WHEN THE CLOCK OVER THE JURY BOX struck 10 a.m. Lindquist assumed the center of the judicial prefecture he’d command for the next several hours. In his usual way, he glared at the crowd through the drugstore half-glasses resting over his spacious nostrils. He rubbed his neck below his jaw nodding to Nick, “Counselor, call your next witness.”
Again, the already sweltering courtroom had no vacancies. Julie, and now Anna, Jack’s estranged wife, eyes front, sat quietly, dressed in the black dress she had worn to the half-dozen funerals she had attended, including her son’s. Like her sister-in-law, she wore little makeup, her expression calling her out among the reporters as not simply a woman with little to do, but someone with an interest in the proceedings.
“Your Honor, plaintiff calls Mr. Jack Prado O’Conner to the stand.” Jack was sitting between Julie and Anna. Gaunt, cheek swollen, lower lip puffy, a knob on the back of his head, he brushed past Julie and the other spectators, each moving their legs sideways. As he made his way down the center aisle, the crowd observed a narrow, six-foot-tall man tucking his shirt into wrinkled pinstriped pants. He felt hundreds of eyes tracking him across the well, his heart pounded, his hands trembled as he imagined how his personal history would unfold before strangers, while someone out there was watching his every move. He regretted that he had refused to go south.
In a hushed voice the clerk instructed him. “Stand here, in front of the witness box.” He felt the judge take his measure, and wondered what he thought about his bruises. He stared ahead, mouth agape, so that Amy Dusseldorf, the reporter from the local paper, would note: “A man who stands tall, weathered... looks like he’s spent years drinking... cheap whisky... and last night got the shit beat out of him.”
“Please raise your right hand, sir,” shouted the clerk in his soprano voice, chin jutted forward.
Jack had the urge to throw up. He raised his unsteady hand.
“Mr. O’Conner, state your full name and address for the record.”
“Jack Prado O’Conner, 320 Willa Street, Bridgeport.”
“Be seated.”
Nick began with a lilt to his voice. “Good morning, sir. Is it Mr. Prado or Mr. O’Conner?”
“I prefer Prado. It was my grandfather’s name. I go by that name.”
The stenographer, who since the trial started had changed her hair color from gray to brown, spoke in an official capacity for the first time. “Sir, you’ll have to speak up, or get closer to the microphone. I can’t hear you.”
“Mr. Prado, you’re here under a subpoena, correct?”
When Jack leaned into the microphone the spectators heard the barreled voice of a heavy smoker. “Yes, sir.”
“Are you married, sir?”
“Yes,” Jack answered, a slight quiver in his voice.
In the split second that it took Nick to get to the next question, Jack blinked rapidly and made eye contact with the two darkest pools of light in the room: Anna’s deeply-set perfectly round eyes. He had looked into them hundreds of times, telling her she was the only one who could save him, like the time he practically poisoned himself drinking a fifth of scotch following their son Will’s death. Hyperventilating, he breathed heavily.
“What’s your wife’s name?”
“Anna.” Jack’s eyes turned dewy.
“Does she reside at your address?”
Jack’s eyes shifted. “No, we’re separated.”
“Sir, can you repeat that, I could not hear you,” squeaked the stenographer.
Regaining his composure, Jack muttered, “We’re separated now.” He saw Anna avoiding his glance.
“Sir, you enlisted in the army in May 1950, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you enlist alone or with a group?”
“Well, I graduated college as an ROTC officer and had to serve a term of enlistment.”
“Did you enlist with others from your class?”
“Yes.”
“Local boys?”
“Yes.”
“Remember their names?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us who, if you remember?”
“A friend, a guy named Trent Hamilton.”
The name Hamilton stopped Nick in his tracks. He looked down at his yellow pad. Sirens from a fire truck going by outside the courtroom let Nick take time to regain his composure.
“Where do you work, sir?”
“I’m unemployed. Used to be a manufacturing manager for companies around town.”
“What companies were they?”
“Well, the last company full-time was HH, I mean Hamilton Helicopters. Until ’72, then, after that I consulted for... ”
Harris, exasperated, interjected. “Your Honor, I object to Mr. Castalano’s line of questioning. I fail to understand the relevance.”
Lindquist exhaled audibly. “I assume this is introductory, but Counsel, please move along.”
Nick nodded in deference to the judge. “Well yes, your Honor, I think I’ll tie this up if I’m permitted some latitude.”
