The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters) by Sheehan-Miles, Charles (ebook reader online free .txt) 📗

Colonel Martinez watched her running out and then looked at me, then at Hicks. Then he said, “Mrs. Sherman, you aren’t sworn in to this court. But Mrs. Hicks just gave you something. Can you tell me what it is?”

My hands were shaking. I looked at it. It was a letter. The envelope was postmarked April 12, 2012, and it was addressed to Stephanie Hicks in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

“It’s ... a letter,” I said.

“May I see the letter, please?”

Hicks slumped into his seat, as Ray and Elmore looked at me, mystified.

The prosecutor, Cox, said, “Your honor, this is highly irregular.”

“It is, Captain, but it may be relevant to this case. Please bring me the letter, Mrs. Sherman.”

I carried the letter up to the lectern. Colonel Martinez took it from me, looked at the postmark and the address and raised his eyebrows. Then he opened up the envelope. Three handwritten pages. Martinez perused them, slowly, and said to me, “May I keep this? You’ll get it back when the court-martial is over.”

I nodded and stepped back, returning to my seat.

Martinez turned to Hicks and said, “Do you recognize this letter, Sergeant Hicks?”

Hicks slumped in his seat. He nodded, slowly, then said, “Yes, sir.”

Martinez nodded, giving Hicks a stern look, then said, “Please register this letter as defense exhibit number one. Sergeant Hicks, do you have something you need to tell the court?”

Hicks mumbled something, and Martinez said, “Speak clearly, please.”

Shaking his head, Hicks said, “Sherman didn’t the kill the boy. Sergeant Colton did.”

The courtroom erupted in noise and shouts. Martinez stood and roared, “This court will come to order or spectators will be ejected!”

Ray sagged into his seat. I put a hand on his shoulder, and he gripped it and met my eyes. This was it. The prosecution’s whole case had just fallen apart right in front of them.

Elmore stood, and said, “Your honor, may I request a 20 minute recess to review this new evidence?”

Martinez checked his watch and said, “We’ll recess for lunch now.”

After that, it was an anticlimax. At lunch, we found out what was in the letter. Hicks had written home and told his wife at least part of what had happened, and how he was struggling whether or not to report it himself. Ray and I sat leaning on each other, both of us emotionally and physical exhausted, as we picked at our food. Finally I called home to verify the twins would be making their flight, and then we headed back into the makeshift courtroom.

Hicks was called back to the stand at one o’clock, and told his story without embellishment.

“Colton and I were closer than brothers ... we served in Iraq together, and this was our second time through Afghanistan. What he did was wrong, but ... so was turning him in,” he said, as he stared at Sherman.

At four in the afternoon on Friday, Colonel Martinez said, “We’ll recess until Monday, and trial counsel can call their final witnesses at that time.”

Captain Cox, shaken, stood and said, “Colonel, the trial counsel will not be calling any further witnesses. We rest our case.”

Martinez raised his eyebrows. They had no case. “All right then. And the accused?”

Elmore looked at Ray, then leaned close to him and said something. Ray nodded, and Elmore turned back and said, “The defense rests our case. The trial-counsel has already done an admirable job defending my client.”

One of members of the court-martial board stifled a laugh.

Colonel Martinez turned toward them and said, “As the trial judge, I must remind you this is a capitol case. In order to find the accused guilty of murder, you must come to a unanimous verdict. Specifically, you must find that Sergeant Raymond Sherman did willfully violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice by committing the offense of murder in Afghanistan on March 24th, 2012. Over the weekend, the court-martial board may deliberate for a half day only, starting at ten a.m. tomorrow. Does any member have any questions regarding these instructions?”

The board members stayed silent.

“Does counsel have any objections to these instructions not previously raised?”

“No, your honor,” Elmore and Cox both replied.

“Then the court-martial is closed.”

I stood, and met Ray, our arms around each other. And then I was sobbing. Because it was almost over.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go get some dinner, and then go pick up the twins?”

I nodded, but we couldn’t stop touching each other. Maybe we’d just skip dinner.

Is this your real hand? (Ray)

Sometimes, when I thought about Speedy, I tried to see it with a clear head. Those pitifully few seconds between the moment when Staff Sergeant Martin grabbed at Colton’s rifle and it fired, and Colton turning and firing at the kid. Rationally, I knew there was no time. No time for me to stop him. No time for me to turn superhero, grab the weapon and twist it up into a pretzel, and tie Colton up with his web gear. No time for me to turn the clock back and whisk Speedy out of there and save his life. No time to make it so the war never happened in the first place.

But then, that’s what war is. I was only fourteen when September 11 happened, but I remember it so vividly it was like it was yesterday. Mostly I remember waiting, for hours and hours, because my parents worked in the financial district, and they didn’t come home. I was fixated that afternoon on CNN, watching the buildings fall over and over. Going out on the back deck and seeing the smoke rising from Manhattan, my world turned into a war zone, my parents missing, and nothing but questions in my mind. Every time I dialed the phone I got “all circuits are busy.”

It was one in the morning before they came through the front door of our house, covered in ash and dust, and it was only after I stopped crying that I learned they’d walked out of Manhattan across the Brooklyn