An Unlawful Order (The Chase Anderson Series) (30 page)

This was when Stone had begun to see Dr. Melanie Appleton. Actually, Tony White had been seeing the therapist ever since his return from the war. One afternoon, Stone confided in Melanie that he felt he was being followed and that it was just a matter of time before Farris and Hickman would be onto Tony as well. Since Tony had just left Kitty, he and Melanie perpetuated the myth of their affair. Melanie had been an advocate for Stone and Tony’s relationship, often encouraging the two of them to come clean about their relationship, but, according to O’Donnell who said he’d learned all this from Colonel Figueredo’s relationship with Melanie, it had been Stone who had fought the hardest to keep his homosexuality private. Stone hadn’t been able to face the decimation of both his marriage and his career. Thanks to Melanie, Stone and Tony had a convenient meeting place at her home where she conducted her practice.

Chase was veering onto the H-1 toward Honolulu. What she wanted to do was pull over and sob … or pull over and throw up … or just run the rental car straight off the cliff. Instead, she pounded the steering wheel with a fist, and once, even lowered the window to let out a primal scream. The closer she drew to downtown, however, the more collected she became. Compartmentalize, she was telling herself. Stone was dead. She was alive and Molly was alive. And then it hit her. Really hit her. The damage she might have caused to Figueredo’s investigation by calling Shapiro….

But by this point, she’d already missed the entrance to the parking garage on the first pass and was fifteen minutes late for the appointment with Okamoto. She considered, then reconsidered, calling Okamoto to say she’d have to reschedule. The last thing she wanted right now was to have to put up a front for anyone, especially before the man who just the day before had questioned her for murder.

She drove around the busy block that included four traffic lights, all red. Fortunately, a small white car was backing out of a space closest to the elevator, and Chase drove into the space and grabbed her purse, even taking along the heavy plastic bag of chocolate Halloween candy.

She rode the elevator down to street level and walked across an open breezeway to police headquarters, which was a building of Seventies’ architecture that stood in the shadows of skyscrapers. Inside, a security guard with a broad smile and large teeth asked her to open her purse and the bag of candy.

“Afraid it would melt,” she said of the candy. He nodded and directed her toward another security guard who waved her through the metal detector.

She rode the elevator to the third floor and found Okamoto’s office with little difficulty. Inside, she provided her name to a female clerk in an HP uniform and had no sooner sat down than was greeted by Okamoto who suddenly appeared in the doorway of an adjoining office. “Did you have trouble finding us?” His way of complaining about her tardiness.

“Traffic is terrible this time of day,” she apologized, and added, “Any news from Iraq? Your nephew?”

“My sister received an email from him last night; thanks for asking.” He stepped aside for her to enter his office and pointed toward a chair. “There’s no need to be nervous, you know. You look a little rattled. Everything okay?”

She nodded.

“What’s in the bag?”

“Candy—for tonight. I was afraid it would melt in the car.”

“If it were up to me, I’d lock my son in the house until morning, but my wife’s as excited about Halloween as he is. She’s Hawaiian and loves anything surrounded in mystery and legend. Everything on this island comes with a story. Everything’s sacred, you know: their folklore, the volcanoes, the valleys, the trees, the rivers. She’s still sore I couldn’t stop the H-3 from being constructed.” When Chase didn’t share in his laugh, he added, “She’s sore because Sacred Falls is still closed.”

“Eight people were killed there in a rock slide on Mother’s Day,” she volunteered.

“Years ago. But still, it’s not safe. My wife says, ‘But who will teach our son the stories of the Falls, of Kama-puaa and Pele, of the demon who lives beneath the Falls?’”

“I take it you’re not the type to believe much in Hawaiian folklore.”

“I don’t mind her passing along the stories to our son as long as she doesn’t expect him to believe them.”

“I read some believe Pele caused the Sacred Falls rockslide, because no native Hawaiian was injured.”

“See? That’s what I mean. We can preserve the folklore with stories, but when the stories begin to shape reality—”

“So your wife loves Halloween,” she interrupted.

He seemed to be studying her. “Are you sure you’re okay, Captain Anderson?”

“I’m fine, Detective.”

He waited a second or so before continuing. “Anyway, my wife has the whole outside of the house decorated with plastic pumpkins and fake spider webs.”

