The General's Daughter (34 page)

Sounded solid to me. But of course if I squeezed it, it had some soft spots. I reminded him, “You said you worked late at
headquarters the evening before.”

“Yes.”

“Did you see Captain Campbell when she reported in for duty that evening?”

“No. My office is on the first floor, next to the general’s. The duty officer and sergeant use the large clerk-typist area
on the second floor. They just pick up the logbook and any special orders from a designated officer, then choose any desk
and make themselves comfortable for the night. I don’t normally see any duty officer reporting in.” He asked, “Is that satisfactory,
Mr. Brenner?”

“It’s reasonable, sir. I don’t know if it’s satisfactory until I can cross-check it. This is my job, Colonel, and I can’t
do it any other way.”

“I’m sure you have some latitude, Mr. Brenner.”

“Just a tiny bit. An inch to the left, an inch to the right. More than that and I’m free-falling into the jaws of my boss,
Colonel Hellmann, who eats warrant officers who are afraid to ask questions of superior officers.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I’ll tell him you did a splendid job and showed no fear whatsoever.”

“Thank you, Colonel.”

“Do you enjoy this?”

“I used to. I’m not enjoying it today. Or yesterday.”

“Then we have something in common.”

“I hope so.”

We all sat a minute. My coffee was cold, but I didn’t care. Finally, I asked him, “Colonel, could you arrange an appointment
for us to speak with Mrs. Campbell today?”

“I’ll do my best.”

I said to him, “If she’s as good a military wife as you describe, she’ll understand the necessity.” I added, “And we would
like to see General Campbell today as well.”

“I’ll arrange it. Where can I contact you?”

“I’m afraid we’ll be all over the post today. Just leave a message at the provost office. Where can I contact you?”

“At Post Headquarters.”

“Are the funeral arrangements complete?”

“Yes. The body will be in the post chapel after retreat tonight, and also tomorrow morning, for those who wish to pay their
last respects. At 1100 hours tomorrow, there will be a service in the chapel, then the body will be taken in a procession
to Jordan Field for the ceremony, then placed aboard an aircraft and transported to Michigan for interment in the Campbell
family plot.”

“I see.” Career Army officers usually have a will on file with the Army, and often there will be burial instructions included,
so I asked Colonel Fowler, “Is that the wish of the deceased?”

“Does that question relate to the homicide investigation?”

“I suppose the date of the will and the date of the burial instructions would relate to this investigation.”

“The will and the burial instructions were updated a week before Captain Campbell left for the Gulf, which would not be unusual.
For your information, she asked to be buried in the family plot, and the only beneficiary of her will is her brother, John.”

“Thank you.” On that note of finality, I said, “You’ve been most cooperative, Colonel, and we appreciate it.” Despite your
trying to blow a little smoke up our asses.

Superior officers sit first and stand first, so I waited for him to realize I was finished, and stand, but instead he asked
me, “Did you find anything in her house that would be damaging to her or anyone here on post?”

My turn to be coy, so I asked, “Such as?”

“Well… diaries, photos, letters, a list of her conquests. You know what I mean.”

I replied, “My maiden aunt could have spent a week alone in Captain Campbell’s house and not found anything she would have
disapproved of, including the music.” Which was true because Aunt Jean, snoop that she was, had no spatial perception.

Colonel Fowler stood, and we stood as well. He informed me, “Then you’ve missed something. Ann Campbell documented everything.
It was her training as a psychologist, and undoubtedly her desire as a corrupter, not to rely on fleeting memories of her
rolls in the hay out in some motel or in someone’s office on post after hours. Look harder.”

“Yes, sir.” I must admit, I didn’t like hearing these kinds of remarks about Ann Campbell from Kent or Fowler. Ann Campbell
had become more than a murder victim to me, obviously. I would probably find her murderer, but someone had to find why she
did what she did, and someone had to explain that to people like Fowler, Kent, and everyone else. Ann Campbell’s life needed
no apology, no pity; it needed a rational explanation, and maybe a vindication.

Colonel Fowler escorted us to the front door, probably wishing he hadn’t been on the telephone before so he could have escorted
us in without Mrs. Fowler’s assistance. At the door we shook hands, and I said to him, “By the way, we never found Captain
Campbell’s West Point ring. Was she in the habit of wearing it?”

