kidding, it was the biggest damned bottle I’d ever seen, and it was filled with that glorious, throat-searing golden liquid. It must’ve cost at least five or six hundred dollars, I figured. I rubbed my eyes and stared at it.
“Go ahead,” she told me, prodding the bottle in my direction. “I couldn’t afford it on my salary, but OGMM decided you deserved to be compensated for your out-of-pocket expenses.”
“Gee, I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, the Army’s got these fairly stiff regulations against accepting a gift that costs over fifty dollars. And from an organization like OGMM, to boot.” Then I yanked the bottle out of her hand. “Of course, when it’s compensation for legitimate expenses, I’m sure that’s a different thing.”
I swiftly screwed off the top and took a long gulp. My eyes actually glazed over and my throat felt like it was on fire.
“Where’s Tommy?” I asked when I could finally speak again.
“He’s home, on leave.”
“Uh-huh. He going to stay in or get out?”
“He hasn’t made up his mind. He has some bitterness. And he knows that if he stays, he’ll be under a microscope.”
“Yeah, tough decision. I guess he’s talking it over with your mom and dad, huh?”
It isn’t often that you surprise Katherine Carlson, but I got her on that one. I mean, I really got her. Her head reeled back and her mouth hung open.
“You knew he was my brother?”
“Hell yeah. The whole time,” I assured her.
“Liar.”
I shrugged. Of course, I should’ve known it when Ernie, Whitehall’s old cadet roomie, told me about that picture Tommy kept on his desk. That had to be a photograph of his sister. Or I should’ve seen the family resemblance any of those times we were together in those cells. I didn’t, though. Not until I saw them both through the camera’s eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not? Maybe I would’ve been more sensitive. Maybe I wouldn’t have stuffed my foot in my mouth so many times.”
“You? Sensitive? God, Drummond, give me a break.”
“Try me.”
“Okay, I was respecting an old oath.”
“Tell me about it.”
“When Thomas left for West Point, he made the whole family swear we’d stay away from him.”
“Why? Was he ashamed?”
“Maybe a bit, but we didn’t take offense. What we all decided was that he was actually ashamed of the Army, that it could be so closed-minded. The Army wouldn’t have approved of us.”
“Because your parents are hippies?”
“Certainly that. But when Thomas got older he really didn’t approve of their life, either. It just wasn’t for him. Remember that old TV series
“What? Tommy was Michael J. Fox?”
She chuckled. “To a tee. Everybody in the commune was mystified by him. The rest of us were dressed in hand-me-downs, but Thomas always wore pressed pants and shined shoes. Whenever we played cowboys and Indians, the rest of us would fight to be the oppressed Indians, but Thomas always wanted to be the cavalry officer. Why do you think I call him Thomas, instead of Tom or Tommy? He insisted on it. He was just different.”
“And maybe he was worried about the fact you work for OGMM?”
“That, too.”
I nodded because she had a point. As much as I love the Army, it’s a pretty one-way organization. It’s famous for being one-way. Conformity and uniformity are almost synonymous with the word “Army.” Alternative lifestyles just aren’t real appreciated by the green machine.
I said, “That why you do it? That why you specialize in military gay cases?”
“It might be part of it. You didn’t think I was doing it because I was gay, did you?”
“Hell no,” I lied.
She smiled and chuckled because she knew I was lying.
I said, “So you decided to dedicate your life to crusade for your brother? Do I have that right?”
“Only partly. I love Thomas very much and I’m very proud of him. I don’t like the Army, but I can’t understand why this country won’t approve of him leading troops into battle. Him, and a few hundred thousand more just like him. I might’ve chosen this field anyway, but having my brother as an inspiration made it more personal.”
“And you figured, what? That if anybody ever knew the two of you were brother and sister, what with your work for OGMM, you might expose his sexuality?”
“That thought had crossed both our minds.”
“You still could’ve told me.”
“No, I couldn’t. It was even more critical to keep it private after he was arrested. If a court-martial board knew I was his sister, they would’ve discounted my advocacy as blind allegiance.”
She was right about that, obviously.
I said, “What about Whitehall? How’d he get that name?”
“Well, Carlson was the name of the commune where I was born, right? See if you can guess the name of the nearest town.”
“Let me see. Was it Smithsville?”
She punched me on the chin. As a trained lawyer my skills of deduction are razor-sharp.
I took another long sip to work up my nerve. I’d been anxiously waiting four weeks to clear this up. Finally I said, “Hey, about that morning.”
“What morning?”
“Christ, are we gonna go through this again?”
“Okay, about that morning…”
“That really was business. I swear it was. I was just trying to get your brother off.”
I probably could’ve said that any of ten other ways, but hey, a little spur in her conscience wasn’t going to hurt anything, right?
She looked me right in the eye and evaded the entire subject. “So have you heard anything about Bales? Or did he just disappear into the night?”
“Nah, they caught him,” I told her.
“Really?”
“Yeah. He was actually hiding out somewhere in the Philippines, using a false passport. But it seems he beat up a prostitute, and when the cops arrested him they notified the American embassy, and voila.”
“How’d you hear that?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“Okay. The second he got taken into custody he said he wanted a lawyer. You’ll never guess who he asked for.”
She started laughing.
And I said, “No, really. The chief of the JAG Corps himself called to ask if I’d take his case.”
“And did you say no?”
“What do you think I said?”
She smirked.
“I told him I’ll think about it.”
Her nose crinkled in this really cute way. Then she looked down at her watch, and she stood up and bent over and kissed me. Right in the middle of the forehead. A gushless, grandmother’s peck. Ouch.
Then she straightened back up and smiled at me very curiously.
She said, “You know, Sean, you really did a good job. And I’m not just saying that. There were moments