Chase couldn’t imagine Okamoto married to such a woman. Everything about him, from his starched white shirt and plain black tie to his black-rimmed glasses that reminded her of those given to recruits during boot camp, signaled no-nonsense.

He added, “We met at a Halloween party. Can you believe that?”

“Maybe that’s why she celebrates Halloween.”

A chuckle escaped him. “You know, you could be right.” He stretched across his desk for a file. “Let’s talk about your Jeep.” He opened, then closed the file, and tossed it back onto the desk. “According to our mechanics, there’s a slice in the brake fluid line that would have led to failure. Whether this was done intentionally we can’t determine. In other words, there’s no conclusive evidence that anyone tampered with your brakes.”

“Okay,” she said, already halfway out of the chair he’d just indicated for her to take. “Will you take care of sending my Jeep back to the body shop, please?”

“Not so fast,” he said, gesturing her back into the chair. “There’s no mistaking that the loss of fluid caused brake failure. Do you remember running over anything in the road last week that might have damaged the brake line?”

“No.” She collected her purse and the candy, and set both on her lap.

Okamoto leaned against his desk and folded his arms. “I think I’m beginning to agree with my friend Paul Shapiro.”

“About what?”

“That you could be in danger.” Okamoto had assumed the persona of the detective he was. The friendly chitchat about wife, son, and trick-or-treating—all gone. She tried to picture him as he might be later that night, following close behind his young son and warning about not eating anything until they returned home where he’d spread the loot on the table or on the living room floor and scrupulously inspect each piece. Then again, she could imagine Okamoto as the sort who’d throw away everything his son brought home behind the child’s back and replace it with candy he’d bought himself. Or maybe that’s just because that was what she was tempted to do each year. If not for base housing and the sense of trust she felt there,
had
felt there, she wouldn’t allow Molly to even leave the house.

For a brief moment, she considered confessing all she knew about Hickman and Farris and the 81 helicopter they were protecting. But Okamoto was a civilian. Even if she did tell him everything, he could do little—no, nothing—about it. This was a military matter that needed to be handled by the military. O’Donnell hadn’t acted as if she were in any sort of danger. Stone was the one who had placed himself in a precarious position, not her. What she didn’t understand was why O’Donnell hadn’t just contacted Major Sims himself, rather than contact General Armstrong. Too many questions were pinging around and around in her brain, and all the while she was struggling to maintain a certain controlled façade before Detective Okamoto. What would he say if she were to blurt out that Colonel Figueredo had confessed to breaking into her home for White’s dog tags and might have been the last person to see Melanie Appleton—his lover, by the way—alive? Maybe O’Donnell and Figueredo weren’t ready to report their findings to N.I.S. authorities or to Major Sims, but she was. And then she thought of Molly and what impact Stone’s relationship with Tony White might have on her.

Okamoto was now drumming three fingers on his desk. “Tell me something, are you and Colonel Figueredo … involved?”

“Good heavens, no.” Involved was not the word she would have chosen. However, her mind flashed back to what O’Donnell had said in the commissary, about Figueredo having feelings for her, and she thought also to last evening, to Figueredo’s hands on her in the kitchen, of his pinning her against the sink, and under Okamoto’s keen stare, she felt the rush of heat in her cheeks. “Why do you ask?”

Okamoto raised one eyebrow. “Someone is obviously out to hurt you.”

“But why insinuate the colonel?” And here she was, defending the very man who just the night before had nearly raped her in her own kitchen. If O’Donnell thought Figueredo had fallen in love with her, he had an awfully skewed idea of love.

Okamoto’s hands had formed a steeple beneath his chin, and his voice took on a reverent tone. “I’m just trying to put together the pieces, Captain Anderson. Do you know him well?”

She thought about what she’d just learned about Stone, about the sham of a marriage they’d had. “How well do we know anyone, Detective?”

On the way back to the office, she’d placed a half-dozen calls to Shapiro, leaving a voice mail request on the last call, pleading for him to call back A-SAP. She’d decided on the walk back to her car at the HP headquarters garage that perhaps she
should
slow Shapiro down until she had time to talk all this over with Figueredo. She still didn’t trust the colonel a hundred percent. After all, the man had broken into her home for White’s dog tags. Yes, she could grant there was a reason, but he’d practically assaulted her while Molly slept down the hall. Colonel Figueredo was arrogant and, apparently, too used to getting everything he wanted.

