One Was a Soldier

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “More, I think,” Will said.

  Trip ran his fingers over one. “These are all copies, not originals. Ellen must have spotted the discrepancies early on and started keeping track.”

  “I don’t understand,” Flora said. “Was Ellen involved in some sort of criminal activity?”

  “No. It looks like she was documenting someone else’s fraud.” Russ pointed to the legal document in Will’s hand. “Can I see that?” Will handed it over. Russ scanned the first page. Flipped through a few more pages. Stopped and folded the sheet over. He held it out to Trip. “Double-check me. What’s this contract worth?”

  Trip pulled a pair of reading glasses on and examined the page. “Sixty million dollars.”

  Clare breathed in.

  “BWI Opperman signed a contract in which it was paid sixty million for construction in occupied Iraq,” Russ said. “Your sister was the accounts-payable bookkeeper for that part of the business. It was her job to keep track of and pay the bills BWI Opperman’s special projects department generated.”

  Trip nodded.

  “Somehow, she got hold of the invoices on the accounts-receivable side.” Russ held up one of the coalition forms. “I doubt she was ever meant to see these. She put the two side by side and saw BWI Opperman was buying and shipping about a sixth of what they were billing the government for.”

  “You mean they were pocketing the difference?” Will said.

  Eric took the copy of the contract from Stillman. “Holy shit. That’s fifty million dollars.” The sum seemed to hang in the air for a moment.

  “Fifty million dollars,” Will said, “and they just disappeared it into a bunch of papers.”

  “The company wouldn’t even have needed to suborn the folks who hand out the contracts,” Clare said. “All they needed to buy was the army clerk who created the invoices and the finance investigator who was there to prevent fraud.”

  “It sure explains Seelye’s actions, doesn’t it?” Russ’s voice was dry. “No wonder she wasn’t interested in splitting the million with Nichols. She was already on the BWI Opperman payroll.”

  “They must have promised to pay Tally off, too.” Eric turned toward Russ. “Do you think they screwed her over after she did her part? Is that why she stole the cash?”

  “No. She got paid. With Wyler McNabb’s job.” Clare looked at Eric. “Tally’s mother said Wyler always felt he owed his job to Tally. That was her payoff. He went from being a high school dropout to having an income that bought them luxury SUVs and casino vacations.”

  Russ nodded. “He knew about the contract fraud. He didn’t know Seelye, but he knew about the fraud. That’s probably why he got named manager. One less person outside the fold. When she deployed a second time, her husband went over with the crew.”

  “Huh.” Eric picked up the contract again. “And then he sees the money the DOD’s flying in and starts thinking, Why shouldn’t I get mine? If his wife can cover up the theft of fifty million, it’s a cinch she can hide a single pallet of cash.”

  Russ chewed the inside of his cheek. “I’ll bet you a million of my own Opperman and Seelye had no idea that money had been stolen. They must have been shitting bricks when Nichols started investigating.” He tilted his head toward Flora and Olivia. “Excuse my French.”

  “Wait.” Clare dropped the paper she had been holding. “Opperman?”

  “Mr. Opperman?” Olivia’s eyes were wide.

  “Who do you think was behind this? The man is the CEO and controlling shareholder. He owns the company. The real theft here isn’t shrink-wrapped cash. It’s fifty million dollars, and it wasn’t stolen by someone seducing an MP or sweating a pallet onto a cargo plane. It was stolen by people wearing suits and signing agreements in air-conditioned offices. It was stolen by someone who believes people can be bought and sold with gifts and jobs and, and”—he looked at Olivia—“four-year scholarships to SUNY Geneseo.”

  “No.” The girl went pale. “Oh, no.” Her aunt put an arm around her shoulder.

  Russ leaned forward and braced himself on the rickety table, his large hands spread protectively over the documents there. “But Ellen Bain wouldn’t be bought. She assembled this evidence, and she brought it to the one soldier she knew she could trust. Her brother.”

  Clare could picture it. Ellen Bain, picking her brother’s brain for information on the military police and the financial affairs divisions, entrusting the package to him, swearing him to secrecy. Not knowing that within a day or two, he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone even if he wanted to.

