Chapter 4: New Home, Old Problems

January, 1985

The first thing I saw when I woke up was a giant rat scurrying into a storm drain. We were in Washington, D. C. Our nation's capital. It was a slum, as far as I was concerned. Daddy had arrived back in Oneida a week after he left, as promised. We packed up my stuff and tossed it into the trunk of our Cadillac. The Washington Monument was visible over the buildings and down side streets as we drove through the heart of the city. We stopped at a Pizza Hut, many blocks away from the rat, and ate. I loved Pizza Hut, it was my favorite restaurant back then.

After a good meal, we drove the half hour to Ft. Belvoir. It was a strange base. Most of the places I have ever lived were heavily forested or very hilly. Ft. Belvoir was flat. You could see for miles along certain roads and the buildings were somewhat more civilian looking than most military places I was used to. I was also used to a little more security on the bases I have lived on. Ft. Belvoir was strangely unguarded at the gate we drove through and I later learned that a major highway ran through the center of the base. That bothered me for a reason I couldn't get my mind around.

As we turned a corner, daddy announced that we were here. I looked out the window to see a street lined with two-story duplexes that looked a lot bigger than any other place we had ever been given. I looked at daddy and he shrugged at me.

"Don't look at me. I was told this was the only set of NCO (non-commissioned officers) quarters vacant. We would have had to wait another year to get in the smaller quarters," he told me as we pulled into the driveway.

I looked at the door and noticed a name plaque next to it which read "Sgt. Maj. McKiernan." I slowly turned an accusatory glare on my dad.

"You've already been here!" I yelled.

He raised his hands with a smile. "Honest, I haven't. Now get your bag and come on."

I grabbed my bag and jumped out of the car to race ahead of my dad to get to the door first. He smiled and unlocked the door. Immediately upon entering there was a hallway leading down to a living room, a door on the left and a doorway (minus any door) on the right. The door to the left was a bathroom so tiny daddy could just barely turn around in it. The kitchen was on the right. It was fair-sized and had enough room for a small dinette set.

Down the hall a little further was an alcove with two doors facing each other. The one you could see from the front door led down to the basement where the washer and dryer were. It was a huge area with a low ceiling. In the months to come I would wind up practicing soccer and my martial arts down there. The door facing the basement door was a coat closet.

The living room was big with a door to the back of the building straight back from the front door and the stairs to the second floor along the left-hand wall. It had a fireplace and a set of double glass doors opposite the stairs which led into the sun room. The sun room was a bright airy room with huge windows and about half as big as the living room. Dad and I would spend a lot of our time in Virginia in that room.

I was looking around the house with shock when dad laughed. "Come on, pumpkin. There is more upstairs. You get to pick which room you want. There are three of them!" He started upstairs and I trailed after him. "We will probably still be rattling around in this place when we leave. I still get the biggest room, but either of the other two is yours."

There was a door at the top of the stairs that led into one of the bedrooms. For reasons I couldn't explain, I passed on it. There were three doors on the other side of a railing as we reached the top of the stairs. The first door was the door to the master bedroom. I immediately ran to the two doors furthest from the stairs. The last door was the bathroom. It was decent-sized, with a tub/shower and enough room to do what needs to be done when bathing and grooming. My room was between the bathroom and daddy's room. It had a window that looked out on the rear of the house and was bigger than my last bedroom, so I was happy.

Daddy and I went out to the PX (Post Exchange) and bought a couple of sleeping bags and a picnic table so we would have something to eat and sleep on for the next week or two while we waited for the military to deliver our things. Daddy enrolled me in school, signed me up for soccer, and took me out to look at the karate school he told me about at Christmas.

It was early on a quiet Saturday morning the weekend before I was to start school that the doorbell rang. I barely registered the sound of my father going down the stairs as I tried to roll over and go back to sleep.

"Alexandra! It's the movers! Get out of bed and get dressed!" my dad yelled up the stairs in a voice which probably woke up the neighbors.

I rolled out of bed, er, sleeping bag, and slipped on a pair of jeans and a pair of socks and put on a flannel shirt over the t-shirt I wore to bed with my boxers. I stumbled into the bathroom and washed my face before pulling my hair back into a pony tail. The sun was streaming in the bathroom window and I could see the moving truck in front. The wind was whipping the steaming breaths of the movers away from their mouths almost as soon as they moved their lips to speak. It was going to be a cold day, but I had just spent the last two weeks in northern New York, so cold is relative.

