THAT EVENING
MAC’S APARTMENT

Mac tried to balance a stack of files in one arm, her briefcase dangling from two fingers, while she struggled to get her key in the door lock.  She had just about got it in when she was startled by the voice of her landlord.  Struggling to keep her grip on the folders in the crook of her arm, she turned and smiled, the warm expression turning to a puzzled frown when she saw the dolly of boxes he was lugging behind him.  “Colonel, FedEx delivered these boxes for you about an hour ago,” he reported.  He nodded towards her door.  “Here, let me get that for you.”

She moved aside, letting him unlock and open her door.  She walked in, dumping the files on her desk while her landlord wheeled in the boxes, nudging them off the dolly with his foot in front of the desk.  He handed her a small FedEx envelope.  “This also came with the boxes,” he said.  “Good day, Colonel.”

As her landlord let himself out, Mac turned the envelope over in her hands, reading the return address with trepidation.  She didn’t recognize the address itself, but she recognized the city and state.  Portland, Oregon.  Where her mother said she had ended up after leaving all those years ago.  She ripped open the envelope, withdrawing a single sheet of paper.

Ms. MacKenzie,

My name is Darla Conners and I was a neighbor of your mother’s.  After I was notified that she had passed on, I asked her brother what I should do with what little personal belongings she had.  He gave me permission to sell the furniture – a check for that money minus what it cost to ship these boxes is also in the envelope – and gave me your address.  I know Deanne was on her way to visit you when she passed and I know she would want you to have this stuff.  She was always talking after your father’s funeral about her daughter the Marine lawyer and how she hoped to be able to see you again.

My sympathy at your loss.

Darla Conners

Mac shook out the envelope, a check falling into her hand.  $198.35.  Was that all her mother’s things had been worth?  In the end, her life came down to two hundred dollars worth of furniture and the contents of four boxes.  She stuffed the letter and check back into the envelope and set it on the desk, picking up the phone.  She searched her memory, then dialed a number.

“US Disciplinary Barracks,” said a bored male voice on the other end when the phone was picked up after a couple of rings.

“This is Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie, JAG Corps,” she said.  “I need to speak to a prisoner, Colonel Matthew O’Hara.” 

“The reason for the call?” the voice asked.

“I’m his niece,” she replied, “and I need to talk to him about a death in the family.”  Not exactly the entire truth, but close enough that it should satisfy the prison.

“You do understand that all phone calls are subject to monitoring,” the voice droned on. 

I just said I was a JAG lawyer, she thought.  I know the rules.  Aloud, she said calmly, “I understand.”

“Please hold,” the voice said, quickly replaced by elevator music.  Knowing that it would take a few minutes to bring Uncle Matt to the phone, she sat down at her desk and opened up the top folder on the stack she had brought home with her.  They never seemed to get caught up on paperwork and it always seemed to follow the biblical admonition to ‘be fruitful and multiple,’ especially when the Admiral was out of the office.  Within an hour after he had left for the Pentagon, three more reports to be signed off on had been dumped on her desk, with five more to follow by the end of the day.  Some days, she thought that she wouldn’t mind someday holding the title of Judge Advocate General.  But other days, she couldn’t imagine how anyone, especially someone used to taking action against the enemy, could remain sane in the job.  For a man like the Admiral who was used to facing people across the field of battle, facing the enemy of never-ending paperwork had to be galling.  And someone like Harm?  He’d probably be bored out of his skull within an hour of taking over the job. 

Finally, the music on the line ended and the same bored voice came back on.  “Colonel MacKenzie, I have Colonel O’Hara,” he said.  “Go ahead please.”

“Sarah?” Matt said, concerned.  Not that they didn’t keep in touch, but it wasn’t like her to call out of the blue unless something was wrong.  “What is it?”

“I got some boxes from Darla Conners,” she said.  “I understand you told her to send them to me.”

“Your mother’s things,” he said, comprehending.  “I thought you needed to have them.”

“Why would you think that I would need them?” she asked.  “Uncle Matt, I’m sorry that she’s dead.  But she was not a part of my life for so long …. I don’t know why you would think that.”

“Maybe so you could understand her,” he said.  “You know I don’t condone what she did.  I was with you at Red Rock Mesa.  I know what her leaving did to you.  But since she initiated contact with me after Joe’s funeral, I understand some things better than I did before and I think you need that, too.”