  “Why didn’t I warn her?” Trip’s voice cracked. “If we talked about all this, why didn’t I call the police and keep her here until the law took over?”

  Clare ached for the self-accusation in his voice. She knew what it was like to ask Why didn’t I? after it was all too late. “You couldn’t have known, Trip. She probably thought she was risking her job and her benefits, not her life.”

  Russ nodded. “Opperman may not have known she smuggled this stuff out, anyway. He probably thought killing her and purging the original files would be enough to protect him.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you saying John Opperman killed Ellen?” Trip sounded torn between disbelief and fury.

  “No.” Russ shook his head. “I’m quite sure he was somewhere else surrounded by unimpeachable witnesses when your sister’s brake calipers were cut. He delegates his dirty work. My bet’s on Wyler McNabb. He was shipped over to the construction team in Iraq as soon as we started investigating.”

  “Can you get him back?” Will asked.

  “Oh, yeah.” Russ grinned, baring his eyeteeth. “And when we do, he’s going to give us John Opperman on a silver platter.”

  * * *

  It seemed anticlimactic to Clare. They had uncovered evidence of a fifty-million-dollar scam. There ought to be screeching police cars and flashing lights and people led away in handcuffs. Instead, it was Russ, on the phone, first with his friend from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, then with an officer at the Department of Defense. He was talking with a Treasury agent when Lyle MacAuley and Kevin Flynn arrived, toting piles of plastic evidence envelopes, a laptop, and a portable scanner. He was debriefing someone from the Government Accountability Office when the FBI team from Albany pulled in. The Feds walked into Trip Stillman’s office looking skeptical and came out with sharp, satisfied smiles.

  Clare, who had been drinking cup after cup of hot, sweet coffee in the Stillmans’ kitchen, snagged Russ before he had the chance to pick up his phone again. “When are they going to arrest Opperman?”

  He looked startled. “I don’t know. Another couple of weeks.”

  “A couple of weeks?” She lowered her voice. Olivia Bain sat disconsolate at the kitchen table, Will holding her hand. “Why so long? My God, Russ, you said it yourself. That man is responsible for Ellen Bain’s death.”

  He put his phone in his pocket. “I know. Believe me, I’d love to drive up to the resort right now and haul his ass in.” He took her hand, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. “But this is going to be a very complicated case. I’m not even talking about all the agencies who are going to want a piece of the action. We need to have every piece of evidence lined up, every warrant signed, and every cop and agent in place, ready to drop the hammer on everyone involved. Until that moment, you”—he gestured toward the Stillmans with his head—“and they have to keep quiet about all of this.”

  “Justice delayed is justice denied.”

  “It won’t be. I promise you, there will be justice for Ellen Bain.”

  “What about Tally? Will there be justice for her?”

  “Clare.” Russ’s voice was gentle. “She knew from Nichols that an investigator was closing in. She didn’t know it was Seelye. All she knew was that she was holding the bag for massive federal fraud and grand theft and she had nowhere to turn.”

  “She could have turned to Opperman.”

  “His solution was to send her back
to Iraq. Maybe she would have had an ‘accident’ like Ellen Bain did. Maybe that’s what she was afraid of.”

  Her voice rose. “So she killed herself?”

  Russ steered her into the family room. “If she were alive right now, she’d be facing thirty years in Leavenworth and the loss of everything—family, home, money, reputation.”

  “If she were alive right now, none of this would ever have come to light!”

  “I know.” He didn’t try to argue with her or persuade her. He just stood there, his grip warm and steady. Letting her hold the truth in her hands. Letting her raise it up and swallow it. It was cold, very cold, and no amount of sugar could sweeten its bitter taste.

  “She killed herself,” she finally said.

  “Some people can’t face the consequences of their crimes.”

  Clare pulled away from Russ. “She wasn’t a criminal. She was a damaged soldier.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “She was wounded over there, just as much as Will and Trip were.”

  “As much as you were?” Russ looked at her, looked into her, inviting her to lay down all her lies and deep-dive into the truth with him.

