The General's Daughter (26 page)

There was a long silence, then Colonel Fowler said, “All right, I’ll let you take his brush or comb, but if anything else
in his office is touched, I’ll have you charged.”

“Yes, sir. Will you instruct the duty sergeant?”

“Put him on.”

“Yes, sir.” I motioned to Stroud, who went out and got Sergeant Corman. I said to Corman, “Colonel Fowler, the post adjutant,
wishes to speak to you.”

He took the phone without enthusiasm, and his end of the conversation went something like “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes,
sir.” He hung up and said to me, “If you’ll cover the phones, I’ll go look for his brush or comb.”

“Fine. Wrap it in a handkerchief.”

He took a set of keys and left the office. I heard his footsteps retreating down the hallway.

I said to Corporal Stroud, “We’ll be outside. Wait here and collect the evidence.”

“Yes, sir.”

Corporal Stroud seemed happy to be of help in the case. Cynthia and I went outside and stood in the headlights of the MP vehicle.

Cynthia said to me, “This place is tight.”

“If you were conducting experiments in brainwashing, interrogation techniques, morale destruction, and producing fear and
panic, you might not want outsiders snooping around.”

“That’s what she was involved in, wasn’t it?”

“I believe so.” I added, “They have cell blocks here where they keep volunteers for their experiments, and they have an entire
mock POW camp out on the reservation.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I worked on a case with a psychologist about a year ago who had once been stationed here. He applied for a transfer.”

“I guess this place could get to you.”

“Yes. You know, I found a piece of paper in Ann Campbell’s personnel file—another Nietzsche quote. It said, ‘Whoever fights
monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss
also looks into you.’ ”

“How in the world did that get in there?”

“Don’t know, but I think I understand what it means.”

“Yes… I think we both do.” She said, “Sometimes I want to do something else for a living. I’m getting tired of vaginal swabs
and DNA testing of sperm, and taking statements from rapists and rape victims.”

“Right. I think ten years is the limit. I’ve had almost twenty. This is my last case.”

“Do you say that every time?”

“Yes.”

Corporal Stroud came out of the headquarters building holding something in his hand, and as he got closer, we could see him
smiling. He called out, “He found it.”

We met him on the sidewalk, and he handed me a hairbrush wrapped in an olive-drab handkerchief.

I said to him, “You know about chain of custody. I need a statement from you describing how and where we found this, when,
who, and so forth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Signed, sealed, marked ‘Brenner,’ and in the provost marshal’s office before 0600 hours,”

“Yes, sir.”

Cynthia asked him, “Would you know what kind of vehicle Colonel Moore drives?”

He thought a moment. “Let’s see… old car… kind of beat-up… gray sedan… what the hell is that? Right, a big Ford Fairlane,
about ’85 or ’86.”

“You’ve been very helpful.” She added, “This is all strictly confidential.”

Corporal Stroud nodded and offered, “Anything else you want to know about Colonel Moore, ask me, and if I don’t know, I’ll
find out.”

“Thank you,” I said. Clearly, there were those who would like to see Colonel Moore on death row in Leavenworth.

We exchanged salutes and went back to our respective vehicles.

Cynthia put the Mustang in gear. “Jordan Field?”

“Right.”

We left the main post again and drove out onto the military reservation. The 100,000 acres of government property computed
to something like 150 square miles of mostly uninhabited land. There are, however, backcountry people, poachers, hunters,
and trappers who trespassed frequently. Also, from the days that preceded Camp Hadley, there are ghost towns, old cemeteries,
country churches, abandoned quarries and logging camps, as well as ramshackle structures from what used to be the Beaumont
Plantation. It was a unique environment, sort of frozen in time when the government exercised its right of eminent domain
to meet the national emergency of the great war to end all wars.

As I said, I took my infantry basic training and advanced infantry training here, and I still remember the terrain: an inhospitable
and eerily quiet landscape of wooded hills, lakes and ponds, swamps and marshes, and a species of hanging moss that gave off
a phosphorescent glow at night that caused visual disorientation.

