The General's Daughter (12 page)

He nodded.

“I didn’t know her,” I said. “Was she good-looking?”

He glanced at Cynthia, then looked at me. “Real good-looking.”

“What we call rape bait?”

He didn’t want to touch that one, but he replied, “She never flaunted it. Real cool customer. If a guy had anything on his
mind, he’d get it out of there real quick. Everything I heard about her said she was a fine woman. General’s daughter.”

Harry was going to learn otherwise in the coming days and weeks, but it was interesting that the conventional wisdom seemed
to be that Ann Campbell was a lady.

St. John added gratuitously, “Some of these women, like the nurses, you know, they should be a little more… you know?”

I could actually feel Cynthia heating up beside me. If I had any real balls, I would have told him that the CID women were
worse. But I survived ’Nam, and I wasn’t going to push my luck. Back to business. I asked, “After you discovered the body,
why didn’t you go on to the next guard post, where PFC Robbins was, and use her telephone?”

“Never thought to do that.”

“And never thought to post Robbins at the scene of the crime?”

“No, sir. I was really shook.”

“What made you go out and look for Captain Campbell in the first place?”

“She was gone a long time, and I didn’t know where she was at.”

She was supposed to be behind the preposition, but I let that slide and asked, “Do you make it a habit to check up on superior
officers?”

“No, sir. But I had the feeling something was wrong.”

Ah-ha. “Why?”

“Well… she was… kind of… like jumpy all night…”

Cynthia’s turn. “Will you describe her behavior for me?”

“Yeah… well, like I said—jumpy. Kind of like out of it. Worried, maybe.”

“Did you know her prior to that night?”

“Yeah… not real well. But like everybody knew her. General’s daughter. She did that recruiting commercial on TV.”

I asked him, “Did you ever speak to her before that night?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you ever see her on post?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Off post?”

“No, sir.”

“So you really can’t compare her normal behavior with the behavior of that evening?”

“No, sir, but I know what worried looks like.” He added, in probably a rare moment of insight, “I could tell she was a cool
customer, like the way she did her job that night, real cool and efficient, but every once in a while, she’d get quiet and
I could see she had something on her mind.”

“Did you comment to her about that?”

“Hell, no. She woulda snapped my fucking head off.” He smiled sheepishly at Cynthia, revealing two decades of victimization
by Army dentists. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“Speak freely,” said Ms. Sunhill with a winning smile that indicated good dental hygiene and civilian dentists.

And, actually, Cynthia was right. Half these old Army types couldn’t express themselves without swearing, jargon, foreign
words from some duty station or another, and a little regional southern dialect, even if they weren’t from around here.

Cynthia asked him, “Did she make or receive any phone calls during the night?”

Good question, but I already knew the answer before St. John said, “She never made one while I was in the room. But maybe
the times I was out. She got a call, though, and asked me to leave the room.”

“What time was that?”

“Oh, about… about ten minutes before she left to check the guard.”

I asked, “Did you eavesdrop?”

He shook his head emphatically. “No, sir!”

“Okay, tell me, Sergeant, how close did you get to the body?”

“Well… a few feet.”

“I don’t understand how you could determine she was dead.”

“Well… I just figured she was dead… Her eyes were open… I called out to her…”

“Were you armed?”

“No, sir.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be armed for duty?”

“I guess I forgot to bring it along.”

“So you saw the body, figured she was dead, and hightailed it.”

“Yes, sir… I guess I shoulda checked closer.”

“Sergeant, a naked woman is lying at your feet, a superior officer at that, someone you knew, and you didn’t even bend over
to see if she was alive or dead.”

Cynthia gave me a tap under the table.

Having become the bad cop, it was time for me to leave the witness with the good cop. I stood and said, “You two continue.
I may be back.” I left the room and went to the holding cells, where PFC Robbins was lying on a cot, dressed in BDUs, barefoot.
She was reading the post newspaper, a weekly effort of the Public Information Office, dealing mostly with manufacturing good
news. I wondered how they were going to sanitize the rape and murder of the post commander’s daughter:
Unidentified Woman Not Communicating on Rifle Range.

