Full Dress Gray

by Lucian K. Truscott

  Ash had taken Rose’s leave form with the address for the Comfort Motel to throw Kerry a curve, but he knew Kerry would figure out where Rose had gone. West Point didn’t like its Honor Committee Chairman being out of reach.

  All he had to do was beat Kerry to the motel. He wanted just five minutes alone with Rose. Five little minutes was all it would take. He flipped on the dash light and checked his map. He was coming up on the intersection for Interstate 78. Maybe twenty-five miles to go. He checked his speed. Jersey still had the fifty-five speed limit. He was doing sixty. Headlights appeared in his rearview mirror. They were coming up fast. He dropped his speed to fifty-seven, fifty-six. A New Jersey State Patrol car flew by him in the left lane. Whew. He picked his speed back up to sixty. Twenty minutes, and he’d be there.

  “THIS IS Alpha Five-eight. We’ve got Bound Brook coming up. The Comfort Motel is a right turn at the bottom of the exit ramp.”

  “Thank you, Alpha Five-eight.”

  “Follow me.”

  “I’m on you.” The Jersey Patrol car turned on his siren and went right through the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp, Kerry’s staff car right behind him. He could see the motel up ahead. The Jersey Patrol pulled up, and the trooper jumped out as Kerry stopped under the motel carport. Kerry ran into the office followed by the patrolman. There was no one behind the counter. He started banging on the counter. “Police! Police!”

  The door behind them opened, and a middle-aged man walked in. “Can I help you?”

  “You’ve got a West Point cadet registered here. Jerry Rose.”

  “Right. There was someone—”

  “Where is he!”

  “Room Eleven-oh-nine. It’s on the back—”

  “Which way?”

  “Around to the right . . .”

  Kerry and the Jersey trooper took off running. As they came around the side of the building, they could see an open door across the parking lot. A white Miata had been left sideways, blocking two cars parked in front of the room with the open door. Kerry sprinted across the parking lot. “Wait outside!” he yelled at the Jersey patrolman. He burst through the door. There was no one in the room. Then he heard them. The bathroom! He ran for the bathroom. He tripped as he passed the first bed. Favro was unconscious, lying between the two beds. Kerry got up and ran for the bathroom door. Prudhomme had Rose by the throat, bent over backwards, his head in the toilet. There was blood on the walls, on the mirror, on the floor . . .

  “Prudhomme!” Ash looked up. He still had Rose by the throat, his face under water. Kerry grabbed him from behind in a hammer-lock and Ash let go. Rose’s head came out of the toilet spitting water. His face was a bloody mess, eyes swollen, nose pouring blood, lip split.

  “Agent Kerry. I . . . want you . . . to arrest . . . him,” Rose sputtered.

  Kerry backed Ash out of the bathroom. Rose held a towel to his nose and looked at himself in the mirror. “I’m going to let you go, Prudhomme,” said Kerry. “Don’t touch him.”

  “He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”

  “If I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut.”

  “He did it. He admitted it.”

  “I admitted nothing,” said Rose. “Arrest him! I’m bringing charges!”

  “Shut up, Rose,” Kerry barked. He turned to Ash. “How long have you been here?”

  “A few minutes.”

  “What in hell did you do to Favro?”

  Ash pointed across the room where a steering-wheel lock lay on the floor.

  “All right, I want you to walk directly out of this room. Do not touch anything. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do it. Wait for me outside.” Ash walked through the door.

  The Jersey patrolman was standing there wide-eyed. “What’s this about?” he asked.

  Ash pointed through the open door at the bleeding Rose. “He raped my girlfriend.”

  Kerry took Rose by the arm and led him out the door. He leaned him up against the motel wall. “Stand right there. Don’t move.”

  “Are you going to arrest him, or will I have to call the civilian police?”