“Uncle Matt, what is there left to understand?” she asked, biting back her frustration.  “She left, she drifted back into my life three years ago when Dad died and she was trying to drift back in again.  What makes you think this time would have turned out any differently than it did the last time I saw her?”

“Sarah, that’s not what I said,” he said in a soothing tone.  “Your mother had her own demons that she was fighting, demons that tormented her as much as the ones that drove you to the bottle.  I think you might understand her better if you could understand what drove her.”

“And forgive her?”

“That’s entirely up to you,” he said.  “I’m not pushing you one way or the other.  But shouldn’t you let yourself have the option to …. Sorry, Sarah, but I can’t stay on the phone.  Someone else needs to use it.  I’ll talk to you on Sunday as usual?”

“I’ll talk to you Sunday,” she said.  “Goodbye, Uncle Matt.”

She clicked the phone off and set it on the desk, staring hard to the boxes in front of it.  She had seen to all the arrangements for her mother.  She’d made her peace when she scattered her ashes.  What was the point in dredging all that up now? 

AN HOUR LATER

Mac had buried herself in paperwork, studiously avoiding looking at the boxes stacked in front of her desk.  She carefully read over each report before signing her name, making mental observations as she did so.  Sturgis’ report on the Martin appeal was clear and concise, saying no more than it needed to.  Sometimes she wondered how he and Harm had become such good friends – they seemed to be opposites in just about everything.

Much like Harm and yourself, a tiny voice in her head reminded her.  But she knew that she and Harm had a lot more in common than it appeared on the surface.  Both were largely defined by their childhoods.  Both had issues with their parents.  Both had overcome personal demons to become what they were today.  On the surface, they might have seemed like oil and water, but underneath they were more compatible than anyone could imagine.

Pushing aside the sudden introspection – if she thought too much about it, she might start thinking about how much time they had wasted – and picked up the next report, Loren’s recommendations on the Barber investigation.  If Sturgis was concise in his writing, Loren tended towards the opposite extreme.  She often included too much information, as if she were a student trying to impress a teacher with the breadth of her knowledge.  Sometimes it could give a person a headache, trying to discern the truly important from the utterly trivial in her reports.

But she had been getting better and Mac wondered if Harm had been helping her.  Ever since Norfolk, although he hadn’t gone so far as to take Loren under his wing, he had been a lot more tolerant of her and had actually let her help out on one or two of his cases.  Well, if he had the tolerance for that sort of thing, more power to him.  She wasn’t holding her breath waiting for evidence that the change was permanent.

Signing off on that report as well, she picked up the next one and grinned.  If they had been handwritten, Harm’s reports would be sloppy and hurriedly written out, with the final ‘T’ crossed probably as he was dropping the report in the inbox on Tiner’s desk.  Coming from the printer, the paper would still be warm as the report was turned in.  She need that because she knew paperwork of any kind was anathema to Harm.  It was a mundane task which wasted time that could have been spent doing other things.

Other than that, his reports were just as concise as Sturgis’, probably because the shorter the report, the less time it took to write.  Despite the rush in which he produced them, his recommendations were usually right on the money.

She looked up from the report at the knock on the door, frowning when she heard Harm’s voice through it.  “Mac, are you there?” he called through the door.

He sounded worried and she tried to think of a reason …. “Oh,” she gasped, calculating the time in her head.  She was supposed to have been at his apartment for dinner forty-five minutes ago.  Dropping her pen on top of the report, she got up and answered the door, mentally rehearsing an apology.  “I’m sorry,” she said as she opened the door, shrugging apologetically.  “I got caught up in something.”

Harm was standing in the hallway, dressed casually in jeans and a ribbed cotton shirt that emphasized the blue of his eyes.  He carried two grocery bags, balanced in the crook of one arm.  He was about to make a flip comment about her losing track of time when he noticed the thinly veiled pain in her eyes.  Something was troubling her and he was glad that he had decided to just come over rather than calling first. 

“That’s okay,” he assured her, stepping past her into the apartment.  He immediately noted the unopened boxes in front of her desk as he headed towards the kitchen.  “Why don’t you finish whatever you were working on and I’ll get dinner started?”

He set the bags on the kitchen counter and started unpacking them, while Mac called out from the other room, “Harm, would you mind if I took a rain check?  Some things came up today that I need to get caught up on.”

