The Night Crew (9 page)

Chapter Nine

As much as I wanted to spend more time with Fred, Katherine insisted that it was time to move on to June Johnston, one of Lydia’s alleged coconspirators.

This required a drive onto West Point and, at the gate, as per standard security procedures, I hit the brakes to flash my military identification card to the young MP who sauntered over from the guardshack. Since 9-11, security at all military bases had tightened up, and at West Point, where the army’s well-earned reputation for anality is sharpened to a fine point, I was surprised when the guard didn’t force us out of the car for a cavity search.

He did, however, eye the Prius and ask me, “This
your
car, sir?”

“No . . . absolutely not.”

“Then . . . ?” he asked, frowning.

“It’s a rental and it’s hers,” I noted, perhaps with a defensive undertone, pointing at Miss Save-My-Planet in the passenger seat.

He observed, “Got a Ford 150 myself.” He then leaned closer and inspected my passenger. “Do you have a military ID, ma’am?”

Katherine replied, “No.”

I explained to the MP, “Be careful, she’s a terrorist.”

He placed a hand on his hip holster and examined her more closely. “That right, ma’am?”

“He’s lying.”

“Then . . . what is your status?”

“Taxpayer. I’m the one being terrorized.”

He looked back at me. I said, “She might be carrying a bomb. You should strip search her.”

A hint of a smile appeared on his face. “Will that be necessary, ma’am?”

“I’m also a lawyer.” Katherine smiled back. “If you touch me I’ll own West Point.”

The MP told me, “Says she’s a lawyer, sir.”

“So what? Are you afraid of lawyers?”

“Well . . .” He examined the JAG emblem on my collar and appeared torn. “I guess, maybe . . . a bit.”

“At least body search her, or you’re a wimp and a bedwetter.”

Katherine chimed in, “I’ll own your balls.”

“Well . . . that wouldn’t be good. My wife sorta feels she owns ’em.”

“Women,” I said. “They always want what they can’t have.”

He smiled but it looked forced. “Should I let her in, sir?”

“Oh . . . all right.”

He straightened up. “You two behave now, y’hear.”

We drove on post, and I didn’t want to hear the call he was making to his superiors at that moment.

My father was a proud graduate of West Point, class of ’50, and he used to drag little Seanie and big brother Johnny up here for his class reunions every five years. These affairs were part happy and part somber events, as the old boys caught up on life, family, and professional accomplishments, but they always ended up in the West Point cemetery to pay respects to those classmates who’d dropped off along the way. His class had graduated straight into the inferno of the Korean War, then been burned again during the long struggle in Vietnam, so these memoriums were never short affairs or without pain.

I returned once for a legal conference and was struck then, as I was again now, by the nearly mystical beauty of the place. Location, location, location, our realtor friends say, and here the army had an amazing piece of ground. It was founded initially as a temporary fort during the revolutionary war on a strategic perch that overlooks a sharp bend in the Hudson River that leads south to New York City; batteries of artillery were planted on the heights and a thick metal chain was strung across the river. Had any British ships tried to sail past, the bend would’ve slowed them, then the chain would’ve forced them to a full stop, making them sitting ducks for the batteries of overlooking guns.

These days the only sitting ducks are the cadets waiting to graduate and then be shipped off to Iraq or Afghanistan, to long wars in uncertain and troubled lands. But it says something that most can’t wait to graduate from this rock-bound highland home. As a graduate friend of mine used to tell me, the best view of West Point is in your rearview mirror.

Anyway, we drove in a near-circle around a big field and ended up back almost where we began, and parked in front of a long red brick building, which we entered. By its shape and dimensions it appeared to be a stable from the long-ago era when West Point still trained its officers to lead cavalry charges. The horses are gone now, but a lot of horseshit has stayed around.

Katherine seemed to know where she was going and led me upstairs to the second floor, where we entered a small conference room.

Private June Johnston was seated at the end of a long table as we came in. As per proper military decorum, she rose to her feet when she saw my rank.

I smiled pleasantly and told her to be seated, then Katherine and I sat, me to Private Johnston’s right, Katherine to her left.

