Mortal Allies

CHAPTER 12

The alarm went off at four. I almost heaved it against the wall and yanked the covers back over my head. But I mumbled to myself that the early bird gets the worm, and all that shit, as I rolled out of bed and knocked off fifty quick push-ups to get my blood circulating.

The particular worm I wanted was to force Katherine off that bankrupt defense she was planning. To do that, I needed leverage. Unbeknownst to himself, Whitehall was going to give me that leverage. He was going to be my ace in the hole.

I groggily lifted up the phone and told room service to send up a freshly brewed pot of coffee. I stressed that freshly brewed thing quite adamantly. I wasn’t in any mood for the dregs of midnight’s pot.

Then I jumped into my second cold shower inside four hours. When I emerged, my eyes were so popped open that to the nice kid who brought my coffee I must’ve looked like I’d just stuck my finger into an electrical socket. I tipped him handsomely, then positioned the pot by the window. I opened the blinds and stared at the lights in the distance.

Koreans are hungry, industrious, hardworking folks, and the city was already popping to life. Little scooters piled high with textiles and other goods were careening around the streets, making their early-morning deliveries to shops and warehouses. The drivers had to have gotten up at three to be out this early. Some life.

I lifted up the phone and asked the operator to put me through to the office of the registrar at the United States Military Academy at West Point. A high, timid female voice answered. I said I wanted to speak with the registrar.

The receptionist politely inquired, “You mean Colonel Hal Menkle?” and I politely said yes, and she politely asked me to wait a moment.

This being West Point, some inspiring martial marching music came on the line. I marched gently in place, until a gruff voice said, “How can I help you?”

“Colonel Menkle?”

“That’s who you asked for, wasn’t it?”

Sometimes you just know, right away, you’re not going to like somebody.

I said, “I’m Sean Drummond, defense counsel for one of the less stellar graduates of that great institution of yours. Thomas Whitehall? Class of ’91? Ever hear of him?”

There was a brief pause before he said, “I wasn’t here back in ’91. I know who Whitehall is, though. Everybody does.”

“I’ll bet.”

“We’ve been flooded with press inquiries on that bastard for weeks. You wanta talk to his physics professor? His priest? We’ve even got one of his former roommates on the faculty. We gotta whole list. Who you wanta start with?”

“How about the roommate? That sounds good.”

“Captain Ernest Walters. He teaches mechanical engineering. Just a second, I’ll transfer you.”

After a moment, then three rings, a clipped, perfunctory voice said, “Department of Mechanical Engineering. Captain Walters.”

“Hello, Ernie,” I said, as though we were the best of friends, “my name’s Major Sean Drummond. I’m a lawyer and I’m on the defense team for your old roomie Thomas Whitehall.”

“How can I help you, sir?” he asked, so starchly that it sounded much more like, Hey, you and me, we ain’t buddies, and why don’t you go screw yourself.

“Heh-heh,” I chuckled, like I hadn’t even noticed. “Must’ve been a tough coupla weeks for you I guess, huh, Ernie?”

“I guess,” he coldly replied, still not cozying up to my bonfire of friendliness. This couldn’t last, though. I mean, I’m a pretty charming guy when I put a little elbow grease into it.

“I sure as hell don’t envy you,” I plugged away. “I’ll bet you’ve taken a lot of grief, huh?”

“If that’s what you’d call getting seven bogus appointment slips to report to the dispensary to take an AIDS test, I guess so.”

“Aw, come on, that’s not so bad,” I said.

“Yeah? That’s this afternoon. Yesterday, some asshole stuffed my desk drawers full of pink underpants. Last week, some cadets broke into my classroom at night, painted my desk flaming pink, and changed my name placard to ‘Mrs. Whitehall.’ ”

“Hey, Ernie, tell me about it. Been there. You know, the other day, some bastard even painted the word ‘homos’ above my office entrance.”

“Yeah?” he said, suddenly sounding much more receptive. “I guess I saw that on CNN. That was you, huh?”

