The General's Daughter (28 page)

“But why?”

“I told you. She hated her father.”

“Well,” Cynthia said, “she didn’t think much of herself, either.”

“No, she didn’t. And if I’m any indication, then the men who slept with her didn’t think much of themselves afterward.” He
added, “It wasn’t easy to turn that down.” He looked at me and tried to smile. “Can you relate to that, Mr. Brenner?”

I felt a bit uncomfortable with the question, but answered truthfully. “Yes, I understand. But I’m not married, and I don’t
work for General Campbell.”

He smiled wider. “Then you wouldn’t have been one of her candidates, so you’d never be put to the test.”

“Well…”

He added, “If you had no power, you got no pussy.”

Cynthia interjected, “And she told you—told everyone—who she slept with?”

“I assume she did. I think that was part of the program, to spread corruption, mistrust, fear, anxiety, and so forth. But
I think she lied sometimes about who she’d serviced.”

“So, for instance,” I asked, “you can’t say for sure if she had slept with the post chaplain, Major Eames, or the post adjutant,
Colonel Fowler?”

“Not for sure. She claimed she’d seduced both of those two, for example, but I think at least Colonel Fowler was not taken
in by her. Fowler once told me that he knew all about this and that I was part of the problem. I think he meant that he wasn’t.
He was the only one the general trusted completely, and probably for that reason.”

I nodded. I could see Fowler telling Ann Campbell something like “Don’t try that with me, young lady. I don’t need you.”

Cynthia said to Kent, “This is bizarre… I mean, it’s sick.”

Kent nodded. “Well, regarding that, Ann once told me she was conducting a field experiment in psychological warfare, and the
enemy was Daddy.” He laughed, but it was not a happy laugh. He said, “She
hated
him. I mean from the bottom of her guts and with all her heart. She couldn’t destroy him, but she was doing a hell of a job
hurting him.”

Again, no one spoke for some time, then Cynthia said, as if to herself, “But
why?
”

“She never told me,” Kent replied. “I don’t think she ever told anyone. She knew, he knew, and maybe Mrs. Campbell knew. This
was not a real happy family.”

“And maybe,” I said, “Charles Moore knew.”

“No doubt about it. But maybe
we
will never know. I’ll tell you one thing I believe. Moore was the force behind this. Moore told her how she could get back
at her father for whatever it was he did to her.”

Which, I thought, was probably true. But that didn’t establish a motive for him to kill her. Quite the opposite. She was his
protégé, his shield against the general’s wrath, his most successful experiment. The bastard deserved to die, but he should
die for the right reason. I asked Kent, “And where did your trysts with the general’s daughter take place?”

He replied, “Here and there. Mostly motels out on the highway, but she wasn’t shy about doing it right here on post, in her
office, my office.”

“And at her place?”

“Once in a while. I guess I misled you about that. But she liked to keep her place off limits.”

Either he didn’t know about the room in the basement, or he didn’t know I knew, and if he was in any of those photos, he wasn’t
going to volunteer that information.

Kent said to us, “So if Moore is the killer, you’ve wrapped it up without too much damage to the Army and to the people here
at Hadley. But if Moore is
not
the killer, and you’re looking for new suspects, then you’re going to have to start questioning a lot of men here on this
post, Paul. I’ve come clean, and you should make them come clean, too. As you say, this is homicide, and to hell with careers,
reputations, and good order and discipline.” He added, “Jesus, can you see the newspapers? Think about that story. An entire
general staff and most of the senior officers on an Army post corrupted and compromised by a single female officer. That will
set things back a few decades.” He added, “I hope Moore is the guy, and that’s as far as it has to go.”

I replied, “If you’re hinting that Colonel Moore is the best man to hang, though perhaps not the right man, then I have to
remind you of our oath.”

“I’m just telling you both that you should not dig where you don’t have to dig. And if Moore is the guy, don’t let him try
to take everyone with him. If he committed murder, then everyone else’s adulteries and actions unbecoming an officer are not
relevant, and are not mitigating circumstances for his crime. That’s the law. Let’s take one court-martial at a time.”