I opened the unlocked cell and entered. PFC Robbins eyed me a moment, then put the newspaper down and sat up against the wall.

I said, “Good morning. My name is Mr. Brenner from the CID. I’d like to ask you some questions about last night.”

She looked me over and informed me, “Your name tag says White.”

“My aunt’s uniform.” I sat on a plastic chair. “You are not a suspect in this case,” I began, and went through my rap. She
seemed unimpressed.

I began my inconsequential chatter, and I received one-word replies. I took stock of PFC Robbins. She was about twenty, short
blond hair, neat appearance, and alert eyes considering her long night and day, and all in all not badlooking. Her accent
was Deep South, not very far from here, I guessed, and her socioeconomic status prior to taking the oath was way down there.
Now she was equal to every PFC in the Army, superior to the new recruits, and probably on the way up.

I asked the first question of consequence. “Did you see Captain Campbell that evening?”

“She came around the guardhouse about 2200 hours. Spoke to the officer of the guard.”

“You recognized her as Captain Campbell?”

“Everyone knows Captain Campbell.”

“Did you see her at any time after that?”

“No.”

“She never came to your post?”

“No.”

“What time were you posted at the ammunition shed?”

“At 0100 hours. To be relieved at 0530 hours.”

“And between the time you were posted and the time the MPs came for you, did anyone else pass your post?”

“No.”

“Did you hear anything unusual?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Screech owl. Not many around these parts.”

“I see.”
Yo, Cynthia. Switch.
“Did you see anything unusual?”

“Saw the headlights.”

“What headlights?”

“Probably the humvee she came up in.”

“What time?”

“At 0217 hours.”

“Describe what you saw.”

“Saw the headlights. They stopped about a klick away, went out.”

“Did they go out right after they stopped, or later?”

“Right after. Saw the headlights bouncing, stop, out.”

“What did you think about that?”

“Thought somebody was headin’ my way.”

“But they stopped.”

“Yup. Didn’t know what to think then.”

“Did you think to report it?”

“Sure did. Picked up the phone and called it in.”

“Who did you call?”

“Sergeant Hayes. Sergeant of the guard.”

“What did he say?”

“He said there’s nothing to steal way out there except where I was at the ammo shed. Said to remain at my post.”

“And you replied?”

“Told him it didn’t look right.”

“And he said?”

“Said there was a latrine about there. Somebody might be using it. Said it could be an officer snooping around and to keep
alert.” She hesitated, then added, “He said people go out there to fuck on nice summer nights. That’s his words.”

“Goes without saying.”

“I don’t like cussin’.”

“Me neither.” I regarded this young woman a moment. She was artless and ingenuous, to say the least: the best type of witness
when coupled with some powers of observation, which she obviously had, by training or by nature. But apparently, I did not
fit into her narrow frame of reference, so she wasn’t offering anything free. I said, “Look, Private, you know what happened
to Captain Campbell?”

She nodded.

“I have been assigned to find the murderer.”

“Heard she got raped, too.”

“Possibly. So I need you to talk to me, to tell me things I’m not asking. Tell me your… your feelings, your impressions.”

Her face showed a little emotion, she bit her lower lip, and a tear ran from her right eye. She said, “I should’ve gone to
see what was going on. I could’ve stopped it. That stupid Sergeant Hayes…” She cried quietly for a minute or two, during which
time I sat looking at my boots. Finally, I said, “Your standing orders were to remain at your post until properly relieved.
You obeyed your orders.”

She got control of herself and said, “Yeah, but anybody with a lick of common sense and a rifle would’ve gone over to see
what was going on. And then, when the headlights never came on again, I just stood there like a fool, and I was afraid to
call in again. Then when I saw the other headlights comin’ and they stopped, and then they turned around real quick and whoever
it was goes barrelin’ back up the road like a shot, then I knew somethin’ bad happened.”

“What time was that?”

“At 0425 hours.”

Which would tally with the time St. John said he found the body. I asked her, “And you saw no headlights between the ones
at 0217 and 0425?”