“That was me,” I said. “You can only guess how I got my butt reamed over that one.”

“Pretty bad, huh?”

“Shit, generals were standing in line to call me. You’d think I knocked up the President’s daughter. I’ll tell ya, Ernie, I’ve been catching some royal hell.”

“Yeah?” he asked, sounding suddenly much more chummy, proving once again that misery really does love company. “Try this one for size. I been married to my wife eight years, right? We date all through high school, all through my time as a cadet. I mean, hell, we got three kids, right? So, the other night, we’re layin ’in bed, and she turns to me and she gives me this real quirky look, and she says, ‘Hey honey, is there anything at all you want to tell me about? I mean, anything?’ You believe that crap? I almost jackslapped her.”

“Wow. Your own wife. That’s one for the books.”

“ ’Course I didn’t. Jackslap her, I mean. I just jumped on her ass and gave her a taste of the old power drill till three in the morning. Lady walked bowlegged for two days, no shit. She won’t be questioning my damned manhood again.”

“Heh-heh,” I chuckled, now that Ernie and I had bonded through our common woes. The ice was out of his voice, and he was getting relaxed, sounding much like one of those basic good ol’ boys from the South Bronx. The talkative type, at least once you get them going.

Still chuckling, I said, “So Ernie, what can you tell me about Whitehall?”

“Depends. What are you interested in?”

“What kind of guy was he?”

“Hell, everybody asks that. I don’t know. He’s just a guy, right?”

“Come on, Ernie, I’m not everybody. I’m the guy who has to convince ten hard-nosed sons of bitches they don’t really want to run fifty thousand volts through him. To do that, I have to know what kind of guy he really is.”

He seemed to weigh that a moment, because there was a fairly extended pause before he answered. I was taking a big risk. Maybe he really didn’t like Whitehall and wouldn’t mind one bit if fifty thousand volts cooked him like a Christmas turkey. But what choice did I have?

“This’s between us?” he finally demanded.

“Absolutely.”

“I mean, this isn’t the crap I tell reporters to keep my butt outta trouble, right?”

“Ernie, I swear. I won’t say a word.”

“Okay. Truth was I really liked Whitehall. I liked him a lot. We were pretty good buddies, y’know?”

He was backing into this tentatively, like a guy sticking his toe into hot water.

“Why?”

“Hell, I don’t know. He was just a great guy, y’know. A fantastic cadet, though. He played the game, right? Only don’t take that in no unfavorable way. He was a straight shooter. A guy you could trust in a bad moment.”

“No kidding?” I said.

“Yeah, no kiddin’. Tell ya a story. Freshman year, which they call plebe year here, right? There was this kid in my company who was a real screwup. Y’know the type, right? Couldn’t spit-shine his shoes, uniform always looked like shit, couldn’t pass a room inspection, couldn’t remember all that crap plebes have to memorize so upperclassmen can quiz ’em every day. This guy’s a miserable klutz, right? So the upperclassmen, they start coming after this kid. I mean, we’re talking like a pack of piranhas, giving him hell, hazing him every day, hazing him till late at night, so he can’t study, so he’s gettin’ so bothered and exhausted he’s on the verge of flunking out. ’Course, that was their game, right? They were trying to run him out, y’know. Either make him so friggin’ miserable he quits, or so friggin’ fried he flunks out. And right there in the same squad is Tommy Whitehall. We’re talking Mr. Perfect hisself. He’s just one of them gabbonzos that arrive at West Point and they’ve got the whole game figured out. You know the type, right?”

“Right.”

“Yeah, so the upperclassmen, they just adore Tommy Whitehall. Like he can turn Coke into Pepsi, right? Always they’re saying to this screwup, ‘Hey klutz, look over there at Mr. Whitehall. How come you ain’t like him, huh? What’s your friggin’ problem, huh?’ So one day, to everybody’s surprise, Whitehall shows up at formation, and his shoes look like he polished ’em with mud, and his uniform’s got smudges all over it, and suddenly he can barely remember his own name. So the upperclassmen, they jump on his ass a bit, not too hard, though, ’cause it’s him, Mr. Perfect, right? I mean, it’s only a freakin’ anomaly, right? A one-day thing, right?”