I rattled down the stairs and found daddy standing by the open front door with a muscular man holding a clip board. He looked up and smiled at me. "Get something to eat and try to stay out of the way, pumpkin," he said before turning back to the man's clipboard.

As the movers began filing in with our stuff, I wolfed down some cereal before placing myself in the living room near the stairs so I could maybe catch sight of my stuff. I soon became aware that one of the movers, a seedy, gaunt-looking guy with a scraggly brown beard, was eying me every time he passed by with a box on his way upstairs. I glanced over at my dad and saw that both he and the head mover were glaring at the man.

"Alexandra, why don't you put a coat on and go outside and play. I am sure there are some kids in the neighborhood up and about by now," daddy suggested as the head mover started towards the stairs.

Frowning at being summarily dismissed, despite feeling a bit weirded out by the repellent mover, I grabbed my coat out of the closet and went out the back door. I wandered around the neighborhood for a while before coming back around and down our street. Across the street from our house was a field surrounded by huge oak and maple trees with picnic benches and garbage cans underneath them. On the far side of the field, beyond the trees, were the community center and the gym, complete with Olympic-sized swimming pool.

On the field, a dozen kids were playing football. I was watching for about a half hour before I felt someone come up on my right to stand next to me. The kid was a few inches taller than I was and somewhat bigger in build. Sweaty brown hair was peeking out from under a Redskins cap despite the cold and the body was comfortable in a thick Redskins jacket.

"Hey, you gonna play or just watch?" one of the kids suddenly yelled as play stopped.

"Yeah, Janet! You gonna play?" another demanded. Then I could see twenty-four eyes shift to me.

"Does your friend play?" came the somewhat challenging question after I was scanned.

The kid, whom I now realized was a girl, turned and looked down at me with penetrating brown eyes. "Well? Do you?" she asked, a smile tugging at her lips.

I shrugged. "I mostly play soccer. I have never played football," I said honestly, "but I am willing to try, I just have to be careful of my arm." I pushed my coat sleeve up enough for her to see my cast.

Janet nodded and led me over to the cluster of boys. "It is easy. That big oak there and the picnic table opposite it are one goal line," she said, pointing towards the far end of the field. Then her arm swung to a garbage can a few yards away. "That garbage can there and the telephone pole there are the other goal line. The sidewalk on the far side and the curb and this side are out of bounds. Can you throw or run or catch?"

I shrugged again. "I am mostly put in the defense in soccer, halfback or fullback, but if coach needed a quick score he would put me up front," I told her honestly.

Her eyebrows rose at that. "Are you that fast?"

"No," I replied with a giggle, "but I can kick the ball so hard a goalie can't stop it."

Janet looked at me for a long moment before smiling. "You can be on my team."

Thirty-five points later, Janet and her younger brother Joel walked me home. They lived two buildings down and we were talking and laughing like we had known each other for years as we walked up my driveway. The truck was gone and the movers had left. Daddy came walking out dressed in his dress uniform as we reached the car.

He looked at Janet and Joel before smiling at me. "I was just about to go looking for you. I have to go into work for a few minutes and you can't stay home alone," he said calmly, though I saw a little worry in his eyes. I nodded, said good-bye to my new friends, and climbed into the car.

As we drove, I noticed that there were fewer and fewer buildings until we turned onto a dirt road running beneath the thick woods that surrounded the paved road we had been driving on. The dirt road was so overgrown that you would probably overlook it unless you knew what you were looking for. After about two hundred yards, the road opened out into a clearing. There was a small building and a paved black top with enough space for a dozen cars. Over the front door of the building was a sign which read "Tactical Logistics" in small letters. No corps designation. No division designation. Not even a company designation. My innate curiosity was perked.

The parking lot was about half full when daddy shut off the engine. We got out and walked into the building. Immediately upon entering the building I stopped. Four MPs dressed in fatigues, with M-16 drawn, stood behind a metal counter which gave access to the rest of the building through a metal security door. None of the MPs was higher ranked than Sergeant. Another soldier sat at a typewriter. He was in his dress uniform and looked up when we began walking toward the tiny window in the wall behind the counter.

"This is a restricted facility, Sergeant-Major. Unless you have clearance, you and the girl need to leave," he said, turning to face us. There were captain's bars on his shoulders.

