Breakpoint Read online

  “Mav was all about Mav. No way would she have killed herself. So, yeah. I figured she pissed off so many people, it was only time someone snapped.”

  “Did you know she was pregnant?” Julianne asked.

  “Yeah. A few months ago, she began popping Tums like they were candy, and she had a major jones for chocolate. And she spent a lot of mornings in the head worshiping the porcelain goddess. Then, one morning when she asked me to take her flight time for her, she admitted she was preggers.”

  “Would you happen to know who the father is?”

  “Nope. Like I said, we weren’t real close. I didn’t ask. And she didn’t tell.”

  She paused again.

  Both Dallas and Julianne waited.

  Again.

  “There are a couple guys you might want to check out.”

  “Okay.” Julianne took a notebook from her shirt pocket.

  “Her former preacher. He’s one of those hellfire-and-brimstone types. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if, when he’s back on land, he doesn’t do the snake-handling bit. They seemed real close until her brother got blown to smithereens in the sandbox when his Hummer got taken out by an IED.

  “After that, she’d sort of swing back and forth between wanting to kill them all and being depressed about why bad things had to happen to good people. I took it she really loved that kid.”

  “So she was depressed.”

  “From time to time. But you gotta figure that, what with her brother’s ticket getting punched in Iraq and her hormones running amuck. Anyway, although I try to stay out of other people’s personal lives—I so don’t do drama—I did suggest she might try out a different belief system, since her own didn’t seem to be working real well for her. Which is why I invited her to a couple moots.”

  “What’s a moot?” Dallas asked.

  “It’s a meeting of pagans. Our community holds one once a month.”

  “So you’re Wiccan?” Julianne asked.

  “Anything wrong with that?” the pilot challenged on the first flare of heat she’d demonstrated.:,In fact, alone

  “Not at all,” Julianne stated mildly. “In fact, along with once having a pagan roommate, I wrote an amicus curiae—friend of the court—regarding Circle Sanctuary v. Nicholson supporting the argument that denying Wiccan servicemen and women their own symbol violates the Constitution. At the time, I believe there were eighteen hundred active Wiccans in the military.”

  “ ‘Active being the definitive word,” the other woman said. “There are lots more who don’t want to be identified for fear of reprisals. And it’s cool that we’re finally allowed to have the pentagram on graves in military cemeteries, but we’re still not recognized as a religion in order to have our own chaplains.”

  “Change takes time,” Dallas offered. “Especially in the military.”

  This time the look she shot him was not the least bit sexy. “Spoken exactly like a white male who automatically gets handed all the rights the country has to offer merely because he was born with a penis.”

  “I’m not saying it’s fair,” Dallas said. “Just that it takes time. So, going back to Agent Decatur’s question, you’re Wiccan?”

  “No. I’m pagan. Some pagans are Wiccans, but all Wiccans are pagan.”

  “So they’re a subset.”

  “Exactly. Paganism is, in fact, the world’s largest religion, if you combine all the different branches. I doubt if she would’ve come out of the broom closet, but she seemed to find some comfort in the openness of beliefs. And the ability to find your own way to express your belief.

  “Pagans pray by chanting, doing a ritual, even hugging a tree or picking up litter on a beach. Growing up in a military family, and planning a military career, I suspect it was the one time she allowed herself to break the rules.”

  “Not the first time, given the rule against fraternizing aboard ship,” Julianne pointed out. “Though we’re still going to look into her possibly hooking up with her husband.”

  “Never happened.”

  “You sure of that?”

  “Positive. She was planning to divorce him as soon as she got back to the States. That was number two on her to-do list. Right after getting an abortion.”

  “She’d made that decision?”

  “A guy with kids can whiz through the ranks if he’s got a little woman back home holding down the fort and working to advance his career. A single mom isn’t about to win a carrier captain’s slot. Not in this Navy.”

  “Even if she planned to divorce him, they had to have some feelings for each other at one time,” Dallas pointed out. “She wouldn’t be the first woman to continue to have sex with an ex—or soon-to-be ex—husband.”

  “Good point. My ex is a weasel. But he’s still hot in bed. The thing is, Mav’s husband has been deployed in the sandbox the entire time she was on the ship. Like I said, we didn’t talk much about personal stuff, but I got the impression she just wanted to be rid of him. Probably because his tendency to get into trouble would’ve been another roadblock on her yellow brick road to command.”

  Deciding that made sense, Julianne tried a different tack. “Did her minister know she was pregnant?”

  “No way. He’s one of those guys who blathers on about how true believers should be out killing doctors who perform abortions. The old ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ thing. Besides, he isn’t really a minister. Just some guy who leads the meetings.”

  “He must not have been exactly thrilled about her leaving his group.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. To hear Mav tell it, he blew his stack. Told her she was going to burn in hell unless she repented and returned to the true church.” She shook her head. “He’s one of those idiots who confuse paganism with satanism.”

  “So they argued about it?”

  “Sure. Like I said, she had a temper. When he accused her of dabbling in the dark side of the occult, she reamed him a new one.” She took a green flight suit out of the locker. “Then, of course, if you’re looking at potential killers, I guess you’ve got to check out the Muslims.”