“Right.”

“Only it don’t get no better for Tommy Whitehall. Mr. Perfect seems to disintegrate. So these guys, they’re like sharks, they forget all about the klutz and go after Whitehall. I mean, it’s like one of them biblical things, like the only thing they hate more’n a common sinner is a saint who falls from grace. ’Course, what nobody knows is that Tommy’s staying up till midnight every night so he can sneak outta his room, go over to the klutz’s room, where Tommy spit-shines the kid’s shoes and gets his room ready for inspection, and even helps him catch up academically. I mean, he saved that guy’s ass. Tommy hadn’t helped him, that stupid klutz would of either flunked out or been thrown out, for friggin’ sure.”

Ernie had spit out the tale in that dizzying, rapid-fire way that only purebred New Yorkers can speak, only it was such a long-winded and convoluted tale that even he had to pause to catch his breath.

Then he said, “ ’Course, you’re a smart guy, right? You bein’ a lawyer and all. You probably already guessed who the klutz was, right? I mean, I wouldn’t be sittin’ right here wasn’t for Tommy Whitehall. I’m telling ya, nobody worked it harder’n Tommy.”

“Why’d he work so hard at it?”

“Shit, who knows? I just thought he was gonna be a really great officer. I mean, he was like that, y’know? More mature than most guys here.”

“More mature, like how?”

“Like driven. Never bitched, never whined, never acted stupid like most cadets do.”

“No kidding?”

“Hey, no kiddin’. Hands down. He was like pretty close to the top of our class academically. Guy’s smart as shit. And box? He took the freakin’ middleweight Golden Gloves down in New York City. You know anything about boxing, that’s like being the amateur national champ, ’cause the best kids from all over the country pour in for that one.”

“I had no idea,” I admitted.

“Yeah, well, Tommy’s not easy to know. He can come off like a real prick, least till he decides he likes you. There’s like this moat of ice around him, y’know? I never knew why that was. Least till now, anyway. Who’d of figured it, huh?”

Regarding that moat-of-ice thing, I would’ve figured it. I had him pegged on that one. Of course I didn’t say that. Instead I said, “So you never suspected it?”

“Hellll, no. Shit, we got communal showers up here. You’d think, if it was for real, you’d see a little pecker pop, wouldn’t ya?”

“Did anybody ever suspect him?”

“Nobody. I mean, lotsa guys are running around now, swearing they knew all along he was a pansy. That’s bullshit, though. He never let on. I’ll tell ya, he sure had lots of female cadets pantin’ after him. Could of got laid every night, if he’da wanted.”

“You ever see him date?”

“Nah. But I always figured it was, ah, y’know, one of them loyal-to-the-girl-back-home things. The whole four years, he kept this picture on his desk. I’m talking gorgeous, y’know? Dark-haired, big green eyes, face to melt your heart. I asked about her a coupla times, but he’d never let on. In hindsight, that picture, it was probably camouflage. Y’know, like one of those frames you buy with a picture of a model in it. Only he left the picture in so we’d all think… well, you know.”

I was sort of half listening by this point, because I was getting ready to end-run him.

As nonchalantly as I could, I said, “So, Ernie, do you think Whitehall could’ve committed murder?”

The reason for my coyness was because, unbeknownst to him, Captain Ernie Walters was about to be fingered as a character witness. I didn’t give a damn whether he wanted to testify or not. He’d said so many glowing things, he’d be perfect. I was ready to book him a flight to Korea.

He reluctantly said, “Actually, Major, I gotta be honest here. Yeah, I think Tommy could of done it. I definitely do.”

I nearly choked with surprise. “You do?”

“Sure. Only ’cause I’ve seen him fight, though. It’s what made him so damned good. They called him ‘Raging Bull,’ y’know. He’d go friggin’ crazy in that ring. Scared the bejesus outta everybody he boxed.”

