"You really thought this out, didn't you?"
Bebe looked at Harriet for a long minute. “I had to improvise, okay? The plan was, we make our last shipment, close the operation down, and then Carlton and I leave this dump forever."
"So when Terry started snooping around and causing trouble, why didn't you cut your losses and run?"
"Does it really matter?” Bebe asked.
"I'd like to know."
"Me, too,” Carla said and looked away, her face turning pink.
"They aren't the kind of customers you disappoint, okay?"
"So what is this mystery product you've been shipping?” Aiden asked.
"I think I'd like to invoke my right to remain silent."
"We aren't the police,” Harriet said.
"We are,” said Officer Nguyen as he opened the door. “Would anyone like to tell me what's going on here?"
At first, no one spoke. Then everyone spoke at once. Aunt Beth arrived with Lauren and Connie. More police arrived, and eventually Carlton came with a skinny blond officer and her chunky, red-faced partner. Harriet recognized them from the break-in that had occurred in her studio the first week she'd been back in Foggy Point, more than six months ago.
"We found him boarding a plane bound for the Caymen Islands,” the blonde said.
"Detective Black asked us to find him and bring him here, since he owns the place,” the chunky officer said. He looked over at Bebe. “And because he's married to her."
"You were leaving without me?” Bebe screeched, her composure slipping for just a moment. “Never mind, don't answer that. Don't say anything.” She glared at him to reinforce her command.
Officer Nguyen called an ambulance for Terry, and Carla rode with him to the hospital. Aunt Beth insisted Harriet go to the hospital and get her arm checked out, and at that point her shoulder hurt enough that she agreed.
Chapter 28
Terry refused to stay in the hospital overnight, and as soon as he'd absorbed a couple of bags of IV fluids, he checked himself out. The doctors had insisted on examining Carla, too, and she was given her own fluids. Harriet went home after a sturdier brace was applied to her shoulder and Dr. Pattee had lectured her on the concept of keeping her collarbone out of harm's way until it had healed.
Aunt Beth and Connie had decided everyone should meet at Harriet's, since she had a patio large enough to accommodate the Loose Threads and friends, plus her house was still clean from the previous gathering of the Willis clan.
Harriet was once again amazed at the ability of the Loose Threads to conjure up large quantities of delicious food on short notice. There were two fruit salads, a macaroni salad with hard salami, red peppers and cubes of Swiss cheese with Italian dressing and Jenny's secret recipe baked beans. Harry Willis was at the gas grill cooking hamburgers and hot dogs. Jorge arrived just behind Terry with a large bowl of guacamole balanced on one arm and several large bags of chips in the other.
"Looks like I'm at the right place,” he said, and set the bowl in the middle of the food-laden picnic table then went into the kitchen to find a platter for the chips.
Ben Willis came out carrying two armloads of folding chairs. “What did I miss?” he asked.
"Nothing yet,” Harriet said. “Now that Terry's here, let's make sure no one is in the house. And see that everyone's got something to drink."
"Yes, ma'am,” Ben said and saluted Harriet.
Aiden was leaning back in a padded lounge with Harriet perched upright beside his legs. The Loose Threads and the youngest Willis boys pulled their chairs into a circle. Aunt Beth insisted Terry also sit in a lounge with his feet up. Mavis pressed a tall, icy glass of water into his hand.
"Drink,” she ordered.
Jorge sat at the picnic table, slightly out of the circle but close enough to not miss anything.
"So, talk,” Harriet said to Terry.
"I'm sure you're all anxious to know what happened today, and what's been going on for the last two weeks-really. Before I get into that, I just want to thank everyone involved in rescuing me and apologize for any lies or deceptions I've perpetrated on you."
"I hope you're not expecting us to give you blanket forgiveness without hearing the whole story,” Lauren said.
Harriet couldn't argue with her sentiment.
Terry put both hands up in front of him in a gesture of surrender. “Fair enough,” he said. “As you all probably guessed already, my father did not work at Foggy Point Fire Protection nor am I doing a genealogy study of any sort."
"You got that right,” DeAnn said. She must have come straight from work, as she was still wearing her green polo shirt that said Foggy Point Video over the left breast pocket.
"I work for a special branch of the navy,” he said.
"What about the two tours in Iraq?” Harriet asked.
"All true."
"If everyone would stop interrupting the boy, we might find out what's going on,” Aunt Beth said and glared at Harriet.
"As I said, I'm in a unique branch of the military. We do special investigations. Sort of like a military cold case squad.” He took a long drink of water. “I came to Foggy Point to investigate a cold case that had developed into a current one."
Aunt Beth refilled his glass.
"It all started during operation Desert Shield. If you remember, that was the military action that preceded the first Gulf War."
"We remember,” Mavis muttered.
"All branches of the military were hustling to arm their soldiers with state-of-the-art equipment so they'd be ready to ship out when the inevitable escalation occurred. This included body armor."
The group became quiet as the direction his explanation was going to take became clear.
"Back then, developments in ammunition and body armor were in a race against each other. Impenetrable armor would be developed and a new bullet would come along that could pierce it. Now, this is the part where I have to fill in the blanks a little, as I've yet to find a living source to confirm the Industrial Fiber Products end of things."
Jorge got up quietly with the pitchers and refilled people's glasses.
"What I know is that several lapses of judgment had to have happened. A prototype batch of body armor that was labeled Industrial Fiber Products was shipped to actual troops on their way to Iraq."
Mavis leaned back and looked at the sky. She put her age-spotted hands to her throat. Harriet was pretty sure her friend wasn't going to like what was coming next.
"The armor failed, and the entire unit wearing it was killed. According to the file of the chief warrant officer who issued the armor on the government end, Gerald Willis had erroneously certified the product as passing all the required tests."
Mavis gasped, and Ben went to her side and put his arm around her.
"What isn't in the file is any record of the government's own independent quality tests. The death of Gerald Willis is noted in the file with a recommendation to end further inquiries."
"Doesn't that seem a little odd?” Harry asked. “I mean, our dad takes the blame and then suddenly dies."
"Remember, at the time, war had just broken out. The military didn't want any more negative press, so it was all swept under the rug. And it might have remained there if body armor with the same failure problem hadn't started showing up among mercenary groups fighting in Africa. One of our former SEALs who works independently now saw the armor and remembered hearing stories from his father, who had lost some friends in the original incident. He came to us, and we checked it out."
"It only fails when it gets wet and warm,” Harriet said in a flat voice.