Kent turned out to be not as dull as I’d remembered him. It’s amazing how sharp a man can get when he’s looking at dishonor,
disgrace, divorce, and perhaps a board of official inquiry into his behavior. The Army still prosecutes for wrongful diddling,
and Colonel Kent definitely diddled wrong. Sometimes I’m awed at the power of raw sex, at how much people are willing to risk—their
honor, their fortunes, even their lives—for an hour between two thighs. On the other hand, if the thighs belonged to Ann Campbell…
but that’s a moot issue.

I said to Kent, “Indeed, I appreciate your honesty, Colonel. When one man comes forth and tells the truth, others will do
the same.”

“Maybe,” Kent replied, “but I would appreciate it if you kept my name out of it.”

“I will, but it doesn’t matter in the long run.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m finished.” He shrugged. “I knew that two years ago when I first got involved with her.” He added, almost
light-heartedly, “She must have kept some sort of service schedule, because just when I thought I could make myself believe
I’d never slept with her, she’d stop by my office and ask me to have drinks with her.”

Cynthia inquired, “Didn’t you ever think to say no?”

Kent smiled at Cynthia. “Did you ever ask a man to have sex with you, and the guy said no?”

Cynthia seemed a bit put off by that and replied, “I don’t ask men.”

“Well,” Kent advised her, “try it. Pick any married man and ask him to have sex with you.”

“The subject,” said Cynthia, very coolly, “is not me, Colonel.”

“All right, I apologize. But to answer your question, Ann Campbell would not take no for an answer. I’m not saying she blackmailed
anyone. She never did, but there was an element of coercion sometimes. Also, she expected expensive gifts—perfume, clothes,
airline tickets, and so forth. And here’s the crazy thing—she really didn’t care about the gifts. She just wanted me, and
I guess everyone else, to feel the pinch once in a while, to part with more than a little time. It was sort of a control thing
with her.” He added, “I remember once she asked me to bring her a bottle of some expensive perfume. Can’t remember what it
was, but it set me back about four hundred dollars, and I had to cover that at home with a loan from the credit union, and
eat lunch in the damned mess hall for a month.” He laughed at the thought, then said, “My God, I’m glad it’s all over.”

“Well, but it’s not,” I reminded him.

“It is for me.”

“I hope so, Bill.” I asked him, “Did she ever ask you to compromise your duties?”

He hesitated, then replied, “Just small things. Traffic tickets for friends, a speeding citation for her once. Nothing major.”

“I beg to differ, Colonel.”

He nodded. “I have no excuses for my conduct.”

That’s exactly what he was going to say in front of a board of inquiry, and that was the best and only thing he could say.
I wondered how she compromised the other men, besides sexually. A favor here, a special consideration there, and who knew
what else she wanted and got? In my twenty years in the service, including fifteen in the Criminal Investigation Division,
I had never seen or heard of such rampant corruption on an Army base.

Cynthia asked Kent, “And the general could neither stop her nor get rid of her?”

“No. Not without exposing himself as an ineffective and negligent commander. By the time he realized his recruiting poster
daughter had screwed and compromised everyone around him, it was too late for official action. The only way he could have
righted things was to inform his superiors in the Pentagon of everything, ask for everyone’s resignation here, then offer
his own resignation.” Kent added, “He couldn’t have gone too wrong if he just shot himself.”

“Or killed her,” Cynthia suggested.

Again, Kent shrugged. “Maybe. But not the way she was killed.”

“Well,” I said, “if we didn’t already have a prime suspect, you’d be one of many, Colonel.”

“Right. But I didn’t get burned as badly as some of the others. Some of them were actually in love with her, obsessed, and
maybe homicidally jealous. Like that young kid, Elby. He used to mope for weeks when she ignored him. Interrogate Moore, and
if you think he didn’t kill her, then ask him for
his
list of suspects. That bastard knew everything about her, and if he tells you it is privileged information, let me know and
I’ll put a pistol in his mouth and tell him he can take the information to the grave with him.”

“I might be a little more subtle.” I informed him, “I’m trying to get Moore’s office padlocked until I can get clearance to
bring it here.”

“You should just put the damn cuffs on him.” Kent looked at me and said, “Anyway, you see why I didn’t want the local CID
guys in on this.”

“I guess I do now. Were any of them involved with her?”

He pondered a moment, then replied, “The CID commander, Major Bowes.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Ask him. He’s one of your people.”

“Do you and Bowes get along?”

“We try.”

“What’s the problem?”

“We have jurisdictional problems. Why do you ask?”