“Is that right?” I asked. “So you figure… what? Maybe there was some hidden anger, some deep pathological impulse?”

“Hey, I’m a mechanical engineer, not a head shrink. I never saw it outside the ring, but I sure as hell saw him get that way inside. It was like some monster got out of a cage. The guy wasn’t boxin’, he was committing murder. His arms and his fists were like those old ack-ack guns, rat-a-tat-tat, slamming back and forth, blood flying everywheres, and he just kept charging. I hadda take a guess, knowing what I know now, then sure, yeah, maybe it was some kind of lurking anger related to this homo thing.”

And in that flash of an instant, Ernie Walters lost his free ticket to Korea. But I wasn’t about to let go.

“So, tell me, Ernie, are there any other classmates you think might speak up for Tom?”

“Shit, I don’t know. There was some guys used to like him. Everybody respected him, tell you that. And after plebe year, nobody screwed with him neither. See, lots of guys didn’t know he was the Golden Gloves champ, but everybody knew he was the brigade champ. Three years running, in fact.”

“Tell me about that.”

“Okay, sure. Once a year, the entire corps of cadets troops up to the gym for the brigade boxing finals. It’s like the big event of the year, y’know? Like the king of the badass contest. Shit, the way this’s turned out, maybe it was the queen of the badass contest.” He chuckled. “Everybody saw Tommy fight. Two or three of those matches, he got real freakin’ ugly. Once, he was fighting this upperclassman who’d won the previous two years. Shit, I’ll never forget it. Tommy just let loose on him. Blood everywhere. Put the guy in the hospital. Broke his nose, shattered his jaw. Hell, the poor guy didn’t see daylight for two days. It was all anybody talked about for weeks.”

“So everybody knew he had a violent streak?”

“Hey, look Major, you want me to climb on a plane and come testify Tommy Whitehall’s this friggin’ great guy, you got it. I’ll do that. The Army’ll probably kill me for it, but I’ll do that for Tommy. I could probably name five or six other guys who’d do it, too. Hell, before this thing broke, I probably could of named a dozen guys, y’know. But you gotta hear the risk here, right?”

“Yes, I do, Ernie. I’d hate to have heard someone disclose this on the stand.”

“Hey, no problem. Uh, Major, maybe I can offer you a little inside tip here? Y’know, on the sly. Between us gonzos. No further, right?”

“Ernie, I’m fishing for whatever I can get.”

“See if you can talk with this guy named Edwin Gilderstone. He’s like the oldest major in the Army. He was Tom’s English prof. They got pretty close.”

I said, “Ernie, I appreciate this very much. You’ve been more helpful than you know.”

“Hey look, sir, anything I can do to help Tommy, you pick up the phone and call. Right away, day or night, okay? Tommy Whitehall’s my paisan. Unlike a lotta these pricks, I still tell everybody that. Probably why I’m catching so much crap ’round here, y’know. And next time you see Tommy, you tell him I still love him like a brother. Be real precise about that, though. Only like a brother, heh-heh.”

I said, “Thanks, Ernie. I’ll do that. Switch me back to the registrar, would you?”

A moment passed, there were two rings, and Colonel Hal Menkle’s irascible voice came back on.

“You get what you needed, Drummond?” he asked.

“Walters wasn’t the least bit helpful,” I lied. “Who do you think might be helpful?”

“Try Chaplain Forbes. Or there’s a Lieutenant Colonel Merryweather who taught him math. Or, there’s-”

I jumped in. “How about his old English prof? Edwin Gilderstone?”

“Gilderstone?” he asked, sounding surprised. And damned unhappy, too – so unhappy, in fact, I could swear I heard his teeth grinding.

“Yes, that’s right. Major Edwin Gilderstone.”

“I… uh-”

“He’s still on the faculty, isn’t he?”

“Maybe. What possible reason would you have for speaking with him, though? Trust me here, Drummond, the other names I’m giving you, they’re much better qualified to speak on this issue. You don’t want to set foot in the wrong pastures here, if you get my drift. You could find yourself in a pretty ugly pile of shit.”