“Very well, Mr. Castalano, but before the evidence is closed you’ll have shown us its relevance.”
“Mr. Prado, please provide a brief summary of your involvement with Hamilton Helicopters.”
Jack grabbed the pitcher and poured a glass of water, which he drank. He then rested his hands on the witness box and rested his head on his chest, thinking about where to begin.
***
The week after he returned from overseas he called Trent, and they exchanged what had transpired since they had last seen each other during the war. Trent told Jack that he had a job waiting at HH, but made no overture to meet socially. It wasn’t until six months later when Jack started work at HH that he and Trent met up. Again, neither of them spoke about Korea, or old girlfriends, keeping the discussion to what Jack would be doing in the Assistant Plant Manager role, a nice place to start a career.
Jack understood Trent better than any man he knew—perhaps with the exception of his own father. And, he knew Korea would only open a wider circle of misgivings for both of them. Not to mention that the new job also paralleled Jack’s new relationship with Anna and neither man needed to go there, either.
***
What Jack knew was that one January in ’55 he spotted Anna walking among a crowd of window-shoppers near Walgreen’s Drug Store. He yelled out, waving his arms. Through a breathy condensation he saw her cross the street with a big smile on her face. They talked over coffee. She asked him about Trent. He said he’d spoken to him by phone, but hadn’t seen him and as to Tracy he’d not seen her since he’d left for Korea. She told him that she wasn’t married, but had a son, William, who was about to turn four. The reunion led to a phone call the day after that in-turn led to coffee the following week. The day before Ash Wednesday, they went on their first date to a movie and afterward, to a local pizza joint, where a man with a goatee put a nickel in the juke and pushed, “Wanted” by Perry Como.
“Jack, that’s my favorite song.” She watched for his reaction. Jack showed none. She made small talk: why her hips had broadened, why she’d let her hair grow over her shoulders, what she wanted out of life. Jack was skinnier than she’d remembered, thin faced, quieter. His hair glistened black and she thought him especially handsome, but he’d lost that Montgomery Cliff innocence the girls once teased him about, retaining, she thought, the actor’s shyness.
After that first date they saw each other regularly. Easter came in early April that year and after mass, the couple went behind the church to take pictures of Will in his three-piece suit, brown fedora, scarf blowing in a light breeze under a full sun. Anna, with one hand, held the top of her blue wide-brimmed hat that had rested on the bun of her hair, and with the other hand motioned to Jack to stand next to the boy. Flicking aside her bangs, she focused the Brownie on a man and boy each missing part of themselves, snapping pictures that showed a child, chest out, a man his arm around the boy’s narrow shoulders. The couple sat on the bench near the rose garden while Will ran after pigeons pecking left over rice from a wedding. She snuggled close to Jack, her big-brim folding against his head. “You know, when Will was born his father wouldn’t come forward.” She paused. “It was Trent.”
“I figured,” he said coldly.
“Jack, I never told him.”
“Somebody must’ve... but it’s none of my business.”
“I knew he would’ve never accepted he was the father. I moved on.”
Jack grabbed the knot in his tie. “Anna, let’s not talk about it.”
She removed her hat, unfastened her bun, letting her hair fall over her shoulders. He rested his hand on her thigh and kissed her cheek.
“A guy kisses a girl, but it doesn’t mean anything,” she said.
Jack pulled out a cigarette, lit it, throwing the spent matchbook in front of them.
“Anna, give me your hand.” Jack squeezed it tight. He blinked rapidly as he looked ahead.
***
“Mr. Prado, did you understand the question?”
“My first assignment at Hamilton was to assist the Plant Manager. I was assigned to production control, the department that schedules operations along the manufacturing line. The job entailed planning and distribution of materials and methods at different points and times.”
“Mr. Prado, when you say Hamilton Helicopters, does it have any relation to Trent Hamilton, the man you enlisted with?”
“Yes, his family owned the company. He got me the job.”
