Murder at the Pentagon (24 page)

The minister, whose name Margit didn’t catch, concluded the simple, brief service by thanking all those who’d come to pay their final respects, including fellow officers who had traveled from Washington to represent the armed forces. His final words were directed to Flo Cobol: “You raised a fine young man,” he said to her, “a loving son, a proud officer, and a citizen who contributed instead of just taking from his society.” Flo, who’d cried quietly throughout the ceremony, now completely broke down.

The cemetery, a ten-minute drive from the church, was fittingly small for the community it served. The minister sprinkled traditional dirt on the casket as he intoned, “Man, that is born of a woman, has but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He comes up, and is cut down, like a flower; he flees as it were a shadow, and never continues in one stay … ashes to ashes, dust to dust.…”

Flo Cobol, who’d had to be supported during the graveside ritual, now leaned against the limousine that had brought her and the immediate family to the cemetery. Margit and Maitland approached. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Cobol,” Margit said. “This is Brian Maitland. He was Robert’s good friend.”

“Thank you both for coming,” Flo said. She seemed in better control of herself now that it was over, at least the official portion. “I hope you’ll come back to the house.
Nothing elaborate, just some cold cuts and salads. I know Robert would have liked to have you there.”

Margit answered for both herself and Maitland. “Of course. We’ll follow.”

Fifteen minutes later Margit stood in the small, old-fashioned, and tastefully furnished house in which Cobol had grown up. There weren’t many people who’d extended the ceremony to include refreshments. Flo was busy in the kitchen, something with which she seemed blessedly comfortable, and Margit and Maitland stood awkwardly in a corner of the living room.

Susan, the cousin who’d spoken at the funeral, came up to them.

“Your words were touching,” Margit said.

“Thank you. I meant them. Robert and I were close.”

Margit shrugged. “What’s to say at this point?”

“Flo says you were doing a good job getting ready to defend him.”

“That’s kind of her, although I don’t know how true it is. I know I was determined to do my best. I didn’t do everything I could.”

“It’s bad enough to lose a son the way she has, but to have it come on the heels of everything else is beyond comprehension. To know that your son has died being accused of having murdered someone—well, it’s more than! could take, if I were Robert’s mother.”

Maitland, who hadn’t said much, repeated what the minister had said. “It stinks. It really stinks.”

People who’d come back to the house didn’t stay long after Flo had served the modest food brought in from her local deli. Soon, only Margit, Maitland, Robert’s cousin Susan, and Flo remained. They sat in the living room and talked about things other than death and funerals. Margit asked Flo why she’d visited Robert the day before his death, and hadn’t called her. “I didn’t want to bother you,” Flo replied. “I know you’re busy and …”

“Never that busy,” Margit said. “Did he seem unusually upset when you saw him?”

“Yes. He was very nervous. I didn’t stay long because I could see he wanted to be alone.”

Margit had grappled long and hard with what to do with the note that had been slipped under her door. She’d shown it to no one, yet knew she had to, at the very least, tell Flo Cobol what her son had written about her. She decided that rather than attempt to paraphrase it, she would show the note to Flo. She also made a decision while there in the living room that she would allow Maitland and Robert’s cousin Susan to share in it. They were people who obviously meant a great deal to Cobol, and he to them.

She pulled the note from her purse, went to where Flo sat on the couch, and handed it to her.

“What’s this?” Flo asked.

“A note from Robert. I don’t know who delivered it to me, but it was obviously written by Robert.”

Margit returned to her chair and watched Flo slowly remove the note and unfold it. She knew she’d have to explain Robert’s comment about not reacting to the message he’d left with her base locator on Friday night, but that didn’t matter. It was done, and she was willing to accept whatever blame assigned to her as contributing to his tragic demise.

There was silence in the room as Flo read what her son had written. She squinted as she read it again.

“What does it say?” Susan asked.

Flo took them all in and said in a low, dry voice, “My son didn’t kill anyone. He says he was set up.”