I sure as hell did get his drift. When something like this happens, an institution, any institution, flies into a frenzy of self-mortification and damage control. This was the well-storied Long Gray Line: Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, “Blackjack” Pershing, Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, “Stormin’ Norman” Schwartzkopf… oops, ouch, shit… Thomas Whitehall. What the hell happened here? How mortifying.

And as a wise old commander I once worked for used to caution, mortification quickly begets cover-ups. Obviously, the Academy had a list of former associates who would say the right things, proffer the right innuendos, who would create just the right impression.

That impression was that Thomas Whitehall was living proof that “don’t ask, don’t tell” didn’t work, that it allowed murderous homosexuals to slip through the net.

I said, “I want to speak with Edwin Gilderstone and I sure as hell hope you’re not trying to hinder me. Because if you are, then I’ll have you cited for impeding my defense.”

He very coldly said, “Back off, Drummond. You can talk to whomever you want.”

I made it a point to sound even colder. “I know. Connect me, right away.”

Three rings later, a soft, gentle voice said, “Ed Gilderstone.”

I said, “Hi, Ed, Sean Drummond here. I’m the lawyer who has the unparalleled honor of defending Thomas Whitehall. I’m told you were his English professor. I’m also told you knew him pretty well.”

“I was. But I was not merely his English professor. I was also his faculty adviser. I therefore saw Thomas regularly the whole four years he was here.”

“Wow. You must be spending a lot of time talking to the press these days, huh?”

Sounding suddenly grumpy, he said, “I’ve spent no time talking with the press.”

“No?”

“I’ve actually been blacklisted from speaking to any journalists. Can you imagine? I even received a formal letter from the superintendent personally ordering to me to say nothing to the press.”

“Really? Like a gag order, huh? Why would they do that?”

Now, sounding childish, he replied, “I suppose I don’t represent the image they want portrayed to the press.”

“What image is that?” I asked, knowing damn well what image he meant.

“I’m not one of these young, lean, square-jawed, Airborne, Ranger types who take a brief sabbatical from the Army, pick up a quick master’s, then come up here and pretend they’re teachers for a few years before they go back to troops. Warrior-scholars, they call themselves.”

“Then what are you, Ed?”

“I’m a short, bald, fifty-three-year-old major who would’ve been cashiered fifteen years ago, but for one asset: I happen to have a doctorate in English literature from Yale. The Academy hates it, but it must preserve a few like me on the permanent faculty or it’ll lose its credentials as a real college. But God forbid the press ever learn there are overeducated dinosaurs like me in uniform.”

“How long have you been there?”

“Twenty-two long, disgruntling years.”

“Yes, well,” I said, having heard enough of his problems, “we each must serve our country in our own way.”

“Don’t patronize me, Drummond. I was a major when you were in diapers.”

“Very likely true,” I admitted, now fully understanding exactly why the folks who ran West Point did not want Gilderstone to be on the same planet with a journalist. Aside from whatever he might say that contradicted the party line about Whitehall, he was a whiny, bitchy, disillusioned old man. If it were me, I too would order him to hide in the attic while I strutted some gung-ho hard-cock with a Ranger tab in front of the press.

I decided to cut to the chase. “So, Ed, what can you tell me about Tommy Whitehall?”

“Thomas? What can I say about Thomas? Simply that he’s one of the most remarkable young men I ever met. Brilliant, poised, an extraordinary scholar, a great athlete. I tried to get him to go for a Rhodes Scholarship. Were you aware of that?”

“Really? A Rhodes? I had no idea. What happened?”

“Damned fool flatly refused,” Gilderstone moaned. “A crying shame, too. The boy stood a good chance.”

“No kidding? Why didn’t he do it?”

“He said that even if he could get it, he didn’t want to waste two more years at Oxford, feathering his resume. That’s how he put it. Can you imagine?”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“He was in a hurry to get to the field with troops.”

“So what’s wrong with that?”