***
If the entire story were relevant, which to the court it hardly was, Jack had a good job which abruptly ended in 1972 for reasons he did not have to account for in court. And he did not have to account for the details of the life he led after work—some might say the authentic one. When Anna and Jack had married in ’55, they moved into a cold-water flat across the street from the South End River. Every six hours, low tide exposed its tar stained banks and blanketed the air with the smell of bunker fuel and dead fish. For Jack, having recently spent three-plus years in a POW camp, it was home sweet home. For Anna, it was a starting place, and if Jack could make his way with a little help from Trent, she would get to where she felt she was always headed: Fairview. For now, on the other side of the river was the Hamilton Helicopters’ flight line and at any given hour—even deep into the night—they could hear the chop, chop, chop of the whirling blades, discomforting sounds if one focused on them. In decades to come, that same sound would haunt the memory of the men who left their youth in a Vietnamese rice paddy. One such ship would one day crash and in a significant way would lead to Jack’s quitting Hamilton Helicopters and all it represented.
By now Nick had raised in Jack all those memories from when he had returned in ’54, and he worried that Nick might delve into the cloud of suspicion under which he returned. Even though the charge of commie sympathizer was never an issue between Trent and him, he couldn’t immediately work at HH until his discharge status was upgraded. So Trent’s family pulled out the stops for the eventual security clearance that followed, for reasons which Jack could only speculate: past friendship, moral debts unpaid, for obligations assumed, for secrets kept.
In all respects, Jack and Anna’s life hadn’t been different from the lives of other young families in the urban east from the mid-fifties forward. In ’57 Mona was born. By ’58 the couple had saved enough to buy a small six-room colonial on the west side of town. A ’49 Chevy sedan got Jack back and forth to work. During the day, Anna worked at a small variety store a block from home. Anna and Mona spent time together at Girl Scouts. During the summer Jack and Will would throw a baseball before supper. Winters, the two of them hibernated in the cellar, working on a massive toy train village. Jack watched his son’s mind work through his hands, moving from boyhood into adolescence. He watched him use the drill press to slowly bore its way through wood or sheets of steel on its way to making a soapbox racer. The days he and Jack spent in these places spoke volumes about the closeness between the man and the boy standing in peace on the solid ground called home.
***
Nick proceeded to take Jack through the preliminaries of when he enlisted, the units he was assigned to, where he fought in the fall of ’50 and where he ended up at the beginning of ’51.
“Mr. Jaeger testified that you and another man saved his life on or about November 27, 1950. He testified that he’d been on a scouting mission and, in the course of trying to kill an enemy soldier, he did not realize he himself was a target. He testified that a man with a name sounding something like yours came to his rescue. Do you not recall such an event?”
“No, sir, never saved anybody’s life scouting.”
Harris, muttered under his breath loud enough for Townsend to hear, “Goddamn it.” Lindquist raised his head and looked over at defense table. Harris avoided eye contact.
“Mr. Prado, do you recall November 24 or 25, 1950, for any reason?”
“Yes. Was with a rifle company, patrolling the north shore of the Ch’ongch’on River, maybe 50 miles south of the Yalu, near a little town called Unsan. Maybe west of it, actually. Snowed all day. Shortly before dark—this is late fall, it gets dark early—and just before it got dark, the Chinese struck.”
“What happened next?”
“We were committed back to our battalion area... to hold the line.”
“And did you?”
“No, the battalion retreated, company by company leap-frogged three, two, one,” he replied, illustrating, by rotating one hand over the other. “The Chinese hit again. Ran us out of our positions, dawn next morning—mass confusion.”
“Did you continue to fight?”
“They’d surrounded us; we started regrouping around the first battalion area, three, four miles away.” Jack’s voice weakened, he swallowed hard, reached for the pitcher and observers like Anna heard the reverberating clink of the glass. Jack’s hand trembled. He blinked rapidly and proceeded to mumble. “And Captain, Captain Klein, either Klein or Stein, Mine, Captain, Captain, Oh Captain... Klein.”
“Excuse me?” Nick blinked. His key witness wasn’t going to lose it now, was he?
“Sorry, Company Commander Klein shouted, ‘Men, we're surrounded... use escape evasion, every man for himself.’”
The words, “every man for himself” bounced off the plaster walls. Nick waited a moment before asking the next question. He saw Jack recompose himself.
“Would you say that your unit became fragmented? During this... ”
Jack’s eyes moved up and left and not letting Nick finish. Jack continued, “Dove into a ravine. Ravine. Ravine, two guys... hidin’ in a bramble ravine.”
“How long’d you stay?”
“Maybe two or three hours, it seemed forever. Below zero, snowing. We heard ’em coming.”
“You heard who coming?”
“Someone speakin’ Oriental.”
