The General's Daughter (54 page)

“I don’t know, but when I saw him a few hours later, he looked composed, though now that I think about it, he was a little
distracted.” I added, “He disassociated himself from the crime, as criminals usually do after the first few hours, but it’s
coming back to him now.”

“Can we prove any of this?”

“No.”

“So what do we do?”

“Confront him. The time has come.”

“He’ll deny it all, and we’ll be looking for work in the civilian sector.”

“Probably. And you know what? We may be wrong.”

Cynthia was pacing now, having a debate with herself. She stopped and said, “How about finding the place where he pulled the
Jeep off the road?”

“Yes, first light is at 0536. Should I call you or nudge you?”

She ignored this and said, “The tire tracks will be washed out. But if he broke brush, we can see where the vehicle left the
road.”

“Right. This will remove some of our doubts. But it still leaves reasonable doubt, and we need beyond a reasonable doubt.”

She said, “There might be brush or pine needles stuck on his vehicle that can be matched to the vegetation that was broken.”

“There might be if the guy was an idiot, but he’s not. That Jeep is as clean as a humvee waiting for an IG inspection.”

“Damn it.”

“We have to confront him, and we have to do it at the right psychological moment… tomorrow, after the funeral service. That’s
our first, last, and only chance to get a confession.”

Cynthia nodded. “If he’s going to talk, he’ll do it then. If he wants to get it off his chest, he’ll do it with us, not the
FBI.”

“Correct.”

“Time for bed.” She picked up the phone and asked the CQ to ring us at 0400 hours, which would give me three hours sleep if
I passed out in the next ten seconds. But I had another idea. I said, “Let’s shower now and save time.”

“Well…”

Bad response. As my father once said, “Women control seventy percent of the wealth in this country, and a hundred percent
of the pussy.” Cynthia and I were a little shy, I think, the way ex-lovers are when they try it again. And all the rape talk
didn’t help set the mood. I mean, there was no music here, no candles, no champagne. The only thing here was the ghost of
Ann Campbell, the thought of her murderer sleeping in his bed on Bethany Hill, and two exhausted people far from home. I said,
“Maybe it wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“No, it wouldn’t be. Let’s wait until we can make it special. This weekend at your place. We’ll be glad we waited.”

Right, I’m absolutely fucking thrilled to wait. But I wasn’t in the mood to argue, and not clever enough to seduce. So I yawned
and threw back the covers of my bed. “
Bon soir,
as we say in Brussels.”

“Good night…” She moved toward the bathroom door, then, as she did last time, she turned back. She said, “Something to look
forward to.”

“Right.” I turned off the lamp, shucked my robe, and crawled, naked, into bed.

I heard the shower running in the bathroom, heard the rain outside, heard a couple giggling in the hallway.

I never heard the phone ring at 0400.

C
ynthia was dressed, the sun was coming in the window, and I smelled coffee.

She sat on the side of my bed, I sat up, and she handed me a plastic mug. “They have a coffee bar downstairs.”

I asked, “What time is it?”

“A little after seven.”

“Seven?”
I started to get out of bed, but remembered I was buck naked. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“How many people does it take to look at broken bush?”

“You were out there? Did you find anything?”

“Yes. A vehicle definitely went off Jordan Field Road, fifty meters from Rifle Range Road. Left ruts, though the tread marks
are washed out, but there’s broken bush, including a freshly skinned pine tree.” I sipped on the coffee as I tried to clear
my head. Cynthia was dressed in blue jeans and a white tennis shirt, and looked good. I asked, “Skinned a tree?”

“Yes. So I went over to Jordan Field and woke up poor Cal. He and another guy went back with me to the place, and cut off
the damaged section of the tree.”

“And?”

“Well, we went back to the hangar, and under magnification we could see flecks of paint. Cal is sending the wood sample to
Fort Gillem. I told him we suspected a black Jeep Cherokee, and he says that they can confirm that with the manufacturer,
or through their on-file samples of car paint.”

“Right. And we’ll find the scrape on Mrs. Kent’s Jeep.”

“I hope so. Then we’ll have the evidence we need to support your reconstruction of Kent’s movements.”