  “You know something, Rose? For a big-time smart-boy cadet, you are the stupidest motherfucker I have ever come across. I told you to shut up, and I meant it. I told you to stand against that wall and not to move, and I meant that, too. You move, and I’ll cuff your ass and throw you facedown on the ground. Your choice.”

  “But—”

  “Shut up.” Kerry turned to the Jersey patrolman. “Keep an eye on him, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  Kerry walked back inside and turned Favro over. There was a lump the size of a golf ball on the side of his face. He shook him, and Favro stirred. “Favro! Favro!” He opened his eyes. “Can you stand up?” He struggled to his knees. “Stand up.” Kerry helped him to his feet and out the door. Favro’s knees weakened and he slumped to a sitting position on the sidewalk. “Stay there. Don’t move.”

  He signaled to Ash, and they walked down the sidewalk and turned into a stairwell leading to the second-floor balcony. “I need to know what you touched in the room, Prudhomme. Think.”

  “I knocked on the door. When he opened it, I pushed the door. I swung at Favro, and he dropped. I grabbed Rose and hauled him straight into the bathroom.”

  “Did he struggle?”

  “He tried, but I had his thumb bent back. He went.”

  “You didn’t touch the bed or the dresser?”

  “No.”

  “You are certain? I’m treating the room like a crime scene. I’m going to do a forensics search. I need to know what I’m going to turn up that’s yours.”

  “That’s it, Mr. Kerry.”

  “Let me see the soles of your shoes.”

  Ash leaned against the motel ice machine and took off one shoe and then the other. They were clean.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  “Dirt. Mud. Anything I can trace back to the woods where they held Jacey.”

  “So you think he did it, too.”

  “I’m not paid to think, Mr. Prudhomme. I’m paid to investigate. It’s what I do.”

  “But you’re treating him like a suspect.”

  “He made a threat against Jacey. He’s gone from being a material witness to being a suspect, yes.”

  “You think you’ll get him?”

  “If he did this crime, I’ll get him, Mr. Prudhomme. But I will tell you one thing right now. You just made my job about a factor of two harder.”

  “He confessed. He admitted he did it.”

  “That doesn’t help me. You beat it out of him. Where do you think we are? Argentina? That’s not admissible. It might even turn out to help him.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kerry. I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about Jacey.”

  “I want you to sit in your car and wait for me. I’m going to need to talk to you later.”

  “Okay.”

  “Be a good boy. Don’t cause me any more problems.”

  “I won’t, Agent Kerry.”

  Kerry flipped his keys to the Jersey trooper. “Will you be so kind as to pull my car around?”

  “Sure. Do you want backup? I can get you a couple of sheriff’s deputies.”

  “That won’t be necessary, but we could use an ambulance. Somebody ought to have a look at these wounds.” The trooper headed toward the front of the motel. Kerry walked over to Rose and Favro. “You two are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to military counsel, which will be provided to you without cost; you have the right to civilian counsel, which you may provide at no expense to the government; or both. You do not have to answer any questions without the presence of counsel. Do you understand your rights?”

  Favro nodded vacantly. Rose removed the towel from his nose. “Yes.” He took a step forward. “This is absurd.”

  “Back up, Rose. If you want cuffs, I’ll sure oblige you,” said Kerry. Rose stepped bac
k and stood against the motel wall. “You’re being charged with assault and battery on Cadet Jacey Slaight last night.”

  “But we were here last night from ten o’clock on!” shouted Favro.

  “Shut up, Favro,” whispered Rose. He turned to Kerry. “We want lawyers.”

  “You’re not going to arrest Prudhomme?” cried Favro. “He’s the one who assaulted us!”

  “You want military counsel, Rose?”

  “I already said yes.”

  “You want military counsel, Favro?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, counsel will be provided for you when we return to West Point.”

  “We were here; we didn’t do anything!” said Favro.

  “Shut the fuck up,” barked Rose. “We’re not talking until we see a lawyer. I don’t know what you’re up to, Kerry, but you’re in big trouble if you don’t arrest Prudhomme. You’re putting us under arrest! He’s the one who committed a crime!”

