The General's Daughter (50 page)

“Good idea.”

“I have to be in Panama by the end of this month. I’d like to finalize the divorce before then or it’ll take another six months
if I’m out of the country.”

“Right. I got my divorce papers delivered in the mail call by chopper while I was under fire.”

“Really?”

“Really. Plus a dunning letter for my car loan, and antiwar literature from a peace group in San Francisco. Some days it doesn’t
pay to get out of bed. Actually, I had no bed. Goes to show you. Things could be worse.”

“Things could be better. We’ll have a good weekend.”

“Looking forward to it.”

W
e arrived back at the provost marshal’s building. The media had decamped, and I parked in a no-parking zone on the road. Carrying
the printouts of Ann Campbell’s diary, we went inside the building.

I said to Cynthia, “We’ll speak with Colonel Moore first, then see what Ms. Kiefer has found.”

As we walked toward the holding cells, Cynthia observed, “It’s hard to comprehend that the man who runs this whole place could
be a criminal.”

“Right. It kind of messes up the protocols and the standard operating procedures.”

“Sure does. How do you feel about that bootprint?”

“It’s about all we’ve got,” I replied.

She thought a moment, then said, “But we’ve got motive and opportunity. Though I’m not certain about our psychological profile
of the killer or Kent’s will to act. Also, we have almost no circumstantial evidence.” She added, “But after having drinks
with him, I think our intuition is correct.”

“Good. Tell it to the FBI.”

I asked the lockup sergeant to accompany us, and we went to Colonel Moore’s cell. Moore was sitting up in his cot, fully dressed
except for his shoes. Dalbert Elkins had pulled his chair up to the common bars and was talking to Moore, who was either listening
very intently or had gone into a catatonic trance.

They both saw us approaching and both stood. Elkins seemed glad to see me, but Moore looked apprehensive, not to mention disheveled.

Elkins said to me, “Still set for tomorrow, Chief? No problem?”

“No problem.”

“My wife says to say thanks to you.”

“She does? She told me to keep you here.”

Elkins laughed.

I said to the MP sergeant, “Will you unlock Colonel Moore, please?”

“Yes, sir.” He unlocked Moore’s cell and asked me, “Cuffs?”

“Yes, please, Sergeant.”

The MP sergeant barked at Moore, “Wrists, front!”

Moore thrust his clenched hands to his front, and the sergeant snapped the cuffs on him.

Without a word, we walked down the long, echoing corridor, past the mostly empty cells. Moore, in his stockinged feet, made
no echoes. There are few places on this earth more dismal than a cell block, and few scenes more melancholy than a prisoner
in handcuffs. Moore, for all his intellectualizing, was not handling this well, which was the purpose.

We went into an interrogation room, and the sergeant left us. I said to Moore, “Sit.”

He sat.

Cynthia and I sat at a table opposite him.

I said to him, “I told you that the next time we spoke, it would be here.”

He didn’t reply. He looked a little frightened, a little dejected, and a little angry, though he was trying to suppress that,
since he realized it wouldn’t do him any good. I said to him, “If you’d told us everything you knew the first time, you might
not be here.”

No reply.

“Do you know what makes a detective really, really angry? When the detective has to waste valuable time and energy on a witness
who’s being cute.”

I verbally poked him around awhile, assuring him that he made me sick, that he was a disgrace to his uniform, his rank, his
profession, his country, and to God, the human race, and the universe.

All the while, Moore stayed silent, though I don’t think this was an expression of his Fifth Amendment right to do so as much
as it was his accurate estimate that I wanted him to shut his mouth.

Cynthia, meanwhile, had taken the printouts of the diary and had gotten up and left for most of the verbal abuse. After about
five minutes, she came back without the printouts, but she was carrying a plastic tray on which was a Styrofoam cup of milk
and a donut.

Moore’s eyes flashed to the food, and he stopped paying attention to me.

Cynthia said to him, “I brought you this.” She set the tray down out of his reach and said to him, “I’ve asked the MP to unlock
your cuffs so you can eat. He’ll be here when he gets a moment.”

