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didn't know for sure.   Jack
didn't talk about it much, but she knew that he had been everywhere in the
world where there had been a skirmish in the last 25 years.  He finally retired
from the reserves about 10 years ago.  
    Of
course, now, he was a police Commander in New Orleans working in the city with the
highest crime per capita of any city in the U.S.  Plus, he now was Commander
over the district with the most crime.   This was further complicated by the
fact that Jack was an honest cop and still clung to his ideologies, even after
all of his years of investigating murders, assaults, drugs, and abuse.   Jack
didn't even need to be in the trenches anymore.  He was a Commander, for God's
sake!  But, Alex knew that Jack would never leave the trenches.   It wasn't in
his genes.  He didn't go to meetings, ever if there was a way he could get out
of them.   He cared about victims and worked endlessly to avenge the dead and
maimed.   Besides, Jack liked to get even, and Jack liked to get back at the
perpetrators.   It was who Jack was and what had earned him the nickname of
"Get Back Jack."
    For
a fleeting moment, Alex considered calling Dr.  Robert Bonnet, the chief of
surgery at CCMC.  Robert and Alex were close to Jack and shared concerns about
him.   Six months earlier, Jack Françoise had saved both of their lives as they
were being pursued through the French Quarter by an assailant intent on
murdering them.  Consequently, a short while later, Robert had overseen Jack's
surgery after he'd been shot by that same man.  Robert had been injured as
well, by a gunshot injury to the medial nerve in his right arm that could still
cost him his career as a surgeon. 
    Robert
couldn't operate.   The verdict was still out on his injury.  Additional
surgery and physical therapy would render a determination of Robert's future in
a few months.   Hopefully, he would be able to operate again.   If not, he'd be
an excellent medical doctor, as Alex had told him repeatedly.   Robert was a
natural healer but he was NOLA’s most outstanding surgeon.   The police
Commander, the surgeon, and the lawyer had become close at that time and forged
a bond that would never be broken.  The three had traveled to Alex's home in
Virginia with her grandfather, Congressman Adam Patrick Lee, and her
grandmother, Kathryn Rosseau Lee, for a well earned vacation and deserved
respite.   Alex and Robert had been married while attending the University of
Virginia.  Later they divorced, but had begun to build a new relationship in
New Orleans.
    Alex's
thoughts briefly returned to her relationship with Robert Bonnet, back when the
two were still married.  Alex had loved Robert without reservation.  They  met
when Robert was a surgical resident and Alex was a doctoral student in clinical
nursing.  They dated for over a year, became engaged, and married at the University
Chapel on the Lawn in Charlottesville in a very proper circumspect ceremony. 
The marriage had merged two of the most powerful political families in the
South:  the Bonnets of Louisiana and the Lees of Virginia.   Robert's family
had been prominent in the social, cultural, and political fabric of the state
since the French had discovered Louisiana in 1769 and his ancestral grandfather
had been the first governor of French Louisiana.  Robert’s father, a former 
governor, presently served as a United States Senator for the great State of
Louisiana.
    Alex's
Virginia heritage was equally impressive.  She could trace her ancestry to
Richard Henry Lee, father of Robert E.  Lee, Commander and Chief of the
Confederate Army during the Civil War.  Her uncle still owned the ancestral
family home, Stratford Hall, in Westmoreland County.   Another relative owned a
historic plantation on the James River near Richmond.  Alex's grandparents,
Congressman Adam Patrick Lee and his wife, Kathryn Rosseau Lee, owned a large
estate in Hanover County, Virginia -- not