Truth and Justice

by Fern Michaels

  “It was only a month ago that we found out that Major Nolan was married. I’m sorry, ma’am. When we found out about you, we went back and took another look at the sister but were unable to locate her. She had cleared the bank account, moved, and is no longer on our radar. I’m sorry, Mrs. Nolan.”

  Bella reacted to the news like she’d been slapped in the face. And then kicked in the gut for good measure. Andy hadn’t thought it important enough to change his insurance or to list her as next of kin, to put her name on his bank account, to provide for her. How could he not tell the military he had gotten married? How? That was the first thing she’d done at work when they returned from their two-day honeymoon. She’d told everyone, even the janitor, as she flashed her plain gold wedding band. She’d added Andy’s name to her savings and checking accounts. She’d listed him as her next of kin and made him the sole beneficiary on her insurance. She couldn’t wait to go to HR and do everything she needed to do.

  And now these military people were telling her that he had not bothered to do any of the things expected of a military man who had just gotten married. And even as he had failed to provide for her, he had thought early on that it was important to nag her until she agreed to harvest her eggs and store them in a fertility clinic in case he didn’t make it back. Even back then, when she’d done what he asked, she’d thought there was something ominous about the whole thing. But she had not been able to pinpoint any one thing that made her think such a thing. She chalked it up to something she did not want to think about, much less do, but she did it anyway because her husband had asked her to do it. How had all that gotten by her? Was she that much of an idiot? The obvious answer was yes—but no, not really, she was just head over heels in love with her handsome husband, Major Andrew Nolan, who looked like a movie star in his dress uniform.

  It always came down to money in the end. Or the lack thereof.

  Always.

  The small group in the tiny living room looked at one another. Both officers jumped to their feet and ran to the front door when they heard the doorbell ring.

  Bella swiped at the tears on her cheeks as she watched the hushed conference taking place at the doorway with two women in military dress. The shrink and another woman. Another shrink? She waited as both officers returned to where she was sitting, offered up their condolences again, then shook her hand. When the door closed behind them, it sounded like thunder to Bella’s ears. She looked up at the two women, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “Mrs. Nolan, I’m Colonel Laura Atkins. I am also a psychiatrist. I should have come here with Captain Josell and Captain Kimball, but I was on another call and running late. I’m sorry. I got here as soon as I could. This young woman standing next to me is Lieutenant Carol Gibson. She is . . . was your husband’s nurse.”

  Bella stared at the two women and simply nodded. She just didn’t have it in her right now to say even one word. She wished they would leave so she could go to bed and sleep around the clock, then wake up and find out this was all just a bad dream. That wasn’t going to happen, and she knew it. She motioned for the two women to sit down, which they promptly did.

  “Do I call you Doctor or Colonel?” Bella asked. There . . . she finally asked a question that made at least a little bit of sense. Like she really cared how she should address the woman sitting across from her. This is all about me right now, and I simply do not give a good rat’s ass what you want or expect. All I want is for you all to go and leave me alone. Damn it, just go already, she pleaded silently.

  “Whatever you’re comfortable with. I imagine you have some questions.”

  Bella felt herself nod. No, she really didn’t, but knew she had to ask something. As it was, it was bad enough, they thought she was some weirdo. She wished she had a rule book and that she had read it. “Where . . . how?” she asked in barely a whisper.

  “Major Nolan was the only survivor of a roadside bomb. His whole team was killed. This happened eleven months ago. Major Nolan was paralyzed from the neck down on his right side. He had partial use of his left arm and leg at first; then he couldn’t use either his arm or his leg. He deteriorated very quickly. In the beginning, he could talk coherently. He knew how badly he was wounded. He could more or less feed himself finger food with his one good arm; then his voice gave out, he couldn’t swallow, and he had to be fed through a tube. He was flown to Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in the area within days of being injured,” Colonel Atkins said, then let loose with a heavy sigh as she heard Bella shriek.