Back in the office that afternoon during one of Cruise’s meticulous briefs, Chase had to feign interest about the upcoming issue of the
Hawaii Marine.
When North reminded Chase of the final Marine Corps Ball practice at 464 in an hour, she’d nearly snapped at him. “What happened at HP, Ma’am?” North asked, slowly closing her office door to ensure privacy.”

She told him about O’Donnell surprising her at the commissary, though she omitted the truth about how Stone had been blackmailed. North was leaning with both palms pressed flat on her desk, his head cocked slightly right as he listened intently. “Apparently General Armstrong is the one who initiated a secret investigation.” At the mention of Armstrong’s name, North’s eyebrows lifted. “I know,” she said, reading his mind. “Seems O’Donnell and Colonel Figueredo know about me and Armstrong. I don’t know how. Can’t imagine the general would have placed himself in such a court-martial situation, but then again, when has Armstrong ever been afraid of anything?” North nodded, and she knew they were both thinking of the two Silver Stars on Armstrong’s chest.

“Did you tell Major O’Donnell about … your run-in with Colonel Fig last night?”

“Yeah. He seems….” and here she hesitated. “I don’t think O’Donnell believed me,” she finally said and an aggravated North let his head drop lower over her desk. His shoulder blades were sharp angles that pointed toward the ceiling. She hadn’t realized how thin he’d gotten, and on the crown of his head was the faintest beginning of North’s future as a balding, older man. Given what they’d been through in Fallujah, though, it was a miracle either of them had any hair left.

He looked up. “What about your Jeep?”

“Inconclusive, according to Detective Okamoto. But he still believes I’m in some sort of danger.”

“Have you already put your plan in motion?”

She nodded. “I may have moved too fast,” she said as much to herself as to North. “N.I.S.?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. Armstrong wanted this thing quiet for a reason, and Figueredo and O’Donnell have been uncovering what they can. I suppose when they have enough, they’ll contact the authorities.”

“Question: what makes you think you can trust either of them, ma’am? What makes you think they’re not a part of this whole thing? What if O’Donnell is bluffing you? Look at Colonel Fig’s actions last night. Let’s look at what he told you about having a relationship with Shapiro’s sister. Let’s look….” North was now pacing her office, and struggling to keep his voice low. “Let’s look at Colonel Fig’s admission that he broke into your house for the dog tags. What if you’re being set up and we just haven’t put all the pieces together yet?”

He could be right, she thought. There were too many inconsistencies of behavior and actions on nearly everyone’s part, on O’Donnell’s, Figueredo’s, Hickman’s, and Farris’. Maybe she
would
call Major Sims and unload what she knew—let the chips fall, so to speak.

They finally agreed that they couldn’t solve anything for the time being. Chase, breaking under the silent pressure of waiting for Shapiro’s call decided to walk to the cantina in the next building for a soda. She took along her cell phone, though after the discussion with North, she was uncertain what she’d even say now to the reporter. Truth was, she was mentally and emotionally spent. Between a near sleepless night and the shocking revelation about Stone, all she really wanted to do was crawl under the covers for the next ten years or so.

She jumped when her cell phone rang. It was North with a ring of the ominous in his tone. “Ma’am, General Hickman wants to see you A-SAP.”

“Did he say why?” Two young Marines had burst from the cantina, and sobered themselves when they saw an officer, rendering Chase snappy salutes. She returned a salute.

“He didn’t say, ma’am. Just said that you were to report to him ‘A-SAP.’ I’ll head over to 464 and cover for you at the ceremony practice.”

The parking lot that afternoon at headquarters was already thinning by the time she arrived. Inside, she tried not to nervously clomp in her high heels down the long, narrow polished corridor. This was the first meeting with Hickman since she’d learned the truth about his involvement in the 81 cover-up. Of course, he wouldn’t know what she knew, so the idea was to play this visit as she would any other. However, when Chase reached O’Donnell’s office, she noticed that the major’s nameplate had been removed. This was an ominous sign, one that nearly caused her to retreat back down the hallway, but the door to Hickman’s office was open, and she could tell from the shadow she saw moving from the doorframe that he most likely knew she was in the building. In the outer office, the one leading into the general’s, the aide was nowhere to be found, so she rapped on the doorframe, entering when he called out.