Ферн Майклз - Truth and Justice

It was Annie’s signal to say, “Listen up, girls!” It was the way she started every meeting. “We’re going to do a quick rehash of what we know. Then we are going to parcel out assignments. I just want to know if everyone’s decks are cleared before we commit one hundred percent to Bella and her mission. I’m thinking, and this is not based on anything in particular, that this case could go seven to ten days. Bare minimum, a week. What say you all?”

Nikki and Alexis both said their court calendar was clear for the next two weeks. “What has to be done at the office can be done by our paralegals. That means we’re good,” Nikki said. She quickly added, “I see five to seven days.”

“The nursery is in good shape. We did our fall decorating last week for the Harvest Ball and Halloween. My pumpkins, according to Kathryn, are on the way. At least some of them,” she corrected her statement. “The college boys that work for me have it all under control. Annie was right when she told me that if I paid extra, the boys could and would assume more control. Any of the four can run the nursery in my absence, and the best part is they’re all honest, really nice young men. That means I’m good, too. I agree with Nikki, I see five to seven days,” Yoko said.

“I’m kind of stuck,” Kathryn said. “I don’t know what happened, but Mr. Hanover’s pumpkins aren’t ready to ship yet. I was supposed to pick up and deliver them two days ago, but he didn’t have enough help to pick and load them. What that means is I am on call where he and his pumpkins and his butternut squash are concerned. I might have to leave you all if things get back on track again sooner rather than later. I’m thinking a week, but that could change if I have to bail out on you all and leave you shorthanded.”

“If that happens, we’ll just have to manage to work around you,” Annie said. “That leaves Maggie, Isabelle, Myra, and me. We’re good. Maggie?”

“Ted is due back tomorrow, so he can take over. I’m all yours and looking forward to this mission,” Maggie said, as she tapped furiously on her laptop. Then she snorted. “If my opinion counts, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say ten days even with Avery Snowden doing most of the heavy lifting. But I could be wrong, which, as you all know, rarely if ever happens.”

“I only have two active clients at the moment, and everything is running on schedule. I’m good, too,” Isabelle said. “I am working on . . . um . . . the Pentagon. I’m thinking a week of round-the-clock dedication. I’d say five days if Abner were here doing the hacking, but with me . . . I’m not that confident.”

Maggie held up her hand, her expression one of confusion. “Who is doing what, and how are we going to go about all of this?” She looked around at the Sisters, her hands fluttering in the air. “I don’t even know where to start. What’s with this case, why is it giving us all this angst? I’m not getting it.” She looked as befuddled as the others felt. Maggie was never befuddled.

“I don’t think any of us are getting it, dear,” Myra said soothingly. “That’s why we’re here. We are going to figure out how best to handle this mission just the way we’ve done in the past. I think part of it is that Bella was here, here where we conduct our business. This special place we’re in right now has always been sacrosanct. Our private place. For want of a better word or phrase, we all see it now as if it’s been invaded. It doesn’t matter if Bella can be trusted or not, she was here. We broke our own rule. That is not good. We weren’t prepared for Bella because it never happened before, and I’m not blaming Alexis, we all agreed to bringing Bella down here. I think we’re back in the groove now and recognize what has to be done. Technically, we are starting all over again with the information we have on hand—information Bella gave us, which is not all that much, sad to say.”

“Let’s get to it then,” Nikki called down from the dais.

“All right, this is what we know, and we only know what we know because it is what Bella told us. Is it all true? We do not know it to be true or false with any certainty. Yet. Would Bella lie to us to gain our help? Possibly, but she did not seek us out, Alexis volunteered our help; so the answer is likely no, she did not lie to us. We need to remember that if we start to parcel out blame here. I, for one, believe that the young lady is on the up and up, so to speak,” Myra said.

“We know Bella’s three-year courtship, such as it was, was not basically physical for the most part since Major Nolan was deployed most of the time. E-mails, occasional phone calls, some FaceTiming whenever they could. Then they had two two-day furloughs. We’re talking intimacy here, or sex if you prefer that word instead, then the one week of a hard and heavy courtship, when they were glued to one another the entire time and got engaged at the end of the week. That’s about the sum total of their relationship. Then the major was deployed again, managed to get a forty-eight-hour leave, and they got married. They had a two-day honeymoon, and that was the sum total of the relationship after the week-long courtship. As far as we know,” Kathryn said. Always the outspoken one, she added, “The whole thing sucks. What’s bothering me, and I said it before, is that Bella knows next to nothing about the man she married. That absolutely does not compute for me. It shouldn’t compute for any of you, either.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t compute for any of us, Kathryn, but we aren’t Bella. There is simply no accounting for love-starved people, and that’s what I think Bella was. I don’t have a fix on the husband yet,” Yoko said.

“Well, he must have loved her as much as she loved him; otherwise, why marry her? Where is it written he has to marry her? That’s because it isn’t written anywhere. Major Nolan, all on his own, made the decision to ask Bella to marry him,” Maggie pointed out.

“Well then, he should have damn well followed through and done what he was supposed to do, see to it that his brand-new wife was taken care of. Which he did not do,” Isabelle snapped. “He did not arrange for her to receive his military pay. He did not have her named the beneficiary of his military life insurance. The blame goes to him, not Bella, and yes, I’m sorry he’s dead, but he was still alive when the time came to make the life-altering decisions one expects a husband to make about his wife’s welfare.”

“Maybe that’s the way Midwesterners do things,” Myra said.

“This is what we know. Major Nolan was from Oklahoma and Bella from Kansas. They first met in San Francisco; then Bella followed the major here to Washington. I think I have that right,” Annie said.

“Yes, dear, you have it right. That’s what Bella shared with us,” Myra said. “Bella really has no family with the exception of a distant cousin somewhere in North Carolina. She said she barely knows her. It’s more of a case of she knows of her rather than knowing her as we think of knowing each other. I’m thinking it’s a Christmas card thing and maybe a phone call once a year, something like that. That’s why Bella was going to relocate to North Carolina. The cousin is all she has in the way of family, so it’s understandable. Even a distant cousin is better than no cousin at all when that’s the end of the bloodline.”

“Major Nolan had a sister that Bella really knows nothing about. Or did know nothing about until the army apprised her of what they had on file, which we now have and which is skimpy at best,” Annie said.

“Bella said Andy never talked about her other than to mention that he had a sister. I believe her name is Sara, and according to Andy’s records, she was at one point married to someone named Steven Conover, from whom she was later divorced. I don’t think we know the when, the why, the how of it all because Bella didn’t share any of that, so it probably means she never knew. Or cared, for that matter. I have the impression brother and sister were not close. At least that’s how Bella made it sound,” Myra said. “I’m not sure of this, but I got the impression the sister was older than Bella’s husband. Anyone think differently? Not that that means anything to the case. She’s older, so what?”