  Bella jumped to her feet like she was spring loaded. “Are you telling me my husband has been at Walter Reed, practically within walking distance from me, and no one in the goddamn army thought I had a right to know! Is that what you are sitting there telling me? Do you have any idea, any idea at all what I went through not hearing from my husband in all that time? Well, do you?”

  No one responded verbally; however, they all bobbed their heads up and down.

  “Damn it, say something,” she shrieked again, the sound vibrating off the walls.

  “It . . . it’s complicated, Mrs. Nolan. We . . . the army . . . didn’t know about you. As we said earlier, Major Nolan did not update his status after you got married. As far as his sister, his relationship, his bank account where his pay went, that was his personal business, we had no control over his affairs. Just so you know, Major Nolan’s sister had his power of attorney. All of that information is in the packet Captain Kimball gave you. Right after his leave, when I assume you were married, Major Nolan deployed. You can’t blame the entire United States Army for his failure to change what needed to be changed,” Colonel Atkins said gently. “I understand your being upset, but—”

  “When, exactly, did my husband die? You say he was injured eleven months ago. The officers said that his sister claimed his benefits, but when they found out about me, they tried to find her but couldn’t since she had apparently moved. So how long ago did he actually die? A few weeks? A few months?” Bella asked through clenched teeth.

  Colonel Atkins took another deep breath. “Eight months ago.”

  “Eight months! Is that what you said? Eight months?” Bella started to wail and scream at the top of her lungs. The nurse, Lieutenant Gibson, rushed to put her arms around her. Bella shook her off but allowed the lieutenant to lead her to the sofa and sit down with her.

  “Andy, and he asked me to call him Andy since I was his full-time nurse, talked about you all the time in the beginning, when he had the strength. He didn’t want you to know how badly he was injured. He hoped, and we in the medical field encouraged the hope, that something could be done for him. He said you were too young to be burdened with what he called his condition. He never called you by name until the very end. He would just refer to you as the love of his life. Or his soul mate. One time, he said that the minute he laid eyes on you, he knew you were his destiny. He loved you, Mrs. Nolan, heart and soul.”

  Bella sniffed. “Not enough to trust me. I would have been at that hospital twenty-four/ seven, doing whatever I could. I filed for divorce today because I could not understand how and why he couldn’t get word to me when the other wives had FaceTime and shared messages. I thought all kinds of crazy things during all those months. I didn’t know. How could I not have known, felt something? How? Now I have to live with that.

  “I had mean, evil thoughts during those months. There were days when I hated Andy for not getting in touch. The truck he loved so much has not been repaired. I can’t pay for it. I don’t have any money except my salary. And now you’re telling me I won’t even get his insurance.

  “How did you find me? For eleven months you couldn’t find me, when I was living in the same place I had been when we got married, then suddenly, after I move, you show up. How goddamn convenient. This smells like a cover-up of some kind to me. Well?” she screamed again, only this time it sounded more like a frog croaking. Clearly, she was losing her voice.

  “It wasn’t easy, I can tell y
ou that. Like I said, your husband’s entire team was killed. All we had to go on was his military personnel file, an absentee sister we couldn’t find at first, and what little Major Nolan shared with Lieutenant Gibson. The last week, when Major Nolan’s condition deteriorated, he asked me to write you a letter or, if possible, to go and see you. I said I would. But before he could tell me where you lived, he died. All he told me was that your name was Bella. He did not even tell me that you were his wife. It was not until one of his buddies told us that he had gotten married on his last leave that we knew a wife even existed. Once we knew, we went back through his file and discovered the letter I had written, the one that was addressed to Bella, but we could find no one named Bella Nolan until you moved and changed your telephone listing.”

  “My God. I changed everything else, but the one thing I did not do was notify the telephone company of the name change, never dreaming that it could make a difference,” Bella said, the anguish clearly heard in her tone of voice.

  “All those months he . . . I didn’t have a clue . . . he really was trying to protect you and didn’t want you worrying about him. I guess it never occurred to him that not hearing from him was worse. Sometimes, men are not . . . not as . . . intuitive as women. Sad to say. The letter . . . the letter is inside the packet.

