Navy Justice (Whidbey Island, Book 5) (14 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A
S
THE
WORKDAY
came to a close, lawyers and administrative staff left the building with a quick “See you in the morning!” or “Don’t work too hard!”

Joy stayed. She needed the quiet and the solitude to finish going over her notes from the Farid case. Taking them home didn’t feel right. At least here she was on neutral territory and not likely to be bothered.

And when she was done with them she could use the state-of-the-art shredder in the supply room.

She gripped the edge of the desk as she stared at her notes. She hadn’t read another word since she’d found what she’d suspected was here. Proof that Brad might have been targeted by some unknown person from Farid’s village since the very start of this horrible, horrible mess.

The office seemed to close in around her, reminding her to breathe in the confined space. How could she have missed this?

Right there, in the transcript of the testimony Farid had given them. Farid’s innocence was unmistakable; he’d done what he could to save his family’s village, to protect the only way of life he knew.

She’d forgotten how decisively Farid’s family had disowned him once he spoke to the US Marines. He’d told her that, told the court, but she’d been so focused on clearing him, on making sure his few brief conversations with one Taliban insurgent didn’t affect his status. Farid had passed the correct intelligence to Brad’s SEAL team so the Taliban could be driven from the village.

She still wanted to do some sleuthing on Grimes, just in case something had happened on his watch in Afghanistan, something that was his fault. She doubted it at this point but couldn’t afford to leave anything unexamined.

* * *

“T
HERE
ARE
THINGS
—people, places, causes, forces—bigger than we are, Iverson.” General Grimes sat in one of the crude chairs that surrounded the equally primitive dining table in the center of the great room. Brad had no doubt that Grimes had built the place himself. They’d shared a simple lunch of canned tuna, mayo and white bread that reminded Brad of the meals his grandparents had served when he’d spent weekends with them. Unlike his grandparents, though, Grimes was all business, no warmth.

Brad hadn’t come here to grip and grin. “You retired to the middle of nowhere, General. Why didn’t you stay in DC as a consultant or part of a think tank?”

“You’re joking, Iverson, aren’t you?” Grimes’s mouth bent into an inverted U.

Brad shrugged. “You could be making a nice paycheck after all the years of serving Uncle Sam and risking your life.”

“I didn’t get into the Marines to make money. You obviously didn’t, either, if you traded in your uniform for a shiny badge. You could be a consultant, too.”

Brad made a point of glancing around the house. “You look like you’re living lean, General.”

“Simple’s how I like it.”

“Didn’t you ever want to have a family, kids?”

“I have a daughter.”

Brad studied the older man’s face for any sign of emotion. Just when he’d concluded that Grimes was carved from granite, the General spoke.

“I was married to a beautiful woman for the first ten years of my career. We were blessed with a lovely daughter. She’s in her twenties, an adult on her own. My wife—she died.”

“I’m sorry.”

General’s jaw muscles tightened, and his posture made him once again resemble a statue.

“She got cancer. Ovarian. By the time they caught it, there weren’t any treatments she was eligible for. Back then they didn’t have good diagnostics. From what I read, it hasn’t improved much. It was a tough time.”

His lips barely moved.

Brad cleared his throat. Words were superfluous.

Grimes toyed with the corner of the table. “I made it back from a training exercise in time to hold her hand through the last of it. She was in a coma by then, and I don’t know if she even realized I was there. I’d tried to get leave. Hell, I tried to resign my commission. Neither were approved. I shipped out to Okinawa two days after the funeral.”

“Who took care of your daughter?”

“She came with me. She was a toddler and learned Japanese fluently.”

Grimes slammed both palms on the table with an explosive force reminiscent of the split-second orders regularly issued in boot camp training. To keep the new recruits under control.

“Any more questions about my shadowed past, Agent Iverson?”

So now he’d promoted him to a field agent, at least.

“No, sir. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

Grimes shook his head. “That was a long time ago. It’s for the best I never married again. Too much trouble to bring another woman into our family and expect her to measure up, to maintain the pace I had to keep. My daughter did fine, but she didn’t know any other life.”

