Chapter 11 - The Witness Who Stayed
Elaine agreed to speak with the reviewing officer through the proper channel. Peter did not.
At least, not at first.
His wife answered when I called and said he'd had nightmares for four nights since my visit. She wasn't angry at me. That made her refusal harder to bear.
“Peter has spent twelve years trying to be home,” she said. “Whenever somebody asks what he saw, he goes back there.”
“Please tell him I understand.”
“Do you?”
I looked at my prosthetic hand, resting motionless on the table. “More than you know.”
That afternoon, General Beckett's office sent a formal notice: a preliminary records review had been opened. An independent Army officer would assess whether a recommendation for correction was warranted. No medal or disciplinary finding was implied.
I called June at school, wanting to share the first good news in years.
She answered in a whisper. “I can't talk. Someone from a news page is outside the parking lot asking if you'll sue the Army. They asked me if you got Dad killed.”
I nearly drove there at once. Instead I called the school office, explained the harassment, and waited for June to tell me what she wanted. She said she wanted to leave with her friend, not be collected by a mother who might bring three more cameras.
Listening was harder than charging in. I did it anyway.
When she came home she said, “This is becoming our entire life.”
“I know.”
“Do you? You look at every phone like it's about the investigation.”
“I can put it away.”
“Please don't promise that unless you mean it.”
I silenced the phone and made dinner with her, awkwardly chopping vegetables using the adaptive board Mason had once built for me in physical therapy. Halfway through, June said she had applied to an out-of-state college.
I'd thought she'd stay nearby. She'd thought I'd expect it.
“If I get in, I want to go,” she said.
I swallowed my fear. “Then I hope you get in.”
That evening Peter left a voicemail. He said he could not handle an interview alone, but if his wife sat beside him, he was willing to give a sworn account of the people he had seen pass through the collection point.
May you like
“I don't have the notebook,” he added. “But I remember the last name on the list. It wasn't Hollis. It was Farid Najjar. If you find him, ask about the south gate.”
