No Man's Land

6

PULLER SAT IN the chair and stared over at his father, who was still sleeping.

Colonel Shorr and Agent Hull had been gone for a while.

The VA hospital they were in was quiet, all activity ratcheting down as everyone tucked in for the night. Puller had come back here and sat down and stared at his father because he couldn’t think of what else to do.

When his father had first come here his moments of lucidity had been fairly frequent. Not enough to allow him to live by himself. He might have burned his house down by putting a metal can of soup in the microwave or using the gas stove to heat his kitchen.

Puller had acted out a game with his father in those earlier days. He’d been his father’s XO, or second in command. He would report in for duty and let his father order him around. He’d felt like an idiot for doing so, but the doctors here thought, other things being equal, that the charade might allow his father an easier transition to his next stage in the disease.

So Puller had played along. Now it wasn’t necessary to do that. His father had reached the next stage in his disease. The doctors said there was no going back.

It was a humble future for a three-star who should have been awarded one more star, along with the Medal of Honor. But politics, which existed in the military as it did in the civilian corridors of power, had prevented the additional star and the nation’s highest military honor from being bestowed.

Still, Puller Sr. was a legend in the military. “Fighting John Puller,” captain of the basketball team at West Point, where the term “Pullered” had come into vogue. They had never won a championship while his father played, but every team that beat them went home probably feeling as though they had actually lost the battle. That was what every conflict was to Puller Sr., whether it occurred on a battlefield or on a basketball court. You would know you’d been in a war when you went up against the man.

He had gone to West Point after the end of the Korean War and lamented that it was over before he could go fight in it.

As a combat leader in Vietnam he had almost never lost an engagement.

His division, the 101st Airborne, known as the Screaming Eagles, consisted of ten battalions of airmobile light infantry, plus a half dozen battalions of artillery supported by three aviation battalions of gunships and transports. It had fully arrived in Vietnam in 1967 and had fought its way across the Central Highlands. One of its most famous engagements was the battle for Hill 937, more famously known as Hamburger Hill. Puller Sr. had been right in the middle of the fight commanding his regiment in some of the most difficult terrain imaginable against an entrenched foe. He had been wounded twice, but had never once left the field of battle. Later, as they were stitching him up, he was barking orders over the radio detailing how the next engagement should be fought.

Throughout his tours in Vietnam, Puller Sr. had accomplished whatever had been demanded of him by his commanders and more. Once he gained ground he did not give it up. He had been nearly overrun multiple times by an enemy that valued dying in battle as a great honor. He had killed and nearly been killed-sometimes by his own side as errant bombs exploded dangerously close to his positions. He gave no quarter, asked for none, and expected his men to perform at ever higher levels.

The 101st was the last division to leave Vietnam and did so with over twenty thousand men killed and wounded during the course of the war. This was more than twice the division’s losses in World War II.

Seventeen members of the 101st won the Medal of Honor in Vietnam. Many thought Puller Sr. should have made it eighteen, including every man who had served under him.

Yet he never had.

Despite this, he had risen through the ranks swiftly. As a two-star he had gone on to command the illustrious 101st. He had left a mark bone deep on that fighting division that had stood the test of time. He had earned his third and final star and the rank of lieutenant general before his sixtieth birthday.

He was remembered as a soldier’s general. He took care of his men but drove them as relentlessly as he drove himself.

As relentlessly as he drove his sons, thought Puller.

His men loved and feared him. Perhaps more fear than love, now that Puller thought about it.

And maybe that was just as true for the sons as the men under his father’s command.

And now he lay sleeping in his bed at the VA. His world of command was gone, his sphere of influence nonexistent, his allotted time on earth winding down.

Puller turned to something that was deeply troubling him.

What his brother had said to him had been nearly as astonishing as what Hull and Shorr had told him.

How could he have misremembered the last day he had seen his mother?

His mother had been at that window. She had a towel wrapped around her head. Then she was gone.

But now Bobby had told him they’d had dinner together. And his mother had gone out. That the neighbor’s daughter had come over to watch the boys. Puller didn’t recall any of that.

He remembered that he had woken the next morning and his mother was not there. He remembered the MPs coming to the house. Then his father charging into the officers’ quarters where they lived at Fort Monroe, bellowing at and bullying all those within striking distance.

And his father had lied to the police?

He stared over at the sleeping man.

Why would he have done that?

Because he had actually murdered his wife and Puller’s mother?

It was pretty much unthinkable.

And yet Puller had seen enough in his career at CID to know that people were capable of just about anything.

He thought back to his early years with his parents. They had argued, but not to an excessive degree. The old man was harder on his sons than on his wife.

And Jacqueline Puller, known to all as Jackie, did not possess a submissive personality. If anything she was more than a match for her husband. The old man would be away and then he’d come home and try to change the rules of their lives that Jackie Puller had carefully constructed. As the boss of men rushing into combat, Puller Sr. evidently thought he was qualified and entitled to run everything. His wife had not been in agreement on that point.