“Right.” I yawned and cleared my throat. “Unfortunately, if the paint is from a black Jeep Cherokee, it only proves that a
black Jeep Cherokee scraped that tree. Still, it settles it in my mind.”

“Me, too.”

I finished the coffee and put the mug on the nightstand. “I wanted to be woken. Did you try to wake me?”

“No. You looked dead.”

“Well… okay. Good job.”

“Thanks. I also took your boots to Cal Seiver, and he matched your prints to unidentified plaster casts and was able to post
your prints on his chart.”

“Thank you. Am I a suspect?”

“Not yet. But Cal did need to disqualify your prints.”

“Did you polish my boots?”

She ignored this and said, “Cal’s got a computer program from Fort Gillem, and he’s programming the computer in the hangar
to show the footsteps of each identified and unidentified person. I gave Cal a complete briefing on what we think happened
that night.” She stood and went to the window. “Rain stopped. Sun’s out. Good for the crops. Good for the funeral.”

I noticed a sheet of paper on the bed and picked it up. It was the computer printout of Ann Campbell’s letter to Mrs. Kent.
It began:
“My dear Mrs. Kent, I’m writing you regarding a situation that has developed between your husband and me.”
The letter ended:
While I respect your husband professionally, I have no personal interest in him. I would suggest that he seek counseling,
alone or with you, and that perhaps he should seek a transfer, or ask for a leave of absence. My concern is for his career,
his reputation, my reputation, and the avoidance of any appearance of impropriety within my father’s command. Yours very truly,
Ann Campbell.
I said aloud, “Impropriety within my father’s command.” I almost laughed, and Cynthia turned around and commented, “She had
balls. I’ll give her that.”

I threw the letter on the nightstand. “I’m sure Kent saw the original of this, and it freaked him out. Anyway, did Cal hear
from the footprint guy in Oakland?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay, I’m going to rise and shine, and I’m naked.”

Cynthia threw me my robe and turned back to the window. I got out of bed and into the robe and went into the bathroom. I washed
my face and lathered up.

The phone rang in my room, and Cynthia took it. I couldn’t hear much over the running water, but a minute later, Cynthia stuck
her head in the door while I was shaving and said, “That was Karl.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to know if he’d rung the wrong room.”

“Oh…”

“He’s in Atlanta. He’ll be here by 1000 hours.”

“Call him back and tell him we’re having tornados.”

“He’s on his way.”

“Great.” I finished shaving and began brushing my teeth. Cynthia went back to my room. As I turned on the shower, I heard
the phone ringing in her room. I didn’t think she could hear it, so I looked into my room, but she was on my phone. So, thinking
it was official and important, I went into her room and picked it up. “Hello?”

A male voice inquired, “Who’s this?”

I replied, “Who are
you?
”

“This is Major Sholte. What are you doing in my wife’s room?”

Good question. I could have said the clerk rang the wrong room, I could have said a lot of things, but I said, “Basically,
I’m doing what I did in Brussels.”

“What? Who the hell… Brenner? Is this
Brenner?
”

“At your service, Major.”

“You bastard. You’re dead meat. You know that, Brenner? You’re dead meat.”

“You had your chance in Brussels. You only get one chance.”

“You son-of-a-bitch—”

“Ms. Sunhill is not here. May I take a message?”

“Where is she?”

“In the shower.”

“You
bastard.
”

Why was this guy getting so bent up if they were getting a divorce and he had a girlfriend? Well, men are funny, and they
still feel proprietary toward their wives, even when they’re finalizing a divorce. Right? No, something was not right, and
I had the distinct feeling I’d made a big boo-boo.

Major Sholte said to me, “Your ass is grass, Brenner, and I’m the fucking Grim Reaper.”

Interesting metaphor. I asked him, “Are you and Cynthia in the process of a divorce?”

“Divorce? Who the fuck told you that? You put that bitch on the phone.”

“Trial separation?”

“Put her on the goddamned phone. Now!”

“Hold on.” I laid the phone on the bed and thought about things. Life really sucks sometimes, then it gets better and you
get optimistic again, and your heart lightens up a little and you get a little spring back in your step, then somebody pulls
the rug out and you’re on your ass once more. I picked up the phone and said, “I’ll have her call you back.”

