by Diane Capri
“I tried. I was in therapy for years. So was Donald. We finally figured out that Dad was more unhappy with himself in those days than unhappy with us. We were the scapegoats, not the cause of his problems. I think we’ve both managed to go on with our lives. But, as you no doubt noticed, the anger is still there.”
David’s story was heartbreaking. I thought about the little boy he’d been and the bitter man he’d become. In some ways, it was a good thing the general was dead. Alive, he’d have a lot to answer for.
“It was such a betrayal, you know?” he said now, still trying to figure things out. “We wanted to be like him. We were him. He was off protecting the country, for God’s sake, and he couldn’t take care of his own family.”
For some reason, the venom was no longer apparent in his words. His sorrow was harder to witness.
I turned my gaze away from the naked pain in his face. “Did you kill him, David?”
I wanted him to say yes. I would have forgiven him if he’d killed Andy. Even Michael Drake, as ambitious as he was, would accept a plea to reduced charges, when he knew the whole story. David as his father’s killer would have tied everything up with a neat bow. And I was weary of the whole sad situation.
But it was not to be.
“I’m sorry to say I didn’t,” David told me. “I wanted to kill him, God knows. I tried to make myself do it.” He waited a beat or two. “The bond was still there, somehow. No matter how much I hated him for the way he’d treated me and Donald, our whole family, he was still my father.”
David raised his now watery blue gaze to meet mine. “My biggest struggle has been not to become him. If I’d killed him, I’d be exactly what he was.”
David waved to the waitress for another refill. His tolerance for alcohol showed me that he was following in his mother’s footsteps, another sad part of this family story playing out with predicable certainty.
“Some days, I wish I’d killed him, Willa. But I didn’t. And Donald didn’t either. God forgive us.” Just like his mother, silent tears began to slowly slide out of his eyes and down his face.
Anger had propelled me here, made me ask David these questions. I’d wanted to clear George’s name and now I felt that I’d destroyed David’s defenses to do so.
I wasn’t very proud of myself right at the moment, but I didn’t know what else I could have done, either.
What I’d learned were secrets I didn’t want to know. Everything David told me supplied each member of the Andrews family with motive for murder. I’d achieved my objective, but at what cost?
I reached over and touched David’s arm, thanked him for helping me, and took my leave. I paid the bar bill on the way out and asked the waitress not to disturb him for a while.
Then, I made my way back to Greta with a heavy heart.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Tampa, Florida
Sunday 3:00 p.m.
January 30, 2000
IT WAS TIME TO compare notes and to find out whatever I could about Olivia’s brother. I now believed General Andrews killed Thomas Holmes, but I still didn’t know why. Jason said that Thomas Holmes was connected to Andrews’s Supreme Court nomination. I had to find out how.
I dialed Olivia’s number on my cell phone before I started my car. She answered her private line on the third ring. First, I told her about my conversation with David Andrews. She asked a few questions, but not many. I started the car and continued talking to her.
When I’d found my way back to the Bayshore, heading home, I asked her if Thomas was gay.
A lawyer gets very close to her clients when they go through the crucible of trial together. Trial is an intense and unique experience. Maybe that’s why I’d begun to trust Olivia. Trusting doesn’t come easily to me. Trust means a loss of objectivity. I invest too much of myself when I trust and then it’s too hard to extricate myself from a relationship gone south.
Now, I worried that I’d made a mistake in trusting Olivia. After my interviews with Jason and David Andrews, I realized that Olivia’s motives for murdering Andy were as strong, or stronger, than many others. What real evidence did I have that she hadn’t done it? Just her word. Was that enough?
“Olivia? Did you hear me? I need to know whether Thomas was gay.” I thought the question impertinent, and I was sure she did, too.
But a pattern had begun to emerge that disturbed me. General Andrews was a man of secrets and they seemed to be consuming him in the days before he died. His views against gays in the military had been extensively reported during his confirmation hearings. David said he was brutal to his own sons because they were gay.
The general didn’t have his sons discharged from the army. He could have. Was he showing compassion? Or had he run into resistance for such a course before?
If Thomas Holmes was gay, that might explain what Olivia had described as General Andrews’s enmity toward her brother. How would Andrews have treated gay soldiers in the days before military policy required acceptance of them? Based on what David said, I imagined the general must have made Thomas Holmes’s life a living hell.
When Thomas Holmes served in the army, simply being homosexual would have been a dangerous matter. The widely debated but relatively recent policy, referred to as “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell”, provides that homosexuals can serve in the U.S. military, but requires that they keep their sexual orientation to themselves and do not engage in homosexual acts while in the service.
Failing to observe either criterion can result in an immediate, albeit honorable, discharge.
Like so many compromises, this one between gay-rights advocates and those flatly opposed to gays in the military, was unsatisfactory to both sides. The military and everyone around the issue was uncomfortable with the policy. It solved nothing and gave everyone something to complain about.
Many people felt the “don’t ask/don’t tell” policy violated the First Amendment. At least one federal judge had held the policy unconstitutional. And the policy was particularly ironic because the U. S. Military’s job was to uphold the Constitution, which protected free speech.