“The poor boy was brainwashed by all the gung-ho propaganda they pump into these impressionable young cadets up here. Troop officers are a dime a dozen. You’re a lawyer; you know that. Thomas had so much more to offer. He was a vessel filled with so many remarkable talents. He could’ve come back here to teach.”

One of the things you learn to do as a lawyer is listen real closely. It wasn’t only what Gilderstone was saying, it was how he was saying it, like an ugly duckling describing a swan. There was a reason Ernie Walters had pointed me toward Gilderstone. That reason was beginning to grow legs, and hair, and warts.

Thinking I was being slick, I said, “So you were pretty fond of the kid, eh, Ed?”

For a very long time, Gilderstone did not answer. And I knew, after the first few seconds, that I’d underestimated him.

When he did speak, he erupted. “Drummond, there was nothing between us. Not a damn thing!”

“But Ed, who ever said there was?”

“I’ve already warned you, Drummond, don’t patronize me. Is this why you called me? How’d you get my name? Did Thomas give it to you? Is this one of those witch hunts? What? They’re promising leniency if he gives up some more gays in uniform? Is that what this is about?”

“Gilderstone, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if you and Whitehall boffed each other in the commandant’s bed. I’m just trying to figure him out. That’s all. I’m trying to keep Whitehall out of the electric chair.”

There was another long pause. Then, still sounding grouchy as hell, he insisted, “I never slept with him. Never!”

“I told you, Gilderstone, I don’t give a damn.”

“Then what is this about?”

“Information. Anything you say is confidential. That’s on the record.”

“Nothing will be attributed?”

“Not if you don’t want it to, no.”

“Well, I don’t. Don’t think me stingy, Drummond, but I’m not coming out of the closet for Whitehall. You need to agree to protect me.”

It was damned hard to disguise my disgust. This contemptible old codger was sitting back in the nice comfortable little nest he’d built for himself at West Point, refusing to lift a finger for “the finest young man I ever met.” I guess that’s what happens to a guy who spends a lifetime hiding in shadows. Pretty soon he’s got no more character than the shadow he’s hiding behind.

Anyway, I simply said, “You got it.”

“All right. Tell me what you want to know.”

“To start with, did you know he was gay?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“You suppose so? You mean you never talked about it?”

“No, never. We… well, we gravitated toward each other, like two tourists in an alien land.”

“Then how’d you know he was gay?”

“A sixth sense, I suppose. No, that’s not completely true. You see, Drummond, when you’re a gay soldier, you learn to act in a certain way, and you learn to detect the same act in others. I just looked at Thomas in class, around his peers. I knew.”

“But you never talked about it? Never discussed it?”

“No, never. We both knew, though. Right off the bat, as they say.”

“So you weren’t his lover?”

“I already told you that. Why would I go near him? Do you have any idea what they’d do if they caught me?”

“Did he have a lover while he was there?”

“No. I’m nearly certain of it. West Point is… well, it’s the holy temple of the Army. Whatever traditions or taboos you find in the Army, magnify them tenfold at this place. Thomas was remarkably self-disciplined. He was determined to make it through, too. He wasn’t going to take unnecessary risks.”

I decided to keep fishing. “What made him so damned determined?”

“What makes anybody determined? A deprived upbringing. Exacting parents. Virulent sibling rivalries. Overheated genes, maybe.”

“Which of those was it with him?”

“How the hell should I know? I told you, he’s very reserved. Mysterious even,” he said, only now, instead of sounding bitter, he seemed wistful. “I never met his family, and he certainly never talked about them. They never even visited, to the best of my knowledge. Maybe that’s a clue in itself.”

“Okay. Now, do you think he could’ve slung a belt around the throat of his lover and strangled him?” I asked, deliberately putting a hard edge on it.

He didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

“Over what? Jealousy? Spite? Rage?”

“Nothing so tawdry, I assure you. As I said, he’s exquisitely disciplined.”

“Then what?”

Instead of answering, he asked, “Drummond, have you ever been in combat? Ever killed a man?”