Similar to her official army photo, June was fairly cute, with short blonde hair, aqua-blue eyes, thick lips, and, well . . . nicely figured, I guess would be the appropriately professional way to phrase it. She was young, about twenty, and though I’m a senior officer and don’t notice these things, even beneath her baggy ACUs I could detect that she was hauling a pair of big guns. Heavy on the makeup, and it struck me that, my rank notwithstanding, she was fairly comfortable in the presence of males, or perhaps confident would be a better word.

She smiled at me and offered Katherine a nod that appeared to be afterthought. To put her at ease, I asked a few simple warm-up questions.

“Where are you from?”

“New York City. Queens.”

“How much time do you have in?”

“Two years. Joined after high school. Right after.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” she asked. “You mean, why’d I join?”

I nodded.

She looked, I thought, like she was wondering that herself. She then said, “Personal reasons.”

“Would you care to share them?”

“It wasn’t . . . well, I didn’t come from a real good home, you might say.” She added, after a prolonged pause, “My old man, he kept putting his hands on me . . . and . . . seemed like a good time to get the hell outta there.”

“Your father was abusing you?” Then, realizing a more exact verb might help, I specified, “Did he molest you?”

“Never got that far.” She shook her head. “But only cuz he was fat and outta shape, and I locked the bedroom door and was careful when I went to the bathroom.”

Well, there are many reasons to join the army and I suppose escaping an incestuous predator was as good as any and probably better than most. But I had heard as much as I wanted to know on that disturbing topic. “And you’re a personnel clerk?”

She smiled at me and nodded. “Same as Lydia and Andrea, sir. 71 Zulu. We were assigned to the same personnel section.”

It was occurring to me that June Johnston did not need to be put at ease in the presence of any male, regardless of the rank on his collar.

She was brighter than Lydia, certainly more self-assured and affable, and she also was more self-contained, looked me in the eye, and had better diction and grammar, though perhaps this wasn’t much of an accomplishment. The Queens accent came fast and thick, slaughtering vowels and consonants alike. I recalled a few pieces of strategic information from her personnel file: single, Catholic, and quite attractive.

I was a little wary of diving straight into the issue of her role in the lusty activities in the cellblock, and Katherine, I think, sensed this, because she said to June, “Can you tell us your connections to the other accused?”

“Yeah, sure. Like I said, Andrea and Lydia were in my section. We were friends, I guess,” she noted, which was an interesting way to put it. “Week or two after we got there, Lydia introduced me to Danny and Mike. She knew them from before the deployment. I guess that’s how it all got started.”

“How what got started?” Katherine asked.

“Well . . . we all started hanging out. Danny and Mike, they worked awful hours. Their job sucked. So the three of us, I guess we sort of, y’know, liked to get hooked up.”

I was aware that among her generation the term “hooked up” has interesting and variable connotations. It can mean anything from casual making out without any romantic intentions, to down and dirty sex, also without any attachments—or guilt—afterward.

I’m only eighteen years older than June Johnston, but her generation and mine have a different take on these things. I’m in that unfortunate generational bracket that missed both the sexual revolution of the sixties and the totally liberated, uninhibited behavior of her generation. In short, I had to work hard to get into the ladies’ panties, using all my charms, which meant I had to work damned hard. I didn’t have to send flowers or chocolate the next morning, but it was regarded as good manners to at least stick around for breakfast, and good form to remember the girl’s name.

June’s generation seemed to have a more interesting notion of sex as a forgettable gratification. I mean, it used to be only guys who dreamed of sex without any lingering complications, and women who thought otherwise. I had to get used to how these people think.

But I didn’t want to get into that yet, and instead asked, “What did you think about Lydia?”

“Well . . . she’s different, y’know.”

“I don’t know. Please explain it.”

“She’s from the south, for one thing. Country girl, y’know. Talks a little slower. Not like where I’m from . . . New York.”

“And she
thinks
a little slower?”

“You said it, sir. She can be a little slow on the uptick.” She paused and giggled. “Okay, she’s slightly dumb.”

Katherine leaned closer to June. “Whose idea was it to employ sex as a weapon on the inmates?”

