Chapter 9

Mac was nearly out the door of her office when she heard the phone ring behind her. Muttering a low curse, she set down the stack of files in her arms and hurriedly reached for the phone. "Mackenzie."

"Mac, it's me. Are you busy?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, Harm, I'm not busy at all. I stayed back here in D.C. and sent you off to Virginia Beach on your own because I needed a nap, not because I had three other pressing cases. My time is yours."

There was a brief pause on the line. "O-kay, I must have dialed the wrong number. I was trying to reach Sarah Mackenzie, but it sounds like I got the Sarcasm Hotline by mistake."

She blew out her breath in a sigh. "Sorry. Ensign Daniels is driving me crazy—keeps changing his mind about a plea bargain. What can I do for you?"

Harm's voice sounded distant, as if he was working something out in his head even as he spoke. "Just got through interviewing some of the NEXCOM headquarters staff, and I'm not sure what to make of it all yet."

Mac perched on the corner of her desk, shifting the phone to her other ear. "In what way?"

"Well, it's not a big shock that nobody really wants to talk to me. They're all convinced I'm here to broaden the wrongful disposition charges, so getting any new information out of the staff is like pulling teeth. But I did find one person who was a little more useful. Remember Petty Officer Davidson?"

"He was one of Zonne's office assistants. We were going to call him as a character witness, right?"

"Right. He was all gung-ho to stand up for the master chief, because he was absolutely certain that there was no misconduct in that chain. The kid's loyalty to Zonne was bordering on hero worship."

"Does he have new information for us?"

"Not exactly. In fact, he was so tight-lipped that I almost wasn't sure I was talking to the same person from last week. I think he's afraid to say much, which just makes me even more certain that the murder is related to the scandal. All I got out of him was a comment that, quote, 'the bond between shipmates sure isn't what it used to be.' What do you make of that?"

Mac reached across her desk for Zonne's personnel file. "It could be one of two things. Either he's just confirming that it was someone at NEXCOM, or he's being a little more literal and suggesting that it was someone the master chief had previously served with."

"Or both." Harm's voice took on a more focused quality, and she could hear the wheels in his head picking up speed. "Say the master chief came upon information that implicated someone else at NEXCOM. If it was someone close to him, who knew him and his wife well enough to know what prescriptions would be in their medicine cabinet…"

"Yeah," Mac agreed. "Good theory, but no evidence."

"I'll work on the evidence part—I'm already down here. Something still doesn't add up with the sleeping pills. The coroner said the drug was introduced by injection, not orally, so instead of a sloppy fake suicide, we've got a sloppy frame job by our killer. I'm guessing he had the needle with him and ready when he arrived, and swiped a few of Mrs. Zonne's pills on the way out just in case the suicide ploy didn't fly."

"Well, it didn't, but that doesn't make our killer any smarter. They didn't get any prints off the bottle, did they?"

"Nah, we're not that lucky. Anyway, I'm going to wander down to the med center and see what I can find out about missing supplies. Needles are easy to steal, but sedatives should be a little better controlled. I know you're swamped, but if you can get somebody started on looking through ships' records for people who served with Zonne—"

"I'll put Coates on it," she assured him. "I don't want to know where she got her skills, but she's frighteningly good at tracking people down."

"Thanks. I'll probably be late getting back into town, so tell Sturgis and Diane not to wait around for me."

Mac had almost managed to forget that the four of them had planned to go over Diane's case that evening. The idea of putting it off didn't bother her in the slightest. Seeing Harm and Diane together inevitably made her start hyper-analyzing every look and comment that passed between them, which wasn't helpful to her state of mind. "Right. You'll call when you get back, though?"

There was a hint of a smile in his voice. "As you wish."

At that, she instinctively smiled back, rolling her eyes. "Whatever, sailor. Talk to you tonight."

After hanging up, it suddenly occurred to her that her partner was three hours away and tracking a killer who might now be all too aware of his intentions. Maybe it hadn't been such a great idea for him to make this trip alone.

Mac consciously told herself to stop worrying. She'd never known a lawyer with better combat instincts than Harm, save for possibly herself. He could take care of himself—he always did.

Well, almost always. She sighed and stood up, going to the doorway. "Coates, I've got a job for you."