He felt compassion, although Grimes didn’t strike him as the type to compromise, to meet any woman halfway. Yet the most successful military members, male or female, often had strong marriages to support them. Brad hadn’t met many Navy or Marine Corps families who were screwed up and dysfunctional, the way the media often portrayed. Instead, he’d found his friends’ families to be more tight-knit from going through the deployments and duty station moves together.

“Are you originally from here, General?”

“I grew up on a potato farm in Idaho. Enlisted at the tail end of Vietnam when I was seventeen and never looked back. After a tour in California, I used the GI Bill to go to college in Texas. Figured out I liked working with ground pounders, so I stayed in infantry and went on from there.”

Grimes stood and carried his mug to the sink. He rinsed it then looked out the window.

“I met Amanda when I was in college. She was a year ahead of me but four years younger. A beautiful girl.” He shook his head as if ridding himself of a memory too painful to entertain.

Brad’s hands itched to go and pat the old dude on the back, reassure him that he’d be okay.

But he wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

This was a US Marine Corps General. Retired made no difference; he was a lifer and every inch the Marine he’d always been. He never asked anyone for help or direction. It was in his DNA to call the shots, give the orders.

Brad walked over to the sink with his mug. Grimes turned to look at him, eyes blazing with emotion and a begrudging respect.

“Don’t be as stupid as I was, Iverson. Enjoy whatever relationships you can while you can get them. ’Course, you got out. It might be easier for you now.” Grimes spat the words as if they were poison.

“Getting out isn’t a bad thing. And I’m still serving my country.”

“Looks like it’s doing you a lot of good, too.”

They both laughed. Brad felt more at ease with Grimes than he ever would, in all likelihood, feel again. His internal warning system wouldn’t stop pinging, however. The same way it did before a mission was about to go sour.

Like the one he’d worked under General Grimes when Farid’s village had been ripped apart.

* * *

J
OY
FELT
GUILTY
being in her house getting ready for a bath when Brad’s undercover op, possibly his life, might hang in the balance. When there was a chance she and Brad had been manipulated by Farid.

Although her money was on a member of Farid’s extended family. Farid had been honest, judging not only by his testimony, but also that of others.

After being assaulted by events beyond her control for the past two days, all Joy wanted was a hot soak in her claw-foot tub with a huge mug of peppermint tea. The memories of her home being virtually broken into by Brad, and then of being awakened by the “police,” pitted her flight instinct against her need for comfort. She needed a retreat from the constant apprehension that had been her companion since yesterday morning.

The deep tub was one of the features that had sold the house to her, that and its private but sweeping view of Puget Sound. As water poured from the elegant brass faucet, she sat on the edge and tried to figure out how she could search for more personal information on General Grimes than would be available online.

She measured out bath salts and a scoop of dried lavender, which she’d purchased at the local lavender farm she’d come across during her house-hunting trip last year.

She could get in her car and drive straight to Emily’s place in Anacortes on Fidalgo Island.

But Emily wasn’t home; she was on her way to the book signing in Coupeville at the local yarn shop where they’d initially met. And Joy couldn’t ask Emily for help with this. It was too dangerous, too big.

There was Dennis, but she’d already involved him as much as she was going to. Brad was the person she really needed to talk to, but he was at General Grimes’s, and he’d stay there until he called her to get him. He’d made that much clear.

She’d have to keep what she knew close for now. Nothing she hadn’t done as a JAG, that was for sure. As an attorney she was expected to hold confidences.

To maintain the appearance of normalcy she’d act as if nothing was amiss and head down to Emily’s book signing. At least that would show anyone watching her—if anyone
was
watching her—that she had nothing to hide and no idea where Brad was.

The scent of the lavender drifted through the bathroom, and she stepped out of her clothes, eager to sink into the hot water. The immediate warmth soothed her, and she let her mind wander.

Vaguely recalling a conversation with the general about how he’d decided to go Marine Infantry, she remembered that he’d gone to college in Texas.