“What did you do?”
“We weren’t sure what to do. They could’ve been ROK.”
“What happened, next?”
“Bayonets, all directions.”
“Were any of you wounded?”
“Not really, I’d twisted my leg.” Jack pointed down. “No more Jack-be-nimble, you know.”
“Right.” Nick gave Jack a piercing look, but he seemed calm. “Could you walk?”
“Sure.”
“Where’d they take you?”
“You have to imagine it was total, mass confusion. They were picking us up all over. We’re not talking a small city block, we're talking miles wide, squatting us down in the snow after they searched us, put us up in a little draw ’til dark.”
“Did you and the other men stay together?”
“For a while, but some of us split off into groups, about ten guys each.”
“What happened next?”
“Air strikes, plus artillery.” Jack observed Nick begin to rub his hands together and shift uneasily in his chair. “But, too late. In fact, we killed our own.”
Jack took a gulp of air. Inwardly, Nick willed him to continue, just finish accounting for why he could not have rescued Jaeger.
Jack continued, “Nobody had no idea where we were. That’s how it happened. Started to get dark, pulled us out of different draws, marched us in circles all night. Few took off their boots, toes froze, lost ’em, had to wrap their feet in rags from long-johns. Next morning they’d put us in another ravine, kept us there till dark.”
“Sir, are you telling us that it was impossible that on November 27, 1950, you were on a scouting mission, as Mr. Jaeger claims?”
“I am saying that I was already a POW.”
Lindquist saw Foster lean over and whisper something to Harris, who kept his eye on Jack and shook his head in agreement.
Nick, irritated by the mumbling from the defense table, looked over, then put his hands in his pocket, and walked out from behind the podium. “Did you eventually reach an encampment?”
“We stayed goin’ ’round in circles, round and round like a merry-go—”
“How long,” Nick intercepted.
“—Uh, couple of days and then started north.”
“Where’d you sleep?”
“Marched us every night and put us in Korean rooms or whatever was available at night —I mean in the daytime. We was marched to the Pukchin-Tarigol Valley collection site. Then marched ’til we got to Sinuiju, near the Manchurian border.”
“What happened when you got near the border?”
Nick returned to the podium and turned several pages in his trial notebook.
“They put us in a bean camp, soybeans and bran. Lot of men already there.”
“How long?”
“About a week. Then marched us along the Yalu.”
“Destination?”
“Pyoktong, a camp on the south bank of the Yalu. Stopped marching early January ’51, at what later came known as Camp No. 13.”
“Did you go to any other camps while a prisoner?”
“No, sir, stayed until February ’53 when... ”
“You’re, of course, referring to the end of the war, right?”
“Well, sir, beyond that.”
Jack waited for Nick to ask why he did not return with the other soldiers.
“And during this time, did you meet a soldier named Roger Girardin?”
Jack rapidly blinked several times in succession. “Never!” And, of course, with that answer Jack once again knew that he needed those sanctimonious voices to speak to him about sanity, secrets and sins of omission.
Nick saw Jack’s eyes blinking fast and thought there might be something Jack was holding back. Perhaps, Nick thought, he hadn’t asked the right question.
“And, Mr. Prado, I take it from your answer... let me phrase it differently, did you ever meet a soldier named Roger Girardin?”
Jack listened carefully and heard the word “soldier” in the question. “Can you please repeat that?”
“Did you ever meet a soldier named Roger Girardin?”
Jack listened, his head cocked, and heard the word “meet” in the question. He had known Roger before he was a soldier, met him as a civilian, not as a soldier, at least not a meeting that could be ever discovered. He swayed back and forth.
“Mr. Prado, an answer please?” Nick asked after not getting an immediate response.
“No, sir.”
Jack looked down at his notepad, not sure whether to press Jack on what seemed an emphatic “no.” He decided to go in a different direction.
“Mr. Prado, you and Trent Hamilton were in ROTC. You both went into officer’s training school together?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you see much of him there at the training school?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him in Camp 13?”
Nick noticed that he looked at someone in the crowd and hesitated. “Not that I can remember.”
“When you returned home, did you see much of him?”
“Except occasionally at work, our paths didn’t cross... you know, worked in the same place, but he was upper management.”
“Thank you, Mr. Prado, I have no further questions at this time. Counsel, your witness.”
Harris rose, “Mr. O’Conner or is it Prado?” he asked with a smirk.