Susan took the note from Flo and read it. She looked to Margit for permission to hand it to Brian Maitland; Margit nodded. After Maitland had read it, Flo Cobol stood and looked at Margit with an expression that Margit read as anger. She left the room, returning seconds later with a copy of the local weekly newspaper. On the front was a picture of Cobol, the same photograph that had been in his personnel file. The headline said A
CCUSED
M
URDERER
T
AKES
L
IFE
.

“I gave them the picture because they asked for it. I
thought they were going to write a nice obituary for Robert. Instead, they tell everyone in this community that he was a murderer, that he’d killed someone.”

“Not just this community, Flo,” said Susan. “The whole country, the world, I guess, has been told the same thing.”

If Flo’s earlier expression had denoted anger, it was now rage. She threw the newspaper to the floor and went to a window that looked out on the street. “We’ve always had a good name in this community,” she said to the windowpane. “Robert was respected by my neighbors. People who have stores here always asked about him, especially after he got his commission in the army. Everyone was proud of him. And now what do they think?” She turned and looked at the newspaper that still rested on the rug. “They bring up the rumor about Robert having had an affair with this Dr. Joycelen. He didn’t even know the man.”

Maitland, deep in thought, legs crossed, a frown upon his face, sensed that people were looking at him. “What can we do?” he asked.

“Do?” Margit said.

“Yes. It isn’t right that somebody dies like this, painted like some Jack the Ripper.”

Flo returned to the couch and asked Margit, “Is there anything we can do to clear his name?”

Margit avoided Flo’s eyes. She wanted to be able to tell her that there was a great deal that could be done to clear Robert Cobol’s name, that there were avenues to pursue, people to contact who would work together to accomplish it. But she knew—and the realization made her feel like a rock about to sink to the bottom of a murky lake—that there wasn’t any avenue, wasn’t any person to go to, at least not in the military chain of command. To whom could she give the note? Would it matter if she gave it to anyone? Cobol had made a vague accusation in it that some unidentified person had “set him up.” A guilty man grasping at straws was the way it would be viewed.

“You knew my son well?” Flo asked Maitland.

“Yes, I did. We were roommates.”

Flo smiled. “Robert never said anything to me about his private life, but he told me he’d met a nice young man and that you were living together. I guess …”

“Robert was very special to me,” Maitland said. “I didn’t want to come here today because I felt awkward about it, but I’m glad I did. He came from a nice family. I can see that.”

As Flo and Maitland talked, Margit left the house and stood on the front cement stoop. Small children played in the tiny front yard of a house across the street. That’s what happens to neighborhoods, she thought. One generation moves on, and a new, younger one moves in. The children’s giggles were shrill and pleasant. Margit looked above them and saw a dog’s face in the window, wanting evidently to come out and play, too.

She didn’t remember much of her childhood, but there were moments that had stayed with her. One had occurred when she was about the same age as the children across the street.

She and her father had just moved to a new base, which meant making friends all over again. Fortunately, a brother and sister about her age lived next door in Capehart housing, and they quickly became friends. They must have sounded the same way to older people on the block as these children in Franklin Square did, silly little creatures giggling and yelling at the top of their voices as they wrestled, chased each other, and in general played out their natural entitlement to fantasies. At that moment she could actually see herself back in the yard at the base, playing with the brother and sister. And then she looked up and saw her father at the door. He wore an apron because he was preparing dinner for the two of them, and he was smiling broadly. But his face was always more serious whenever he told her:

“Make sure you can live with yourself, Margit. Never sell out. Don’t ever allow yourself to be bought.”

Now she remembered. He always smiled again after stating
that creed, and said, “I know you never will. You don’t need this advice from your old man.”

Tears flooded her eyes. She wiped them away, returned to the living room, and said, “Maybe there
is
something that can be done to clear Robert’s name. I know some people who might be able—and willing—to help. Maybe they can do something I can’t.”

She said to Maitland, “Come on. We have a plane to catch.”