Harm came out of the kitchen and walked over to the desk, glancing down at the folders then at her with raised eyebrow.  He recognized the open one as one of his own reports.  It required nothing more than to be signed off on.  “Mac, what’s going on?” he asked.

Mac sighed.  She should have known she wasn’t going to get past him that easily.  But she didn’t really want to talk about it either.  “Nothing,” she said.  “I’m just not up to ….”  She trailed off as his gaze fell on the boxes and he read the return address on the label of the top box.

“Wasn’t your mom in Portland?” he asked, taking her silence as a ‘yes’.  He closed the distance between them and put an arm around her shoulders, leading her to the couch.  He sat sideways, one leg tucked under the other, one arm draped over the back of the couch, his other hand holding hers, his thumb moving lightly back and forth over the back of her hand.  She was sitting forward on the couch, her head leaning back, her eyes closed.

It was several minutes before she finally spoke, her voice tightly controlled, only the firm set of her mouth betraying her internal struggle for control.  “After she died,” she said, “Uncle Matt had contacted the place where she lived and somehow was put in touch with a friend of hers.  He authorized her to sell of what little furniture she had and told her to send the rest of Mom’s things to me.”

“So what bothers you about this so much?” he asked.

“Who said it bothered me at all?” she retorted.  “Assuming facts not in evidence, Counselor.”

“Let’s see,” he said, keeping his tone soothing and gentle.  “You haven’t even touched the boxes, you buried yourself signing off on reports that could have waited until tomorrow at the office, you haven’t even changed out of your uniform and you forgot about dinner with me.”

She pulled her and away and got up from the couch, tugging down on her uniform shirt.  “I just don’t see the point in rehashing all this,” she said.  “What am I going to learn from those boxes that I don’t already know?  I already dealt with all this earlier this summer.”

“If you’ve dealt with this, why are you so afraid of opening those boxes?” he asked calmly.

“I’m not!” she said, her voice raised.  She took a deep breath and continued in a more normal tone.  “She wasn’t a part of my life for over half of it while she was alive.  Why should she be now that she’s dead?”

Harm realized they weren’t getting anywhere.  Instead, they were simply going around in circles.  He knew her well enough to know that she would face it eventually, resolving to be there for her when she was finally ready.  “Why don’t you finish up with those reports while I get dinner started?” he suggested in a conciliatory tone.  “No more talk about your mother or those boxes.  In fact, I could get them out of here for you.”

“No,” she said quickly, responding just as he thought she would.  It might take a little time, but she would come around.  “But maybe we could get them out of the way.  I think I have enough room in the bottom of my closet.”

They made short work of moving the boxes, Harm making the obligatory joking comment about all the shoes they had to move out of the way to make room in an attempt to lighten the mood, then adjourned to the kitchen, Harm shredding the cheese for their lasagna while Mac leaned against a counter, watching and occasionally snatching some cheese and popping it into her mouth.

“Stop that,” Harm said, playfully slapping her hand away as she snuck some more cheese.

“There’s a method to my madness,” she said, her voice a bit lighter and more carefree than a few minutes earlier.

“And that would be?” he asked with lifted eyebrow.

“The more cheese I eat,” she said, “the more room you have to put meat in the lasagna.”

She slipped through the doorway into the other room just as the dish towel he threw at her it the door frame with a soft thud. 

THE NEXT MORNING

JAG HEADQUARTERS

Loren knocked on Sturgis’ open door.  “Sir, if you’ve got a few minutes,” she said, “I’d like to sit down with you and map out our strategy on the Donaldson case.”

“Actually, Lieutenant,” Sturgis said, barely looking up from a file he was reading, “this really wouldn’t be a good time.”

“Well, then what would be a good time, Commander?” she asked, not reading anything unusual into his statement.  “I’ve got a hearing on the Bradford case later this morning, but my afternoon ….”

“I’ll let you know, Lieutenant,” he said, his tone clipped.  “Dismissed.”

In a huff, Loren retreated from his office, walking right into Harm as he was strolling into the bullpen.  Harm put a hand on her arm to steady her.  “Where’s the fire, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“Sorry, sir,” she said, her tone not exactly apologetic.  “Commander Turner just …. he really needs to get over what happened.  Sir.”

“My office, now,” he ordered, his voice taking on a dangerous edge.  He closed the door behind them, flipping on his light and dropping his briefcase and cover on top of a filing cabinet.  “Have you ever killed a man, Lieutenant?”