Opponents pointed out that the bigger problem was attempting to control behavior. Behavior problems between heterosexual males and females have caused a number of scandals in the modern military. Accepting homosexuals, opponents said, was akin to putting nude heterosexuals together in communal showers. In other words, the argument was that the soldiers wouldn’t be able to control themselves.
There had been homosexuals in the military for generations, and often, others who served with them were aware of their sexual orientation, whether they were openly gay or not. But hate crimes ran rampant in the civilian world. No matter what the army’s policies were, hate crimes would still occur there, too.
I now believed Thomas was murdered by General Andrews and Thomas being gay seemed the most likely reason.
Olivia answered my question. “I don’t know if he was or not. Thomas was actually quite homophobic. Men hit on him all the time. It made him furious.” She sounded thoughtful, as if she was trying the idea on to see whether it fit. “I always wondered about how fiercely he reacted. When guys hit on me, a simple no is usually sufficient.”
As she spoke, Olivia sounded as if the idea of Thomas being gay had never occurred to her before. Could she have been that out of touch with him? Or was my idea way off base?
“What did Thomas do?”
“He’d blow a gasket. I saw it happen several times.”
My theory sounded more and more likely to me as she talked. She seemed to be describing classic gay panic, an argument sometimes used to defend crimes resulting from over reactive violence by the target of unwanted sexual advances. It was a self-defense excuse that relied on an irrational and unfounded assumption: that because one was gay, he or she would force sex on unwilling partners.
“Anything else?”
“Just one other thing,” Olivia said slowly. “After Thomas died, several male friends came to the funeral
that I thought were probably gay.” She waited a couple of beats. “At the time, I wondered if he’d lived a secret life all those years, but I dismissed it.”
I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t know exactly what to say. “You’ll probably never know, and I’m not sure it matters,” I told her.
“My parents need to believe in Thomas as the all American hero, killed in the line of duty as an honorable soldier,” she said. “I guess after I couldn’t get President Benson to help me prosecute Andrews, I decided to just leave my parents with their illusions.”
Now was the time to try out the rest of my theory, the one that made a little more sense than assuming General Andrews was a cold-blooded murderer.
“But what if Thomas was gay, and having an affair? He could have been court-martialed, couldn’t he?” I pressed her, and her anger flared immediately.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Tampa, Florida
Sunday 3:30 p.m.
January 30, 2000
“I DON’T SEE WHAT that could possibly have to do with anything. Why don’t you just leave it alone?” She snapped at me, and I was tempted to let it go. I guess the notion of Thomas leading a secret life was okay as a theory, but once I suggested an actual affair, that was too much for Olivia.
Something so painful might mean nothing now.
Or it might mean everything.
Jason set me on this path for a reason, even if I didn’t yet understand what that reason was.
“Don’t you see, Olivia?” I asked her, as gently as I could. “If Thomas was having a homosexual affair, it might explain his death.”
“How so?”
“Maybe Thomas approached someone else for sex and the general accidentally killed him. Maybe Thomas died because of General Andrews’s gay panic.”
She already believed Andrews had killed her brother. I handed her a plausible motive. My theory made sense, even if it could never be proved.
“How is this related to George’s situation?” she finally asked me, deflated. “George isn’t gay, or a soldier. Why would it matter to George if Andrews killed Thomas because of any hypothetical homosexual experiences?”
“It wouldn’t matter to George, because he didn’t kill Andrews. What we have to do is to find out who it did matter to,” I explained patiently.
“Why would anyone kill Andrews over the situation with Thomas?”
Besides you? I thought.
“Or maybe Thomas being gay, if he was, had nothing to do with Andy having him killed,” Olivia said.
“True. But then, why kill Thomas? We’re back to that,” I said.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Tampa, Florida
Sunday 3:50 p.m.
January 30, 2000
BACK AT MINARET, ENSCONCED in my den, Olivia and I discussed every angle of the Andrews murder and George’s case for a couple of hours. The list of suspects covered more than three pages of my journal.
Exhausted and dismayed, I asked, “Are we helping George with all of this, Olivia?”
“I think so. Drake stopped investigating once he arrested George. The number of possible killers Drake didn’t rule out should be more than enough to establish reasonable doubt at the trial,” she said.
“But what we want is to get the charges dismissed without an indictment.” I deplored the whining tone of my voice.
“Drake, even though he was an Andrews supporter and is a staunch Democrat, won’t want to take this to trial and lose,” Olivia reminded me.
“But time is short. When are you going to try to convince Drake to look at other alternatives?”
Olivia looked down at her hands. I saw the lines crease her tiny brow. I recognized the frown that preceded bad news.
“Drake convened the grand jury today,” she said.
Her words felt like a hard punch to my gut; they knocked the pluck right out of me.
Intellectually, I’d been expecting this. Drake couldn’t be trusted. He had the advantage and he’d press it, hard.
But I guess I wasn’t as prepared as I thought.