  Julianne wondered if this could be the writer of the anonymous note that had resulted in Dallas and her being here. “She tried on that religion, too?”

  The pilot laughed at that. “She would’ve been more likely to try to bring up the devil than spend ten minutes with those guys. No, I’m talking about what she wrote on her ordnance the last run she made.”

  Julianne knew it wasn’t uncommon for pilots to send personal, often rude messages with their bombs. The idea wasn’t pretty. But, then again, neither was war.

  “What did she write?”

  “ ‘Take that, you fucking ragheads. Courtesy of Uncle Sam.’ ”

  “And you think that might have angered Muslim members aboard ship enough to want to kill her?”

  “She wanted to kill bad guys in Iraq because they killed her brother. By dropping those bombs, she killed their Muslim brothers. Maybe not actual blood relatives, but then again, most of the Americans who wanted retribution for 9/11 didn’t have relatives in the Trade Towers, the Pentagon, or on that flight that crashed in Pennsylvania.”

  It was a good point. And added to their growing suspect list.

  “Look, I’ve told you all I know.” She stepped into the green flight suit. “Although the LSO has probably already been served up as shark brunch, meaning we’re just wasting flight time and fuel, I’ve got to get out to the flight line. So, if you’re done questioning me—”

  “You’ve been very helpful,” Dallas said, treating her to the full dazzle of his smile.

  She might be impatient. She might be tough, able to fly up there in the skies and then land on this floating airport with the big dogs. But as she paused with her hands on the flight suit zipper and stared up at him, Julianne knew that Lieutenant Harley Ford wasn’t immune to the O’Halloran charm.

  “We may be back with more questions,” Julianne said. “But you’ve been very helpful. Thanks.
”

  “No problem. I might not have liked her all that much, but if someone’s out there killing aviators, I’d be the first to help you cut off his balls and feed them to the fish.”

  “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Julianne said. “But we’ll get him.”

  “You’d better,” Ford warned. “Because this boat arrives in port in Pearl tomorrow, and whoever it is could just stroll off and get away with murder.”

  “Well,” Julianne murmured as they watched her walk away down the narrow passage, “what do you think?”

  “That Colonel Mustard did it in the library with a rope?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Do you take anything seriously?”

  “You, of all people, shouldn’t have to ask that question. My point was that for what was originally ruled a simple suicide, we certainly have our share of suspects. I’m beginning to feel like we’re on the Orient Express instead of a flattop.”

  “That’s from that movie, right? The one where someone got murdered on the train?”

  “Murder on the Orient Express. Detective Poirot has a line that’s beginning to remind me of what we’ve got going on here.

  “He says that the only way he can see the light is by interrogating the other passengers. But when he began to question them, the light thickened.”

  “Just like ours is beginning to.”

  “Like gumbo.”

  “I’ve changed my mind about each of us interviewing people separately.”

  “Can’t stand the idea of being apart, right?”

  The teasing twinkle in his melted Hershey’s Kisses eyes had her smiling again. Neither one of them had smiled during that court-martial interrogation. She was discovering, to her surprise, that she liked it. A lot.

  “You already know you’re hot, so I’m not going to lie and say I’m not attracted. But our minds work in entirely different ways. I’d have thought, since you’re the computer math whiz, you’d be the more analytical of the two of us. But oddly, I think you’re more intuitive.”

  “Like I said, it helps to be able to read people when a lot of them might want to kill you.”

  For a fleeting moment she wondered what, exactly, he’d done during his Spec Ops career. Then wondered if she really wanted to know. Her military experience had been neat and tidy and by the book. She suspected his had been just the opposite.

  “Well, we both have our talents. If we pool them, we might be able to brighten up that light and crack the case before we get to Pearl.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders—not in any sexual way, but more in a friendly, partnership manner that was still inappropriate enough to have her glancing up to see if there just happened to be one of those cameras overhead.

  “Our minds may work a little differently,” he agreed. “But in this, we’re in perfect agreement.”

  35

  “I apologize for the lack of space,” Lieutenant Commander Annette Stewart said when they’d made their way to her office.

  “It’s definitely a far cry from what you’d probably get in private practice,” Dallas said.

  His parents had gone with him to a shrink specializing in family relations a few times after the adoption. Not that there was anything wrong with him, at least in his mind, but they’d wanted to ensure they all got off to a good start.

  The way Dallas had seen it, having hit the jackpot in the family sweepstakes, he didn’t have any reason to have issues, as the doctor kept referring to them. But he loved his new mom and dad enough to humor them.

  That office had been spacious, with framed abstract prints on the wall, lots of green plants, and, bubbling away on a table, a fountain he’d guessed was meant to calm crazy people down.

  This office was a hole the size of a broom closet. A very small broom closet. With pipes running overhead.

  “It’s small,” the psychologist said. “But I’m fortunate to have it. As a psychologist, I need a private sanctuary to speak with my patients in. It’s also a place to escape my seven roommates and get away from the thousands of other people on board for a while.”

