High Crimes

She was shown a procedure designed to ensure that no one else looked at her notes. Any papers she chose to leave here would be placed inside a manila envelope, sealed with two-and-a-half-inch brown paper tape, the kind you moisten with a little sponge. The security officer would seal it for her, after which she would sign her initials over the tape’s seal line. That went into another manila envelope, which was then sealed with the same tape and then initialed. That envelope was marked SECRET-SENSITIVE PROPRIETARY and then placed into yet another envelope marked PRIVATE FOR_____.

The whole ritual was designed to set the note-taker’s mind at ease, and, indeed, it appeared to be awfully hard for anyone to get to her private notes without being detected, but she put nothing past these people. Anyone who came up with such elaborate and lurid precautions probably had figured out how to penetrate them.

“Jesus,” Grimes exclaimed from his seat at an adjoining table. “Either your husband is really some kind of sick fuck or they got some fine creative minds over at the JAG Corps.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Claire.

Grimes waved a sheaf of papers. “CID statement taken in, what, August of 1984. Sergeant Kubik was stationed at Fort Bragg for training, living off-base in Fayetteville at the time. Neighbor, a civilian, lodges a complaint against him.”

Claire approached, tried to read over Grimes’s shoulder.

“Seems the neighbor’s dog kept pissing on Kubik’s rosebushes, Kubik complained a number of times, and then one morning he grabbed the dog, slit its throat, and hung it by its hind feet from the neighbor’s mailbox. Hoo-boy.”

Claire, speechless, shook her head. “That’s... that’s impossible. That’s not — Tom.”

“Man,” Grimes said. Embry looked over nervously, then returned to whatever he was reading. “Hoo-boy. Avon calling. No welcome wagon for this bad boy.”

“It’s got to be a forgery,” Claire said. “Can’t they make these things up? I mean, look at it, it’s a couple of crappy typed pages.”

“The CID agent’s name who took the complaint is down there. Neighbor’s name, too. Roswell something.”

She shook her head again. “That’s not Tom,” she repeated.

“No, Professor,” came a voice from the entrance to the room. “That’s Ronald Kubik. And I’m Major Waldron.”

Major Lucas Waldron was a tall, lean, brown-haired man in his late thirties whose predominant feature was his aquiline nose. He was neither handsome nor plain — he had a fine, strong brow, and a thin, weak mouth — but he was unmistakably intense. He did not smile as he shook hands. Claire felt her stomach clench, as it did whenever she met a powerful adversary.

“Maybe you’re beginning to understand, Professor, why so many people consider your husband a stain on the army’s reputation,” Waldron said.

Claire looked at him for a moment. “Are you proud of prosecuting this farce?”

Waldron gave a glacial smile. “Given who your husband is — what your husband is — I personally don’t think he’s even worthy of a trial—”

“The charade of a trial, you mean,” Claire interjected. “I’m surprised you were willing to accept this assignment. You might spoil your perfect win-loss record.”

“Let me tell you something, Professor,” Waldron said. “This is not a case the army’s going to lose. When you get a look at the evidence we have here, you’ll understand. I can only assume that you don’t have any idea what kind of monster this man is, what kind of monster you married.”

“You’ve got to be awfully naïve if you believe the stuff they’re handing you,” she said. “If you can’t smell a cover-up.”

“All you have to do is check out the evidence.”

“Believe me, I plan to.”

“Just check it out. You’ll see. And as for my perfect win-loss record, well, part of that’s because I’m lucky. And I’m thorough. But the main reason is, the people I prosecute happen to be guilty.”

“I’m sure you’re good, too,” Claire said. “Anyone can convict a guilty man, but it takes a really good prosecutor to convict the innocent.”

“My father was a POW in Vietnam,” Waldron said. “I’m an army officer and I happen to be proud of it. I plan to spend my whole career in the army. But if I had to destroy my career to get a sicko like your husband convicted, I’d do it. And gladly. Nice to meet you, Professor.”

And he turned and left the room.

“Nice guy, huh?” Grimes said.

“Over here, guys,” Embry called out. “CID’s got seven statements here, from seven members of Kubik’s unit in Salvador, Special Forces Detachment 27. Taken on 27 June 1985. Five days after the 22 June incident, in debriefings back at Fort Bragg. They’re almost identical. And they’re devastating.” Embry looked at Claire anxiously, almost wincing. He licked his lips.

Grimes bolted from his seat. “They’re only calling one eyewitness at the 32 investigation. A Colonel Jimmy Hernandez, now a senior administrative officer based in the Pentagon. Now, he wouldn’t happen to be one of the seven, by any stretch of the imagination, would he?”