Jack ran his hand through his hair. “Told Mr. Castalano, I prefer Prado.”
“Well, before you arrived today a Mr. Jaeger testified that you and Private Girardin saved his life on or about November 27, 1950. He testified that he’d been on a scouting mission and in the course of trying to kill an enemy soldier he didn’t realize he was himself a target. He testified that you and Private Girardin came to his rescue. Do you not recall that event?”
“No, sir, I can’t say that I never saw a Private Girardin then.”
Nick rose from his chair. “Your Honor, Counsel is mistaken and mischaracterizes Mr. Jaeger’s testimony. He did not testify that this man sitting before us was the Connell or O’Conner he referred to.”
Harris wrung his hands. “Your Honor, I apologize, but I thought I heard him say O’Conner or Connell, and I therefore assumed it was this witness. I got turned around on this. Nevertheless, I think that the question’s proper, but please strike it. I will rephrase.”
“A day or so ago a Mr. Jaeger, Thomas Jaeger, testified that he was with a regiment near Kunu-ri close to the Ch’ongch’on river.” Harris made a fist in each hand. “Were you in that area at any time?”
“Yes, I believe so, near the middle of November.”
Harris hammered his fist into his hand and raised his voice. “You were in retreat... right?”
Jack rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “Yes, movin’ south.”
“Mr. Jaeger testified that two soldiers, a Conner or an O’Conner and another man, Jardin or Girardin, saved his life from a sniper. Would you remember saving a man one early morning on a ridge in the Kunu-ri area, November, 1950?”
Jack looked over at Nick. “No, can’t say I can remember something like that.”
Harris stepped forward, blocking Nick’s line of sight. “Mr. Jaeger claims that the Girardin man was killed by a sniper, and that he had a conversation with the Conner or O’Conner man shortly afterwards. Is it possible that he was talking about you and that the dead man was Roger Girardin?”
“No.”
“But, you were captured right about that time Jaeger claims he might have met you, correct?”
“Yeah, so were thousands of others.”
“And from the sounds of your story, you were understandably traumatized?”
Jack blinked repeatedly. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Is it possible that you had a lapse of memory surrounding events shortly before and during your capture?”
Jack sat silent, unable to control his blinking, something Harris interpreted as a sign that Jack was evading the truth.
“Sir, it may have played out differently, isn’t that right?”
“Anything’s possible, sir.” Jack blinked several times.
Harris stretched his arm in the air. “Didn’t you tell our investigator, Mr. Devaney, that it was possible, but you weren’t absolutely sure if you remembered Girardin?”
Jack snapped, “When?”
Harris raised his voice. “When he called you at home just last Thursday.”
“I don’t remember what I told anybody. I started remembering this stuff, I think, when I first talked to Mr. Castalano yesterday.” His voice trailed off. “Maybe I read about him in the newspapers, I don’t know.”
Harris picked up a document browned with age. “Mr. Prado, were you sympathetic to the North Korean’s point of view?”
“Objection. Your Honor, Mr. Harris’ question lacks specificity. What 'point of view' is he referring to?”
“Sustained. Mr. Harris, please qualify your question.”
Harris read the document to himself, the one he had waved in front of Jack. “Mr. Prado, are you familiar with the word Progressive to describe a POW who was sympathetic to communist propaganda?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Well, were you a so-called Progressive?”
Nick saw Jack stiffen, but he seemed to hold his own. “No, sir, I was not!”
“Is it not true that you signed a statement that the U.S. and its allies were murderers?”
“I don’t recall.”
Harris’s questions were coming quicker now. “You informed on your fellow soldiers did you not?”
Jack’s lips tightened. “That’s a bald faced lie.”
“Isn’t it true that you were held over by the Communists after the war ended, after the POWs were repatriated?”
“If you mean that I returned from Korea in ’54, yes, yes, I was detained.”
Harris spread his arms, raised his voice, “Is it not true you were detained because you chose not to come back with your comrades?”
“No, sir!” Jack protested, his voice also louder. “I was left behind because... because I’d been forgotten, left to rot in a cell.”
“And when you returned, you were given a dishonorable discharge, is that not correct?”
“No, I—I didn’t receive a dishonorable, sir.”
Harris paused for effect. He picked up a paper from the lectern and turned to Lindquist.
“Your Honor, may I approach the witness?”
