Mortal Allies

CHAPTER 5

We went straight to Katherine’s room, only nobody was there, just a message telling us a big surprise awaited at the hair salon at the top of the hill beside the hotel. So we trooped up there.

When we walked in, three female legal clerks in battle dress were lugging boxes and computers, and folding tables and chairs, and were converting the hair parlor into an impromptu legal office. In the corner stood a diminutive, squat Black female noncommissioned officer with short graying hair, gold wire-rimmed glasses, and a round, puffy face that somehow, improbably, looked harder than nails. She was barking commands at everybody, waving her arms this way and that, squawking to beat the band.

I almost ran across the floor to hug her. I didn’t, though. She would’ve slapped me silly if I so much as winked. Katherine and Keith eyed what was going on and appeared instantly bewildered.

I said, “Sergeant Pepperfield, could you please step over here so I can introduce you?”

She looked up as though she hadn’t noticed us until that very instant, which was balderdash because nothing ever happened within ten miles of Imelda that she didn’t notice. She hiked up her Army camouflage trousers, lowered her spectacles, huffed and puffed once or twice like I was terribly inconveniencing her, then waddled in our direction.

Katherine was inspecting the cut of her jib.

“Katherine, Keith, this is Sergeant First Class Imelda Pepperfield, the best legal aide in the United States Army. She’ll run our legal shop.”

Imelda firmly planted her feet directly in front of Katherine, and the two of them stared into each other’s eyes for what seemed an eternity but was probably only half a second. It was that kind of look.

“Nice to meet you,” Katherine said, sticking out her hand.

Imelda grabbed it and snarled, “Don’t you or none of your legal diplomas mess with me, y’hear. I run this show and you do what I say. This office is my turf. You remember that!”

“Okay,” Katherine said.

“You got something you want, you tell me. Ol’ Pepperfield will make it happen.”

“All right,” Katherine said.

At that very instant, Maria the grump and Allie the amazon came dashing out of an office in the back. Maria was actually smiling. It was a goofy-looking thing, but it was a smile, I guess.

“Would you look what this woman did! We’ve been here eleven days and couldn’t even get a phone line. She’s here two hours and she got a building, six phone lines, and five computers.”

“Three cars, too,” Allie chirped up. “With drivers.”

“That’s wonderful,” Katherine said. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but is a hair parlor the best we could do?”

Imelda shuffled her feet. “They gave us this ’cause all of the Koreans that work here’re on strike.”

“And because it’s a hair parlor and we’re the gay defense team?” Katherine asked.

“Don’t make a damn to me,” Imelda snorted. “Got three offices in the back, air-conditioning, toilets, and lotsa electric outlets.”

“You’re right,” Katherine said, giving Imelda a warm, proud smile. “It’s perfect.”

Imelda beamed like a happy child. Her mouth spread from one earlobe to the other. I was flabbergasted. This was a lovefest. They were all acting like big buddies, patting each other on the back and grinning like fools. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. Imelda Pepperfield was the grumpiest, gnarliest person God ever put on this green earth. One of the smartest, too. She did this great impression of a poorly educated, backwoods southern Black girl that somehow fooled nearly all the people, all the time. Not me, though. Imelda is as sly as any lawyer I’ve ever met and nearly as well educated. She has a master’s in English lit and a master’s in criminal law. She keeps all this well disguised because, like many professional noncoms, she knows the ship runs much smoother when the officers on the upper decks feel there’s some tangible basis for their perch on the roost.

I stared hard at Imelda and she glared fiercely right back.

Katherine interrupted our silent showdown by announcing, “They still plan to turn Whitehall over to the Koreans at five o’clock this evening.”

The smile melted off Maria’s tiny face, and Allie looked around the room as though she were searching for something to throw, or break, or kill. They really were an odd couple: complete opposites; one tall, one short; one loud and brassy, the other quiet, withdrawn, and well… grumpy. Not that I understood the first thing about gay relationships, but what the hell did they see in each other?

Anyway, I said, “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Why?” Katherine asked. “Do you think we scared them out of it?”