#

It was early evening by the time Harm left the medical center, and he was no closer to any answers. Out of frustration, he'd read the riot act to the lieutenant in charge of the drug lock-up after discovering that the records were inaccurate going back at least a month. The young woman had been appropriately contrite about the oversight, and nervous enough that he'd eventually taken pity on her and not filed a reprimand. Still, it left him with no better leads than he'd had when he started.

Take a deep breath, Rabb, and start over. He headed for the O-club to get a bite to eat, and took the casefile and his laptop with him. Over a sandwich and some cold French fries, he went back through the information he and Mac had gathered throughout the past couple of weeks.

The homicide cops had been through Zonne's home computer, looking for any messages or files that might shed some light on who he'd been talking to recently. They'd copied everything in the inbox, trash can and 'sent-mail' folders, and Harm had gotten a copy of the whole thing just this morning. He hadn't been looking forward to going through the huge file, but his other options seemed to be rapidly diminishing.

Tuition statements for the Zonne children… probably not relevant. Regular correspondence from a sister in California, then a few messages of support from old Navy buddies… well, those might be more interesting. All of them seemed to be coming from the far reaches of the globe, though. Then there was a thread with no subject identified, coming from a free, net-based email account. Harm clicked it open and scanned down the screen.

Why don't we get together and talk this through? I can come up next weekend, or something. At least so you'll understand where I'm coming from. This could work out better then either of us thought. You just have to trust me, all right?

Harm frowned, beginning to get a clearer picture of the situation. Maybe Zonne did have information on one of his colleagues, and that person had tried to bribe him into keeping quiet. When that failed, he'd taken him out of the way more permanently.

The message was dated two days before the murder, and the address was jr206@freenet.com. Tracking down the owner of the address probably wouldn't be much fun, but he might at least be able to get an IP address to match it. He was about to get out his phone to call Bud when it hit him.

J.R.

"Oh, man," he whispered aloud. If those initials meant what he suspected they meant, this case was getting stranger all the time.

He shut the laptop and hurriedly paid for his meal. His mind churned fiercely throughout the walk back to the medical center's parking garage, where he'd left his SUV. Sliding into the driver's seat, he was too preoccupied with the possibility he'd just uncovered to notice the shadow in his backseat—until he felt an arm snake around his throat and the jab of a needle at the base of his neck.

"Sorry, Commander," said a low voice as his vision rapidly faded to black. "You've reached your limit on questions today."

#

A knock at the conference room door brought Mac sharply out of her work. "Enter."

Diane stepped inside, looking hesitant. "Hi," she began simply.

"Diane, hi. I left you a message that Harm was going to be late getting back. Did you get it?"

"Yeah, I did. I thought I might as well come by anyway, in case you or Sturgis had something to get started on." She looked a little embarrassed. "Okay, to be honest, I'm bored, and I was hoping that I might be able to make myself useful around here for a while."

Mac smiled tiredly. "I never turn down free help. Especially since Sturgis had to take an emergency meeting with a client down at the brig. Take a seat."

Diane moved over to the table, which was strewn with files. "What's all this?"

"Full crew complement for every ship our murder victim ever served on. A lot of them are too old to be computerized, so I ended up with a sequoia's worth of paper. Seems the man spent half of his thirty years on carriers, so we've got quite the list."

"And you're looking for what, exactly?"

"A link to someone on this list." Mac indicated the list directly in front of her, marked up with three different highlighters. "It's mind-numbing and infuriating, and you're welcome to join in."

"Sounds lovely." Diane slid into a chair across from her and opened the closest file. "Hey, weird. I'm probably on this list. I was on the Truman in 1992."

"No kidding? Remember any of these people?"

"The odds aren't good, but I'll give it a shot." She started to scan the list. "It's not like I was well-acquainted with the whole crew. We crypto officers weren't exactly the prom queens of the boat, you know? We were more like the math club."

"And the pilots were the football players," Mac theorized with a knowing look. Diane glanced up at her and flashed a grin.

"Something like that. Thought they were hot stuff, but they basically got issued one brain per squadron."

"Even Harm?"