“No. But I saw some after that. ’Bout 0500. That was the MP who found the body. ’Bout fifteen minutes later, another MP came
by and told me what happened.”

“Could you hear any of these vehicles from that distance?”

“No.”

“Hear the doors slam?”

“Could’ve if the wind was with me. I was upwind.”

“Do you hunt?”

“I do.”

“For what?”

“Possum, squirrels, rabbit.”

“Bird?”

“No. I like the looks of them.”

I stood. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Don’t think so.”

“I do.” I went toward the cell door, then turned back. “If I let you go back to your barracks, do I have your word that you
won’t say anything about this to anyone?”

“Who’m I givin’ my word to?”

“An officer in the United States Army.”

“You got sergeant stripes, and me and you don’t know your name.”

“Where’s home?”

“Lee County, Alabama.”

“You have a one-week administrative leave. Give your CO a phone number.”

I went back to the interrogation room, where I found Cynthia, alone, her head in her hands, reading her notes or thinking.

We compared interviews and concluded that the time of death was somewhere between 0217 and 0425 hours. We speculated that
the killer or killers were either in the humvee with Ann Campbell or already at the scene. If the killer had used his own
vehicle, he had not used his headlights or had parked some distance from where PFC Robbins was posted. At that point, I leaned
toward the theory that Ann Campbell had picked him or them up and driven him or them to the scene, but I did not discount
the possibility of a prearranged rendezvous at the scene of the murder. A random and fateful encounter seemed less likely,
considering her headlights went out immediately after the humvee stopped, because if Ann Campbell had been waylaid, there
should have been some time lapse between the stopping of the vehicle and the extinguishing of the lights. Cynthia asked, “If
this was a secret rendezvous or a tryst, why did she use her headlights at all?”

“Probably so as not to attract undue attention. She had legitimate business out there, but if she’d been spotted by a passing
MP patrol without her headlights on, she’d be stopped and questioned.”

“That’s true. But PFC Robbins was alerted by the lights, so why didn’t Campbell check Robbins’s post first, assure her, then
go back to her rendezvous?”

“Good question.”

“And why rendezvous within a kilometer of a guard post anyway? There are about a hundred thousand acres of military reservation
out there.”

“Right, but there’s that latrine with running water, and, according to Robbins, who got it from her sergeant, people go out
there to fuck. Presumably, they might want to wash up afterward.”

“Well, it’s still possible that she was waylaid by a psycho who didn’t realize how close he was to a guard post.”

“Possible, but the visible evidence suggests otherwise.”

“And why would she do it on a night she was on duty?” Cynthia added.

“Part of the kick. The woman was into kicks and kink.”

“She was also into doing her duty while on duty. The other stuff was her other life.”

I nodded. “Good point.” I asked her, “Do you think St. John is hiding anything?”

“Well, he wasn’t hiding his opinions. But basically, he told us all he knew. How about Robbins?”

“She told me more than she knew she knew. Not badlooking, either. Clean country girl from ’Bama.”

“If she’s a PFC, she’s young enough to be your greatgranddaughter.”

“Probably a virgin.”

“Then she can run faster than her uncles and brothers.”

“My, aren’t we in a rare mood.”

She rubbed her temples. “Sorry, but you bug me.”

“Well, why don’t you go get some lunch, and I’ll go call Karl Gustav before he hears about this from someone else and has
me shot.”

“Okay.” She stood. “Keep me on this case, Paul.”

“That’s Herr Hellmann’s decision.”

She poked me in the gut again. “It’s
your
decision. You tell him you want me.”

“What if I don’t?”

“But you do.”

I walked her outside to her car, and she got in. I said, “I enjoyed working with you these last six hours and twenty-two minutes.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I enjoyed about fourteen minutes of it myself. Where should I meet you, and when?”

“Back here at 1400 hours.”

She pulled out of the lot, and I watched the red Mustang blend into midday post traffic.

I went back into the provost marshal’s office and found out where my requisitioned office was. Kent had me in a windowless
room with two desks, two chairs, one file cabinet, and enough room left over for a trash can.