  “Do you see that many patients on any given day?” Julianne asked.

  “Not with major mental illnesses, because the military does a fairly good job of screening for those disorders before a sailor gets assigned to a ship. But sea deployment, along with being incredibly monotonous, can also be stressful to those who find it more difficult to slide into a daily routine.

  “So occasionally a sailor might be on the verge of a psychotic breakdown. Hopefully he or she will seek help on their own. If not, it’s up to his or her superior to notice the problem and send them to me.

  “Then, of course, being away from home for months at a time can be a cause for depression. More so among the married sailors, because they’re missing so much of their family lives. Babies are born, kids have soccer games and Christmas plays, and they’re not there. Which makes for stress, which can turn into depression. Or anxiety, which often seems to increase the closer we get back to our home port.”

  “Because they won’t be able to duck any underlying issues anymore,” Dallas suggested.

  She took off her black-framed glasses, chewed on one stem, and studied him for a moment. “That’s very good.”

  “It just makes sense.” Juls was looking at him, too, which had him feeling uncomfortably as if the two obviously intelligent women had put him beneath a microscope.

  “For someone who thinks about such things,” the doctor said. “Not everyone does.”

  “There’s also the case that so many of the sailors on this ship are young,” she continued, when he decided against responding to that comment.

  “Many are no more than eighteen, just out of high school,” she was saying, as Dallas tried to remember when he’d first discovered his ability to sense whether or not a new foster parent was going to be one of those who was just in it for the money, or worse, got off on having kids to beat on who couldn’t fight back.

  At least before kindergarten, he decided, recalling one alcoholic bully who’d known just where to punch on the body so there’d be no bruises for social service workers to notice. Dallas had learned quickly to make himself scarce whenever the bottle of Gentleman Jack had come out of the cupboard.

  “So, I tend to be put in the role of their high school guidance counselor, or mother, or friend,” the commander was saying as he dragged his mind back from that dark time to the topic at hand.

  “I also supervise the alcohol-rehabilitation program, which takes up a lot of time. Too often sailors working twelve hours a day use alcohol to relieve stress.

  “Then there are always the malingerers. Thanks to Internet availability, some sailors will spend a lot of time doing research on various illnesses, trying to convince me they need medical discharges. The most popular one these days, for some reason, seems to be bipolar disorder.

  “Also, since they know a Navy psychologist can recommend separation from the military, many threaten suicide as a ploy to get out of their commitment.”

  “Did Lieutenant Murphy ever come to you?” Julianne asked. “And if she did, was suicide mentioned?”

  “The only time I saw the LT was from time to time in the officers’ mess. Usually, though, like many of the pilots, she preferred eating in the dirty-shirt mess.”

  “Uniforms not required,” Julianne translated.

  “Because their hours aren’t as regulated,” Dallas guessed. “So showing up on time isn’t always possible.”

  “That and pilots prefer their own little enclave,” Stewart said with a wry smile. “They’re also the least likely to ever show up at my door. Because having a psych visit on their record could endanger their flight hours.”

  “And probably should, if it’s serious enough,” Julianne murmured.

  “You won’t get an argument there. But all the pilots I’ve ever met seem to believe they have a big red S on the front of their flight suits. That they’re impervious to the dangers that ca
n befall ordinary mortals.”

  “Gee, where have I seen that behavior before?” Juls said dryly, shooting Dallas a look.

  “Makes sense to me,” he said, knowing that her unspoken accusation was true. Most Spec Op guys, himself included, tended to believe they were bulletproof. “Being catapulted off a pitching flight deck in the middle of the sea isn’t for the faint of heart.”

  Stewart nodded. “Point taken. I also think—or at least hope—that their own superiors internally handle whatever problems might show up.”

  “Which means you have nothing to tell us about either Lieutenant Murphy or LSO Manning,” Julianne said. Only someone who knew her as well as Dallas was beginning to would have heard the faint discouragement in her voice.

  Something flickered across the psychologist’s face. And in her suddenly guarded eyes.

  Reminding him of the JAG investigator who’d driven not just Dallas, but also his teammates up a wall, Julianne jumped on that slight pause.

  “Was the LSO a patient?”

  The doctor looked up at the wall, where, rather than any snazzy, indecipherable abstract art, she’d merely hung a trio of diplomas framed in thin black metal.

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. Not in any official sense.”

  “Because he didn’t want any visits to you in his records?”

  “No. Because we were friends. Not just professional friends. But personal ones. I cared about him.” She caught the accidental past tense. “Care,” she corrected firmly.

  “He’s been missing a long time.”

  “True. And I’ve been heartsick since I heard the captain make the announcement. But he’s tough. And a fighter. And until I see a body, I’m not going to accept that he’s dead. Men have fallen overboard and survived before. I’m hoping he’ll be one of them.”

  “You’re not alone there,” Dallas said.

  And not just because they needed his testimony. Dallas had seen more death than most guys his age. He could do without ever seeing another body as long as he lived.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to help,” the doctor said. “But there are other people involved. People who might be harmed if I tell a personal story that isn’t mine to share.”