Harm took his seat, looking at her expectantly as she stood in front of his desk, her hands clasped behind her back.  She stared back, her gaze steadily meeting his.  “No, sir,” she replied.

“Then how can you judge what Commander Turner is going through?” he asked.

She pondered that for a moment, carefully considering her response.  “Permission to speak freely, sir?” she asked.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say ‘denied,’ but he changed his mind.  He had killed a man before, so he could imagine what Sturgis was going through and was worried about him.  He just expressed it a little more diplomatically than Loren did, or he tried to.  He had tried getting Sturgis to open up ever since the day he had shown up drunk, but the other man had resisted.  Harm did know that he had been going to see a counselor at the Admiral’s urging – Sturgis had let that much slip one night over beers at McMurphy’s – but little else.  If Sturgis was snapping at junior officers, apparently the sessions weren’t having the effect hoped for.

“Granted,” he said, gesturing towards the chairs behind her.  “Take a seat.”

Loren sat, folding her hands in her lap.  She had no illusions that she wasn’t still on thin ice with most of the staff at JAG and she had been trying.  She knew Sturgis had been assigned second chair to keep an eye on her, and she would deal with that.  But she had tried to include him in the case in the spirit of ‘teamwork’ and had been summarily rebuffed.  Leaving him out of the loop was an option, but if he wasn’t engaged in the case, the Admiral might notice and it could reflect back on her.  “Sir, I went to Commander Turner’s office this morning to ask about sitting down and mapping out our strategy on Donaldson,” she said.  “He said it wasn’t a good time and when I tried to ask when would be, he snapped and dismissed me.”

Harm leaned back in his chair.  For someone who was usually focused on herself, Loren’s instincts seemed to be right on the money.  Of course, there was always the chance that she was put out by Sturgis’ attitude, so he felt compelled to play devil’s advocate.  “Have you considered that he really was too busy to work on the case right now?” he suggested.  “We are short staffed here and with the Admiral out this week, things are tighter than usual.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Loren said, “Commander Turner has been moping around here for the last two months.  Everyone knows he’s been seeing a psychiatrist at Bethesda.”

“It seems to me, Lieutenant,” Harm said, his tone firm, “that any counseling Commander Turner may or may not be receiving is between him and the Admiral, as are any concerns about his work performance.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, managing to sound a little chastised. 

“Dismissed, Lieutenant,” Harm said, hoping but not entirely optimistic that he had gotten his point across.  Loren was definitely very much a work in progress and when it came to hardheadedness and having a one-track mind, she definitely gave him a run for his money. 

She got up to leave, pausing with her hand on the door knob as she turned back to Harm.  “Sir,” she said, “I only wanted to bring this to someone’s attention.  Commander Turner …. he needs help, sir.  Everyone can see that.”

Harm stared off into space for a few minutes after Loren left.  Sturgis did seem to be wallowing in guilt over killing the gunman.  Harm was grateful that he had, for it could have meant Mac’s life and perhaps his and Sturgis’ as well.  As he had told Loren, he knew what it was like to take a life, to have another person’s blood on your hands.  In his line of business as a pilot, it was to be expected.  You tried to prepare yourself for the eventuality that you might someday take a life, although he had learned after the Gulf of Sidra that it wasn’t quite that simple.  He couldn’t really pinpoint exactly when he had stopped wondering about the other two pilots, wondering about the families they had left behind.  There just came a day when he realized that he hadn’t thought of them in several days.  Then several days became a week, then a month and life went on – at least until he had killed his RIO.  That was another story and it had taken him years, and the grudging respect of Mace’s brother, before he could start to put that behind him.

Sturgis might have intellectually understood that he might someday be called upon to take a life in defense of his country, but when he had been on submarines, he had been a sonar officer.  If lives were lost because of the actions of someone on his sub, he could always say that he wasn’t the one who pushed the button.  And Sturgis had never served in the Gulf during the war.  Most of his service aboard subs have been spent playing peek-a-boo with their Soviet counterparts.

In addition, being raised as a preacher’s kid possibly provided another detriment when it came to how Sturgis handled what had happened.  Since before he could probably understand the concept, he had been taught to value life as sacred.  Only God should be able to make the choice that it was someone’s time to die.  Perhaps it was the ultimate contradiction in the military – providing chaplains on the one hand to minister to the troops spiritual needs while handing out weapons with the other hand.