  “What Prudhomme pulled might be a crime back at West Point, but it seems like you’ve forgotten something, Rose. You’re in New Jersey. Things are different here. People around here don’t like guys who try to fuck a girl with a stick.”

  Favro’s head swiveled up at Rose. The look on his face told Kerry all he needed to know.

  CHAPTER 42

  * * *

  ROSE HAD a few stitches put in his lip and eyebrow at a local emergency room, and they X-rayed Favro’s head, diagnosing him with a concussion. They returned to the motel with the state trooper and sat in the back of his patrol car while Kerry completed his forensics examination of the motel room.

  He questioned the motel manager and a security guard and several of the motel guests who were staying on the back side of the motel. The guests hadn’t noticed which cars were in the parking lot that night, but the security guard had. He carried a list of the license plates taken from the motel registration slips. The car belonging to room 1109 was a 1997 Dodge Intrepid registered to Cadet Jerry Rose. It had remained parked in the back lot of the motel all night. There was a light on in the room until late, and both the security guard and the motel manager had walked by the room and heard the sound of the television. Neither of them had seen either Rose or Favro leave the room except just after they checked in, and that was to get ice from the machine in the stairwell.

  The room itself had yielded precious little in the way of forensics evidence. He lifted prints, which he figured would turn out to belong to Rose, Favro, and Prudhomme. He examined all of the clothing in the room, but found no obvious signs that any of it had been worn in the woods. No leaf fragments. No dirt. No mud. Same with the shoes. They were freshly polished and showed no signs of mud or leaves or dirt. He bagged the whole lot anyway. There was no telling what would show up under a microscope.

  There were several ways they could have pulled it off. There could have been a third cadet who drove the car back to West Point who was staying somewhere else. They could have also rented a car and driven it to West Point and back and turned it in. That no one had seen Rose and Favro leave their room didn’t mean they hadn’t been gone. It simply meant no one had seen them leaving or returning to the room. Kerry made a mental note to come back down to the Bound Brook area and canvas the car-rental places.

  As for the lack of obvious forensics evidence, they could have dumped the clothes they wore. There was no way every gas-station Dumpster between West Point and Bound Brook could be checked in time. Some of them had probably already been picked up and their contents were on the way to a dump.

  Kerry drove back to West Point with Rose and Favro in the backseat. Ash followed him in Jacey’s Miata. When they reached the Provost Marshal’s office, Lieutenant Colonel Percival was waiting for them. He was less than thrilled when he saw Rose and Favro get out of the backseat of the staff car, and when he saw Rose’s bandaged face close up, he flew into a rage.

  “What is the meaning of this, Kerry? What happened to this young man?”

  “It’s a long story, sir.”

  “No it isn’t,” said Rose. “Prudhomme assaulted us, sir. I want to press charges under the UCMJ. I asked Agent Kerry to arrest him, but he refused.”

  “These two are the ones I apprehended, sir,” explained Kerry. “They are suspects in the assault on Jacey Slaight.”

  “What evidence do you have that these young men committed that crime?” asked Percival.

  “I’m developing the evidence, sir. Some of it is circumstantial, and we’ve got a mountain of forensics stuff to go through.”

  “Did anyone see them? Were they identified by Miss Slaight?”

  “No sir.”

  “Then I want to know why you apprehended them instead of Prudhomme. It seems to me that we have victims, physical evidence, and witnesses in the assault Mr. Rose claims Prudhomme committed.”

  “Sir, I don’t have any doubt that Prudhomme assaulted these men. But it’s not that clear-cut.”

  “What’s the complication, Mr. Kerry? I want Prudhomme apprehended. Where is he?”

  “Here on the post, sir. He followed us back from New Jersey.”

  “I want you to apprehend him, and I want these men released forthwith.”