So there had been arguments, words spoken in anger. But didn’t most if not all marriages have that?

Puller didn’t know for sure, never having been married. But he had conducted many investigations involving married couples. And he glumly recalled that more than a few involved one spouse murdering the other.

He left and went to his car. He got in and punched in the number.

“Shireen?”

“Puller? How’s it going?”

Shireen Kirk had formerly been a JAG, or Judge Advocate General’s, lawyer representing those in uniform. She had recently left the military and gone into private practice in northern Virginia. She had the rep of being a scorched-earth lawyer. And that’s exactly what Puller required.

“I need a lawyer.”

“Okay, so I guess it’s not going too well.”

“Well, my father needs one.”

“I thought he was in a care facility with Alzheimer’s?”

“Dementia, but yes, he is.”

“If he did something that someone found out of bounds I think he’d have a pretty solid diminished capacity defense.”

“It’s not like that. This is from about thirty years ago when he was still in the military.”

“Okay, what happened?”

Puller filled her in on the situation and the letter that Demirjian had sent to CID.

“That really sucks. You say they want to interview your father?”

“Yes.”

“If he’s been diagnosed with dementia he should have counsel there with him. I could even make a case that they can’t question him because of his condition. He’s liable to say anything and we don’t want him to inadvertently incriminate himself.”

“No, we don’t.”

“I can take the case.”

“That’s great, Shireen. But can they even charge him if he’s not competent?”

“They can charge anybody, Puller. Competency is a matter for a court to determine. And even if he’s not competent to stand trial they can hold the prosecution in abeyance until he becomes competent, if that ever happens. But that may be worse than him being tried for the crime.”

“How do you mean?”

“At least if he’s tried he can defend himself and maybe be acquitted.”

Puller slowly nodded. “But if he’s not tried because he’s incompetent, people may assume he’s guilty and is just getting off because he has dementia.”

“Exactly. Being tried in the court of public opinion is often far worse than having your day in court. At least in the latter you get a judgment one way or the other. What’s the name of the CID agent on the case?”

“Ted Hull out of the Twelfth MPs, JBLE.”

He could hear her writing this down. “I’ll contact him and tell him of my representation. I’ll need you to sign a retainer agreement if your father can’t. And I’ll need to meet with your father at some point.”

“I’m not sure how helpful that will be.”

“I still need to do it. I can’t rep someone without meeting them.”

“Okay, I’ll arrange that.”

“Are you his guardian, Puller? Do you have a power of attorney?”

“Yes. We did that when my dad came to the VA hospital.”

“Good, that simplifies matters. I’ll have to request the CID file from the investigation they did back then. They must have talked to people, and I can get those statements, plus information on any theories or leads they might have been trying to run down.”

“I want a copy of it when you do.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“You shouldn’t go there.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

Her next statement surprised him.

“Did you ever look at any of the case files when you got to CID?” she asked.

“I tried to, but they wouldn’t let me access them. Because of my personal connection to the case.”

Puller had just told the woman a lie. He had never tried to access the case files. And right now he didn’t really know why.

Shireen interrupted these thoughts. “What does your brother think of all this?”

“He’s more analytical about these things than I am.”

“Meaning he doesn’t necessarily believe your father didn’t do it?”

Puller had no response to that.

“I have some forms I need you to fill out so I can get going on this,” she said. “I’ll email them to you and you can sign and email or fax them back, okay?”

“Got it.”

Puller went online and accessed a secure military database. He entered the name Stan Demirjian. There was only one since the last name was not common. Demirjian had retired as a sergeant first class. He had his military pension. It was mailed out to his home like clockwork. His address was in the file. They lived on the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia.

In his mind’s eye Puller recalled a barrel-chested bald man with a gruff manner. But what sergeant first class didn’t have a gruff manner? Your job was to mold men and women into fighting machines. You weren’t there to be anyone’s friend.

Puller hadn’t had much contact with Demirjian when his father had been in uniform. Now that he thought about it, he had seen far more of Mrs. Demirjian than of her husband.

It was a two-hour drive from where he was to where the Demirjians lived. Should he go there and talk to them?

No one had told him to back off the case. And he could go and talk to them in a civilian capacity, not as a CID agent. It wasn’t the best position, but at least it was something.

And maybe he should before someone told him not to.

The email with the forms to sign popped into his mailbox.

He drove to the CID offices at Quantico, printed them out, signed them, and faxed them back to Shireen. Now the legal ball could get rolling.

He drove home, threw a few things in to a bag, gunned up with his twin M11s, snagged an investigation duffel he kept in his apartment, changed the litterbox and filled the food and water bowls of his cat, AWOL, and hit the highway.

When he was on a case Puller always had a battle plan of how he was going to approach things. Now he had no idea what the hell he was going to do.

And if his father was guilty?

He shook his head.

I can’t deal with that now. I can’t deal with that ever.

And yet if it came to it, Puller knew he would have to.