“You fucking well better, you rat-fucking, mother-fucking—”

I hung up and went back into the common bathroom. I slipped off my robe and got into the shower.

Cynthia stood in the doorway and called out over the water, “I phoned the Psy-Ops School and confirmed that Colonel Moore
spent the night there. I left a message for him to meet us at the provost office in an hour. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I laid out your uniform. We should wear our uniforms to the service.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m going to change into uniform.”

“Okay.”

I could see her through the glass, walking across the bathroom into her own room. Her door closed, and I shut off the shower
and got out.

By 0800 hours, we were dressed in the A uniform, and we were in my Chevy Blazer, pulling up to the provost building. Cynthia
asked, “Is something bothering you?”

“No.”

I had another cup of coffee in our office and went through phone messages and memos. Colonel Moore showed up looking a bit
ragged, but dressed in his A uniform for the funeral. He had acquired a pair of dress shoes somewhere. Cynthia offered him
a seat. Without preliminaries, I said to him, “Colonel, we have reason to suspect that Colonel Kent murdered Ann Campbell.”

He seemed surprised, almost stunned, and didn’t reply.

I asked him, “Does it fit?”

He thought about that for a long moment, then replied, “He was becoming a problem, but…”

“What did Ann say to you about him?”

“Well… that he was calling her at all hours, that he wrote her letters, dropped in on her unexpectedly at home and in the
office.”

And so on. I asked him, “On the night she was murdered, when you called her at Post Headquarters, did she say he’d been around
to see her or that he’d called her?”

He thought a moment, then answered, “As a matter of fact, she did tell me that she wouldn’t be using her BMW that night, which
was the original plan. She told me to look for a humvee instead. She said that Bill Kent was annoying her again and that she’d
be less conspicuous in a humvee, and that she wanted him to see her car in the headquarters lot all night. This presented
a problem because her car had a wired-in phone, and I had a portable phone, and we intended to stay in touch as she drove
out to the range. But it wasn’t a major problem, and she drove out with the humvee and we rendezvoused on schedule.”

Cynthia asked him, “Did she mention Kent when you met?”

“No…”

“Did she mention that she’d been followed?”

“No… Well, she said she saw one vehicle behind her, but it turned off toward Jordan Field.” He added, “She felt that everything
was all right, and I placed the call to her father on my portable phone.”

Cynthia said, “Then you went out on the rifle range?”

“Yes.”

“After you were done, you waited by the latrine shed to be sure it went as planned.”

“Yes.”

“Did it occur to you,” Cynthia asked, “that Colonel Kent might be a likely person to come on the scene?”

He pondered that a moment, then replied, “I suppose it crossed my mind. He seemed to be hounding her.”

“And it never occurred to you that he
did
follow her and possibly murdered her?”

“Well… now that I think about it—”

I said, “You’re some sharp detective, Colonel.”

He seemed put off by that and replied, “I thought it was the general who… Well, I didn’t know what to think. My first thought
when I heard she’d been murdered was that her father had done it… but it also occurred to me that her father had simply left
her there, and some other person… some maniac… happened along… I just never thought in terms of Kent…”

“Why not?” I asked.

“He… he’s the provost… a married man… he loved her… but, yes, now that you mention it, it does fit. I mean, from a psychological
point of view, he had become obsessed and irrational. Ann could no longer control him.”

“Ann,” I pointed out, “had created a monster.”

“Yes.”

“Did she understand that?”

“On one level. But she wasn’t used to dealing with men she couldn’t control. Except her father, and perhaps Wes Yardley. In
retrospect, she didn’t pay enough attention to Bill Kent. She misjudged.”

“She failed Abnormal Psych 101.”

He didn’t respond.

“Okay, what I want you to do is go back to your office and write it out.”

“Write what?”

“Everything. A full account of your involvement in this matter. Deliver it to me at the chapel after the service. You have
almost two hours. Type fast. Don’t mention a word of this to anyone.”

Colonel Moore got up and left, looking, I thought, like a faint shadow of the man I’d met just the other day.