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.
'Exactly, like when someone in a hot climate wears it for an extended period and sweats.'
'I can't believe Gerald would ship armor without thoroughly testing it,” Mavis protested.
'My guess is, he didn't,” Terry said. “Someone involved in the first incident decided to make some money selling the armor, which is otherwise superior, to mercenaries in Africa who weren't likely to demand a refund.'
'How did you know the new armor came from Foggy Point?” Harriet asked.
'Like most criminals, this bunch made a mistake. The size tags are a folded piece of ribbon with cleaning symbols on the back… and, in very small print, the name of the company, Foggy Point Fire Protection. They apparently didn't look at the back side of their own tags.'
'So, why didn't the military confront them directly?” Harriet asked.
'We couldn't. Anyone could have stolen or copied Foggy Point Fire Protection tags. I needed to catch them in the act.'
'What about Gerald?” Mavis asked.
Terry rubbed his hand through the short brush of hair on the top of his head.
'This might help,” said a male voice with a Dutch accent. No one had noticed Gerald's cousin Theobald join the group. He handed an envelope to Mavis. “Gerald gave me this when he first moved to the Netherlands. He said I should deliver it to you when he died-or Gerry, if you were already gone.” He joined Jorge at the picnic table.
Mavis read in silence, her eyes glistening and her hand compulsively stroking her neck under her chin. When she'd finished reading the pages, she let them fall into her lap. She sat in silence.
'What did he say?” Aunt Beth asked; she picked up the pages and folded them, gently placing them in Mavis's lap.
'If Marvin Brewster weren't already dead, I'd kill him with my bare hands,” Mavis said, angry now. “He knew the fabric was faulty-Gerald told him so. Marvin Brewster decided to make prototypes and send them to his contact in the army and see if they noticed. He hoped people wouldn't sweat enough to make them fail.” She took the fresh glass of iced tea Jorge offered her.
'Marvin's contact was anxious to fill his order for state-of-the-art armor, so when the war broke out, he sent the prototype. Marvin assured the warrant officer in charge that the prototypes were safe. Then, when men died, he needed a scapegoat. This…” She held up the letter. “…says his first instinct was to kill Gerald and then blame him, but Gerald made him see the plan would work better if he took the blame then faked his own death before anyone could come after him. They agreed that Marvin would pay me widow's benefits and would cease production of body armor.
'Gerald had just finished testing his fabric for fireman's turnouts and told Marvin he would give him the formula if he agreed to the plan. He also told Marvin that he'd be watching.'
'So that's what the whole post office box, send him a card if they used that certain chemical was all about,” Gerry said. “I guess Marvin didn't tell Carlton the whole story.'
'Or he chose to ignore it,” Harriet said. “My guess is that Bebe was the brains of that duo, and I use the term ‘brains’ loosely. I'll bet she ran through Carlton 's personal inheritance and then the cash reserves at the factory, and she probably told him if he wanted to keep her, he had to get more. He probably knew just enough about the armor to be dangerous.'
'And my Gerald was so trusting, and he'd known Carlton since he was a baby. He probably called him and asked to get together,” Mavis said.
'Someone showed up with a shotgun,” Terry said. “I'm guessing that piece of plastic Harriet found in the woods was a sabot. You can put it in a shotgun shell and hold it in place with something like dental plaster, and if you shoot it at close range, you can kill a person and leave only a blunt force trauma wound. Police shoot loads of just the dental plaster to break down doors sometimes.'
'Oh, my gosh,” Harriet said. “Wasn't Bebe a dental assistant before she married Carlton?'
'Yes, she was,” Aunt Beth confirmed. “That was pretty clever, if you think about it.'
'I think you've found your killer. Bebe showed up instead of Carlton and probably shot Gerald without saying a word. And chances are good she'd sold dental plaster to the local cops and one of them told her what they were doing with it.'
Aiden pulled Harriet carefully onto his lap. He hadn't let her be more than an arm's length from him since they'd gotten home.
'So, what's next for you, Terry?” he asked.
Carla got up to go check on Wendy, who was sleeping in the house.
'Wait, Carla,” Terry said. “You aren't going get rid of me that quick. I have to stay around until Bebe and Carlton are indicted, and then I'll be back if they go to trial here. The JAGs on our side will figure out who gets them first.'
Carla turned back toward the house.
'Wait, that's not the good part. My next assignment is at Submarine Base Bangor in Bremerton, Washington. And it's not a short-term investigation. They're relocating me there until further notice.'
