Chapter 6

The next morning Mac returned from her run to find Harm waiting outside her apartment, immaculately uniformed and leaning against the hood of his SUV, arms crossed. Her internal clock told her it was still a few minutes shy of 0700, which meant Harm must have gotten a very early call this morning.

"What's up?" she asked when she reached him.

Beneath the brim of his cover, his eyes were dark and serious. He handed her the water bottle she'd left on her kitchen counter along with the towel that had been lying beside it.

"Master Chief Zonne is dead."

Mac paused in the act of raising the bottle to her lips. "What happened?"

"Suicide, they think."

"But his appeal hearing is tomorrow."

Harm nodded minutely. "DC police are still investigating and the coroner needs to look at the body before we'll know anything for sure."

Mac took a swig of water. "How did he die?"

Harm straightened, uncrossing his arms. "Stuck a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The gun was his—a Beretta 9mm. They found the registration in his office. The trajectory and blood spatter were consistent with a self-inflicted wound. No signs of forced entry or struggle."

By the time he reached the end of his description, Mac realized he'd already been to the crime scene. She felt a flash of anger at having been excluded, but quelled it. On the heels of what had been a pretty ugly confrontation with Diane the night before, he undoubtedly needed some space. Riding his case over little things would not help.

"What about his family?" Zonne had a wife and two grown daughters.

Harm glanced toward the sun, which was just peeking over the tops of the nearby buildings. "His wife was in bed when she heard the gunshot. The daughters are both away at school."

Mulling her thoughts, Mac led the way up to her apartment. They'd met with the master chief just yesterday to prep for his appeal hearing. He had been an assistant to Rear Admiral James Rupert, Commander of the Navy Exchange Service Command, before charges of wrongful disposition of military property had ended his career. The evidence had been mostly circumstantial, which was why the jury had given him only a dishonorable discharge and loss of benefits, not jail time. Now, with new evidence coming to light that others within the NEXCOM organization had been involved in selling millions of dollars worth of goods out the back doors of several exchanges, Harm felt the master chief's claim that he was ignorant of the scheme just might carry enough weight to win an appeal.

Mac opened her door and walked in. "He was under a lot of stress." The financial strain of putting two children through college, trouble in the marriage, fear of the future. They'd both seen the marks of it on Zonne's face.

Harm followed her, laying his cover on her dining room table and running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, but why do it the day before the hearing? He knew we had a fair shot at having the conviction overturned."

Mac didn't have an answer for that one. She hooked a thumb toward her bedroom. "I'm going to grab a shower. Keep talking if you want."

While she showered, he stood just outside the bathroom doorway, filling her in on the additional details. Except for the timing, nothing stood out to her as cause for question.

"Do you really think there's a chance this wasn't a suicide?" she asked at one point.

"I don't know, Mac." She heard a doubtful note in his voice. "I guess I'll have to hear what the coroner has to say before I can form an opinion there."

Beneath the streams of water, Mac raised an eyebrow. She'd never known Harm to dither in his opinions. He followed his gut, holding to his instinctive conclusions until the facts proved him wrong, which did happen, though not all that often.

She did her best to cover the sudden uncertainty she felt. "I can talk to the wife while you see what the police have dug up."

"Sounds good."

Mac turned the shower off. "Have you had breakfast yet?" She squeezed water from her hair, waiting for his response.

"No, I've been going solid since about three."

Glad Harm couldn't see her smile, she shook herself into motion once again. "How does scrambled eggs and toast grab you?"

He paused a beat before answering, "Sure, that'd be great."

By the time she emerged from the bathroom, Harm had retreated to safer territory. Mac tossed on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and hurried toward the kitchen. She found him already there, efficiently cracking eggs into a stainless steel mixing bowl.

"Aha! Caught you."

He looked up with a half-formed grin. "I was just... getting things started for you." The smile gained power when she rolled her eyes.

"I volunteered to cook, Flyboy, so scram." She made shooing motions as she walked toward him. He backed away when she got close, raising his hands in mock surrender.

"I'm going, I'm going." He started slowly out of the kitchen, putting on a burst of speed when she grabbed the dishtowel and twirled it between her hands. They'd gotten into a wicked towel war once, many years earlier, that had only ended because they'd both been laughing too hard to stand up straight let alone snap their towels at each other.

Back when our relationship was simple, Mac thought with a pang. Back before Dalton Lowne, before Harm left to fly—back when their friendship had been purely that, untainted by longing, or love.