“Jurisdictional meaning criminal activity, or meaning something else?”

He looked at me, then replied, “Well… Major Bowes had become possessive.”

“He didn’t like to share.”

Kent nodded. “A few of her boyfriends got that way. That was when she dumped them.” He added, “Married men are real pigs.”
He thought a moment, then said, “Don’t trust anyone on this post, Paul.”

“Including you?”

“Including me.” Kent looked at his watch. “Is that it? Did you want to see me for something in particular?”

“Well, whatever it was, it’s not real important now.”

“Right. I’m going home. You can reach me there until 0700, then I’ll be in my office. Where can I find you tonight if something
comes up?”

Cynthia replied, “We’re both in the VOQ.”

“All right. Well, my wife’s probably been trying to call me from Ohio. She’ll start thinking I’m having an affair. Good evening.”
He turned and left, making the long walk with a lot less spring in his step than when he’d entered.

Cynthia commented, “I can’t
believe
this. Did he just tell us that Ann Campbell slept with most of the senior officers on post?”

“Yes, he did. Now we know who those men were in her photos.”

She nodded. “And now we know why this place seemed so strange.”

“Right. The suspect list just got real long.”

So, I thought, Colonel Kent, Mr. Clean, Mr. Law and Order, broke nearly every damned rule in the book. This brittle, stuffy
man had a libido, and it led him right to the dark side of the moon. I said to Cynthia, “Would Bill Kent commit murder to
safeguard his reputation?”

Cynthia replied, “It’s conceivable. But I think he was indicating that his secret was public knowledge, and his career was
just waiting for General Campbell to have a chance to ax it.”

I nodded. “Well, if not to avoid disgrace and humiliation, as it says in the manual, then how about jealousy?”

She thought a moment, then said, “Kent is also indicating that his relationship with Ann Campbell was just sport for him.
A little lust, but no emotional involvement. I can believe that.” She saw that I wanted more from her, and she pondered a
moment, then added, “On the other hand, the motive he assigned to Major Bowes—possessiveness and, by extension, jealousy may
not be true and may actually be what Bill Kent himself felt. Remember, this guy’s a cop, and he read the same manual we did.
He knows how we think.”

“Precisely. Yet, I find it hard to think of that guy as passionate, jealous, or emotionally involved with any woman.”

“I know. But it’s the cool ones who burn hot at the center. I’ve seen his type before, Paul. Authoritarian, control freaks,
conservative, and obsessed with rules and regulations. It’s a mechanism they use because they’re frightened of their own passions,
and they know what lurks beneath the neat suit or uniform. In reality, they have no natural checks and balances on their behavior,
and when they spin out of control, they’re capable of anything.”

I nodded. “But maybe we’re getting too psychobabbly.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. But let’s keep an eye on Colonel Kent. He’s got a different agenda than we do.”

C
al Seiver said he was finished with Ann Campbell’s study, or what was once her study, so I sat on her sofa and played another
videotape of her psyops lecture series. Around me, the men and women of the forensic laboratory went about their occupation
of examining the microscopic particles of a person’s existence, the type of stuff that other people called dirt—hairs, fibers,
dust, fingerprints, smudges, and stains.

In and of themselves, hairs, fibers, prints, and all that were innocuous, but if, for instance, a set of fingerprints was
lifted from a liquor bottle in Ann Campbell’s cupboard, and if the prints turned out to belong to, say, Colonel George Fowler,
then the possibilities were two: he gave the bottle to her and she took it home, or he was in her home. But if Fowler’s prints
were found, say, on the mirror of her bathroom, that would be presumptive evidence that he was actually in the bathroom. In
fact, however, the latent-fingerprint section, using prints on file, had not yet matched any known prints to the ones they’d
found, except mine, Cynthia’s, Ann Campbell’s, and Colonel Kent’s—which could be explained two ways. Eventually, they would
match prints to Chief Yardley, and again, Yardley, being one of the polluters of the stored evidence, had an explanation.
They’d find Moore’s prints, too, but as her boss and neighbor, that was meaningless. And since we had no further access to
things like Ann Campbell’s bathroom mirror or her shower, those kinds of prints, which were very suggestive, were not going
to be found by us, but by Chief Yardley, who would have the whole house dusted by now. And any prints he didn’t like, such
as his son’s, would disappear.