Astride a Pink Horse (6 page)

He offered a quick “See you then,” hung up, and turned back to his laptop to do some background checking on the nation’s ballistic missile history, the country’s current nuclear strength, and Major Bernadette Cameron. Ten minutes later he knew that the statuesque, green-eyed major had been a UCLA tennis star, an
Essence
magazine cover girl, and a swimsuit model during college, but he’d found little about her military career except that she’d been an air force officer for nine years.

A half hour later he found himself self-consciously glancing into the dually’s side mirror to check on the state of his hair after
gassing up in Wheatland for the drive to Cheyenne. Now, as he pulled onto F. E. Warren Air Force Base, he found himself thinking,
A kickboxing black supermodel—damn!

Warren, the largest military installation in Wyoming, occupies a vast, flat, former hay meadow just west of I-25 and sits directly across the highway from the stadium and rodeo grounds used for the historic Cheyenne Frontier Days.

Although he’d spent twenty-six of his thirty-two years in Colorado and considered himself a Westerner through and through, Cozy found the contrast between the three alabaster-white, non-payload-bearing nuclear missiles that sat just outside the base’s fence and the folksy “Daddy of ’em All” rodeo grounds just across the interstate a little strange. Thinking,
Only in America
, he pulled his truck to a stop at the guard gate, rolled down his window, flashed his press credential at the MP airman manning the booth, and said, “I’m here to see Major Bernadette Cameron. She’s OSI.” Uncertain why he’d added the OSI except that it sounded like a more reasonable descriptor than “swimsuit model,” he waited for an okay to proceed.

When the boyish-looking MP asked, “Is the major expecting you?” instead of waving him on, Cozy said, “Yes.”

The guard stepped back into his booth, checked a computer screen, and returned with a driver’s-license-sized plastic base pass and a small black-and-white map of the base. “The major’s office is in Building 246, sir.” He handed Cozy the pass and pointed to a spot near the bottom left-hand corner of the map. “Just follow the road you’re on, take a left at the second stop sign, and take that road until it dead-ends. Building 246 will be the last building on your right.”

“Is everything on base so easy to access?” Cozy asked, unable to curb his reporter’s instincts.

The MP, who’d obviously been asked the question before, responded with a smile. “We’re air force–friendly here at Warren, sir.” He snapped off a salute, pivoted, and returned to the guard booth.

Thinking that air force–friendly or not, any American military installation whose primary mission involved the handling, deployment, and activation of nuclear weapons must of necessity be armed to the teeth, Cozy pulled away from the guard gate and continued down Randall Avenue, scanning the roadsides for the high-tech deterrents and armaments he knew had to be there even though they couldn’t be seen.

Building 246 turned out to be a nondescript two-story redbrick structure that sat by itself in what was still a hay meadow. A cluster of twenty-foot-tall piñon trees rose from the native Wyoming buffalo grass surrounding the building, and a small blue sign with white lettering near the front steps read simply, “Building 246.” Four slightly off-kilter cement steps led up to the heavy-looking metal entry door.

Cozy parked on the street, got out of the dually, and walked up the steps through the front door into a short stub of an entryway. The entry led to a hallway that ran north and south. A sign that was too busy for its size, with arrows pointing in every direction, was tacked to the hallway wall. Spotting “AFOSI 805” near the middle of the sign and a stubby arrow below it that pointed left, Cozy shrugged and headed in that direction.

Halfway down the hallway he passed a woman dressed in civilian clothes. The woman offered him a brief inquisitive look, and
they both continued walking. Major Cameron’s office, the last at the end of the hall, had a substantial-looking oak door with a tarnished brass nameplate at eye level that read, “Bernadette Cameron, Major, USAF.”

Cozy knocked several times before Bernadette swung the door partially open and asked, “Can I help you?”

“Hope I’m not interrupting. I’m Elgin Coseia,” he said, realizing that up close, Major Cameron’s dark brown hair was much curlier than it had looked from a distance. A thin, barely visible three-inch-long line of what he suspected were acne scars ran along the right angle of her jaw almost to her chin. Her skin was youthful-looking, on the dark side of café-au-lait, and as he stared at her in the dull light, it was easy to see that she was indeed striking enough to have been a model.