Mac realized she'd just been standing there, dishtowel hanging limply from her hand. But if Harm noticed her lapse he didn't comment, and with a quick shake of her head she set about making breakfast.

Harm didn't stay out of the kitchen. As soon as she returned her weapon to its usual place on the oven door, he wandered back in and started pulling out bread, butter and condiments. Mac didn't protest. She liked his company and the closeness engendered by the tiny confines of her kitchen. The scent of his cologne mixed nicely with the warm smells of toast and coffee. She had hopes—probably vain hopes—that it would someday be a daily occurrence.

When the food was ready, they moved to the table where they ate in companionable silence. Eventually, Mac forced her thoughts away from her chaotic feelings toward her partner and onto the task at hand, which was the unexpected death of Master Chief Zonne.

"Have you talked to the Admiral about this yet?"

Harm scraped a last spoonful of eggs onto his fork and popped them in his mouth. "No. I figured 0900 was soon enough."

"Hmmm." Mac bit her lip as an idea occurred to her. "If you'll cover for me, I can stop by the Zonnes' house on my way in. It's only a couple of miles from here."

"No problem."

"Do you know if she has family to go to? Mrs. Zonne, I mean." Sheila Zonne had struck Mac as a woman whose life revolved around her husband and children. Losing one of those cornerstones would devastate her.

"I don't know." Harm shrugged, toying idly with his coffee mug.

Mac sighed. "I feel so sorry for her. Can you imagine what it must have been like for her to come downstairs and find her husband dead like that?"

Harm's head snapped up, his gaze centering on her with hawkish intensity. "I have an idea," he said quietly.

Mac's heart sank in dismay when she realized his implication. "Geez, Harm, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

He waved her off, the lines of his face somber. "Forget it, Mac. I'm sure I'm hypersensitive. Everything seems to remind me of Diane right now."

Mac had to fight not to let him see how much that statement hurt. She made a gesture indicating her face. "I guess I don't help, do I?" She could hear the traces of bitterness in her own voice.

To her surprise, Harm's expression softened, though the intensity of his gaze didn't fade.

"You don't remind me of anybody but you, Mac," he told her with such conviction that she almost believed him.

#

Harm was waiting for the coroner outside the double doors leading into the morgue when his cell phone rang.

"Commander Rabb."

"Hi, Harm, it's Diane."

Harm rocked onto his heels, his smooth-soled uniform shoes squeaking on the cheap linoleum. Every time he was reminded that she really wasn't dead, it shocked him all over again.

He cleared his throat, buying himself a moment to gather his composure. "Hey, Di. What's up?"

"I—" She paused, sounding inordinately shy. "I was just calling to see if you had any plans for lunch. I thought maybe we could... catch up some."

For a moment, Harm was transplanted into the past, to a time when a call from this woman was cause enough to dump whatever he was doing in favor of spending the time with her. Lunch, a weekend of leave... whatever it was, the invitation was always the first step in something wonderful.

He snapped back to the present, squeezing his eyes shut. "I can't. I'm in the middle of something right now, Di." Conflicting desires warred in his heart. "Maybe... maybe tomorrow?" He and Mac would still have to go before the hearing judge as a formality despite their client's death, so he'd be in the office. Thoughts of what Mac might say flitted through his mind, but he ignored them with determination. She would understand.

"Sure, tomorrow would be fine. Do you want to meet someplace?" He was grateful Diane hadn't suggested she meet him at JAG HQ. That would have been too complicated, which she seemed to comprehend.

Before he could formulate a response, Harm spied the city coroner rounding the bend at the end of the hall.

"Listen, Di, I've got to go. Can I call you later to work out the details?"

"Okay. Do you have the number of my hotel?"

"If I don't, Mac will," he assured her, and then wondered why it seemed like the exact wrong thing to say. He didn't have time to figure it out then, though. He flipped his phone shut and went to meet the coroner.

Gabriel Dunn was a tall, stoop-shouldered man with thinning blond hair and an equally scraggly mustache. Harm had first met him during the investigation into Jordan's murder and found him surprisingly easy to work with.

"Commander Rabb." Dunn shook his hand briskly. "You're here about my suicide victim, I take it?"

Harm nodded, forcing his thoughts onto the case. "What can you tell me?"

"Absolutely nothing." The coroner smiled at his startled reaction. "I'm running behind—haven't done the exam yet. I was just headed that way, though, if you want to stick around."