Olivia said, “Drake will move quickly. Tomorrow or the next day, he’ll get his indictment.”
I felt like a falling rocket, rushing down through the atmosphere too quickly, with no way to stop before I smashed into pieces that disintegrated before they hit the earth.
She touched my arm. “Willa, there’s no middle ground. Either Drake drops the charges before that indictment is returned or George will be going to trial.”
I knew George would never plead guilty. To anything.
I wanted to be alone, to curl up like one of Deborah Andrews’s cats and sink into the oblivion of alcohol or sleep or both.
My breathing was ragged and I could find no words to speak.
Olivia touched me again. “Willa. You’ve got to pay attention. We’ve got work to do here and we’re running out of time. Once Drake gets his indictment, he’ll pick George up in a New York minute. There will be officers at your door in the next couple of days.”
She opened her notepad and pretended to review her shorthand. Nothing at all passed between us for quite a while. Then, she began to tell me about her activities since we’d last met. I missed the first few items. They just didn’t seem important. All I could visualize was George behind bars.
“Willa!” Olivia fairly shouted at me and finally, I heard her. “I said, I interviewed Peter about George’s gun.”
My eyes blinked a few times and her words seemed to make it through the viscous soup of my brain.
“Peter brought George’s gun to Minaret because he didn’t have a locker at the gun club and he had no key to George’s locker,” Olivia read from her notes. “In a rush when he got back here, Peter quickly stashed the unloaded gun in the top drawer of the old sideboard in the foyer, meaning to return it to George the same day. George didn’t come back to Minaret, for some reason, and Peter forgot about the gun. Then, with George being gone so much and Peter being busy when George was around, Peter just never thought about the gun when he had time to give it back.”
The cold, icy edges of my heart thawed slightly. Peter was like one of the family. He’d told me himself that he was overwhelmed with remorse when George’s gun turned out to be a murder weapon.
“Peter offered to quit right on the spot,” Olivia said, “but, of course, George told him just to wait and see.”
George had instructed Olivia not to share the information with the police and I agreed. For now. But we couldn’t wait long. Drake was like a Doberman, snapping at our heels. He was ready to kill George, first with the indictment and then with the death penalty.
The thought began to fuel my anger. And anger was a good thing. Warmer, more welcome.
I’d been too civilized. Too soft. No more. I would handle this with George and Peter once we had George out of trouble. Without Peter’s carelessness, none of this mess would be happening.
And I was through playing Nancy Drew. It was time for some bold moves and I was ready to make them. I hated Michael Drake in that moment. And the hatred moved me onward.
“Is there anything we can do about this grand jury?” I knew the basic answers already, but I needed a different perspective.
She considered my question, then said, “George could testify. He could tell them where he was the night of the murder and how his gun came to be a murder weapon.”
Right. Just as I’d thought. Nothing we could do.
Olivia cleared her throat now, bringing my attention back to her. “One more thing.”
“What?”
“Drake convened the grand jury today because he got the final finger print report on Andrews’s study back from the lab.”
The ice moved again inside my veins, freezing my heart and hardening my resolve. I waited.
She said, “George’s fingerprints were in Andrews’s study. Drake thinks George left them there the night of the murder.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Tampa, Florida
&n
bsp; Sunday 6:30 p.m.
January 30, 2000
I HEARD THE HARD pounding on the front door of our flat from the den where I sat in my sweatpants and T-shirt, working on George’s case. I’d already scrubbed off my makeup and my hair stuck up in every direction. The dark circles under my eyes resembled the color of eggplant and my sallow complexion could have scared small children. Harry and Bess ran toward the door, barking all the way.
A half-eaten apple was wedged in my mouth while I typed. Glancing at the small clock on the computer screen, I noticed that Olivia had been gone only about thirty minutes. She’d probably forgotten something.
Removing the apple, I called out, “Just a second,” loud enough to be heard over their raucous noise as I maneuvered myself around the desk and toward the front door in my bare feet. A few more hard knocks followed, and more barking, so I guessed Olivia couldn’t hear me.
“Keep your pants on.” I hurried the last few steps, stuck the apple back in my mouth, bent down to shush the dogs and grabbed their collars to keep them from running out, turned the lock, and quickly flung the door open.
My gaze, tilted down to meet Olivia’s, instead fell upon the shiny silver monogrammed belt buckle lying flat on State Attorney Michael Drake’s trim waist.
A sharp intake of my breath as I forced my gaze up to meet his eyes brought a cynical sneer to his thin lips.
There were two uniformed police officers standing behind him, guns drawn, pointing at Harry and Bess, who were still barking as if they’d seen the devil himself.
A perky female junior Assistant State Attorney stood at Drake’s side, holding something in her long fingers, which were tipped with bright red acrylic nails.
“How did you get up here? This is private property,” I told him, around the apple, trying to restrain two ninety-pound Labradors determined to get away from me.
“Good evening, Judge Carson,” Drake said, with relish.
The officers were set in their three-point stance, guns pointed at my children, who were barking as if they’d like to eat the entire quartet. I was tempted to let them.
