Sherman looked perplexed. “But-“
“Don’t get me wrong. I mean, we can work this thing, okay? But it will help a lot if the Navy can help us locate this Galantz. Turn him into a living, breathing human, instead of a missing letter and a story from some twenty years back.”
Everyone looked over at Train.
“As soon as we have anything at all I’ll get it to you,” Karen offered.
“And I’m sure Mr. von Rensel can turn on some Naval Investigative Service assets.”
“That would help,” Mcnair said. “We need something tangible here.
Otherwise-“
The admiral was rubbing his face again. Karen’s heart went out to him.
His face had taken on an ashen hue with the inescapable conclusion that Elizabeth Walsh had been murdered. Train remained silent.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me, Adnidral?” Mcnair asked.
The admiral shook his head. “I can’t think of anything, other than to reiterate the need for discretion.”
“I understand,” Mcnair said. “And I need to reiterate the need for full disclosure, Admiral. If nothing else, it will save us all a lot of time.”
Karen stood up to indicate that’the interview was over.
Mcnair got the message and stood up as well, thanked the admiral for his cooperation, retrieved his coat, and left.
Karen saw him out, then came back to the living room.
Sherman was still sitting there in the armchair, staring at nothing, his chin in his right hand.
“Well, did we do any good?” he asked finally.
“I think so,” Karen said. “He’s certainly got something new to think about.”
“We all do,” Train said. “We’ve got to find this guy.”
Sherman let out a long breath. He looked as if he’d been through a mental train wreck. “You tell me how I can help you with that, Mr. von Rensel, and you’ve got it. For the Navy’s sake, it’d be better if you guys found him than the police.”
“Adjniral, I’ll get on this right away,” Train said, getting up.
“Commander Lawrence and I will meet first thing tomorrow.”
“And go see Carpenter?” Sherman asked.
Karen, feeling she knew more about the political sensitivities than von Rensel,. intervened. “Not yet, Admiral,” she said. “I think we have all the authority we need to turn on NIS help right now.” She was hoping Train would just leave it at that for the moment, and apparently he understood.
“So do I,” he said. “Karen, I’ll see you in the morning.”
After Train left, Karen came back into the living room.
The admiral was still just sitting there, looking emotionally sandblasted. Karen suggested that a drink might be in order.
An hour later, they were sitting in a booth at a small Greek restaurant.
Afraid that he would sit there and polish off the bottle of scotch, she had suggested they go get something to eat. And after watching him down a good-sized drink, she had even volunteered to drive. He had been silent during the drive down to the restaurant. She had tried to divert him from his visibly grim train of thought.
“Admiral, what’s done is done. And we may still all be wrong here. Even the cops feel they’re backing into a homicide. She really may have just fallen.”
Sherman was quick to shake his head. “No,” he said.
“Elizabeth was a competent woman. She was less of a klutz than I am, and I’m pretty agile for my age. She’d lived in that house for ten years.
Those aren’t treacherous stairs.
Now this letter, and then the business with my front door, and what we’ve learned about the forensic gaps in her house. I just can’t swallow all that as coincidence. Maybe if I’d just been there …”
She toyed with her salad, waiting while he wandered mentally in the what-if thicket again. “Sorry,” he said. “I was just kicking myself in the ass again. I guess I missed a good thing when I told her no.”
“Told her no?”
Sherman recapped ‘the story of their relationship, how they first met, and how well it worked out up until the point where Elizabeth began steering conversations around to the logical next step.
“I told her no. I was married once before and it was an unqualified disaster. Although that all seems a lifetime ago now.
“I’m. sorry to hear that,” she said. “Would it help to talk about it?”
He started to reply but then hesitated, as though unsure of her. “It’s not a pretty story,” he said at last. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“I apologize, Admiral,” she said immediately, afraid she had overstepped the bounds of junior-senior propriety. “1-“
“No, don’t apologize.. And let’s put the admiral commander stuff aside for a moment here, Karen. After what we’ve learned tonight, I need your help. I need your legal expertise. I need your brains, now more than ever. This is no longer admiral-commander territory. But there’s history, history that bears on what happened between Elizabeth and me. I guess what I’m saying is that I just can’t toss off a cavalier answer.
And the other thing is, I wouldn’t want this to be discussed with anyone else. I’ve already disclosed too much to the police, I’m afraid.”
She thought about that. He was obviously referring to her real loyalties visa-vis Carpenter. But, as a woman, she was also very curious as to what could have happened to make a marriage to this attractive and intelligent man go off the tracks.
“Yes,” she said. “I do want to help you. But you must understand something: Except as a very junior officer, I’ve never been anyone’s lawyer. Anyone’s advocate. I’ve been a professional second-guesser for most of my career. My specialty is to sit in judgment over other people’s investigative efforts. That’s not the same as being an experienced investigator or trial attorney. And, as much as I do want to help you, I’m in an equivocal position here: I work for Admiral Carpenter. So if you’re about to tell me something he shouldn’t hear, you probably shouldn’t tell me.”
“I understand that,” he said. “At this point, I probably should go into JAG and ask for formal counsel. But you were there in Kensington’s office: The moment I do that, there’ll be red rockets going up in the flag community, which, as best as I can tell after a few months of being a member, would happily cut its losses where someone in my situation is concerned. I’ve worked for nearly thirty years to get this star. I’m not ready to just throw it away because the admiral herd is getting antsy.”
“Yes, sir.” She smiled. “Now tell me as much of the history as I need to know.” He signaled the waiter and asked him to bring them another glass of wine.
“I grew up a Navy junior,” he said-. “When my dad was a commander in a heavy cruiser based down in Norfolk, he was killed in a shipboard accident. He was an Annapolis grad, so naturally I gravitated to the Academy. With some help from his classmates, I got in on a presidential appointment.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Well, I graduated it( 1966. Did the not-terribly-bright thing of getting married on the same day.”
“Had you known her long?”
“Yes. Since high school. We’d been sort of circling each other in the eighth grade. When Dad was killed, she became terribly important. When I went into the boat school, she went off to American University. For the first year, my plebe year, none of us was allowed to date. But her letters kept me alive. And we saw each other during Christmas holidays, and later, after my summer cruise. After that, we dated steadily for the next three years. It was all so, I don’t know, convenient. Comfortable.
Reliable. She was pretty, bright, and fun. I was nothing much at the Academy, did okay in academics but was otherwise undistinguished. She helped to define who I was: the guy with this good-looking girlfriend.”