Actually, before I became a lawyer, I’d spent five years as an infantry officer. In fact, I spent those five years in what the Army euphemistically calls a black unit, which means a unit so spectacularly clandestine its very existence is classified top-secret. The name of my particular unit was the “outfit,” which was shorthand for the 116th Reconnaissance Squadron. But what we did had very little to do with reconnaissance, and a lot to do with counter-terrorism during peacetime, and some fairly grisly, very hazardous things in wartime.

Gilderstone had no business knowing that, of course. I’d been in combat, though. Twice, in fact – in Panama and later in the Gulf. And I’d participated in a few interesting operations in between.

All I said was, “Yes,” and left it at that.

“Me, too,” he said. “A tour in Vietnam, a very long time ago. Until then, I’d never thought I could kill anyone. I thought I was above such primal savagery. I was too educated, too cultivated, too self-realized. Even when I got there, I thought I’d spend my tour with my M16 cradled in my arms, ordering others to kill. Of course it didn’t turn out that way.”

“No? How did it turn out?”

Instead of answering, he said, “Tell me about the first time you killed a man.”

I didn’t like this game, but since I was trying to coax him to trade confidences, I didn’t see that I had any choice but to play along.

“Okay, Ed. An open-and-shut thing. I had to get my team into a facility, and there was this guard, and he was in the way, so I killed him.”

“How?”

“That’s a stupid question, Ed. I killed him. End of story.”

“What weapon did you use?”

“A knife.”

“Did you sneak up from behind him?”

“Yes, Ed, I snuck up behind him.”

“Did you slap your hand over his mouth to keep him from yelling out?”

“That’s right.”

“Where’d you cut him?”

“What do you mean, where’d I cut him?” I asked, becoming exasperated by his ghoulish curiosity.

“Did you slice his throat open? Did you plunge the blade into his stomach? Into his heart? Into his back?”

“I put it in the lower part of his stomach. Okay?”

“And then you yanked it up?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’d you choose that particular killing thrust?”

“It’s quick. It’s foolproof.”

“How so?”

“Because the stomach’s soft tissue, Ed. Because there’s no bones or ribs in the way. Because a strong upward thrust rips up a lot of vital organs, and tears open at least two major arteries.”

“Was that a deliberate choice on your part?”

I said, “Ed, I’m getting tired of this.”

“Was it?” he persisted.

“All right, yes. Why?”

“What were you thinking while he was dying?”

“I don’t know,” I lied, very irritated.

“Yes, you do know. What were you thinking?”

Now sounding grouchy myself, I said, “Look, Ed, I just want to know what would make Whitehall kill a guy. Drop the game.”

He said, “You’re standing just outside the facility. You’ve got one hand over his mouth, and with your other arm you’re holding him erect. Your bodies are so close you can feel his heart racing. You can smell the gases escaping from his bowels. Your two heads are so near you can hear his last dying breaths, his muffled groans of pain. It’s a very intimate moment. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking the same thing I’m thinking about you. I just wished the stubborn bastard would get it over with. I needed to get my team into the facility, so he just needed to hurry up and die.”

“Then you’re a cold killer,” Gilderstone said. “A paid assassin. I wasn’t like that, Drummond. That’s not the way it happened with me. I snapped. I exploded into a rage. I just ran into a bunch of underbrush and started killing indiscriminately, brazenly, wantonly. I still don’t know what triggered it. I started killing everything in sight.”

“That’s nice,” I said. “What’s it got to do with Whitehall?”

“Know what I did afterward?” he asked, doggedly oblivious to my protests and proddings.

“Okay, Ed. What did you do afterward?”

“I looked around at all the people I killed. There were maybe a dozen corpses, I have to tell you. I threw up. Then I shot myself in the foot. Right then and there, I simply pointed my rifle at my shoe and fired three shots.”

Being cute, I said, “That must’ve hurt like hell, Ed.”

“Want to hear the funny part?”

“I didn’t know there was a funny part,” I said. I thoroughly disliked this man.

“I got a Distinguished Service Cross for my valorous actions. And I got a Purple Heart, and a trip home for the wounded foot.”

