He’d have to finalize his report and turn the results over to the court-martial convening authority.
Involuntarily, his gaze returned to the woman who’d come to dominate his thoughts. Fighting an insane urge to apologize to the silent, unsmiling Julia, Marsh linked his hands behind his head. He was still staring at the photo of his only suspect when Barbara Lyles appeared at his door some time later.
“Ready to go?”
The chair legs thunked the floor. “I’m ready.”
Lassiter’s assistant had balked at scheduling an appointment the day of her boss’s return from the European Summit. Mr. Lassiter would have to work up his notes from the flight back with the President, she’d protested, and tape a session for the political talk show he hosted. This time, Marsh hadn’t taken any crap. Mr. Lassiter could either see him today or be served a written subpoena to testify at a trial in the next few weeks. Consequently, the reporter’s assistant was less than gracious when he and Barbara walked into the outer office.
“You’ll have to wait,” she told them curtly, a phone jammed to her ear. “Mr. Lassiter’s still down at the studio.”
Barbara’s chunky gold bracelets banged as she shrugged out of her coat and folded it neatly across her arm. Cool and regal, she took one of the leather armchairs.
Too restless to sit, Marsh examined the signed photos that decorated one entire wall. He counted six Presidents, two Queens, and a half dozen prime ministers, all either being interviewed or shaking hands with Dean Lassiter. He’d moved on to counting the lesser mortals when the subject of the shots opened the door and strolled in. Scrubbing pancake make-up from his forehead with a white towel, he apologized for the delay.
“Sorry. The show airs in an hour, and we needed to bleed another seven and a half minutes from the tape.”
“No problem.”
The two agents followed the reporter into the inner office. More grip-and-grin photos covered the dark green walls, as well as a dizzying array of framed awards and citations. Ignoring the gallery, Marsh introduced his partner.
“This is Special Agent Lyles, Mr. Lassiter. She working with me on the investigation into Captain Gabriel Hunter’s death.”
The journalist tossed his towel aside and took the ID Barbara held out. After returning her credentials, he gestured the two agents to the upholstered chairs grouped around a low coffee table.
Barbara dug the small tape recorder out of her purse and placed it on the table. “You don’t mind if we record this, do you?” she inquired politely.
He waved an impatient hand. “I’ve been on tape often enough. What’s this all about, Marsh? I told you everything I knew about Julia Endicott and Gabe Hunter the last time we talked.”
“Since our last discussion, Colonel Endicott has raised some questions concerning your whereabouts at the time of Captain Hunter’s disappearance.”
“My whereabouts?”
Astonishment slackened Lassiter’s facial muscles. For a moment, he bore little resemblance to the smooth, sharp-witted political commentator who appeared on national television every Friday night. He recovered swiftly, however. His eyes shooting black lasers, he threw a sharp demand at Marsh.
“Why in the hell is Julia raising questions about me?”
The agent pulled a small notebook out of his suit pocket. He didn’t need to refer to his notes of their previous conversation. He’d reviewed them a dozen times in the past few days. He just wanted to let Lassiter feel the heat for the time it took to thumb through the pages.
“You mentioned stopping by Lieutenant Endicott’s room to invite her to dinner the night before you returned to the States. She confirmed that invitation.”
“And?”
“She also confirmed the date of that invitation as June 10th, 1972. It happened to be her birthday.”
Lassiter’s impatience mounted. “So it was her birthday? What has that to do with me?”
“I’m just fixing the dates. Did you leave Saigon for the States the day after you stopped by Lieutenant Endicott’s room?”
“Yes.”
“Then why does your interview with the Ambassador-at-Large to Vietnam place you at Yakota Air Base on the 12th?”
“The Men’s Room interview?”
Frowning, Lassiter took the photocopied article Marsh handed him. He skimmed the print and focused on the date at the bottom of the page. Refolding the article, he returned it. His eyes held Marsh’s.
“I left Tan Son Nhut the morning of the 11th aboard a Pan American contract flight. The plane developed engine trouble and put down in Manila. We were on the ground for sixteen or eighteen hours before they got the problem fixed. The plane then continued to Yakota...where I shared a urinal with the Ambassador-at-large.”
Swiftly, Marsh calculated h
is chances of verifying that a flight flown more than two decades ago by a now-defunct airline experienced an engine problem after leaving Saigon. He estimated that the odds ranged from highly improbable to completely impossible.
