The Night Crew (18 page)

I looked at Katherine and neither of us had any more questions for Lydia at that moment. But it was a relief to confirm that we had nothing to fear regarding Palchaci’s murder, on either CID’s part, or Lydia’s. We bid Lydia farewell and walked out to the hallway.

Once we were far enough away that we couldn’t be overheard I said to Katherine, “We’re going to need a major coaching session before the trial.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Katherine, she thinks she was the life of the big party and the guests had the time of their lives. She thinks it’s okay to force a man to orgasm. She thinks Uncle Sam owes her a big hug and maybe a medal or two. And those are just the idiotic delusions we know about.”

Katherine did not reply. Finally she asked, “Can you think of a way to make the pictures go away?”

“Didn’t we already go over this?”

“Remind me, what did we say?”

“We agreed to select the worst ones and submit a pretrial motion to the judge for exclusion on the grounds that they’re superfluous and prejudicial. Don’t play games with me, Katherine.”

“So you don’t intend to challenge
all
the pictures?”

“What’s your point?”

We were out in the parking lot now, walking through the rows of cars. Being an army post, there was only one Prius in the entire parking lot, one quirky yellow oddball tucked in among all the pick-ups and SUVs and cheap sedans. I pulled the bill of my hat lower and hoped nobody saw me walking toward this thing. Katherine was saying, “The court martial board will see enough pictures to establish Lydia’s guilt firmly in their minds. We can’t avoid it. But they can also hear from her own lips how incapable she was of making sound moral judgments. I’m thinking of putting her on the stand. If she sounds like a delusional idiot, that might be our only hope.”

“That’s a terrible idea.”

“I knew you would say that.”

“Katherine, I—”

“Sean, I’m really not in the mood for another argument right now.”

Well, she got her wish because that was the moment when we reached the car—and whatever thought I was about to express, immediately vanished.

The first thing I noticed was that the driver-side window was broken, completely shattered as though somebody had driven a crowbar or hammer through it.

The second thing was the pair of human ears on the middle of the driver’s seat, two mildly shriveled appendages from a human head—just sitting there.

With one hand, I grabbed Katherine’s shoulder and pulled her down to the tarmac and, with the other, I reached behind my back, beneath my army blouse, and withdrew my .45 automatic.

I looked around for a moment to see if anybody was watching us, then, from my pants pocket, I withdrew the amulet Chief O’Reilly had provided and squeezed it as hard as I could.

During the four minutes it took for a response unit to arrive at our location, I asked myself some very good questions: Whose ears were in the car and what were they doing there?

Chapter Sixteen

The initial response crew was comprised of two burly young MPs whose job was merely to secure Katherine and me until Chief Terry O’Reilly showed up, nearly three minutes afterward, with one of his security people.

Terry shot out of his sedan, peeked in the window and said, “Oh . . . shit.”

Katherine looked over his shoulder at the ears and asked, “What’s going on here?”

O’Reilly looked at her, then at me, then said, “Look, there’s something I didn’t tell you about the murder of Martin Weinstein.”

“Let me take a guess,” I said. “The perp cut off Major Weinstein’s ears.”

O’Reilly shrugged, but without any hint of apology or embarrassment. “We were keeping it secret. You know, to determine at the next crime scene if we’re dealing with the same guy.”

We collectively gawked at the ears a little longer; obviously this was the same guy. O’Reilly finally remarked, “The FBI profilers had a theory that we had a trophy hunter on our hands.”

“Wrong,” I said. “You have a perp who likes to send messages. You have a killer who thinks ahead. A planner.”

“Well, I guess we know that now.”

“And even as he killed Weinstein,” I continued, “he was thinking about us, or his next target. So what’s the message here, Chief?”

“Ears, right?” He stared at the inside of the car. “So it could have something to do with listening—either too much or not enough. Or maybe to the wrong people.”

“Or,” I countered, “he just wanted to scare the shit out of us, and it could be that Major Weinstein’s ears were the nearest things to chop off with a knife.” I pointed at his ears. “They come off really easily. Some American soldiers in Vietnam used to take them as war trophies.”

O’Reilly shrugged again, as if to say, yes, it could be that, too. What he did not say but should have said was the truth: O’Reilly didn’t have a clue.

Katherine was standing beside the car, gawking at the gory sight. “One of those ears looks like it has something stuck in it.”

We all stared at the pieces of poor Martin Weinstein on the car seat and it
did
look like something was tucked inside one of them. O’Reilly reflexively did his gumshoe thing, snapped on a pair of latex gloves, reached inside and carefully withdrew the piece of paper, unfolded it, and held it by a corner for us to see. Scrawled in bold crayon were the words, “BE CARFUL. YOU DON’T KNOW WHO YOUR MESING WITH.”

The writing, which was block-like and messy, looked as if it had been scrawled by a child, and the infantile spelling and grammatical errors suggested a low level of education or perhaps a foreigner who lacked familiarity with the English language.

O’Reilly asked us, “Any idea what it means?”

Katherine observed, “Somebody is watching Sean and me. That’s what it means.”

“I mean what’s he warning you about?”

Katherine looked ready to say something, but before she could get any words out, I gave her a look and said, “If we knew the answer to that, Chief, we’d tell you.”

O’Reilly decided it was a waste of time to question us further and he shooed us away, then he and his assistant began the standard forensics ritual, bagging the ears and glass debris, applying powder for fingerprint traces, and so on. But I think we all sensed that they were empty motions. Considering the skills the killer had shown at both earlier crime scenes, would he really be dumb enough to leave any helpful breadcrumbs at this one? Not likely.