Sam Caldwell was not comfortable with discomfort. He never took the red-eye flights that lumbered overnight from west to east, and he always flew first class. Yet here he was, wedged in a coach seat at three in the morning, Washington time, exhausted from a day of unending meetings at Starpath, a belly burning from too much airport booze, and facing more meetings that day without any chance to sleep. His trip to his client in California, and his speedy return to Washington, had been arranged at the last minute, timing that had created his uncomfortable surroundings. First class on the flight was fully booked; something to do with a canceled earlier flight. Ordinarily, he would have waited for a morning departure, but he had to be back in Washington by nine.

At least there was a limo waiting for him at Dulles, courtesy of Starpath. It was in his contract. He was worth it, Caldwell knew, and so did his client. The Washington adage that not the best man but the best lobbyist usually won, even if the product was inferior, wasn’t lost on Starpath’s board. Caldwell was the best lobbyist. His “Me Wall”—photos on
his office wall of himself with Washington power brokers—was the most impressive in D.C.

The product, Starpath’s weapons system, was—well, it was still early in the developmental stage.

Caldwell’s first meeting of the day was at the Jockey Club in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Massachusetts Ave., Washington’s most venerable power restaurant, where Supreme Court justices celebrate their appointments, the Reagans celebrated their anniversary, and where type-A personalities from every venue plied their powers of persuasion on others. Buyers and sellers. Of something, and everything.

Caldwell’s breakfast companion hadn’t wanted to meet at the Jockey Club because he considered it too public a place for sensitive conversation. But Caldwell insisted. “Better to be out in the open,” he said. “I don’t need reporters with long lenses and parabolic microphones making something out of the fact that we’re meeting in some quaint goddamn inn in the sticks.”

Although Caldwell was early, Joe Maize, the lead Pentagon auditor on Project Safekeep, was already at a table. He stood as Caldwell approached; Caldwell ignored Maize’s extended hand and slid with bulky difficulty into the wine-colored booth.

“Good flight?” Maize asked.

Caldwell looked at him as though he were imbecilic. “Do I look like I had a good flight?” He ran his fingers over the stubble on his cheeks and chin and rubbed bloodshot eyes.

“Just a question,” Maize said.

“It was a lousy flight. It was a lousy day and night.” Caldwell opened a menu, closed it quickly, and asked, “What’s new here?”

Maize said, “You’ve only been gone a day.”

“A day is an eternity in this town,” Caldwell said, his voice raspy from a lack of sleep and an overdose of cigars. “One day and we could be a banana republic.”

Caldwell watched Maize pick up a glass of water. His hand shook, which pleased Caldwell. Nervous men were more likely to listen to good advice.

A waiter took their orders. Caldwell sat back and closed his eyes. Maize wondered if he were about to take a nap. Caldwell answered the question by opening his eyes and glancing around the room. You get to know a lot of people as a lobbyist, he thought. A top gun with a regulatory agency sat with a prostitute Caldwell had booked out on occasion. At another table a congressman with senatorial aspirations sat with the president of a leading political PR agency. A lobbyist for a large aircraft manufacturer conferred with an air-force procurement officer from the Pentagon with whom Caldwell had had numerous dealings.

Washington, D.C.

Caldwell’s early anger had further unnerved Maize. “What time is your meeting with Betterton?” he asked.

Caldwell jerked his head in Maize’s direction. “What?”

“Your meeting with the lawyer.”

“Eleven.”

“How much does he know?” Maize asked, dabbing at perspiration on his brow with a red napkin.

“Damn little at this point. He’ll know more once we meet.”

Maize stared at the red-and-white checkered tablecloth. His fingers were laced together; he kept unclasping his thumbs. “There’s no need for him to know—I mean, to know more than he needs to know to represent you at the hearing.”

Caldwell slowly turned and glared at Maize. “Are you telling me what to tell my attorney?”

Maize’s smile was conciliatory. “Hell no, Sam. It’s just that sometimes these lawyers end up knowing too much. That’s all I meant.”

Caldwell asked in a low growl, “You’ve received nothing from the committee?”

“No. Why would I?”

Caldwell’s sideways glance said many things, especially that Maize’s comment was stupid. “You’ve heard nothing from your bosses?”