Dog Tags (19 page)

Russo looked at it. “Dog rescue? What the hell is it with this dog stuff? You and that lawyer friend of yours.”

The reference to Andy was a sign that Russo had checked Willie out, which surprised him. “You should get one,” Willie said.
“A dog will never bullshit you.”

Russo smiled. “Nobody bullshits me.”

T
HE
D
EFENSE
D
EPARTMENT MUST PAY ITS INVESTIGATORS BY THE PAGE.
Hike and I are going over their report on the “incident” in Iraq, which took five months to prepare and an entire forestful
of paper to print. It arrived from the office of the court clerk in eight boxes, each filled with documents.

I randomly choose four boxes and Hike takes the other four, and as we go through it we occasionally stop to discuss what we’re
reading. The writers of the report were clearly operating under a mandate to conclude nothing, and then use as many words
as possible to support that conclusion.

“Shit. Crap. Garbage,” says Hike as he closes his last book. There’s a lot of Winston Churchill in Hike, and this particular
pronouncement has to rank up there with the “Blood, sweat and tears” speech. “How do they get away with this stuff?” he asks.

I’ve been waiting for Hike to finish, mainly because by the time I got to my third book I switched to reading-every-fourth-paragraph
mode. I don’t think I missed much.

“I take it you didn’t find anything that would be helpful?” I ask.

“Only if we want to put the jury to sleep.”

The problem for us is that the investigators clearly had as a goal the management of political fallout from the incident.
To that end, they predetermined that personnel were lax in their implementation of procedures, without criticizing the procedures
themselves.

More significantly, the investigators, or at least the authors of the report, never considered intent as a possibility. That
is to say that they never looked at whether or not the people in charge of security, or those implementing it, wanted the
explosion to happen. And when you’re not at least open to something, it makes it a lot harder to find it.

Pretty much everybody in the Middle East was interviewed for the report, in an obvious effort to be able to claim that no
stone was left unturned in pursuit of the truth. It’s not a total loss for us, in that at least we get the names of everybody
involved, especially the soldiers assigned to security.

There were seventy-one assigned that day, including Billy. One was killed, and fourteen others besides Billy were injured.
While no specific blame has been laid, five soldiers were reprimanded and discharged from the army. Their names are Donovan
Chambers, Jason Greer, Tyler Lawson, Jeremy Iverson, and Raymond Santiago.

Erskine was not specifically implicated in the fiasco, but the report refers to a general weakness in the command structure.
The report does not speak to his military fate, but we know that he was at least viewed less favorably afterward, and he seems
to have chosen resignation. It was a relatively graceful exit, only to end somewhat less gracefully on the street in front
of a bar.

“If I ever commit a felony,” Hike says, “I want these guys investigating the case.”

“They found exactly what they wanted to find… nothing.”

“Leaves us in a pretty big hole.”

I nod. “Although we do have the names of the five soldiers who
were discharged. We can find them and talk to them; at least it’ll give us something to do.”

“How are you going to find them?”

“I’ll give it to Laurie, and she’ll probably put Sam Willis on the case. Ten minutes at his computer and he’ll be able to
tell us where these guys are, what they had for breakfast, who they’ve called in the past three months, and who they’re sleeping
with.”

“Is all that legal?” he asks.

“It wasn’t last time I checked, but I haven’t checked in a while.”

He nods. “Makes sense. Checking stuff like that can be a hassle.”

“Maybe I’ll put it on Edna’s list of things to do.”

“What have you got on my list?” he asks.

“Are you knowledgeable about investments, commodities, rich people’s stuff like that?”

He shrugs. “I’ve got an MBA, for what little that’s worth.”

“You’ve got an MBA and a law degree?” Hike is a constant surprise to me. “From where?”

“Harvard and Yale,” he says. “I’m a walking rivalry. So what have you got for me?”

“I want you to find out everything you can about the hedge fund C and F Investments.”

“Because of the two guys that got killed? I thought you went over there and talked to the top guy.”

“I did.” I point to the books. “But I just read in one of those books that Alex Bryant, the younger and lower-ranked of the
two victims, was married for a year when he died.”

“So?”

“So Jonathan Chaplin, his boss, told me he didn’t think Bryant was married.”

“At the risk of repeating myself… so? Maybe he didn’t even know the guy. That’s a big company; they’ve got offices all over
the country.”

“He said he’s racked with guilt because Bryant took his place on the trip, and that he went to his funeral. I would have to
assume his widow would have been hard not to notice there.”

“Maybe he just signed his name at the funeral and left. Or maybe he met the wife and forgot. Or maybe he’s been nailing the
wife for two years and doesn’t want anyone to know,” Hike says.

“Or maybe he’s lying because he doesn’t want me to talk to Bryant’s wife.”

“Either way, it’s got nothing to do with our case,” he says.

“Or maybe it does.”

I put in a phone call to Colonel Franklin Prentice, Kevin’s brother-in-law, who has been very helpful to us on a couple of
previous cases. He used to be stationed in South Carolina, but I saw him briefly at the wedding, and I think he said he was
transferred to Washington, DC.

I have no idea how to reach him, so I call the Pentagon’s main number. “I’m trying to reach Colonel Franklin Prentice,” I
say.

“Do you mean General Prentice?”