“I appreciate that Julia Endicott is feeling desperate right now,” Lassiter said curtly. “My sources tell me the evidence against her is overwhelming. But I don’t appreciate wild accusations, even those made by an obviously distraught woman.”
“Colonel Endicott hasn’t made any accusations,” Marsh replied calmly. “She has, however, remembered a brief conversation between you and Captain Hunter at DaNang, where he mentions something that only the two of you knew about.”
“Like what?”
“I was hoping you could tell me that, Mr. Lassiter.”
“I don’t have any idea what conversation Julia’s alluding to.” His voice sharpened. “I’ve held off doing anything with this story because she helped me out all those years ago, but you’d better warn her that the kid gloves come off if she tries to implicate me in her sordid little tale. I’m not going to be scooped on a story in which I figure as a player.”
“This is a murder investigation, Mr. Lassiter, not a grab for headlines.”
“Then I suggest you get on with your investigation.” He rose abruptly. “If you have no further questions for me, I’ll have to ask you to excuse me. I’ve got an appointment with the Secretary of Defense in a half hour.”
Marsh had a lot of questions, but none that made any difference to the investigation if he couldn’t place the reporter in Saigon the morning Captain Hunter disappeared. Frustrated, he grabbed his coat and followed Barbara out of Lassiter’s office. The assistant smirked at their abrupt departure.
“Nice guy,” Barbara drawled as they waited for the elevator. “Given a choice between our friendly correspondent and the colonel, I’d much rather pin the murder rap on him.”
“That makes two of us.”
As Marsh had suspected, tracing Lassiter’s flight became an exercise in futility that only added to his mounting frustration. The records maintained by the Saigon office of PanAm disappeared when the Communists overran the city in 1975. The airline’s corporate records went up in flames in a warehouse fire a few years after it went out of business. Every phone call led down a blind alley. Every computer inquiry came back negative.
They searched the rest of Friday afternoon, and most of Saturday. Barbara finally gave up around dusk. Promising to come in Sunday afternoon to help work the final report, she left Marsh with the remains of a cold roast beef sandwich, an even colder mug of coffee, and the bitter acknowledgment that they had no more leads to follow.
He had to wrap up the investigation. The realization dripped like acid in his stomach as he stood at the window of his office, staring at Bolling’s dark, deserted streets. The coins in his pocket chinked and jangled. Behind him, his computer hummed quietly.
Pfligerman wanted a summary of the investigation to take with him to the Inspector General’s staff meeting Monday morning. The White House had asked for a status report. Marsh could only guess what knife-edged remarks Lassiter had dropped to the Secretary of Defense during their appointment last night. The wolves would be nipping at Julia’s heels come Monday afternoon.
Dammit!
Dragging his hands out of his pockets, he returned to his desk. The green computer screen glowed. The cursor blinked patiently, waiting for him to fill in the final paragraphs. He curled his fingers over the keys and cursed again.
He was missing something! He had to be missing something! She didn’t kill him.
He didn’t bother to ask himself when he’d come full circle from “if” to “why”, then all the way back through “if” again. He could pinpoint the exact moment he’d made the final turn...when Julia Endicott had stood at the door to his office and shed her icy reserve. He could still hear her musical laughter. Still see the smile in her green eyes. At that moment, Marsh had known instinctively she was no killer.
He had also developed the mother of all hard-ons, but no one needed to know that but him. He’d been a cop long enough to understand the uncomfortable phenomenon. Given a suspect as beautiful and intriguing as Julia, he could have expected the vivid mental images that had kept him awake and sweating the past few nights. She’d become part of his psyche. He’d extracted intimate physical details about her body from her medical records. He’d been given a glimpse of her darkest secrets. He’d burrowed into her mind, and she into his.
Marsh could understand and dismiss his physical response to the suspect. What he couldn’t dismiss was his growing conviction that she hadn’t killed Gabriel Hunter.
He had to be missing something!
Tight-jawed, he searched among the scattered files and folders on his desk for the one containing Lassiter’s articles. His chair groaned in protest as he angled it back. Resting the open file on his stomach, he glanced up at the photo taped to the wall.
“Hell of a way to spend a Saturday night, isn’t it, Julia?”
“Some way to spend a Saturday night, isn’t it, Cat?”
As usual, Henry ignored the woman he allowed to serve him. Holding his tail at a stiff, ninety-degree angle, he gobbled down his dinner.