  She couldn’t face that bottomless well. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

  “Oh, love. Of what?”

  “Of what’s in my head. What’s in my heart. I’m afraid I’m not strong enough. That loving you and God won’t be enough to keep me afloat. I’m afraid—”

  He wrapped his arms around her. “That if Tally McNabb could choose to end it all, you might make the same choice someday?”

  “I don’t know if I’m dealing with it any better than she was,” she said into his chest. “Or Eric, losing his temper, or Trip, pretending he hasn’t lost a chunk out of his brain.”

  “I don’t know how you’re dealing with it. I don’t know what you’ve been through, and I don’t know where you’ve been hurt.” He pushed her hair away from her face. “Tell me.”

  She wanted to. She was so tired of hiding and lying and going it alone. She opened her mouth—

  It’s the same reason Clare doesn’t want to talk about drinking. Because she’s afraid if she does, somebody will stop her from doing it. Tally had said that … and less than a week later, had killed herself.

  —and shut it again. “Not now.” She nodded toward the hallway, where a banging door and the sound of raised voices indicated some new investigator had arrived. “You’re going to be here half the night. If Olivia and the Stillmans don’t need me anymore, I’m going to”—get my blood tested—“go home.”

  “All right. Not now. Soon, though. I mean it, love. I’m waiting for you to tell me.”

  That was what she was afraid of.

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21

  The Full Moon Bar and Grill was packed by the time Eric got there, but he had no trouble spotting his party. Five helium balloons imprinted with handcuffs bobbed over their table in the corner. When he got closer, he could see they were weighted down with the real thing. MacAuley was being subtle. He had figured the deputy chief would’ve gone for a ball-and-chain motif.

  He raised his hand. “Hi, everybody.” A chorus of hellos greeted him. He dropped into a chair near one end, across from the chief. It was also as far away from Hadley Knox as he could get.

  “Eric. Glad you could make it.” The chief slid an empty glass and a pitcher of beer toward him. “You know Emil Dvorak, our medical examiner. This is his partner, Paul Foubert, who runs the Infirmary.” The two men nodded at Eric. “And this is Wayne and Mindy Stoner. We went to high school together.” The ruddy-faced farmer—he had to be a farmer—leaned forward and shook Eric’s hand. His wife wiggled her fingers around a glass stein. “Eric’s in the Guard,” the chief said to the Stoners. “He got back from Iraq this past June.”

  “Really?” Mindy Stoner put her beer down. “Our son Ethan is in Afghanistan right now. He’s with the marines.”

  Eric made some remark, and the ME chimed in, and pretty soon they were all talking about the wars, and Eric couldn’t have recounted what he said two seconds after he said it. He was focused on the other end of the table, where Hadley Knox sat boxed in by Kevin and Harlene. She was smiling but quiet, following a rapid-fire back-and-forth between Harlene and the chief’s sister, not noticing Kevin topping off her beer and filling her plate before passing the platter on to Noble.

  Eric’s attention was broken by Lyle dropping an identical platter on their end of the table. “Sausage hoagies and onion rings,” the deputy chief announced. “Best in the state.”

  Mindy Stoner stared at the mountain of cholesterol. “He’s trying to kill you before the wedding,” she said to the chief.

  MacAuley slapped the chief on the back. “Dig in. You gotta keep your strength up for tomorrow night.”

  “Lyle,” the chief warned.

  “Hey, where’s the stripper?” Wayne Stoner asked. His wife glared at him.

  “Aw, you know Russ. He’s too much of a spoilsport to go for that.” MacAuley grinned. “We’ll play pin-the-whitetail-on-the-twelve-point-buck later on instead.”

  “When I got married the first time, I had a stripper at my bachelor party,” Dr. Dvorak said. “All my friends at University chipped in and brought her down from Amsterdam.”

  Mindy Stoner looked from him to his burly, bearded partner and back again. “You had a stripper.”

  “Yes, indeed. Then she arrived, and she was fifty-five-years old and looked like my mother.”

  “Turned him gay,” Paul Foubert said.