“That’ll work.”

Within a couple of minutes he gets on the line, which is a surprise to me. I didn’t realize generals were so easy to reach.
I identify myself, and he assures me he remembers me quite well.

“You’re the partner of my crazy brother-in-law,” he says.

“Not anymore,” I say. “He’s off saving the world. Have you talked to him?”

“Last week. I heard some kind of jungle music in the background, so I asked him about it. He said that was actual jungle.”

Prentice seems inclined to chat, and we do so for about ten minutes. If there are any longer minutes in the world than “chat
minutes,” I don’t know what they are, and these ten seem to take about six months. The pauses are so pregnant they feel like
they originated in a fertility clinic.

I hate chatting, and it’s particularly hard to avoid when you’re the “chattee,” needing help from the “chatter.” I’m usually
good at cutting it off, and I keep throwing in a “Well, I don’t want to keep you…” and a “So listen, the reason I’m calling…,”
but I guess generals are used to making chat-ending decisions.

He seems to have nothing but time. Aren’t there any wars he should be trying to win? Finally I manage to steer the conversation
to why I am calling, and I tell him about Billy’s case.

“I’m very familiar with the incident,” he says. “Have you seen the inspector general’s report?”

“Yes… fascinating reading.”

He laughs. “Covered the army’s ass pretty well, huh?”

“I need to know what was known but not written down, off the record if need be.”

“Hmmm,” he says. “That’s a tough one.”

“What if I talked to Erskine’s boss?” I ask, looking through the report for the name as I talk. I find it. “Colonel William
Mickelson.”

“That I can do,” he says.

“Where is he stationed?”

“Right down the hall from me. Call him tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Will do.”

“You know, I’d never say this to Kevin, but I think what he and Kelly are doing is pretty amazing.”

“So do I,” I say. “Maybe we should tell him.”

He pauses for a moment, probably considering it. “No, I don’t think so. He might keep doing it.”

“We don’t want to encourage that.”

“A
NDY WANTS TO TALK TO YOU,”
L
AURIE SAYS.
She says this at the end of a forty-five-minute conversation with Cindy Spodek, the result of my asking her to make the call.
During all of this time she has ignored the fact that I was pacing and looking at my watch as a way of letting her know I
was impatient to get on the phone.

After a pause, Laurie says, “He said to tell you that he just wants to chat with a dear old friend, but between you and me
there’s a one hundred percent chance that he’s lying.”

After another pause, Laurie turns to me and says, “Cindy said to tell her dear old friend to kiss her dear old ass.”

I walk over and take the phone from Laurie. “Cindy, how are you?”

“Do you realize the only time you ever talk to me is when you want something?” she asks.

Cindy is an FBI agent, working out of the Boston office. We’ve crossed paths on a couple of cases over the years, and in the
process she, Laurie, and I have become good friends. She has also become a person I frequently call for information. “Do you
have any idea how unfair that is? Or how much it hurts?”

“What do you want, Andy?”

“I didn’t want anything, but now that you’ve unfairly attacked me like this, I feel a need to lash back at you.”

“By asking me for information.”

“Exactly. There was an explosion in Iraq last year in which eighteen people, including the Iraqi oil minister and two American
businessmen, were killed.”

“Iraq?” she asks. “Now you’re becoming an international pain in the ass?”

“I’m a citizen of the world. I just read the Defense Department’s investigative report on the incident, which takes almost
seven thousand pages to say nothing.”

“So?”

“So I’m assuming there’s an FBI report on it as well. It’s standard operating procedure for the bureau to be called in when
American citizens are murdered, no matter where it happens. I want to know what it says.”

“You think I’m going to turn over an FBI report to you?” she asks. “You’ve got balls the size of ocean liners.”

“And you’re a delicate flower. Come on, Cindy, I can get it anyway by petitioning the court, but it will take too long. And
I’m fine if you read it and give me the highlights.”

“That’s big of you,” she says.

“And that’s a transparent attempt to get back on my good side. Which may or may not work, depending on what you come up with.”

“Good-bye, Andy.”

“Good-bye, dear old friend.”

I hang up, and Laurie says, “You really do take unfair advantage of her friendship, you know.”

I nod. “True, but she gets something out of it as well. She gets to insult me.”

She smiles. “You almost ready for bed?”

“Is that a serious question?” Nothing could be happening in my life that could make me say no to Laurie when she asks that
question. The Super Bowl could be about to start, or I could be standing to give my closing argument to the jury… I’d still
say yes and start to take my clothes off.

“Let’s go upstairs.”

We start heading up the steps, followed by Tara and Milo. “I obviously grow more irresistible by the day.”

“I must have a thing for older men,” she says. “The older you get, the sexier I find you.”

“Makes me glad I’m not Benjamin Button,” I say, and then stop halfway up the stairs. “Wait a minute.”

“What is it?”

“I just realized that it’s been a couple of hours since I heard the sound of chewing. Where’s Marcus?”

“He’s not here,” she says. “I gave him an assignment.”

“I thought we agreed he would guard the house while Milo is here?”

“I know, but he’s an investigator, Andy, and we need him doing that. I can guard the house; I was a cop, remember?”

I’m not thrilled with this. “But what if you’re otherwise engaged, like you’re going to be in about five minutes?”