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publicity surrounding this case, Lydia Eddelston couldn’t walk two steps off this post without some kid pointing at her and saying, “Look, Mommy, there’s the lady who led that man around by his ding-dong.”
    I thanked the sergeant and inquired, “Is this room cleared of listening and observation devices?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “How long do we have?”
    “One hour.”
    “Thank you, Sergeant. We don’t wish to be disturbed.” I turned to Katherine, who nodded, and I pushed open the door. We entered a small, rectangular room, about eight by fifteen, furnished in the functional, minimalist manner the army prefers, with only a long wooden table and ten wooden chairs.
    Private First Class Lydia Eddelston was seated, wearing a desert battle dress uniform, sans handcuffs, at the long wooden conference table. Her nose was stuffed inside a People magazine with Tom Cruise doing his I-get-paid-twenty-five-million-bucks-for-being-a-movie-stud smile on the cover—at the sound of the door being opened, she looked up, first at Katherine, whom she smiled at, then at me: the smile faded.
    We moved to the table and sat across from her. By way of introduction, Katherine stated, “Lydia, you remember I told you that a military lawyer had to be involved as cocounsel?”
    “I guess.”
    “This is Lieutenant Colonel Sean Drummond. We were classmates at law school and worked another case together.”
    Lydia stared at me, and it did not seem to compute that I was dressed in civilian attire.
    I extended my hand. As a senior officer I did not need to do this, but enlisted clients tend to become stiff or timid around senior officers and informal gestures can go a long way toward breaking the ice.
    Lydia Eddelston, however, was either too young, or was from a socioeconomic background where handshakes were not a common form of greeting. She stared at my hand for a few beats, then, almost hesitantly, we shook.
    I said, “Despite my rank, Private Eddelston, I work for you.” I continued with my standard spiel about lawyer-client relations, lawyer confidentiality, and so forth and so on, and ended, as I usually do, by asking, “Do you have any opening questions you’d like to ask me?”
    She thought about this too briefly. “No, sir. Don’t guess I do.”
    “After we’ve become better acquainted, maybe you will. In the meantime, I’m new to this case, and I have a few questions.” Like, what in the hell were you thinking when you idiots took pictures? But I didn’t say this, of course.
    She looked at Katherine, who nodded, which I regarded as a revealing gesture, then nodded at me.
    I started off, “Where are you from?”
    “Justin, West Virginia.”
    “Age?”
    “Twenty, sir.”
    “How long have you been in the National Guard?”
    “’Bout two years. Ever since high school. Signed up under delayed entry six months ’fore graduation.”
    “Like it?”
    “Sure . . . well enuff.” She paused for a moment, then had a reasonable second thought. “Least-wise, ’fore all this happened.”
    I did not want to talk about that yet, and asked, “Why did you join?”
    “Thought it would be fun. Maybe pick up a few skills fer afterward.”
    “Maybe earn a little college money?”
    “No, sir . . . didn’t really care nuthin’ ’bout that.”
    “I see.” I thought about that revelation, then continued, “Justin? I’ve never heard of it. Small town?”
    “Guess so. Only had, like forty kids in my graduatin’ class.”
    I smiled.
    Like a lot of residents from small, irrelevant bumps in the middle of nowhere, Lydia knew how to milk this angle and quickly elaborated, “Only got like, I don’t know, maybe two stoplights. Got a 7-Eleven, though.”
    Actually, a surprising number of the army’s recruits come from these anonymous pockets in the middle of Rural Nowhere, USA. For the most part, they make great soldiers—dedicated, hardy, industrious, not cynical like their big city counterparts, imbued, instead, with the