  At the other end of the table, Hadley said something to Kevin and rose. Eric watched her disappear into the crowd, headed for the ladies’. He sipped his beer. Gave her a minute. Two. Women always took twice as long in the john as men did.

  “’Scuse me.” Eric stood up. The chief looked at him over the rim of his water glass but didn’t say anything. Eric threaded his way through the tables and chairs as if he had all the time in the world. He wanted to catch her at the other end of the bar without having to lurk outside the bathrooms like some perv.

  He timed it just right. She spotted him as she came out. He stopped where he was, close, but not in her way. “Can we talk?” He kept his back toward their table so she could face that way. Keeping her friends in sight. She’ll feel safer with a bar full of people around.

  “Okay.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Shoot.”

  He swallowed. “I, um, want to apologize.” She looked at him with flinty eyes. “I, ah—” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I—”

  Kevin Flynn walked past him, carrying a full glass of beer. “Hey.” He handed it to Hadley. “Thought you might like your drink.” He casually moved behind and to the side of her, right where he’d be most effective if Eric were to snap and attack her. Again. Eric felt a funny ache in his stomach. The kid used to look up to him. “I wanted to let you know I’ve started seeing somebody,” he found himself saying. “Down in Saratoga. A doctor. He specializes in guys like me. Who need help holding on to their tempers. I’ve got—he gave me a prescription.” He hadn’t filled it yet. He was terrified of how it would feel, being drugged up.

  “That’s good,” Hadley said. “I’m glad.”

  “Yeah, that’s good, man.” Kevin gave him the same smile Eric had used on six-year-old Jake when he was learning to ride a bike. You can do it, buddy!

  “Hadley, I’m sorry. If there was some way I could go back and make it not have happened—”

  She smiled a brittle smile. “It didn’t happen, Eric. You assaulted me.” Kevin dropped his hand on her shoulder. “You hit me and took my gun away from me, and then I had to lie to the chief about it. Which means, I guess, that I suck at being a cop but that I’m good at covering it up.”

  Kevin rumbled a disagreement.

  Eric wiped his hand across his face. “Yeah. You’re right. I mean, no, you don’t suck at being a cop.” He stopped before he could tangle himself further. “Oh, Christ. Look, I screwed things up. The chief knows it
was all my fault. You don’t have to forgive me—hell, if the shoe was on the other foot I don’t know if I could forgive me—but I want you to know that I’m sorry, and that I’m doing everything I can to not screw up again, and that you will never, ever have to feel afraid of me.” He paused. “That’s all.” His heart felt like he’d just sprinted a mile.

  “The chief knows?”

  “Yeah.” His throat hurt. “If you want to lodge a complaint against me, he’ll take it. Hell, I don’t know.” He looked down at his sneakers. “If you can’t work beside me, you ought to go ahead and file. I got more experience. I can find another job easier than you can.” He turned toward the bar before he could embarrass himself.

  “Eric?”

  He watched a pair of young guys trying for a tall redhead at the bar. “Yeah?”

  She paused. “It’ll be good to have you on the job again.” She passed him, headed for their table, her drink in one hand. She didn’t look back at him. Eric breathed in. It felt as if a strap around his chest had suddenly been loosened.

  “You okay?” Kevin’s voice was low.

  He rubbed his gut. “Yeah. Thanks.” He glanced to where Hadley was taking her seat. “She’s a good person.”

  “Yeah. She is.”

  Eric looked at Kevin. “She know how you feel about her?”

  Kevin flushed but kept his eyes on Hadley. “We work together. We’re friends.”

  “Listen.” Eric thought about Jennifer. He was going to have to go through all this again with her, and it was going to be harder, and take longer, and there was still no guarantee she’d ever forgive him and take him back. “A couple years ago I would’ve said good, keep it professional, but life’s too damn uncertain, man. Hard and uncertain.” He twisted his wedding ring. “You see something good, you go after it. Don’t let it get away.” At the table, MacAuley bent over Harlene and said something. The dispatcher shrieked with laughter. Noble Entwhistle looked puzzled. “’Cause in the end, that’s all we have. Each other.”

  * * *