Moore assured her, “I can eat with my cuffs on.”

Cynthia informed him, “It’s against regulations to make a prisoner eat with wrist manacles, chains, cuffs, and such.”

“You’re not
making
me. I’m perfectly willing to—”

“Sorry. Wait for the sergeant.”

Moore kept looking at the donut, which, I suspected, was the first mess hall donut he’d ever shown any interest in. I said
to him, “Let’s get on with this. And don’t jerk us around like you did the last few times. Okay, to show you how much shit
you’re in, I’m going to tell you what we already know from the forensic evidence. Then you’re going to fill in the details.
First, you and Ann Campbell planned this for at least a week—from the time her father gave her the ultimatum. Okay, I don’t
know whose idea it was to re-create the West Point rape”—I stared at him and saw his reaction to this, then went on—“but it
was a sick idea. Okay, you called her at Post Headquarters, coordinated the times, and drove out to rifle range five, where
you pulled across the gravel lot and behind the bleachers there. You got out of your car, carrying the tent pegs, rope, a
hammer, and so forth, and also a mobile phone, and maybe the tape player. You walked along the corduroy trail to the latrines
at rifle range six, and perhaps called her again from there to confirm that she’d left Post Headquarters.”

I spent the next ten minutes re-creating the crime for him, basing my narrative on forensic evidence, conjecture, and supposition.
Colonel Moore looked duly impressed, very surprised, and increasingly unhappy.

I continued, “You called the general’s red phone, and when he answered, Ann played the taped message. It was then, knowing
you had about twenty minutes or so, that you both began to set the stage. She undressed in or near the jeep in case someone
came along unexpectedly. You put her things in a plastic bag which you left at the humvee. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“She kept her watch on.”

“Yes. She wanted to keep track of the time. She could see the watch face, and she thought that would be reassuring somehow
as she waited for her parents.”

Odd, I thought, but a lot less odd than the scene that presented itself to me the first time I saw her naked and staked out,
wearing a watch and nothing else. In fact, I had come a long way since that morning, when I thought I was looking at the work
of a homicidal rapist. In truth, the crime had taken place in phases, in stages, and the genesis of the crime was a decade
old, and what I saw was not what it seemed to all the world to be. What I saw was the end product of a bizarre night that
could have ended differently.

I said to Moore, “By the way, did you notice if she had her West Point ring on?”

He replied without hesitation, “Yes, she did. It was a symbolic link to the original rape. It was engraved with her name on
the inside, of course, and she intended to give it to her father as a token of some sort—as a way of saying that the bad memories
that it symbolized were in his possession, and she did not want to be reminded of them again.”

“I see. . .” My goodness, this was a unique, if somewhat troubled, woman. And it occurred to me that there was some sort of
psychosexual thing between father and daughter that was buried deep down there, and probably Moore understood it, and maybe
all the Campbells understood it, but I damned sure didn’t want to know about it.

I exchanged glances with Cynthia, and I think she had the same thought that I did. But back to the crime in question. I said
to Moore, “Then you both walked out on the range, picked a spot at the base of the closest pop-up target about fifty meters
from the road, and she lay down and spread her arms and legs.” I looked at him and asked, “How does it feel to be thought
of as a handy eunuch?”

He showed a flash of anger, then controlled it and said, “I have never taken sexual advantage of a patient. No matter how
bizarre you may think this therapy was, it was designed to help, to act as a catharsis for both parties. The therapy did not
include me having sex with, or raping, my patient when she was tied up.”

“You’re one hell of a guy, an absolute paragon of professional standards. But let me not get myself all pissed-off again.
What I want to know from you is what happened after you tied the last knot. Talk to me.”

“All right. . . Well, we spoke a moment, and she thanked me for risking so much to assist her in her plan—”

“Colonel, cut the self-serving crap. Continue.”

He took a deep breath and went on. “I walked back to the humvee, collected the plastic bag of clothes, and also my briefcase,
which I had used to carry the tent stakes and rope, and which now held only the hammer, then I went to the latrine sheds behind
the bleacher seats and waited.”