It was nicely put, avoiding more severe phrases like torture, or live porn acts, or even something as sharp-edged as S&M. But of course June knew exactly what she meant, and you could see by her face that we’d now gotten to the yucky stuff. Unlike Lydia, she appeared to possess a stronger moral paintbrush, or at least a sense of decorum, because she blushed slightly, stiffened a little, and looked away. After a long pause, she said, “Hell if I know.”

“Come now,” Katherine prodded, “It had to be somebody’s idea. Think back to the first time it happened. Who initiated the action?”

June appeared deep in thought. And also, totally clueless.

To jog her memory, I recounted to June, “According to Lydia, the first time was your idea. A prisoner was brought back from interrogation, you removed your blouse, started dancing, and before you knew it, your clothes were lying on the floor, and Lydia was measuring his manhood.”

“Lydia said it like that?”

“Her words might not have been quite as delicate, but yes.”

“Oh . . . gawd, but that’s not at all the way it happened.”

“All right. Then what did happen?”

“This guy was brought back in by Danny, and he—I mean, Danny—he looked pretty frazzled. And Lydia, she leaned over to me and said”—she paused and did a dead-on impersonation of Lydia’s hickish diction and elongated intonations—‘Hey, you know what? This Hadji ain’t seen no tits and ass in a blue moon. See if you could, maybe, rattle him a bit.’ ”

“Didn’t that suggestion make you uncomfortable?”

“Maybe . . . a little.” She appeared to realize that in present company this was an inappropriate response, so she quickly modified her answer to, “Okay, at first, yeah. But then . . . then I thought, hell, what’s the big deal? You know?”

Katherine fixed her with a hard stare. “I don’t know.”

“Just, well, I guess girls aren’t as uptight about this stuff as most guys. So I gave ’em a little flash . . . just a little peek, then a little bit more, and . . . I mean, what’s the big deal?”

“Why didn’t Lydia do it herself?” Katherine inquired.

“I don’t know. Maybe Lydia thought I’d be better at it.”

I asked, “What would give her that impression?”

“Sometimes at night, in our tents outside, we’d put some music on, and we’d dance . . . just girl stuff, y’know? Lydia, she had this real jerky way of moving. It was, like, well . . . funny-lookin’.”

“How was it funny-looking?”

“I guess cuz she’s a country-girl. Probably grew up square-dancing or some such crap. And it was all, like, disconnected, kind’ve retarded looking. Y’know, like, no sense of rhythm. I tried to teach her some moves, but she just didn’t get it. Hopeless.”

I suggested, “So she thought you were more of a turn-on?”

“I guess you could put it like that.”

Katherine asked, “Would there be another way to put it?”

June did not reply to that antagonistic query for a while. When she finally answered, she looked at me. “Hey, I don’t want to sound full of myself or anything, but the prisoners always stared at me a lot.”

“Because you’re blonde and you’re hot?”

Still looking at me, her eyes seemed to change. She brushed a lock of hair off her forehead, her eyebrows arched up, she lowered her chin and pursed her lips together. It was an alluring look, a come-on, a way of asking, do you think you’re man enough to handle me?

And this was a young lady who joined the National Guard to escape her father’s lecherous groping. I didn’t know if this sort of seductive behavior was a response to her father’s illicit intentions, or the cause of it, but it struck me that June Johnston was hardly an innocent waif.

She eventually asked me, “What do you think, Colonel?”

Katherine evidently preferred not to hear my answer to this question and quickly said to June, “So your behavior and that of Lydia and Andrea evolved into role-playing. You and Andrea were the temptresses, and Lydia became the humiliator.”

This theory coming from Katherine’s lips was fairly insightful. The behavior captured in those pictures did suggest a weird evolutionary process based on their respective kinkiness rankings: June and Andrea being the comely flirts, the seductresses, and physically the hottest, and then, Lydia—poor, awkward, plain, squatty little Lydia—left to diddle with the erections June or Andrea induced. I don’t believe this was an angle Darwin considered. But I’m sure it’s one he would’ve found interesting.

The photo of Lydia peeing on the prisoner’s face, however, was something else altogether, both literally and metaphysically—but even there, Lydia wasn’t a femme fatale; she was a clown, a vulgar show-off, straining perhaps to be something she wasn’t, or maybe visually confessing to something she knew she would never be. I made a quick mental note to study those pictures more closely to see how they confirmed or denied Katherine’s observation.