He thought a moment and replied, “I never noticed.”

“There was a tan line where the ring had been.”

“Then I suppose she wore it.”

I said to him, “You know, Colonel, if I were a general, I’d want you for my adjutant.”

“If you were a general, Mr. Brenner, you’d
need
me for your adjutant. Good morning.” The green door closed and we walked down the path to the street.

Cynthia said, “We keep getting to the threshold of the great secret of Ann and Daddy, then we hit a wall.”

“True.” Despite the mixed metaphor. “But we know there
is
a secret, and we know that the stuff about imagined injustices and irrational anger toward her father is not cutting it.
At least not for me.”

Cynthia opened her door. “Me neither.”

I slid into the passenger seat and said, “Colonel Fowler’s wife had that look. You know that look?”

“Indeed I do.”

“And Colonel Fowler needs a better watch.”

“Indeed he does.”

B
reakfast or Psy-Ops School?” Cynthia asked.

“Psy-Ops School. We’ll eat Colonel Moore for breakfast.”

Each house on Bethany Hill had a regulation white sign with black lettering displayed on a post near the driveway, and, about
five houses from Colonel Fowler’s house, I saw a sign that said, “Colonel & Mrs. Kent.” I pointed it out to Cynthia and commented,
“I wonder where Bill Kent will be living next month?”

“I hope it’s not Leavenworth, Kansas. I feel sorry for him.”

“People make their own bad luck.”

“Be a little compassionate, Paul.”

“Okay. Considering the extent of the corruption here, there will be a rash of sudden resignations, retirements, and transfers,
maybe a few divorces, but, with luck, no courts-martial for actions unbecoming an officer.” I added, “They’d need a whole
cell block at Leavenworth for Ann Campbell’s lovers. Can you picture that? About two dozen ex-officers sitting around in their
cells—”

“I think you got off the compassionate track.”

“Right. Sorry.”

We left Bethany Hill and mingled with the early morning traffic of the main post—POVs and troop carriers, school buses and
delivery trucks, humvees and staff cars, as well as soldiers marching or running in formation; thousands of men and women
on the move, similar to, but profoundly different from, any small town at eight A.M. Stateside garrison duty in times of peace
is, at best, boring, but in times of war a place like Fort Hadley is preferable to the front lines, but barely.

Cynthia commented, “Some people have trouble with time perception. I came close to buying Colonel Fowler’s sequence of events,
though it was cutting it close, timewise.”

“Actually, I think he made the call much earlier.”

“But think of what you’re saying, Paul.”

“I’m saying he knew she was dead earlier, but he had to make that call to establish that he believed she was alive and late
for her appointment. What he didn’t know is that we would be at the deceased’s house that early.”

“That’s one explanation, but how did he know she was dead?”

“There are only three ways: someone told him, or he discovered the body somehow, or he killed her.”

Cynthia replied, “He did not kill her.”

I glanced at her. “You like the guy.”

“I do. But beyond that, he is not a killer.”

“Everyone is a killer, Cynthia.”

“Not true.”

“Well, but you can see his motive.”

“Yes. His motive would be to protect the general and get rid of a source of corruption on post.”

I nodded. “That’s the sort of altruistic motive that, in a man like Colonel Fowler, might trigger murder. But he may also
have had a more personal motive.”

“Maybe.” Cynthia turned onto the road that led to the Psy-Ops School.

I commented, “If we didn’t have Colonel Moore by his curly hairs, I’d put Colonel Fowler near the top of the list, based on
that telephone call alone, not to mention the look on Mrs. Fowler’s face.”

“Maybe.” She asked, “How far are we going with Moore?”

“To the threshold.”

“You don’t think it’s time to talk to him about his hair, fingerprints, and tire marks?”

“Not necessary. We worked hard for that and we’re not sharing it with him. I want him to dig a deeper hole for himself with
his mouth.”

Cynthia passed a sign that said, “Authorized Personnel Only.” There was no MP booth, but I could see the roving MP humvee
up ahead.

We parked outside the Psy-Ops headquarters building. The sign in front of the building said, “Cadre Parking Only,” and I saw
the gray Ford Fairlane that presumably belonged to Colonel Moore.