The training itself was a grueling program whose objective was to turn normally fucked-up American kids into efficient, motivated,
and loyal combat-ready soldiers with a healthy desire to kill. The whole process took only four months, though they were long,
intensive months. With a little leave time thrown in, you could enter the Army in June, after high school, as I did, and find
yourself in the jungle with an M-16 rifle before Christmas, as I also did, with new clothes and a different head. Amazing.

Cynthia said, apropos of my silence, “Are you solving the case?”

“No, I was reminiscing. I took my infantry training here.”

“Was that World War II or Korea?”

“You’re engaging in unacceptable ageism. Watch yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

I said, “Have you ever penetrated into the wilds of this reservation?”

“No. Rifle range six is as far as I’ve gone.”

“That’s only scratching the surface. If you take this road coming up to the left here—General Pershing Road—it leads to the
major training sites. There are artillery and mortar practice ranges and areas for special training exercises, like things
called ‘The Rifle Company in the Attack,’ and ‘Armor and Infantry Joint Operations,’ ‘The Ambush,’ ‘The Night Patrol,’ and
so on.”

“No picnic areas?”

“Not that I recall. There’s also an old ranger camp in there, a mock European town for urban warfare, and a mock Vietnamese
village where I got killed about six times.”

“You must have learned your lesson.”

“Apparently. There’s also a mock POW camp, which the Psy-Ops School has taken over. That’s still active, and it’s a restricted
area.”

“I see.” She thought a moment, then said, “So, with all that space out there, a hundred thousand acres, tell me why Ann Campbell
picked a spot on an active rifle range, fifty meters from the road, with guard trucks, MPs, and a guard post a kilometer away.”

“Well, I thought about that, and three things come to mind. First, the obvious thing is that she was just going about her
duties and got jumped.
She
didn’t pick the spot.
He
did. That’s what everybody here thinks, but we’re not buying that.”

“No, we’re not. So if
she
picked the spot, she picked a spot that her partner could find easily, because unless you were a good ranger or something,
you could miss a rendezvous out in the deep woods.”

“That’s correct. That was my second thought. The guy was not comfortable or familiar with the woods at night.” I said, “Here’s
your turn for Jordan Field.”

“I see it.” She made the right onto the airfield road and asked me, “Your third thought?”

“Well, Ann Campbell picked what amounted to a nearly public place
because
it presented an element of danger. Part of the kick, and maybe, just maybe, an element of ‘let’s see what I can get away
with on Daddy’s property.’ ” I looked at Cynthia, who was nodding.

Cynthia said, “You may have something there, Paul. Pushing it in Daddy’s face.”

“Yes. But that’s supposing that Ann and Daddy seriously did not like each other,” I pointed out.

“You suggested that when we were searching her house.”

“Right. But I don’t know why I thought that. It’s just that I thought it can’t be easy to be the child of a powerful man,
to live in his shadow. It’s a common syndrome.”

“Yes… I don’t have one piece of information that says that’s so in this case, so why do I think it
is
so?”

“Because the lack of something said is as revealing as what
is
said. More so. Did anyone
say
the general and his daughter were inseparable, close, loving, or even good friends?”

“Well, the general did say his daughter would have liked me.”

“I don’t care what the
general
said. No one else said anything like that—not Kent, not Fowler, not Moore, not Yardley, and not even General Campbell himself,
if you think about it. So now we should find out what General and Captain Campbell thought of each other.”

Again she nodded, and said, “I have this feeling that there’s not much more left in the clue bag, and we’d better start putting
it all together before we get booted or pushed aside by the FBI.”

“You got that right. I give this case two or three more days. After that we start running into well-entrenched defenses. As
it says in the tank commander’s manual, our immediate advantage is shock, mobility, and firepower. We’ve got to hit them hardest
where they’re softest, and fastest where they’re slowest.”

“And get there firstest with the mostest.”

“Precisely.”

We pulled up to the MP booth at Jordan Field, showed our ID, and were waved through.