  “If it is any consolation to you, Mrs. Nolan, I made sure I visited your husband twice a day when possible. I was with Major Nolan when he passed. I was holding his hand. I went to his funeral. I prayed for him. I just want you to know that. He didn’t die alone. If I had known how to find you, I would have defied him and broken my promise to him and fetched you to his side.”

  Bella nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I believe you,” she whispered. “Is Andy . . . is he buried in Arlington National Cemetery?”

  “Yes. Everything is in the packet, all the information you need. Major Nolan’s body arrived here with no belongings, so there is nothing to turn over to you. I’m sorry.”

  Bella nodded again. “Thank you. I really would like to be alone now if you don’t mind. And before you can ask, no, I am not okay. I won’t be okay for a long time to come, but I do know how to cope, and if I feel I need a shrink or a therapist, I will get one. Right now, I think I’ve earned the right to wallow for a while. You all don’t need to see me bang my head on the wall or hear me cussing up a storm. So, please, just go now and leave me to myself. I have your cards, and I will call you if I feel the need. I am being as truthful as I can be right now.”

  Bella literally jumped to her feet, ran to the door, and threw it open. Her guests had no other choice but to get up and leave. There were no hugs, no handshakes. “Just go,” Bella said.

  The sound of the dead bolt shooting home once the door closed was the loudest sound Bella had ever heard in her entire life.

  Chapter 3

  Joseph Espinosa knew that if he walked any more slowly, he would come to a full stop in the middle of the sidewalk, which would lead to a great deal of verbal abuse. Realizing what he was doing, he moved to the right so that he was almost up against a storefront featuring men’s athletic gear. He stared at it without really seeing it. He turned when a bunch of giggling girls bumped into him. They apologized and started walking again.

  Espinosa blinked, looked at his watch. He grimaced. He had ten minutes to get to Bertie’s Tea Room, where he was to meet Alexis for lunch.

  Espinosa, as everyone other than Alexis and Annie called him, the two of them always calling him Joseph, hated Bertie’s Tea Room. In his male-chauvinist opinion, it was nothing more than a girly-girly hangout. If it weren’t for Alexis, whom he loved as much as he hated Bertie’s, he wouldn’t be found dead inside the damned hoity-toity place. The main course consisted of tiny little lettuce sandwiches no bigger than a quarter followed by some foul-tasting hummus on the side. A green organic drink that smelled like diesel oil, served over crushed ice in a small glass, and a cookie that looked like it was carved out of the middle of a haystack, were the daily fare at Bertie’s. Women, Alexis included, flocked to the establishment in droves. On none of the four occasions that Alexis had managed to drag him to Bertie’s, with him fighting her every step of the way, had he seen a single person of the male persuasion inside. But he loved her, so he wanted to keep her happy, and if going to Bertie’s with her made her happy, then so be it.

  “Fair is fair,” he mumbled to himself as he trudged along. On rare occasions, Alexis joined him at LongHorn Steakhouse, where she ate a baked potato and a four-piece cucumber salad. God forbid a piece of meat should get past her pearly whites. Alexis was a true vegan.

  Espinosa saw a flurry of movement ahead and realized it was Alexis coming from the other direction. They met up, hugged, pecked each other on the cheek, and then entered the little tearoom. “I know how much you hate this place, Joseph, so I appreciate you agreeing to lunch here. I’ve got to be quick today. Nikki called a meeting about a new case, so I need to be on time. This was the closest place that would allow me to get back in time for the meeting. Next time, LongHorn, and lunch will be on me. Okay, honey?”

  Honey. Espinosa loved it when Alexis called him honey. He nodded and offered up a sappy grin as he waited for her to order for him. While he waited, he looked around. The regular lunch crowd had come and gone from the looks of things. Two white-haired ladies were whispering to each other on the other side of the tiny room. Four empty tables had not been bussed yet. Three young women in jogging attire paid their check and left, the bell over the door tinkling merrily. He had always liked the sound of that bell.

  With the lunch hour basically over, the rule was that a latecomer could sit anywhere. Espinosa chose a table to his liking, held out Alexis’s chair, then sat down and leered at his dearly beloved. Alexis giggled.