Julia propped an elbow on the counter and rested her chin in one hand. The whole kitchen stank of sardines. For once, she didn’t let the nauseating odor drive her away. She craved companionship, and Henry was the closest thing to it in her life right now...except for Marsh.
“Pretty sick, huh? The only person I really feel comfortable talking to about this nightmare is the one who dragged me into it.”
If Henry agreed with her assessment, he didn’t bother to show it. Sighing, Julia traced a pattern in the tile with the tip of one nail.
“That’s not strictly true, of course. Marsh didn’t drag me into this mess. I have to give Gabe Hunter full credit for that.”
Saying Gabe’s name aloud left a bitter taste in her mouth, as though she’d downed the dregs of coffee. Julia swallowed once or twice to clear the taste before she realized what she was doing.
Good grief! When had she become so pathetic? How had she let herself reach the state of whining to a cat who couldn’t care less about a man who’d been dead for more than two decades? She straightened and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the dark oven panel.
Was that really her? That sad-looking creature in the baggy sweats, with no make up and her hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail? She stared at her pale face for long moments, then lifted her chin. She hadn’t let Gabe Hunter destroy her in Vietnam. She was damned if she’d let him do it now.
“Sorry, Cat, you’ll have to dine alone tonight.”
Henry didn’t glance up as Julia swept out of the kitchen.
She took the stairs to the third floor with a determined burst of energy. A quick flip of a switch flooded her tall-ceilinged bedroom with subdued lighting. The master suite ran the length of the townhouse, with bow windows that overlooked the street at one end and a mirrored dressing area at the other. Like those in the rest of her home, the walls and furnishings in her bedroom had been done in the soothing whites and beige’s she loved.
The sweats came off and dropped to the floor of her walk-in closet. So did her cotton Jockey briefs. In their place she pulled on a silk teddy, a fuzzy, ice blue sweater and a pair of white wool slacks. Warm trouser socks and supple, cream-colored leather boots would do for the short trek to her favorite restaurant. A few quick strokes with a brush restored the sheen to her hair, and a whisk of blush put a little color in her cheeks.
“Better,” she decided, assessing her image in the mirror above her dressing table. “Not great, but definitely better.”
Henry the Cat lay sprawled in boneless indolence on the white leather sofa when Julia came back downstairs. Not even his tail twitched when she bid him goodnight and let herself out the front door. Locking it behind her, she headed down the lighted, cobblestone walk to Duke Street, two short blocks a
way. With each step, icy January air bladed into her lungs.
She welcomed its knife-edged bite. Her body’s tingling response to the cold revived her spirits and reaffirmed her decision to go out. She’d locked herself away from her friends, even from Jonas, for too long. If this case went to a trial by court martial, she faced some tough days ahead. She’d darn well better start coping with that possibility instead of letting it drive her into a self-destructive, unhealthy isolation.
Still, she couldn’t help a cowardly sigh of relief when she walked into her favorite bistro and saw no one she recognized among the noisy, laughing patrons. A tray of cold boiled shrimp and some casual conversation at the stand-up bar would be more than enough to satisfy her.
The Saturday night crowd stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the waiting area and two deep at the bar. When Julia finally wedged into a vacant spot at one of the circular, chest-high tables, the convivial group around it welcomed her. Within moments, she’d been drawn into their lively discussion of the Skin’s abysmal performance in the Eastern Division play-offs. Sipping a perfectly chilled Chardonnay and munching on iced-down shrimp, Julia almost managed to forget the specter hanging over her.
It came rushing back when she returned from a trip to the ladies’ room to find another glass of Chardonnay waiting at her place. She hadn’t ordered it, and didn’t really want it, but the temptation to get a little high, maybe even silly tugged at her. She hadn’t laughed in weeks, she realized... except in Ted Marsh’s office when he surprised both himself and her with his rash invitation to dinner.
At the thought of Marsh, the muscles low in her belly suddenly contracted. Startled, Julia identified the sexual pull for what it was...a lonely woman’s attraction to the man she’d shared a part of herself with, a part she’d never shared with anyone else.
She’d gone beyond pathetic, she realized in disgust. She teetered on the edge of pitiful. Her hand shot out and grasped the wine glass. She downed its contents in a few hasty swallows and turned a brilliant smile on the tweed-jacketed man next to her.
Duty and Dishonor Page 19