Chapter 2 - Nineteen Minutes Missing
Walter Kim didn't answer until my third call, at 6:18 the next morning.
"If Mercer's calling you, don't give him anything," he said before I could introduce myself.
"I'm Elsie Bell's daughter."
The line crackled. "I know who you are, Nora. I saw the message last night."
"How?"
"Mercer phoned me. Wanted to know what she'd left you."
Walter had been the civilian dispatcher at Camp Rowan's east gate in 2011. He was seventy now and lived outside Missoula, repairing antique radios in a garage that smelled of solder and woodsmoke. Mom had called him the only man who could hear an engine failing before the driver knew it.
"I need the gate record," I said.
"If you want something for Saturday's exhibit, ask the Army."
"The copy the association gave me lists the gate opening at 9:31. Three people say Mom's shuttle was already in the water by 9:22."
He said nothing.
"Mercer burned their statements last night."
"And did you stand there arguing, just like Elsie would've?"
I almost smiled. "Yes."
"That wasn't always a compliment." He exhaled. "Come at eleven. Alone."
I set my phone down in my rented apartment and looked across the kitchen at Mom's photograph. She wore grease-stained work gloves, one eyebrow raised at the camera. She'd died of cancer three years earlier, still annoyed when anyone called her brave. She had been an Army mechanic, a woman who knew how to fix nearly anything but rarely spoke of the evacuation that ended her career.
When I'd accepted the oral-history coordinator job with the Rowan Veterans Remembrance Association, I thought I was giving her a voice at last. Instead, I was sitting in her kitchen—my kitchen now—counting the people I'd made angry.
My younger brother Gabe called while I was putting on shoes.
"There's a picture of a burning barrel on your page," he said.
"I posted it last night."
"You posted it before you called me?"
"Mercer burned statements. People should know."
"People are already saying Mom lied to get a medal."
"She never got a medal."
"Exactly. You turned her into an argument."
He hung up. At eleven, Walter opened his garage door four inches, looked me up and down, and let me in. Above his workbench hung a yellowed photograph of Mom and a row of drivers beside a maintenance truck. Mercer stood at the edge, a young major with spotless boots.
Walter poured coffee into a chipped mug. "What do you know about the east gate?"
"A flash flood cut the road to the medical annex. Mom drove a transport shuttle in. Mercer organized the rescue. Seven patients made it out."
"That's the parade version. There were eight people in the annex, counting an orderly. One stayed until the second run."
"Who?"
"Caleb Dunn. Took him two years to walk without a cane."
I opened my notebook. Walter held up a hand.
"Don't write until I tell you what I actually know. That summer the creek flooded fast. I was at the east-gate dispatch desk because the regular dispatcher had been called to help at the motor pool. Ray was on the gate. At 9:12, your mother called for clearance to use the service road. The order from the command post was to hold every vehicle."
"From Mercer?"
"From the command post. I never heard who gave it. Elsie said she could see the patients through the annex windows. I cleared the route over the radio. Ray opened the barrier."
"Nine minutes before the official report."
"Nineteen. She departed at 9:12. The report says the gate was opened for Mercer at 9:31. They aren't necessarily the same event."
I took that in. I'd spent weeks treating the difference as proof of a single lie. Walter was telling me the times could both be correct.
"Did Mercer go in?"
"Yes. When the water dropped enough, he came through and carried the last man from the steps to high ground. I saw it."
The words landed hard. "But Mom made the first trip."
"Yes. Nobody disputes that who was there. What was disputed afterward was whether she had permission."
Walter opened a tin box. Inside was a small carbon-paper receipt bearing his signature and a time stamp: 09:12. A dispatch authorization he'd handwritten because the radio printer was down.
I reached for it. He covered it with his palm.
"She asked me not to give that to the committee," he said.
"Why would she do that?"
Walter looked at the photo of Mom.
"Because a young sentry had already been blamed for opening the gate. And Elsie thought telling the truth would cost him his career."
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"Who was the sentry?"
"Your mother's friend. The one you called Uncle Ray."