Daddy saluted, waited for the return salute, and then placed an envelope on the counter. "I am Sergeant-Major McKiernan and I am here to speak with Colonel Clancy."

The captain opened the envelope, glanced over the papers within and handed the envelope back. "Colonel Clancy is in his office. I will have Sergeant Malveaux show you to your office. The Colonel with be along shortly."

The security door buzzed and Sergeant Malveaux, a hugely muscled MP who was so black I had trouble seeing his features clearly, pushed the door open to let us through. He nodded respectfully to daddy and escorted us to an office with daddy's name already on the door.

It was a bare room with a large wooden desk, a row of four OD green filing cabinets and a green pleather couch for furniture. I sat in the big chair behind the desk and spun around until the door opened and daddy snapped to attention with a smart salute. The Colonel, a middle aged man with iron gray hair and a tall, lean body, returned the salute and smiled at me when I stood up and walked over to stand beside my dad. The older man's blue eyes twinkled as he winked at me.

"I am Colonel Clancy," he said, holding out his hand to me. "What is your name?"

Never having been overly shy or overawed by authority figures, I held up my cast with an apologetic shrug. The older man smiled and held out his left hand. I took the large, thin-fingered hand and gave back a firm shake. I saw the gray eyebrows rise slightly in surprise at my willingness to return his greeting.

"I am Alexandra McKiernan, sir," I replied, remembering my military manners at the last minute.

The Colonel smiled. "I am going to speak with your daddy for a minute, so why don't you stay in here and he will be back in a little bit."

I nodded and they left me in the office, closing the door behind them. I noticed that Sgt. Malveaux was standing right outside the door as it shut. That was the first and last time I would see the place my daddy was supposed to work while we stayed in Virginia.

When we got home there was a letter in our mail box from the District Attorney's Office of Oneida. Inside was a formal letter requesting my appearance at the trial of the boys who tried to beat me to death along with a subpoena. We were going back to New York.

On Monday the following week, daddy and I woke up before the sun to pack our bags into the car to drive to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Daddy was wearing his dress uniform and I was wearing my best pair of black pants and a white linen blouse. The actual distance from Ft. Belvoir to Andrews is about thirty miles. It took us an hour to get there. We left the car with an Air Force intelligence analyst friend of my dad's and took a military plane up to Griffiss Air Force Base outside of Rome, New York. The plane was packed with men and women in uniform and I got a bad feeling about our trip when we were given a pair of ear plugs as we entered the plane. For the next two hours I sat in a world devoid of sound except for a deeply and loudly resonant noise which drove all else from hearing.

The flight was the worst I was ever on but the pilots were so good that I wasn't aware we were on the ground until one of the airmen tapped me on the shoulder and flashed me a sign. I looked at daddy and saw he was taking his ear plugs out and I felt a slight jerk as we came to a complete stop. The airman smiled at me and lazily saluted my dad with two fingers as we stepped down the ladder and onto the tarmac of Griffiss.

I shuddered and sighed but daddy just laughed. "Don't worry about having to fly like that back home," he told me as he led me to the control tower. "There is a DC-10 going back to Washington National and it is a personnel plane so it will be pressurized and sound-proofed."

There was a jeep waiting for us at the tower. The airman in it told daddy that his party was waiting at the main gate for us. He just nodded and smiled secretively down at me with a twinkle in his eyes.

There was a familiar van parked next to the guard house at the front gate. As our jeep drove up, Aunt Sabrine and Anika got out of the van smiling and waving. They were both dressed up in fancy dresses with their hair and make-up done. We did the hugging and kissing thing for a few minutes before we all got back into the van. I found out that we would be going straight to the courthouse. The boys' lawyers had managed to get a motion before the judge and the prosecutor had spent the last three days trying to get us on the phone.

"Our phone lines were fouled and the engineers on post have been working on them since last Wednesday," daddy told Aunt Sabrine. "Why didn't he call my work number?"

"Because the last work number any of us had was for your office in Missouri. We called that in hopes that they could put us in touch with you but the bitch I was talking to was pretending you didn't exist," she said exasperatedly. She darted a quick glance at daddy and then jerked her attention back to the road. "Just what have they got you into down there that you are incognito?"

"Sabrine, you know that even if I knew I couldn't tell you," dad replied tiredly, as if they had had this conversation before. "Besides, Alexandra and I are just settling in. I just met my Colonel for the first time last week and I haven't been to my office more than a handful of times. I start classes next week."