  “Sir, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “I don’t care what you think, Mr. Kerry.” He turned to Rose and Favro. “You men are released. You are free to return to your barracks.”

  “What do I have to do to press charges against Prudhomme, sir?” asked Rose.

  “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Rose. I’ll see to it that it’s done.” Percival signaled to an MP who was leaning against his squad car. “Give these men a ride back to the barracks, Sergeant.”

  “Yes sir,” said the sergeant. Rose and Favro got in the squad car and he pulled away.

  “I’ll see you in my office, Kerry. Now.”

  Kerry left the evidence bags in the trunk of his car and followed Percival. In his office, Kerry stood at parade rest while Percival paced back and forth in front of his desk.

  “Do you know what you’ve done? You apprehended the Chairman and the Vice Chairman of the Honor Committee! How is that going to look? What do you think General Gibson’s going to say when he finds out how you treated Rose and Favro?”

  “I really don’t know, sir, and to be frank with you, I don’t care. I don’t work for General Gibson. I work for General Slaight. His daughter is lying up there in the hospital. Someone used a piece of wood to rape her. I think Rose is that someone, and I think Favro helped him. I’m going to pursue my investigation. If you try to stop me, I’ll go over your head to Colonel Lombardi, and if I don’t get satisfaction there, I will report to the Headquarters Building to General Slaight himself.”

  “Your career is over, Mr. Kerry. I will personally see to it that you are discharged for refusal of my orders, insubordination, and dereliction of duty.”

  “You are entitled to take whatever steps you feel are necessary against me, sir. But I’m going to tell you something right now, and I think you’d be well advised to listen to what I have to say. I know you’ve been making reports to General Gibson about the progress of my investigation into the death of Dorothy Hamner. If you in any way hinder my investigation from this point on, I will file a report on your activities that will go right up to the Secretary of the Army. You want to talk about careers being over? If I catch so much as a whiff of you getting in my way, you’ll need a flashlight to find your ass when I get finished with you. Think it over, Colonel. I don’t know what your deal is with Gibson, but whatever it is, it isn’t going to save you from the load of shit I’ll pile on your ass if you start playing patty-cake with him and I find out about it.”

  Percival had stopped pacing and was standing there staring at Kerry’s back as he walked to the door. He stopped and turned around.

  “You want Prudhomme apprehended, Colonel, do it yourself.”

  Kerry got in his staff car. There was an upside to the confrontation with Percival. He had relea
sed Rose and Favro. That was going to lift their spirits and give them a sense of invulnerability. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t be rushing to the SJA to get themselves military counsel now. That meant they would rest on the alibi Favro had blurted out. They were at the motel together all night. If he shot a hole in that statement, one or the other of them would crack, probably Favro. It was obvious from the look on his face that he had no idea of the assault Rose had committed on Jacey until the very moment that Kerry had described the rape with a piece of wood. That meant there was already a split between them. All Kerry had to do was give Favro a reason to let the split widen and he would turn on Rose.

  Things weren’t going so badly. The attack on Jacey had raised the stakes. He liked it when the stakes went up. That meant some players were wont to fold their hands and get out of the game, and who would be there to help them lick their wounds and recover their losses?

  Chief Warrant Officer Jim Kerry, the nicest guy in the world when he wanted to be.

  BY THE time Ash reached Jacey’s bedside in the hospital, she was reclining against a pillow eating Jell-O.

  “How are you feeling, Jace?” he asked. He took her hand and kissed it.

  Mrs. Slaight was sitting on the far side of Jacey’s bed. “Ash. We’ve been worried about you.”

  “You didn’t . . .” Jacey let her words trail away, unable to finish the sentence.

  “Rose is a little worse for the wear, but he’s back in the barracks. So is Favro. Kerry arrested them, but Percival let them go.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Kerry told me Percival blew his stack at him. He thinks the Chairman of the Honor Committee is a water-walker, I guess. Kerry said Percival was worried about what Gibson would do if Rose and Favro were under arrest.”