“Waited for what? For whom?”

“Well, for her parents, of course. Also, she was concerned that someone else might come by first and see her humvee, so she
asked me to stay until her parents got there.”

“And what were you supposed to do if anyone else showed up first? Hide your head in the toilet bowl?”

I felt Cynthia kick me under the table, and she took over the interview. She asked Moore, nicely, “What were you supposed
to do, Colonel?”

He looked at her, then at the donut, then at her again and replied, “Well, I had her pistol in the plastic bag. But. . . I
don’t know exactly what I was supposed to do, but if anyone else came along and saw her before her parents did, I was prepared
to see that no harm came to her.”

“I see. And it was at this point that you used the latrine?”

Moore seemed a little surprised, then nodded. “Yes. . . I had to use the latrine.”

I said to him, “You were so scared, you had to piss. Right? Then you washed your hands like a good soldier, then what?”

He stared at me, then directed his reply to Cynthia. “I stood behind the latrine shed, then I saw the headlights on the road.
The vehicle stopped, and when the driver’s side door opened, I could see it was the general. In any case, it was full moonlight,
and I recognized Mrs. Campbell’s car, though I didn’t see her.” He added, “I was afraid that General Campbell might not take
his wife along.”

“Why?”

“Well. . . without Mrs. Campbell, the situation had the potential to get out of hand. I never thought that the general would
he able to approach his own daughter, naked. . . I was fairly certain that, if it were only those two, the sparks would fly.”

Cynthia looked at him a long moment, then asked, “Did you stay around for the exchange between General Campbell and his daughter?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“We decided that I should not. As soon as I was sure it was the general, I threw the plastic bag with her clothing onto the
latrine roof, then I hurried back along that log trail. It was about a five-minute walk back to my car, and I couldn’t be
certain how long this exchange between the two was going to last. I wanted to get my car on the road and head back toward
post as soon as possible, which I did.”

Cynthia asked, “And did you see any other vehicle on the road as you were driving back to post?”

“No, I did not.”

Cynthia and I glanced at each other, and I looked at Moore. I said to him, “Colonel, think. Did you see any other headlights
going in either direction?”

“No. Absolutely not. That’s what I was concerned about. . .” He added, “I was certain I wasn’t seen.”

“And you saw no one on foot?”

“No.”

“Did you see or hear anything when you were at rifle range five or six? How about at the latrine, the humvee, on the trail?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“So after you left, someone killed her.”

“Yes. I left her alive.”

“Who do you think killed her?”

He looked at me, sort of surprised. “Well, the general, of course. I thought you knew that.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Why? You know what happened. You know that my part was only to help her re-create the rape scene for her parents to see.
He got there—I saw him with my own eyes—and later that morning she was found strangled. Who else could have done it?”

Cynthia asked him, “What did she expect her parents to do? What did she say to you about that?”

Moore thought a moment, then replied, “Well. . . I think she expected them to. . . She didn’t know quite how they were going
to deal with what they saw, but she fully expected them to get her out of there no matter how difficult it was for them.”
He added, “She knew they wouldn’t leave her there, so they would be forced to confront her, confront her nakedness, her shame
and humiliation, and to physically undo her bonds, and thereby psychologically free not only her but themselves.” He looked
at us. “Do you understand?”

Cynthia nodded. “Yes, I understand the theory.”

I put in my opinion. “Sounds screwy to me.”

Moore said to me, “If Mrs. Campbell had been there, it might have worked. Certainly, it would not have ended in tragedy.”

“Well, the best-laid plans of shrinks usually go astray.”

He ignored me and said to Cynthia, “Could you at least pass that cup of milk here? I’m very dry.”

“Sure.” Cynthia put the milk near his manacled hands, and he took the cup with both hands and drained it in one long gulp.
He put the cup down, and we all stayed silent for a minute or so while Moore savored the milk as if it were a glass of that
cream sherry he liked.

Cynthia said to him, “Did she ever indicate to you that she thought her father might come alone, might become enraged, and
actually kill her?”