"Hmph," was my aunt's mumbled response.

The adults were quiet the rest of the short drive back to Oneida from Rome. Anika and I talked quietly as she drew on the remaining space of my cast. "When do you get it off?" she asked, drawing the Duran Duran logo on my forearm.

"When I get back to Virginia I have to go to the doctor for another x-ray. If it looks all right, they will leave the cast off and I can start physical therapy. Once I get my arm strength back, I get to start karate lessons," I said excitedly, my little body trembling with anticipation. Anika shook her head and went back to her drawing. She still could not understand my wanting to know how to fight. Or rather, how to fight better.

It only took us about a half hour to get from the air base to the Oneida court house. It was barely 11 A. M. when we started up the steps. A nervous little man in a three piece suit came scurrying down with a harried look on his pale face. He looked like he could be old enough to be my grandfather and he smiled with relief when he saw me.

Smoothing his disheveled gray hair back into place, he reached out to shake my dad's hand. "Sir, I am glad you made it. And you Alexandra," he said, his voice high pitched and very stressed. "And I am glad you haven't got that cast off yet. The judge gave me until noon to have a credible witness to the attempted murder in his courtroom or he was going to have to dismiss the case. He is loathe to do that since the victims were members of prominent local families, not to mention they are minor girls. He will be as relieved to see you as I am."

Aunt Sabrine frowned up at the man as he began walking back up the steps. "Is their lawyer so good that you are this worried, James?" she asked, seeming to be very familiar with the man. "The last time I saw you in a courtroom Jimmy Carter was still in office. What has you so scared?"

The prosecutor turned grave brown eyes on us all. "I didn't get to be the District Attorney by letting big city lawyers steal defendants from my jurisdiction. Yes, their lawyers are so good," he replied with all seriousness. "I barely got their bail denied and these lawyers are notorious for defending certain organized business men of Italian descent in New York and New Jersey. They brow beat the judge into setting a noon deadline for your arrival. Now, if you would all follow me, my A. D. A. is babysitting the judge."

We followed him up the stairs and past several Oneida County Sheriff's deputies as we crossed the rotunda of the massively Greek room. Down several halls and up a flight of stairs at the rear of the building and finally we came to a set of large double doors being guarded by more deputies. They opened the doors for us and we walked into a large, seemingly empty courtroom, for all that there were several people in it.

The first thing I noticed was the four large deputies guarding the table at which the five boys were sitting. The four lawyers at the table were all dressed in navy blue suits and were whispering at each other and darting looks up at the officers. At the other table sat a young woman about daddy's age with long red hair, marble white skin and wearing a black skirt suit. She looked back at us with relief just as the judge came into the courtroom.

"All rise! The honorable Judge Peter MacGrady presiding," one of the two officers standing to the left of the judge's bench intoned.

The judge looked like he was in his mid-fifties, with graying black hair, gray eyes, and a lined face. He sat and smiled down at the D. A. "I see your people arrived in time, Mr. Hahn. Shall we proceed?"

The D. A. seated us behind him and two deputies entered the room and flanked the aisle, standing slightly behind my family and me. The prosecutor then stepped up to the podium placed before the judge.

"Yes, your Honor. On December 18^th of 1984, at approximately 10:30 in the A. M., the defendants were seen approaching the victims, all being minors, and proceeded to attempt to bludgeon them with various clubs and bats. The victim Alexandra McKiernan, in an attempt to save her cousin and her two friends, held off the defendants while the other three victims went for help. Upon reaching the scene, Sergeant-Major Sean McKiernan saw the defendants about to strike a killing blow and discharged his 9 mm semi-automatic pistol into a nearby tree and hence distracting the defendants from their intended course. Police were called and upon their arrival, they attempted to take the defendants into custody. The defendants began resisting arrest and swearing that they would kill the victim, Alexandra McKiernan. It took the combined efforts of fifteen officers to subdue the defendants and bring them into custody. They thus each stand charged with resisting arrest, three counts of attempted assault, assault and battery, assault with a deadly weapon, five counts of assaulting a police officer, and attempted murder. All are well old enough to appreciate their acts and their culpability in those acts and they have all been deemed of sound mind and so I ask that your Honor hold them over in this court and deny the defense motion to dismiss and the motion to send this case to family court."