Avoiding his stare, she said, “No, no. Just swamped with paperwork. Come on in, Mr. Coseia.” She swung the door back, extended her right hand, and offered Cozy a firm handshake. “Bernadette Cameron. Pleased to meet you.”

Cozy slipped his hand out of hers to step into an orderly but confining fourteen-by-fourteen-foot room furnished with a desk and chair, a single straight-backed teakwood visitor’s chair with a matching side table, a credenza, and an institutional-looking four-drawer lateral file cabinet that hugged the back wall. An expensively framed black-and-white photograph of the Eiffel Tower hung above the file cabinet, and a photograph of a smiling, flight-suited, slightly younger-looking Captain Bernadette Cameron, clasping a fighter pilot’s helmet to her side and with a jet fighter in the background, sat on top of the cabinet. Next to that was a photo of a
man in air force dress blues. A brigadier general’s star was visible on each of the man’s shoulder epaulets, and although he looked pleasant enough and was smiling, Cozy had the sense that behind the smile was someone who could be unforgiving.

Bernadette took a seat behind her desk and motioned for Cozy to pull the guest chair up to the desk. Pointing to the photo of her on the file cabinet and scooting his chair forward, Cozy asked, “You’re a fighter pilot, too?”

“I used to be.” There was clear regret in Bernadette’s tone.

“So what kind of plane are you standing next to in the photo?”

“An A-10 Warthog. They’re designed for close air support.”

“Ugly-sounding name.”

“As they say, beauty’s in the eye of the beholder.” Bernadette sat forward in her chair and forced a smile. “But we’re not here to talk about my flying days, Mr. Coseia.”

Sensing that he’d touched a raw nerve, Cozy said, “You’re right. We’re here to discuss a murder investigation.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you if that’s why you’re here, but the investigation into the murder that occurred at Tango-11 isn’t part of my assignment. That investigation’s the purview of civilian authorities. My office is purely and simply involved in addressing the security breach.”

Thinking that the major’s response sounded rehearsed, Cozy said, “Okay. So you’re investigating a security breach and not a murder. Either way, I’d sure like to know why the air force was so quick to whisk those four antinuke protesters from last night out of Wheatland and down here to Warren.”

“For questioning.”

“Seems to me that Sheriff Bosack would’ve been the one to have first crack at them.”

“There’s no special order to the investigative process, Mr. Coseia. The sheriff needed to talk to the protesters, and so did we.”

“Yeah. But from what I’ve heard, he got all of twenty minutes, while you folks down here at Warren got a lot more.” Realizing suddenly that Bernadette Cameron’s eyes were the same deep shade of green as his late grandmother’s, Cozy found himself staring at her once again. “So where have you stashed the protesters, and when do we in the press get a crack at them?” he asked.

“They aren’t stashed. They’re simply being interviewed. They’ll be off this base and on their way home by early afternoon, I can assure you.”

“I see,” said Cozy, still hoping to make contact with Sarah Goldbeck before day’s end. “Is Sarah Goldbeck their ringmaster?”

“I’m afraid I can’t provide you with any more specifics about the protesters, Mr. Coseia.”

“Fair enough,” Cozy said, not wanting to remain stuck in one gear. “Let’s move on to the dead man, Thurmond Giles. Retired master sergeant, veteran of the Cold War and America’s silo wars, and African American. Any chance we could have a hate crime on our hands, Major?”

“Anything’s possible, Mr. Coseia.”

“You’re sounding less and less forthcoming, Major.”

“I’m only stating fact.”

“So you are,” Cozy said, trying his best not to sound exasperated. “Can you tell me if there were any serious blemishes on Sergeant Giles’s military record?”

“I can tell you that Sergeant Giles was discharged honorably after twenty years of service.”

“Major, please. You’re sounding like a windup doll. We both know that I can dig up what’s in Sergeant Giles’s service record. I just want to know whether or not Giles butted his head up against any air force rules during that twenty years.”

