Chapter 12 - A Befuddled Friend
After the door was closed, Lee sat down on the mattress next to Rachael. "Why Rachael? Why did you go along with that nonsense?"
"It's all true, Lee. My gun. My feelings."
"Oh, bullshit. You didn't do it. Why confess?"
"Come on out of there, Commander Crane. I think Commander MacAdam needs some rest."
Lee pulled close to Rachael's face. "He put you up to this, didn't he? You're the sacrificial lamb."
"Better me than Roger."
"Now Crane, out!"
"You S.O.B.! Some other asshole is going to get away with this murder."
"She thinks otherwise, Commander, and if you step back a minute, you'll see that what she just did was quite admirable."
Lee stepped out of the room. The master-at-arms closed and locked the door behind him. "What the hell is the game being played?"
"Come to my office to talk," Jackson led Lee out of the building back to his office.
"Saul, please explain what the hell is going on here!"
"Commander MacAdam's personalized gun was the murder weapon. She's been heard objecting to the wedding by several people. She had fired a weapon recently. The shot did come from her direction. Very few people could make that shot with that weapon. She'd just shown her prowess to one and all the day before."
"Lots of circumstantial evidence, I concede."
"Commander MacAdam would therefore be the central focus of the police investigation. How thoroughly do you think the police would look at other avenues considering that evidence? Remember, objectively they have no reason to share your belief in her innocence."
Lee thought quietly for a moment. "They'd pay lip service. Maybe they'd try to figure out how she got reunited with her gun after a year, but not too hard. Frankly, if there's proof it was delivered to Roger's apartment, then he might begin to look complicit in claiming he didn't know what happened to it either. Jesus. Rachael would want to protect him . . . ."
"Loyalties to Commander Cresson aside, have you considered another more calculated value to what Commander MacAdam's confession accomplished?"
Lee shook his head.
"Upon learning of Commander MacAdam's confession, the real killer will think they are scot-free. They are likely to get careless in covering their tracks any further. By confessing, she not only has protected her friends from unwelcome inquiries, she has given time to the people who believe in her to find the evidence before it disappears forever, time unobstructed by disbelieving local police."
"Five days, she only gave us five days."
"Then I suggest we start using that time as best we can."
"The hotel, we need to go back to the hotel."
"Let's go, then."
"We'll need more resources than us two."
"I have others of my own and I think we can count on Admiral Johnson to rally more troops in her defense as needed."
Lee nodded as he hopped into a jeep with Saul Jackson.