Cynthia parked her car among the vans and trucks of the forensic lab, and I took the plastic bag of clothing out of the trunk,
using a handkerchief, while Cynthia carried the hairbrush. Cynthia said, “If she took her own clothes off, he held the bag,
so there may not be any of the other person’s prints on her holster, boots, belt buckle, or anywhere. Except perhaps the bag
itself.”

“We’ll soon find out.”

We walked toward the hangar, and she said, “You’re pretty sharp, Brenner. I’m starting to admire you.”

“But do you like me?”

“No.”

“Do you love me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said you did in Brussels.”

“I did, in Brussels. We’ll talk about it next week, or maybe later tonight.”

H
angar three was bathed in bright overhead lighting and busy with the activities of Fort Gillem’s transplanted forensic units.
Colonel Kent had not yet arrived, which was fine for the moment.

I presented the plastic trash bag and the hairbrush to Cal Seiver, who needed no explanation. He gave the bag and the brush
to a fingerprint technician and instructed him to pass it on to the trace evidence section after the prints had been lifted.

With that bag of clothing, hangar three now contained all the known artifacts of Captain Ann Campbell, excluding the mortal
remains of the victim herself, but including her automobile, her office, and home. In addition, I saw that we also had in
the hangar the humvee she had used that night. As we got toward the rear of the hangar, I saw the recently developed photos
of the crime scene, all of which were pinned to rolling bulletin boards, plus sketch maps and diagrams of the crime scene,
a rising stack of laboratory reports, the protocol complete with color photos of the cadaver, which I did not look at, plaster
casts of footprints, cellophane bags of evidence, forensic laboratory equipment, and about thirty personnel, male and female.

In one corner of the hangar were about two dozen cots, and in another corner was a coffee bar. The Army, of course, has almost
unlimited resources and personnel, and there’s no overtime pay to worry about, and probably no other major crime at the moment
that would divert any resources. Sometimes even I am in awe of the force that is assembled and set in motion with a few words,
sort of like when Roosevelt said to Eisenhower, “Assemble a force for the invasion of Europe.” Simple, direct, and to the
point. This is the Army at its best. It’s at its worst when politicians try to play soldier and soldiers start to play politics.
That can happen in criminal investigations, as well as in war, which is why I knew my time to act freely could be counted
in days and hours.

Cal Seiver showed me a copy of the
Midland Dispatch,
the local daily, whose headline announced,
GENERAL’S DAUGHTER FOUND DEAD AT FORT.

Cynthia and I read the article, the thrust of which was that Captain Ann Campbell had been found naked, bound, strangled,
and possibly raped, out on a rifle range. The story was about half accurate, and the only direct quote from Fort Hadley came
from a Captain Hillary Barnes, a public information officer, who stated that she had no official comment except that the apparent
homicide was being investigated by the Army Criminal Investigation Division.

There was, however, a quote from the Midland chief of police, Burt Yardley, who said, “I’ve offered my assistance to Colonel
Kent, provost marshal at Fort Hadley, and we are in close contact.”

He failed to mention the problem of the purloined house or that he wanted my ass delivered to him on a silver platter, but
after our next meeting, he might start whining to the press about me.

Cal asked Cynthia, “Are those the running shoes you wore at the scene?”

“Yes. Do you want just the shoes or my feet in them?”

“Just the shoes, please.”

Cynthia sat on a folding chair, pulled off her running shoes, and handed them to Cal. He said to me, “Where are the boots
you were wearing at the scene?”

“In my off-post quarters. I forgot to bring them.”

“Can I have them one of these days?”

“Sure. One of these days. I’m sort of confined to the post for a while.”

“Again? Jesus, Brenner, every time I work on a case with you that involves the civilian police, you piss them off.”

“Not every time. Okay, Cal, I’d like you to send a team out to rifle range five to get casts of some tire marks.” I told him
where they would be found, and he started to amble off to take care of it. I said, “One more thing. When they’re finished
there, have them go to Victory Gardens on Victory Drive and take casts of a set of tires on a Ford Fairlane, probably gray,
1985 or ’86, with an officers’ bumper sticker. I don’t have a license plate number for you, but look around unit thirty-nine.”