Lindquist shook his head yes, curious why a difference of opinion existed on what seemed a matter of record. Harris, cool and in control, approached Jack, “Sir, I am handing you a document marked Exhibit 101 Defendant Army for identification. Do you recognize that paper?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well it’s captioned with your name, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a discharge paper, isn’t it? What is the number in the left hand bottom?”
“It says DD 214. But— ”
“Sir, if you would please give me the document.”
“But—”
“One moment, Mr. Prado,” Harris interjected.
Harris took the document and handed it to Nick. “It’s the official record, certified.”
Scanning it, Nick handed it back to Harris who gave it to Lindquist. He did not look at Mitch. He would have his head later for failing to find it.
“Your Honor, I’d like to enter this as a full exhibit,” continued Harris.
Lindquist looked at Nick. “Any objections?”
“Relevancy, where is Mr. Harris going with this?” He could only watch as the credibility of his witness was put under scrutiny.
“Overruled, I will allow it.”
“Mr. Prado, please take this document marked Exhibit 101, and tell this court if you wish to change you testimony regarding your discharge.”
Jack scanned the document. “No, sir, I don’t wish to change anything. That was a—”
Harris cut Jack off. “Is it not true, sir, that you were given a dishonorable discharge from the United States Army as indicated on that form?”
“That was a mistake!”
“Yes, it was upgraded, am I right? After some period. Isn’t that right? Wasn’t that what the Army did for all those who collaborated? Changed their status some years later?”
As if washing his hands of Jack, he turned from the lectern, “Your Honor, the government has no further questions at this time, but we reserve the right to recall Mr. O’Conner or Mr. Prado, as the case may be.”
Lindquist looked in Nick’s direction, “Any redirect, sir?”
Nick knew there was no territory to be regained at this point by questioning Jack further. “No, your Honor.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s recess until 2 pm.”
Nick walked down a hallway to a payphone farthest from the lobby—he needed privacy. The phone was in use. As he flipped the pages of his pocket calendar, he heard the caller explain, “I’ll be there at five to work the shift. My brother just finished up.” When she hung up and turned, the caller stood facing Nick.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, are you Jack Prado’s sister?”
Taken by surprise, she clutched her bag tighter to her chest. “Yes, Julie O’Conner.”
“I’m Nick. Nick Castalano.”
“I know, nice to meet you.” Julie found herself caught between Nick and the phone.
“Nice to meet you. I didn’t know Jack had a sister.”
“Well, yes, only the one.” Julie tried sidling around Nick, who was blocking her path.
“You’ve sat through the entire trial, haven’t you?” Nick shifted his weight to the right, blocking Julie’s escape.
“Why, yes.”
Anticipating Julie’s move to the right, Nick shifted back to his left. “Special interest in the case?”
Exasperated, Julie took a deep breath and looked up at Nick. “Roger Girardin was my boyfriend.”
It was Nick’s turn to be caught back-footed. “Roger Gir—!” How much more information had Jack failed to mention? “This is quite a surprise.” Moving his jacket out of the way, Nick put his hands on his hips.
Julie’s lips quivered. “Mr. Castalano, I don’t know if I should be talking to you.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, is Jack in some kind of trouble?”
“No, Ms. O’Conner, I’m just trying to get to the bottom of ... ”
Julie blurted out, “Roger and I were very close.”
“Didn’t Jack know you were dating Roger?”
“Of course. We were all kids together, we hung out. I mean, Jack and his girlfriend Tracy and her brother Trent.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t Jack mention you dated Roger?”
“Maybe he didn’t think it was important.”
“You heard me ask if he ever met Roger, and he said no.”
“Mr. Castalano, you asked him if he met the soldier.”
Nick swore inwardly. It was splitting hairs, but here was a spectator pointing out the problem with his question. “And his girlfriend, this Tracy, is she Trent Hamilton’s sister?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Did you know Trent?”
Julie cocked her head. “Am I being questioned, Mr. Castalano?” Julie returned. “I said, we hung out together. Trent had a bit of a mad crush, but we never really... dated. Then, he and Roger got into some teenage trouble, and they parted ways. May I go now?”
Nick raised his hands in mock innocence. “Just one more thing. What was he like?”
“Who? Roger?”
Nick saw real warmth spreading across the woman’s face, but tears blurred the emerald green eyes staring up at him. He dropped his hands.