“I think they’re on the phone to D.C. right now. They’re both pissing in their trousers. Brandewaite’s the ambitious type who’d like to be a real ambassador or an assistant muckety-muck someday. And that big-lipped colonel has dreams of general’s stars. The kind of public recognition you just offered isn’t likely to further their careers any.”

“Turn up the heat then,” Katherine snapped. “Allie, call Carson from the Times, and Millgrew from the Post. Tell them I want to meet right away.”

Allie took a step toward her office before I quickly said, “I wouldn’t do that.”

“And why not?”

“Because you don’t want to set a precedent of running to the press every time you don’t get your way.”

“Bullshit,” tiny Maria said. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?” I asked derisively.

“The press is our best weapon. The system’s against us, and using the press is the only way we can level the playing field.”

“Look,” I said, as condescendingly as I could. “I know you all have this thing against the military, but I don’t. It happens to be where I make my living. The Army’s not perfect, but it’s a damned sight better than you give it credit for.”

Katherine and her coterie all did hairy eye-rolls for a brief second.

“Drummond,” Katherine said, like she was talking to somebody who’d just said something a few leagues below stupid. “You’re the one who doesn’t get it. You come from the other side of the line. You have no idea how your side plays.”

“Wrong. I’m from the other side. I know exactly how we play.”

Katherine started to say something and I cut her off. “Besides, like my mother always says, a good threat’s like a good steak: Let it marinate awhile. Give ’em three hours; then feel free to start babbling with your buddies in the fourth estate.”

Katherine, Allie, Keith, and Maria all huddled together in a corner and began discussing it. I clearly was not welcome. I clearly was not part of the team. It took nearly two minutes before they reached some sort of consensus and Katherine walked back in my direction.

“All right, we’ll wait,” she said. “In the meanwhile, it’s time for you to meet our client.”

Like I couldn’t guess what was behind this. She and the others thought I was finding it too effortless to barter our client’s fate, since I’d never met him and therefore hadn’t developed the sympathetic bond that often forms between an attorney and his customer. In their view, this whole thing was too impersonal for me.

They were making a big blunder, though. The truth is, I was probably more lenient on his behalf because I hadn’t met him. Given the crimes he was accused of, I dreaded how partial I’d be if I met him and became completely persuaded he’d actually done it.

But anyhow, there was no way I could turn them down, so I followed along behind Katherine and Maria as they walked out the door and climbed into one of the sedans Imelda, the traitor, had commandeered.

It took only ten minutes to reach the holding facility on base, an old, drab, one-floored building constructed of concrete blocks, very small, with your standard-issue black metal mesh on the windows. An Army captain with military police brass came into the front office and escorted us past a heavy iron door, then down a short hallway with about six cells on each side. Like most military facilities, the place was spotlessly clean. It reeked of disinfectant, but also cooked bacon. The captain informed us the prisoners had just finished lunch. It was BLT day.

We went down to the end and stopped in front of the last cell on the right. The door was made of steel, and the captain occupied himself for nearly a minute fumbling around for the right key. I paced nervously, because I didn’t know what to expect, although I was anticipating the worst. Murder, rape, and necrophilia are as ghoulish as it gets. I was having flashbacks from that movie The Silence of the Lambs.

The door finally opened and I spotted a figure lying on a metal bunk on the backside of the cell. He got slowly to his feet and approached us with his right hand extended.

He looked youthful, maybe twenty-nine, maybe thirty, with short black hair, intense green eyes, thick eyebrows, a long, straight nose, a strong, narrow jaw, and thin lips that gave an impression of unhappiness. He was very fit-looking, with a lean, sculpted body that could come only from a steady regimen of weight lifting and heavy jogging.

“Katherine, Maria, I’m glad you’re here,” he said, shaking hands with the two of them.

“I’m sorry we didn’t come earlier,” Katherine said. “As soon as we heard, we rushed straight to the embassy to try to get it reversed.”

“And did you?”

“We don’t know yet. We put a good scare into them, but it’s hard to tell which way it’ll go.”