"No, Harm's made a career out of being the exception to the rule, hasn't he?" Diane shrugged a little. "There's always one football player who gets straight A's, I guess. Make no mistake, though—he had an attitude. A lot of it was just for show, but he had it."

"I can believe that." Mac tried to smother the twinge of resentment that was beginning to surface. Hearing this woman explain to her what Harm had been like, as if she didn't know him at all… But you didn't know him. Not then. That's fourteen years she has over you, like it or not. "He really should have called by now. Let me just check in with him, all right?"

Diane lowered her gaze to the roster in front of her, and Mac wondered briefly if she'd sounded just a little too possessive just then. Dismissing the thought, she picked up the phone and dialed.

"The cellular customer you are trying to reach is not available…"

Mac hung up on the recording, unnerved. "I can't remember the last time he let his batteries run down."

"Maybe he turned his phone off?"

"Uh-uh. That phone hasn't been turned off since he got it."

Diane's brow wrinkled. "You don't think he's in trouble, do you?"

Mac shook her head, as if trying to clear it. "It's probably nothing. Let's give him a little while before we jump to that."

There was another knock at the door, and Jennifer Coates stuck her head in. "Colonel, I found something that might be some help."

Mac blinked. "Coates, you're still here? It's 1946."

"This sounded important, ma'am. It's not like I had a hot date after work." The young woman offered a self-deprecating smile.

"Come in. Diane Schonke, this is Petty Officer Coates."

"Nice to meet you, ma'am," Coates said formally.

"I don't know if I rate a 'ma'am' at the moment, but it's nice to meet you, too." Diane offered a hand, which Coates shook. Mac watched the petty officer's features waver for just an instant at the incongruity of hearing two very different voices come out of two very similar faces.

"So what have you got?"

Coates blinked and quickly regained her composure. "Right. Uh, I got a hold of some of the master chief's performance reports. I figured that since a lot of the NEXCOM staff are officers, maybe the killer was his rater at some point along the line."

"Good thinking, Jen," Mac said sincerely, taking the folder she proffered. Coates flushed at the praise. "Now go home, would you? It's late."

"Yes, ma'am." The petty officer disappeared through the doorway, and Mac opened the folder. Diane looked over long enough to notice the name printed at the top, and her eyes widened.

"Zonne? As in Senior Chief Anthony Zonne?"

Mac's head jerked up. "Master Chief now, or at least until a few days ago. You knew him?"

"Kind of. He was our master-at-arms on the Truman. He's your murder victim?" When the other woman nodded, Diane leaned back in her chair, stunned. "Wow. It's not like I played cards with him every night, but he was a good guy. He took care of the security issues for the crypto group, and put up with a lot more from all of us punk lieutenants than any NCO should have to. I think I heard that he got picked up to assist the battle group staff after that."

Mac paged through the stack of EPRs in front of her until she came to one marked USS Harry S. Truman. When she saw the signature at the bottom of the page, a terrible truth clicked into place.

"Captain James S. Rupert," she breathed. "Now Rear Admiral Rupert, commander of the Navy Exchange Service Command. He was Zonne's CO at the time all the goods were disappearing from Navy exchanges."

Diane's dark eyes widened. "You don't think this admiral killed him, do you?"

"It's worse than that. I think he killed him, and I think Harm had to inform him that he'd be in town investigating this today." Mac stood up from the table as the color drained away from Diane's face.

"Oh, God…" To her credit, Diane didn't fall to pieces when the realization struck. She kept her balance and got to her feet as well. "What do we do?"

"I don't know, but I think I'm going to Virginia Beach."

"Then so am I." Mac spun around, primed to object, but the fire in the other woman's eyes temporarily silenced her. "Hey, this is Harm we're talking about. If someone could get the drop on him, they're obviously not someone to mess around with. You could use my help—if nothing else, I'm very good with computers and security systems." She flashed a tense smile as if acknowledging the fact that she was trying to sell herself as an asset. "Besides that, there's no way in hell I'm just going to sit around here when the best friend I've got is in danger."

Mac surrendered, gaining a grudging admiration for her companion. "All right, come on. We've got a long drive, and we're going to need it to come up with a plan of attack." A bizarre idea occurred to her. "Wait a minute. I just thought of a way to make this work."

Then she stopped dead, realizing just what that plan would entail.