We went inside the building, where a sergeant sat at a desk in the otherwise bare lobby. He stood and said, “Can I help you?”

I showed him my ID and said, “Please take us to Colonel Moore’s office.”

“I’ll ring him, Chief,” he replied, using the informal form of address for a warrant officer. I don’t like “Chief,” and I
said to him, “I guess you didn’t hear me, Sarge. Take us to his office.”

“Yes, sir. Follow me.”

We walked down a long corridor of concrete-block walls, painted a sort of slime-mold green. The floor wasn’t even tiled, but
was poured concrete, painted deck gray. Solid steel doors, all open, were spaced every twelve feet or so, and I could see
into the small offices: lieutenants and captains, probably all psychologists, laboring away at gray steel desks. I said to
Cynthia, “Forget Nietzsche. This is Kafka territory.”

The sergeant glanced at me, but said nothing.

I asked him, “How long has the colonel been in?”

“Only about ten minutes.”

“Is that his gray Ford Fairlane out front?”

“Yes, sir. Is this about the Campbell murder?”

“It’s not about a parking ticket.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where’s Captain Campbell’s office?”

“Just to the right of Colonel Moore’s office.” He added, “It’s empty”

We reached the end of the hallway, which dead-ended at a closed door marked “Colonel Moore.”

The sergeant asked us, “Should I announce you?”

“No. That will be all, Sergeant.”

He hesitated, then said, “I…”

‘Yes?’

“I hope to God you find the guy who did it.” He turned and walked back down the long corridor.

The last door on the right was also closed and the sign on it said, “Captain Campbell.” Cynthia opened the door and we went
inside.

Indeed, the office was bare, except that on the floor lay a bouquet of flowers. There was no note.

We left the office and walked the few steps to Colonel Moore’s door. I knocked, and Moore called out, “Come in, come in.”

Cynthia and I entered. Colonel Moore was hunched over his desk and did not look up. The office was big, but as drab as the
others we’d passed. There were file cabinets against the right-hand wall, a small conference table near the lefthand wall,
and an open steel locker in the corner, where Colonel Moore had hung his jacket. A floor fan swept the room, rustling papers
taped to the block wall. Beside Moore’s desk was the ultimate government status symbol: a paper shredder.

Colonel Moore glanced up. “What is it—? Oh…” He sort of looked around, as if he were trying to figure out how we got there.

I said, “We’re sorry to drop in like this, Colonel, but we were in the neighborhood. May we sit?”

“Yes, all right.” He motioned to the two chairs opposite his desk. “I’d really appreciate it if you make an appointment next
time.”

“Yes, sir. The next time we’ll make an appointment for you to come to the provost marshal’s building.”

“Just let me know.”

Like many scientific and academic types, Colonel Moore seemed to miss the subtleties of the organizational world around him.
I don’t think he would have gotten it even if I’d said, “The next time we talk, it will be at police headquarters.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Well,” I said, “I’d like you to assure me again that you were home on the evening of the tragedy.”

“All right. I was home from about 1900 hours until I left for work at about 0730 hours.”

Which was about the time Cynthia and I had gotten to Victory Gardens. I asked him, “You live alone?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Can anyone verify that you were home?”

“No.”

“You placed a call to Post Headquarters at 2300 hours and spoke to Captain Campbell. Correct?”

“Correct.”

“The conversation had to do with work?”

“That’s right.”

“You called her again at about noon at home and left a message on her answering machine.”

“Yes.”

“But you’d been trying to call her earlier, and her phone was out of order.”

“That’s right.”

“What were you calling her about?”

“Just what I said on the message—the MPs came and completely emptied her office. I argued with them because there was classified
material in her files, but they wouldn’t listen.” He added, “The Army is run like a police state. Do you realize they don’t
even need a search warrant to do that?”

“Colonel, if this was IBM corporate headquarters, the security guards could do the same thing on orders from a ranking officer
of the company. Everything and everyone here belongs to Uncle Sam. You have certain constitutional rights regarding a criminal
investigation, but I don’t suggest you try to exercise any of them unless I put the cuffs on you right now and take you to
jail. Then everyone, myself included, will see that your rights are protected. So are you in a cooperative frame of mind this
morning, Colonel?”