Then there was an awkward moment as Whitehall studied me in apparent confusion.

Katherine finally said, “Thomas, this is Major Sean Drummond. You remember I told you I was firing the military co-counsel the command provided and requesting my own. This is him.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Whitehall said, thrusting out his right hand again.

I hesitated for only a brief moment before I shook it, but long enough for him to get the message. I then mumbled something incoherent that might’ve sounded like “Pleased to meet you, too,” or “You make me sick.” Whichever.

Whitehall sat on his bunk. Katherine and Maria followed and fell onto the bunk beside him. Me? I chose to prop myself against a wall in prickly isolation.

But I never took my eyes off my client. My first impression had been made the moment I heard the details of his crime, and I wanted to see how it squared with his physical presence. His uniform was sharply pressed and creased and his boots glistened as though he spent twenty hours a day rubbing polish on them. Maybe he did; what else are you going to do when you’re sitting on your ass in a cell? The emblem on his collar identified him as an infantry officer, and the ring on the third finger of his left hand was an Academy ring with a big red ruby. He looked like a model young officer: handsome, fit, and meticulously tidy.

But he wasn’t a model officer. He raped dead people.

“So,” Whitehall asked, intensely studying me right back, “where do you come from, Major?”

“I’m assigned to a court just outside Washington. An appeals court.”

That was a lie, but I had my reasons for misleading him.

“Have you ever defended an accused murderer before?”

“A few times.”

“How about rape?”

“Plenty.”

“Necrophilia?”

“No. None. Never.”

“Then we have something in common.”

“Really? And what could that possibly be, Captain?” I nastily replied, thinking we had nothing at all in common, except we were both in the Army. And we were both males. Well, he was sort of a male. Maybe.

“I’ve never been accused of necrophilia before,” he assured me with a very bitter smile on his lips.

“You went to West Point?” I asked, avoiding that with a ten-foot pole.

“Class of ’91.”

“Are you gay?” I asked, deliberately diving right into it, a neat little lawyer’s trick I’d learned, because I suspected he wouldn’t be truthful and I wanted to see if the quick leap made him blush, or stammer, or emit some nonverbal clue that betrayed his true sexual druthers.

I needn’t have bothered.

“In fact, I am,” he said, sounding unaffected, like he wasn’t embarrassed by it. Then he quickly added, “But you’re not allowed to disclose that. Since you’re my attorney, you’re bound by attorney-client privilege, and I’ll tell you what you can and can’t divulge.”

“And what if Miss Carlson and I decide an admission of sexual preference is in your best interest?”

Katherine was looking at me with a queasy expression, and it suddenly struck me what was going on here.

Whitehall said, “I’ll reiterate again, Major. I’ll tell you what you can and can’t disclose. I was first in my class in military law at West Point, and like many gay soldiers, I’ve continued to study the law a great deal since. My life and career are on the line.”

“Are you unhappy with us?” I asked. “Do you lack confidence in our abilities?”

“No, I guess you’ll do fine. Just say I’m confident in my own judgment and abilities and leave it at that.”

Katherine was now nervously running a hand through that long, black, luxurious hair of hers. Her eyes were darting around at some invisible specks on the ceiling like the last thing she wanted to do was look at my face.

There’s a term used in prisons:“jailhouse lawyer.” The Army has its own version, “barracks lawyer.” Both refer to a specific kind of foolish creature who stuffs his nose inside a few law books and suddenly thinks he’s been reincarnated as Clarence Darrow or Perry Mason. They’re a real lawyer’s worst nightmare, because all of a sudden your client thinks he’s smarter than you, which he very well might be, only he lacks a few essentials called experience and education, and in any regard is trying to transform a worm’s-eye view of the world into an all-encompassing galactic perspective.

The great danger with barracks lawyers is that they very often don’t comprehend their own gaping shortcomings until the words “guilty as charged” come tumbling out of the jury foreman’s lips. Even then, some don’t learn. Appeals court dockets are overloaded with motions launched by barracks lawyers, who graduate into jailhouse lawyers, who continue to believe the only reason they lost was because of the bungling attorney who took up space at the defense table with them.

