She kissed him on the cheek. “How was your day?”
“Good,” Kerney said. “And yours?”
“Fine.” On the way home, Sara had decided not to tell Kerney about her planned end run around the brass at the Pentagon. She didn’t want the evening to spiral into a discussion of why it would be best for her to resign her commission. “Did you get some playtime with your son?”
“He wore me out,” Kerney said.
After dinner, Patrick got cranky. Sara examined his mouth, called Kerney over, and pointed out the tip of a small front tooth showing through his gums. She gave him a teething ring to chew on, which helped, but his discomfort kept him awake long past his bedtime.
Once he was finally asleep, they sat at the kitchen table, Sara sipping the last of her wine, Kerney reading the paperwork from George Spalding’s 201 file.
“What about this CID investigation?” Kerney asked.
Sara put the wineglass down. “I talked by phone with the case investigator, a retired chief warrant officer named Noah Schmidt. He says the sergeant he busted, Vincent DeCosta, was involved in illicit gemstone trafficking. Mostly high quality rubies and sapphires smuggled into Vietnam from Thailand, transported stateside, and sold on the black market to dealers. But he couldn’t prove it. He had enough on DeCosta to charge him with theft of personal property, which he did, while he continued to work the case. However, DeCosta escaped from the Long Binh Jail in Vietnam before he could be tried. He’s never been seen since. He’s still carried on the books as a deserter.”
“Did Schmidt ever prove his smuggling case against DeCosta?”
Sara shook her head. “His informant in Bangkok went missing.”
“How did DeCosta get away?” Kerney asked.
“During the pullout, the Army was shutting down the stockade at Long Binh and sending all the prisoners stateside. Schmidt thinks someone bribed one of the MP guards to look the other way.”
“Schmidt is sure George Spalding wasn’t involved in the gemstone smuggling?”
Sara shook her head. “Not at all. He thinks the smuggling ring consisted of a small group of enlisted personnel who worked with DeCosta. He just couldn’t prove it. Spalding and the other cohorts were cleared solely on the basis of insufficient evidence. They alibied each other.”
“Did Schmidt have a handle on the volume of smuggled gems?”
“Only one shipment was intercepted at the Oak-land Navy base. According to the experts who examined the stash, countries of origin for the stones included Burma, India, Thailand, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. All of the gems were cut, polished, and ready for sale. The estimated street value was a quarter of a million dollars for the shipment, at early 1970s prices.”
“What kept Schmidt from following up on the case?” Kerney asked.
“He got promoted and reassigned. The investigator who took over the case was a short-timer who dropped the ball.”
Kerney closed the file. “What do you know about Sergeant DeCosta?”
“Nothing more than you do, yet,” Sara replied “We’re waiting on his 201 file.” She handed Kerney a slip of paper. “Schmidt is more than willing to speak with you. That’s his home phone number.”
“Thanks.” Kerney put the paper on top of the Spalding documents. “How’s your project coming along?”
“It’s getting under way.”
“Are you just too tired to talk about it, or trying to avoid the topic altogether?”
“Don’t try to use your interrogation skills on me, Kerney. When are you taking me out to dinner?”
“Is tomorrow night soon enough?” he replied.
“That will work.”
Later, as Sara slept beside him, Kerney tired to figure out what was bothering her. Was she in a bind at work because of her assignment to prepare a report on the sexual assault of servicewomen? Was she avoiding the issue for his sake while he was here? Or was it something he’d completely missed, something he had done?
It wasn’t like Sara to hide her feelings or skirt an issue. He didn’t know what to do other than wait it out.
Chapter 15
K erney’s time with Sara and Patrick passed quickly, but not without incident. By the end of his first week in Arlington, Sara seemed preoccupied and distant. She slept poorly at night but wouldn’t talk about what was bothering her. As a result, their evening conversations kept to chitchat about Patrick, her plans to build a covered patio in the backyard, the events of Kerney’s day at the academy, and similar mundane subjects.
Over the weekend, Kerney forced down every instinct he had to confront her uncharacteristic reserve. Sunday night, he could no longer contain himself.
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong,” Sara said in response to his question. She shifted her position on the couch to look at him and put her after-dinner liqueur on the coffee table.
“That covers a lot of ground,” Kerney said from the other end of the couch.
“Meaning?”
Kerney sipped his cordial. “You’re not one to leave things unsaid.”
Rain began pattering on the side of the house and coming in through the old wooden window screens. Sara got up and closed the windows. “Don’t get bullheaded on me, Kerney. Just give it a rest. Nothing’s wrong.”
“You’re irritable, not sleeping well, and evasive every time I ask you what’s wrong.”
She returned to the couch. “If so, it’s for good reason.”
“I’d like to hear it.”
She gave him a feisty look. “Okay, I’ll make it short and sweet. I don’t want to tell you what’s going on because you’ll harangue me about resigning my commission.”
“I harangue you?”
“You have a tendency to lecture.”
Kerney shook his head in rebuttal. “I don’t mean it to sound that way.”
“I believe that’s true,” Sara said. “But you knew what you were getting into when you married me. I’m career Army, and that fact alone makes family life hard. We live apart by your choice, and that makes it even more difficult. But never once have I asked you to quit your job, leave Santa Fe, and follow me from post to post until I retire. You could give me the same consideration.”
Kerney was silent for a time. Finally he said, “I can see how you might think I’ve been pestering you to quit the Army. I won’t do it anymore.”
“Thank you.”
“But I don’t think you’re telling me the whole story. Does it have something to do with that assignment on the rape of servicewomen?”
“Mostly,” Sara replied.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not yet.” She slid closer to Kerney and ran her hand up his leg. “I know I’ve been a bit preoccupied with work, but I haven’t been unapproachable, have I?”
“Are you trying to distract me with sex?” Kerney asked, breaking into a smile.
“Is it working?” Her hand moved to his crotch. “Oh my, what’s this?”
Late in Kerney’s second week at Quantico, Claudia Spalding was still on the loose despite intensive efforts to locate her, and Ramona Pino, who was back in Santa Fe, had been unable to find a money trail between Clifford Spalding and any past or present members of the Santa Barbara Police Department. However, fresh information about the George Spalding investigation had begun to come in. First, Jerry Grant, the forensic anthropologist, called.
“The narrowly angled pelvis, the rounded head of the femur, and the length of the femur, confirm it to be the skeleton of a male, slightly less than six feet in height,” Grant said.
“You already told me this in Albuquerque,” Kerney said.
“But I needed to verify my observations,” Grant replied. “Now it’s fact. The joints were completely fused with the bones and showed only slight wear, which is consistent with an age range of thirty to thirty-five years.”