The Unwilling(96)

“Yes, son. It did. Right or wrong, your brother almost killed a superior officer. The military gave him the choice of ten years in Leavenworth, or a dishonorable discharge in conjunction with a signed nondisclosure agreement. It’s a cover-up. I understand that. I don’t approve of it, but after the My Lai fallout, I recognize the necessity. Support for the war is already weak. Another massacre. Another black eye for the country…”

“It’s not about support for the war.”

“It says so in the file.”

“Does the file say who was in command of that platoon?”

“The name was redacted…”

“It’s Laughtner, Lieutenant John G.”

“Laughtner?” My father’s mouth opened and closed twice before he could continue. “Isn’t there a General Laughtner on Westmoreland’s staff?”

“Second in command of ground operations.”

“Related?”

“Father and son. And it gets worse.” My father closed his eyes, but I didn’t relent. “They needed time,” I said. “How to spin the killings. What to do with Jason. They held him off books for seven weeks. Drugged. Morphine. If it weren’t for the master chief, they’d have probably just killed him. But the master chief had friends in high places.” I met my father’s eyes, and dared him to blink. “They turned him into a junkie instead. They strung him out and sent him home.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“About the drugs? I have no idea. The rest of it seems to be an open secret in the Marine Corps.”

He showed me his back, and I wondered at his thoughts. Did he feel guilt or shame? Because I did. What about regret? None of us had been there for Jason. He’d come home from war strung out, quiet, and bitter. But did my father ever ask why? Wasn’t that his job? Wasn’t it my mother’s? Or mine?

“Will you give me a few minutes?” he asked.

I said I would, and left him there.

Halfway to the kitchen, I heard the phone ring.





35


Warden Wilson rose early, showered, shaved, and dressed. It was a big day, with a bigger one coming.

“Twenty-four hours. Maybe a little more.”

He spoke to the mirror as his fingers worked a dark tie into a Windsor knot. The suit was brown. So were the shoes. For color, he put a fresh rose in his lapel, cut in the darkness from a small garden he kept beside the house. By noon, the petals would begin to droop. Then they would curl and dry, and he would mark time with those petals, increasingly lighthearted as they withered, shrunk, and died. Thinking of X, he hummed quietly as he adjusted the flower just so.

“Perfect.”

That’s what his life would become. X would die, and the warden’s family would find its heart again. They would travel; they would heal. Eventually, they would choose a place to start over, France or maybe Italy, some high, windswept place with views of the Mediterranean.

First, he had to manage the day.

“The last day.”

He offered his reflection a solemn nod, then turned off the bathroom light, and moved quietly through the still-sleeping house. At the bedroom door, he peered in at his wife. She knew only that X would die the following day, nothing about the money or the new life it would afford them. He wanted to surprise her with the news, to make the grand gesture. Maybe she would look at him like she used to. Maybe her eyes would sparkle.

More determined than ever, he took his heavy heart into the light, sweet air of a perfect daybreak. The car started easily. The drive was thoughtful but pleasant. At the prison, he cleared security, and was ushered through an armored door, and into an underground parking garage beneath the administrative building. It was a small garage—eight spaces—and he only allowed a few others to use it. One of them was there and waiting.

“Warden.”

The warden locked his car, frowning. “Captain Ripley. Is there some kind of problem?”

“Not necessarily a problem. Something you should know about, though.”

“Walk with me.”

So early in the morning, the subbasement corridors were empty, not that the warden worried about Ripley’s discretion. They’d both endured too many hard lessons for that. It was no accident that X had contrived to live as he had for so many years. The warden, alone, could not guarantee the liberties X enjoyed. No warden could. But if a guard spoke out of turn, he paid a heavy price. Same with other prisoners. Even rumors were quashed without mercy, and the first time a reporter had come sniffing after a story of favoritism and graft, he’d disappeared as quietly as a setting sun. A second reporter showed up six months later, and died within the week. No one knew how many informants X had on the inside or how many enforcers worked for him beyond the walls. He knew so many things, touched so many things.

Ripley waited until they were in the corridor, then said, “X has had four visitors already.”

“Four?” The warden stopped mid-stride.

“It makes me nervous.”

It made the warden nervous, too. Surviving X was about understanding X. “He’s never had so many in one day.”

“And never so early.”

“What’s his mood?”

“Like he could eat a baked baby for breakfast.”

“Explain.”