I said, “Do I take it that you intend to direct the defense?”

“Mostly, yes,” he said. “On all key decisions, I expect you to confer with me. And I have the final vote.”

The law certainly gave him this authority, and by Katherine’s pained expression I guessed this topic had already been broached at some length with our client. I decided not to press. Whitehall didn’t know me, or trust me, so I wasn’t likely to disabuse him at this early stage in our relationship. Depending on how full of himself he was, or how our relationship matured, maybe I’d never disabuse him.

I merely said, “You certainly have that right.”

He said, “I know.”

“May I ask a few questions pertaining to the case?”

“Uh… all right,” he answered, as though he were doing me some big favor.

“What was your position on base?”

“The headquarters company commander.”

“And how long were you in that position?”

“Eleven months. I’m on a one-year rotation. I was scheduled to change command in one more month.”

“How were your ratings?”

“Outstanding. All of my ratings, my whole career, have always been outstanding.”

“Uh-huh,” I murmured, making a mental note to check that. Lots of officers lie and tell you they’ve got outstanding records, and because their personnel jackets are kept in sealed files in D.C., the layman has no way of checking. I’m not a layman, though. I’m a lawyer. I can check.

I asked, “So what were you and First Sergeant Moran, Private Jackson, and Lee No Tae doing at that apartment?”

He relaxed back against the wall. “They were my friends. I know officers aren’t supposed to mingle with enlisted troops, but none of them were under my command. I figured it was harmless. I invited them over for a party.”

“Could you elaborate on the nature of your friendship? Exactly what does that word mean to you?”

“You mean… was I romantically involved with them?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

He quickly bent forward. “You haven’t tried any gay cases before, have you?”

“Nope,” I admitted. “This is my first.”

“In gay cases, Major, always direct your question more narrowly. Some gays are wildly promiscuous. Romantic entanglements can be irrelevant, even undesirable. You must always ask, was there a physical relationship, because often that’s all there was.”

Whitehall then studied me very carefully to see how I’d respond. I had the sense there was something here that was very weighty to him. He’d just lectured me on a point of law as though I were a first-year law student, so there was the matter of one-upsmanship to contend with. But he’d also made a somewhat provocative claim about gays – was this some kind of test?

At any rate, I coldly said, “Point taken. Did you have either a romantic or physical relationship with any of those men?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he bent farther forward, placed his elbows on his knees, and said, “Tell me something, Major. I’ve read that some defense attorneys would rather not know if their clients are guilty or innocent. In the dark, they give every client every benefit of the doubt. They throw their hearts and souls into the defense. Do you subscribe to that theory?”

“Nope. I sure don’t.”

“Why not?”

“For one thing, any decent defense attorney puts his feelings aside. For a second, it diffuses your strategy. If you believe your client’s innocent, you spend all your time trying to prove that to everybody else. If you know or suspect he’s guilty, you spend every second trying to invalidate or hinder the prosecutor’s case. It’s like what they taught you in military art about focusing the main effort on a battlefield, and economizing elsewhere. We’ve only got two weeks here. We can’t afford to be diffused.”

“But tell me truthfully. If you thought I was guilty of these crimes – murder, rape, necrophilia, engaging in homosexual acts, consorting with enlisted troops – would you put your heart and soul into my defense?”

“I’ve taken an oath as an officer of the court to provide you the most able defense I can offer.”

That was a rhetorical sidestep and he knew it. And that seemed to tell him something important, because he leaned back against the wall and his expression got suddenly chilly.

“Okay,” he said, “here’s the way we’ll work this. You go find out everything you can. Collect the facts, analyze what you’ve got, then come back to me with your questions.”

“Will you answer them?” I asked.

“I didn’t say that. Just bring your questions when you’re ready.”

We left Captain Thomas Whitehall in his cell and departed the holding facility. Neither Katherine nor Maria asked me what I thought. I figured they already knew what I thought. They knew, because they had to be thinking the exact same thing.