That was it! Her alma mater, the US Naval Academy, was always publishing summaries of what graduates were up to in
Shipmate
, its alumni magazine. Certainly someone like General Grimes would be a person of interest to his alma mater.

She soaked until her fingers looked like prunes, then got out and made herself another cup of peppermint tea. There was still time to do a little research before the book signing.

After she opened her laptop, she entered the college name and alumni magazine.

Bingo.

Clicking on the most recent issue, she scanned it for any mention of Grimes. Nothing. She bit her fingernails. She didn’t even know his class year. This was going to be a bitch.

Unless...

She typed in the title Grimes had held while in Afghanistan. The alumni website opened with the current commanding officer’s bio. She clicked on
history
and found Grimes’s entry. His biography was the usual droning on of all his military accomplishments, but it did mention that he’d graduated from college in 1979. She cross-referenced the year with the alumni magazine’s entries and started to go through each quarterly publication, beginning with the present issue and going backward until she reached the entry she’d been hoping for.

Instead of the usual excitement she felt as she closed in on a case, anxiety tightened its hold on her.

In an article dated four years prior, two full years before she’d interviewed Grimes in Norfolk, an entry by a college alumnus from a different year highlighted the most recent activity of General Jeremiah Grimes.

“Jeremiah is as tough as ever, kicking ass as the commander in charge of the entire region. He’s dodging recriminatory press coverage and doesn’t seem to take anything personally, unless one of his troops gets injured or worse. We are all honored to be classmates with a true national hero.”

Joy gnawed on her lip. The Grimes she’d interviewed had been intimidating and decisive. He’d also appeared bored, as if testifying on the witness stand was all in a day’s work for him. He’d been patronizing at times, such as when she’d asked him the same question twice, and told Brad he should stay in the Navy as a SEAL. “Tough it out to retirement” was what he’d said.

As far as Grimes was concerned, anyone remotely connected to the Taliban or any village they occupied was suspect. But even he had grudgingly admitted that Farid’s aid during the war had saved American and Afghan civilian lives.

Unfortunately, the Taliban had wanted Farid dead. So he’d befriended the American SEALs he’d met while preparing to take a college preparatory exam, the SAT, at the military base—the only safe place for a student to do so at the time.

Brad and his team had always had to be careful. Solicitations by enemy agents were widespread and could end with a dead American or allied troop. Brad had told her of a SEAL who’d made the mistake of falling in love with an Afghan interpreter, a woman later connected to the Taliban. He’d had to leave her behind during a firestorm of bullets and never heard from her again. He’d never been able to find out whether she’d made it out of the war zone alive. He couldn’t, not if he wanted to remain an American and a lawful SEAL.

Grimes’s testimony had been a worry for her, but in the end it had gone fine, and Brad’s defense of Farid had been flawless. Farid’s dream was to go to med school, and she knew he’d be the best of doctors. He was a natural protector, a rescuer. He’d witnessed the worst possible crimes by the Taliban and had wanted to do what he could to free his village and his family from their brutality. He wanted to save lives, an impulse motivated by his own experiences. She hoped his dream came true.

Grimes had never mentioned his contempt for the press to her during the trial questioning. Of course, it hadn’t been relevant, so why would he? And he wasn’t alone; most military leaders treated the press with caution. Today’s hero could quickly become tomorrow’s war criminal in the eyes of the media.

She clicked onto a page with the banner “Alumni in the News.” Scanning URLs that included Op-Eds, diplomatic links, social reports and athletic achievements, she took a closer look at the last link on the page.

“Alumnus at War: Reconciling Facts with the Press” by Jeremiah Grimes.

Her initial hope that she’d found something on Grimes faded to ashes as she read a bland four-paragraph editorial by the general, describing the difference between what he saw and what the press reported. It was nothing she hadn’t heard before. As a JAG she’d witnessed firsthand how reporters could take information she or the public affairs officer provided and twist it to represent what the reporters’ agenda, or their network’s, happened to be. This certainly didn’t indicate anything incriminatory against General Grimes.