“Yes, son. It did. Right or wrong, your brother almost killed a superior officer. The military gave him the choice of ten years in Leavenworth, or a dishonorable discharge in conjunction with a signed nondisclosure agreement. It’s a cover-up. I understand that. I don’t approve of it, but after the My Lai fallout, I recognize the necessity. Support for the war is already weak. Another massacre. Another black eye for the country…”

“It’s not about support for the war.”

“It says so in the file.”

“Does the file say who was in command of that platoon?”

“The name was redacted…”

“It’s Laughtner, Lieutenant John G.”

“Laughtner?” My father’s mouth opened and closed twice before he could continue. “Isn’t there a General Laughtner on Westmoreland’s staff?”

“Second in command of ground operations.”

“Related?”

“Father and son. And it gets worse.” My father closed his eyes, but I didn’t relent. “They needed time,” I said. “How to spin the killings. What to do with Jason. They held him off books for seven weeks. Drugged. Morphine. If it weren’t for the master chief, they’d have probably just killed him. But the master chief had friends in high places.” I met my father’s eyes, and dared him to blink. “They turned him into a junkie instead. They strung him out and sent him home.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“About the drugs? I have no idea. The rest of it seems to be an open secret in the Marine Corps.”

He showed me his back, and I wondered at his thoughts. Did he feel guilt or shame? Because I did. What about regret? None of us had been there for Jason. He’d come home from war strung out, quiet, and bitter. But did my father ever ask why? Wasn’t that his job? Wasn’t it my mother’s? Or mine?

“Will you give me a few minutes?” he asked.

I said I would, and left him there.

Halfway to the kitchen, I heard the phone ring.

35

Warden Wilson rose early, showered, shaved, and dressed. It was a big day, with a bigger one coming.

“Twenty-four hours. Maybe a little more.”

He spoke to the mirror as his fingers worked a dark tie into a Windsor knot. The suit was brown. So were the shoes. For color, he put a fresh rose in his lapel, cut in the darkness from a small garden he kept beside the house. By noon, the petals would begin to droop. Then they would curl and dry, and he would mark time with those petals, increasingly lighthearted as they withered, shrunk, and died. Thinking of X, he hummed quietly as he adjusted the flower just so.

“Perfect.”