“What I can tell you is that Sergeant Giles was a skilled technician and that his fitness reports indicate that he was always one of his missile detachment’s best.”

“Glowing reference,” Cozy said, sarcastically. “Mind telling me what his job assignment was?”

Bernadette hesitated briefly before responding, “For most of his air force career, Sergeant Giles was assigned to missile maintenance squadrons.”

“So his job was servicing nukes.”

“If that’s the terminology you prefer, yes.”

“Did he have any special technical expertise?”

“The sergeant’s specialty was missile-warhead maintenance.”

“Hmm. So in effect, the late Sergeant Giles was what you might call an atomic-bomb maintenance expert?”

“Nuclear-missile warheads are not atomic bombs, Mr. Coseia.”

“Nope, but a rose by any other name,” Cozy said, shaking his head. “So let me see if I can’t sort this all out. We’ve got a highlevel security breach at a mothballed missile-silo site and a murdered man on our hands. And as it turns out, the dead man isn’t just your friendly neighborhood air-conditioning and refrigerator repairman but your local atom-bomb maintenance jockey.”

“Your sarcasm is not very funny, Mr. Coseia.”

“Perhaps not. So what about the racial angle? Anything there?”

“It will be looked into thoroughly. We’ve already been in contact with the local NAACP.”

“I see,” Cozy said, sitting back in his chair. “Has the air force had any past problems at Tango-11?”

“None.”

“What about problems at other deactivated missile-silo sites?”

“Nothing more than what you’d expect. Minor vandalism, rare instances of trespassing; that’s about it. People around this part of the country know what abandoned missile-silo sites look like, and they generally stay away from them.”

“Well, they didn’t this time.”

“And we’ll ultimately find out why. Now, is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Not that I can think of at the moment,” said Cozy, sensing that he was about to be shown the door. “But I’m sure that sooner or later something’ll pop up. I’d appreciate having your business card if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” Bernadette slipped a business card from a holder on her desk and handed it to him. “Hope I’ve been helpful,” she said, standing and extending her right hand across the desk to the still seated Cozy.

Recognizing as he rose and Bernadette broke their handshake that in heels the statuesque major stood nearly as tall as he, Cozy asked, “Why’d you stop flying?”

Bernadette’s answer came slowly. “I developed severe hay fever.”

“Hay fever? The air force grounded you for that?”

“Fighter pilots can’t have hay fever, Mr. Coseia. It’s a nonnegotiable rule.”

“Been there with the rules game a time or two myself, Major. Sorry.”

The sincerity in the casually dressed, ruggedly handsome reporter’s tone caused Bernadette to glance self-consciously around her office as if she were in search of an answer to a problem she hadn’t been able to solve.

“Thanks for the info, Major,” Cozy said, heading for the door.

“You’re welcome.” Watching Cozy limp across the room, she asked, “Catch a cramp?”

“Nope. Just my own special kind of hay fever,” he said, leaving Bernadette standing behind her desk looking puzzled by the strange answer.

During the twenty minutes that he’d been talking with Sheriff Bosack in the sheriff’s spartan office, Freddy Dames hadn’t been able to get one ounce of information that he considered to be worth writing about.

He had a potential blockbuster of a news story, the first salvo of which he’d been able to serve up on the web ahead of every regional news outlet in the Rockies and the Southwest. But he couldn’t keep the story coming if he couldn’t continue to prime the pump, and it looked as if the man he’d initially pegged as a country bumpkin, a man he now knew had once been a professional rodeo star, wasn’t the rube he’d believed him to be.

The frustrated look on Freddy’s face told Bosack that he was leading for the moment in what he unfortunately expected to be an ongoing race. Glancing up at the school clock on the wall behind Freddy, he said, “We’ve been sittin’ here talkin’ since close to noon, Mr. Dames, and to tell you the truth, I’m winded.” Bosack rose from the leather captain’s chair his staff had given him for his birthday the previous year, stepped from behind his desk, and walked over to the only window in the room to adjust the blinds.