Harm wasn't terribly fond of autopsies, but he did want to see the body. "All right." He followed Dunn through the double doors and into a room smelling of death and chemical disinfectants. Master Chief Zonne's body lay on one of three examining tables. Harm studied it as the coroner bustled around him in preparation.

"Single gunshot," Dunn told him, pointing as he spoke. "In through the mouth, out through the back of the head." He turned Zonne's head to show Harm the gaping exit wound matted with blood and brain matter. "The Crime Scene Unit found residue on his right hand." He picked up the hand in question, examining it briefly. "But there don't seem to be any other marks or abrasions."

Harm stood back as the coroner began the formal exam, listening absently as he listed off basic statistics and observations into a hand-held recorder.

"Oh ho, what's this?"

The exclamation brought Harm to Dunn's side. "Found something?"

Dunn pointed out a small red area on the Master Chief's back, low near the hip. "That is a puncture mark." He probed the tiny wound. "Made by something long and very narrow, like a needle."

A fresh suspicion flared in Harm's mind. "That might explain why there weren't any signs of struggle."

Dunn glanced over at him, frowning thoughtfully. "I already sent a blood sample to toxicology. It shouldn't take too long to find out."

#

"Commander, Colonel, I take it things have gotten complicated with the Zonne appeal?" Admiral Chegwidden looked at them over the rims of his reading glasses.

Seated in front of the desk, Harm glanced at Mac. They hadn't had a chance to compare notes before being called in to the Admiral's office, so the information would be new to her as well.

"Yes, sir. It looks like Master Chief Zonne was murdered."

Mac's eyebrows arched eloquently. "What happened to suicide?"

"It's not so likely when you've got enough sedatives in your blood to KO a horse." Harm held out the folder he was carrying, offering the toxicology report to the Admiral. "The coroner found a needle mark, and according to the tox screen, the master chief couldn't have been conscious when he was shot."

The Admiral scanned the report, then handed it back.

Mac's expression grew thoughtful. "So whoever did it wanted it to look like suicide... and did a pretty good job of it, except they didn't know the coroner would have his blood screened? Doesn't sound like a professional."

Harm caught her eye, his own thoughts turning. "A smart amateur, maybe? They knew enough to make sure the gunpowder residue ended up on his hand, and the bullet's trajectory was consistent with a self-inflicted wound."

"He would have to have been a pretty big guy. Master Chief Zonne weighs, what, two-twenty? If he was unconscious, somebody had to put him in the chair."

"Could you do it?" Harm asked, wanting a better idea of how much strength it required. He knew he could move a man like that, easily, but that didn't help him with the other end of the spectrum.

Mac narrowed her eyes. "Not without making a racket. Mrs. Zonne was asleep upstairs, don't forget."

"So almost certainly a man."

"And one who didn't break in. So he either knew the Zonnes, or had access to a key."

"Or was skilled at picking locks, though that would blow the smart amateur theory away."

As they bounced bits of information back and forth, a picture of their killer started to form. It was a skill they'd honed both together and separately, and one they'd become quite proficient at.

Admiral Chegwidden watched the verbal ping pong until they started to wind down.

"D.C. police doesn't want to let go of the case unless there's reason to believe military personnel are responsible for the murder," he told them.

Harm and Mac both turned, giving him their undivided attention as he went on, "However, since they have to admit that might just be the case, they've agreed to share information with our investigators, which would be the two of you."

Harm nodded. "Aye, sir."

"Keep me informed of your progress."

Recognizing the dismissal, the two officers rose to their feet. "Yes, sir," Harm said as they came to attention, then turned toward the door.

"Oh, Commander—"

Harm turned back. "Sir?"

"What is Lieutenant Schonke's status, if I may ask?"

Harm felt his fingers clench at his sides. Why couldn't he find it in himself to be happy she was alive?

"Sir, she's officially dead to the Navy, and, unfortunately, she didn't work for NSA under her real name. She also didn't go to work for them in an entirely above board manner." He shrugged uncomfortably. "Proving she isn't guilty of desertion is going to be difficult without setting off an inter-agency war."

"She wants to be reinstated?"

"Yes, sir."

Chegwidden frowned. "Well, it's not strictly Navy business, but I think I can stretch the definition if need be." He pinned Harm with a stern stare. "Just make sure it doesn't interfere with your regular caseload."

Harm accepted the mild rebuke with a nod. "Yes, sir."

"Very well. Dismissed."

Harm left the Admiral's office with a slightly lighter heart. No matter what had happened between them, Diane deserved a chance to get on with her life. And he would do everything in his power to see that she got it.