Making a decision, Harm left his office and crossed the bullpen, mouthing ‘Later’ to Mac when she tried to stop him on her way out of the Admiral’s office.  He continued down the hall to Sturgis’ office, not completely surprised to find the other man staring off into space, his casted left arm resting on top of his desk.  “The courtyard,” he said quickly, determined not to give Sturgis a chance to argue or beg off.  “Meet me there after work in your running clothes.”  He turned and was gone before Sturgis could reply.  He was counting on Sturgis considering it impolite not to show up.  That gave him the rest of the day to figure out what he was going to say.

He headed for Mac’s office, dropping into a chair in front of his desk.  “Has Sturgis talked to you recently?” he asked without preamble.

Mac looked up from her computer, her initial temptation to make a flip comment about his lack of decorum squashed by the question.  “No,” she replied, “at least not about anything non-work related.”  She thought for a moment.  “I think the last time I talked to him about something having nothing to do with work was when I asked him how he broke his elbow.”

“That was a month ago,” Harm said thoughtfully.  “He snapped at Singer this morning.”

“And this is cause for concern?” she asked, smothering a grin.  Loren had a tendency to bring forth that kind of reaction in people.

“Since when have you known Sturgis to snap at anyone?” he asked.  “Even under tremendous pressure, Sturgis has got to be the most even-tempered person I know.”

“Until the incident with Commander Connor’s transport,” Mac finished.

“Exactly,” Harm said.  “He’s been seeing someone at Bethesda for just over a month, but he still won’t talk about it.  Anyway, I invited myself to go running with him this afternoon after work.  I know he’s still running, even with the cast on his arm.  I figured I’d wear him out, then maybe he’ll open up to me.  Do you mind picking me up tomorrow morning?”

“No, why?” she asked.

“Sturgis runs to and from work,” he explained, “so I thought I’d continued on to my place from his and just leave my car here tonight.”

“Not a problem,” she confirmed.  Sensing the end of that conversation, she changed topics.  “Would you like to have lunch with me today?  There’s a new vegetarian place that just opened up about a mile away that I thought you’d like to try.”

“Sorry,” he said, “but I need to take a rain check today.  I’m going to Quantico to meet with Major Donaldson’s doctor to get a list of prescriptions he was on, then I’ve got an afternoon appointment with a child psychologist to help me interview the defendant’s nine-year-old daughter.”

“Prescriptions?” Mac asked, drawing the obvious conclusion.  “Harm, this isn’t Ft. Bragg.”

“I don’t know what this is,” he countered, “but in talking to Donaldson yesterday, there’s something going on here.  What makes a man wake up in the middle of the night and pump two bullets into his sleeping wife?  Something had to have caused him to snap.  Maybe it is like Ft. Bragg.  Maybe not.  But I need to find out.”

“He was abusing her?” she shot back.  “That’s typically the reason a person kills their spouse.  Either the husband snaps and finally kills the wife he’s been abusing or the wife kills her abusive husband just to make it stop.”

“Abuse isn’t always the answer, Mac,” he patiently reminded her, beginning to think that he never should have brought this up with her.  You didn’t bring it up, a voice reminded him.  You told her why you couldn’t do lunch and she reacted.  “I’ve already checked.  There’s never even been a report of raised voices coming from the Donaldson’s quarters, let alone any kind of violence.”

“He killed her, didn’t he?” she asked, barely concealing her anger.  “I’d call that abuse.  Don’t try too hard for this one.  He’s not worth it.”

“And who was it that only yesterday was joking about me not defending my client to the best of my abilities?” he returned in a clipped tone, beginning to respond to her anger.  “I may not like what he did, but if there’s a reason why he suddenly snapped, I’d like to find it so he can get the help he needs.”

“Some people aren’t worth saving,” she said, turning back to her computer screen.

Feeling that he’d been dismissed, he silently withdrew, knowing this really wasn’t the place to discuss this.  She was sensitive, he knew, because of her mother’s belonging showing up unexpectedly.  He would have to remind himself to tread carefully.  He grabbed his cover and briefcase from his office, closing the door behind him.

“Lieutenant,” he said as he stepped up to Harriet’s desk, “I need a car today.”  She handed him a set of keys and the log for him to sign.  “And if anyone calls for me, I will probably be out all day and for part of the day, I probably won’t have my cell phone on.”

“Yes, sir,” Harriet replied, taking the clipboard back.

Part 3