  It was a cozy, comfortable place to take a noontime break with a light lunch that guaranteed to get the diner back to work full of spit and vinegar. The decor was pleasant. Crisp, dotted Swiss curtains covered the two bay windows. Hand-painted nature scenes of the four seasons decorated the four walls. He vaguely recalled Alexis telling him the artwork on the walls was compliments of Bertie’s patrons.

  Alexis picked up a menu, not that she needed it, and said, “How’s everything, Joseph? What’s hot in the newsroom? By the way, how’s Maggie doing? I haven’t heard from her in a few weeks, and that’s not like Maggie. She’s always front and center.” Alexis shifted her gaze as she spoke. “She looks so sad. I wonder what’s wrong?”

  “Maggie is out on some fluff piece Ted palmed off on her. Who is sad?” Joe asked as he eyeballed the ugly-looking green drink he knew he was going to have to consume before he could leave this eatery.

  “The young girl directly ahead of us. Don’t stare. I think she’s going to cry. Okay, you can look now. Do you think she’s going to cry?”

  Espinosa looked ahead of him to see a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties, sitting alone at a bar table for two. Alexis was right, the young woman did look like she was going to cry any minute. He watched as she knuckled her eyes, then dabbed at them with her napkin. He nodded to show he agreed with Alexis’s take on the situation.

  “She hasn’t touched her food, either. I noticed she was just playing with it, stirring it, moving it from one place to another,” Alexis hissed.

  “She probably had a fight with her boyfriend. He’s probably off somewhere doing the same thing she’s doing. In other words, regretting the fight they had. That’s my best guess. Oh, goody, our food is here,” Espinosa said, grimacing as he stuffed six of the tiny sandwiches in his mouth at the same time. They tasted awful. Done!

  Alexis chose to ignore Espinosa’s sarcasm and nibbled one of the tiny sandwiches, never taking her eyes off the young woman sitting directly ahead of her. “No, Joseph, it’s something serious. I can tell.”

  “Oh, come on, Alexis, how can you tell? You never saw her before, so how is that possible?”

  Alexis sniffed and sipped at the green drink. “Because I�
�m a girl. She’s a girl. That’s how.”

  Joseph Espinosa’s mother didn’t raise any fools. He knew when to keep quiet. He dipped his fork into the hummus and somehow managed to swallow it. He knew exactly what Alexis was going to do. She was going to get up and walk over to the young woman’s table and stick her lawyer nose into her business. By the time Espinosa processed the thought, Alexis was across the room, seated next to the young woman, and was clasping the girl’s hands in her own. That’s when he saw the waterfall of tears that had been held in check. That told him all he needed to know. Alexis now had a mission, and it did not include him. At least for the moment it did not include him.

  Espinosa motioned to a little blue-haired lady to box up Alexis’s food and take away his dishes.

  When she returned, he paid the check, left the tip, and gathered up the take-out bag. He got up, dropped the bag next to Alexis, and whispered, “Call me.” She nodded.

  Outside, Espinosa looked right, then left. Decisions, decisions. Big Mac or a Whopper? Large fries. Banana milk shake. Yeah, yeah, that was more like it.

  While he ate and drank, Espinosa let his mind roam back to the encounter in the tearoom. He wondered what was making the young woman cry to the point that Alexis felt the need to interfere. Maybe Alexis would tell him or maybe she wouldn’t. Women were funny that way, as he’d found out, much to his chagrin. Experts at keeping secrets. Even Jack Emery, who professed to know everything about women, agreed with that little ditty.

  While his thoughts whirled and twirled, Espinosa cleaned up his mess, left the fast-food joint, and made his way back to the Post, itching all the way. When he itched like this, he could feel trouble coming around the corner.

  Chapter 4

  Six months later

  Bella Nolan looked around her tiny apartment and the minuscule paths she’d created among her packed belongings, which consisted of trash bags and boxes and piles of stuff that she was undecided about and were stacked and waiting for a box or bag or the trash heap.