I don’t often go speechless, but I did. I was dumbfounded.

A Distinguished Service Cross is only a tiny sliver below the Medal of Honor. Edward Gilderstone was a war hero. A thoroughly flawed, conflicted, self-loathing one, but a genuine hero nonetheless. But hero or not, he was the kind of guy who was so puffed up on his own sanitized sense of self-worth that the realization he could be as ordinary, as feral, as murderous as the next guy drove him to self-mutilation. That’s pretty nasty stuff, in my book.

More perplexing than that, though, here was a guy who’d earned his country’s second highest decoration for valor, and he was too chickenshit to help an old student stay out of the electric chair. Some hero.

Thinking I was being sarcastic, I finally said, “Gee, Ed, that must’ve been some rage you flew into.”

Still ignoring me, he replied in a very dry tone, “Thomas Whitehall’s not like you, Drummond. He’s like me. He could snap and kill somebody, but afterward he’d show horrific effects from it. His conscience would eviscerate his whole being. So how does he appear to you? Like a man who’s still coping with himself? Or a man who wants to shoot himself in the foot?”

This was the moment when I decided I’d had enough of Edwin Gilderstone and his bitter, sanctimonious words. I abruptly thanked him and hung up. I poured another cup of coffee and stood looking out the window, trying to piece all this together.

Neither Whitehall’s college roommate nor his college mentor had hesitated or equivocated a bit – yes, Thomas Whitehall could easily kill somebody. That obviously wasn’t what I’d hoped to hear. On the other hand, how good was their judgment?

Ernie Walters had the New Yorker’s gift of gab, which always entails a degree of exaggeration. He wasn’t lying, he was taking forty-five seconds and making it sound like a minute. But he’d lived with Whitehall two years, been his close personal friend for twelve, described him as virtually a brother, yet had never suspected his homosexuality. That’s a fairly gaping miscalculation. A man’s sexual character is an integral part of his larger character, of his earthly essence. Ernie Walters never had a clue.

Gilderstone had known about the homosexuality, but his misjudgments, if anything, went closer to the bone than Walters’s. What I figured was that like lots of older men, Gilderstone saw Whitehall as a younger figure he wanted to transform into a burnished, tidier image of himself. That’s what lay behind all that gibberish about untapped talents and Rhodes Scholarships. He wanted Whitehall to be his shadow, to follow in his footsteps. Maybe because he was gay and would have no children, he wished to sculpt one. He wanted Whitehall to be something more than a typical soldier, fighting and garrisoning his life away. Only Whitehall said no.

One thing I was learning about the world inhabited by military gays was that it could make for some fairly confused bedfellows. I mean, here was Ernie Walters, a thoroughly decent but straight guy who was getting his balls clipped every day because he’d once roomed with a gay. Still, he’d volunteered to step up and trade his career to help Whitehall. Then here was Ed Gilderstone, a gay man himself, who maybe loved Whitehall, who should’ve been sympathetic as hell, a fifty-three-year-old major whose military career was already a shambling wreck, who wasn’t willing to make any effort to help his old student.

Maybe Gilderstone was the scarred product of the old days and the old system. He’d been a teenager in the fifties and served in the Army of the sixties; back in the days when “gay” still meant joyful, and “homosexual” meant ridicule, disgrace, and ostracism. When a man is forced to hide in a closet that long, I guess it can get pretty dark and lonely.

It’s what writers term an appalling irony. I call it frustrating as hell.

But the most surprising thing I’d learned was that Whitehall was actually a pretty good guy. Actually, unless Ernie Walters was a complete fool, Whitehall was a great guy. And if Gilderstone was right, then Whitehall should be showing terrific emotional effects from the murder. I’d seen no signs of that.

Too bad I’d also learned my client was a boxer with concrete fists driven by powerful pistons, and with a psychic trigger that could drive him over the edge. He had the kind of power to shatter jaws and noses – certainly enough to cause the hideous bruising I’d seen on Lee’s body.