Katherine and I used this moment to engage in a candid exploration about why we had been targeted, and by whom, and for what. O’Reilly seemed like a pretty good guy and I trusted him and his people to do their best to keep us alive—but did I trust him not to share insights of our legal strategy with his friends in the opposition? That was another question altogether. Always remember who signs the guy’s paycheck.

So, after wasting a few minutes on all the things we didn’t know, Katherine told me, “Our predecessor was murdered. And now we’ve been targeted for this warning, assuming that’s what it is. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

“No, it’s not.”

“What’s that about, Sean?”

“For some reason the defense of Lydia Eddelston seems to be a matter of significant interest to the killer. Plus he killed Danny Elton’s lawyer. We should assume that’s what is called a clue, a connection.”

“Definitely. But what do Elton’s defense and Lydia’s have in common? We haven’t even talked to Elton yet.”

“Do they share a secret?”

“Maybe. But I don’t see what it is.”

I considered this and it still didn’t make sense. So I did what I usually do when faced with a head-splitting quandary—I changed the subject by asking Katherine, “When was the last time Lydia had a full medical workup?”

“I would think you have a better idea of that than me.”

“Before the deployment would be my bet.”

“Okay, so what?”

“Get a doctor to give her a short exam. Today, Katherine. Tell Lydia it’s a standard follow-up to the psych exam, and tell the army we’re worried about her general health.”

“What has this got to do with the ears in the car?”

“Forget the ears. Think about what your eyes are telling you.”

Chapter Seventeen

Sometimes, not often enough, bad news comes wrapped in good news. The bad news was that Chief O’Reilly, in an effort to be thorough and diligent, called his FBI contact in the area, who also wanted to have a look-see at the missing pieces of Major Feinstein in our car. The FBI guy was fifteen minutes away, which meant we couldn’t use the car for at least thirty minutes.

The good news was that this left us thirty minutes to kill—though I suppose that was an unfortunate choice of words—and it turned out Sergeant Daniel Boone Elton was inside the long red brick building, having just finished an interrogatory with another defense team. This case was getting to be like a game of musical chairs between all the legal teams, witnesses, and accused.

The trick was you had to remain alive long enough to end up in a chair.

So Katherine and I marched back inside, this time to a cramped conference room on the second floor where we found Sergeant Danny Elton with his defense attorney, an army Captain named Bill Delong.

Elton, I was surprised to see, was actually quite clean-cut, and fairly good-looking, with a strong jaw and a lean, muscular build. His BDUs were well pressed, and his army boots, which were black, instead of the new vogue loam desert boots, were buffed and lacquered to a high sheen.

He looked, in fact, like a recruiting poster soldier, a martial Beau Brummel, which was proof once again about the pitfalls of judging by appearance. Either his defense attorney had cleaned him up nicely, or Elton had a few edges that I hadn’t anticipated.

Delong, to the contrary, looked like one of those army lawyers who give rise to the suspicion that all of us are hiding from a malpractice suit or disbarment. He was overweight, for one thing, with a soft, chubby face, recessed eyes, and blubbery lips. His uniform, for another, looked like it hadn’t been cleaned or pressed since the Battle of the Bulge, a battle he had clearly lost in more ways than one.

Like most officers in the technical branches, I am not a stickler for regulations. But you can push it too far. I assumed that Captain Delong was either so good at his job that he didn’t need to worry about it, or so far gone that he still didn’t have to worry about it.

To continue with the poor first impression, from his posture and his expression, which was an annoying combination of drollness and smug haughtiness, Bill Delong appeared to think a great deal of himself, and not so much of us. There’s a fine line between cocky and insolent. I, for example, am sometimes cocky; this guy was kissing his own ass. He didn’t even come to his feet when a senior officer entered the room, which the army would not approve of, nor for a lady, which his mother would frown at. Aside from a generous imagination, I could not for the life of me see the source of this guy’s tapestry of arrogance. Well, maybe he had a big dick.

Anyway, Katherine gave a nice smile as she performed the introductions and graciously thanked both Delong and Elton for making themselves available on such short notice.

Katherine, when she chooses to be, can be quite diplomatic; obviously, she wanted Danny Elton in the proper mood, which I approved of. From his testimony in the earlier Article 32 hearing, Danny appeared to react about as well to confrontation as I do.

She and I sat, side by side, at the table across from Elton and his attorney, while I forced a smile on my face that hurt. I don’t enjoy smiling at assholes.

Captain Delong wanted to get the opening shot and quickly announced, “I intend to remain here for this meeting.” He added, with no attempt at sincerity, “I hope that isn’t a problem for you two.”

Katherine smiled nicely. “And if it is?”

He shrugged back. “Live with it.”

Katherine lied and said, “I was going to ask you to stay anyway.” She then withdrew a small recorder from her purse and placed it in the middle of the table. With an air of contrived formality she announced, “Interrogatory with Sergeant Daniel Elton in the presence of his attorney, Captain Bill Delong. 1430, February twenty-third.” Katherine then looked at Elton and asked, “Sergeant Elton, how long have you known Lydia Eddelston, and how did the two of you become acquainted?”

“Well, best I can remember . . . ’bout a year now.”

“Okay, that’s when. Now how? And where?”

“We was doin’ a weekend drill, in Indianapolis, if I recall right. And one night after training, a bunch of us went to a local joint for some suds and a little booty call. I got pretty ripped and I thought the night was gonna be a pussy blowout, then this chick walks up to me, and, without no howdy-do or nuthin’ says, ‘Hey stud, how about you and me go fuck.’ ”

Katherine didn’t blink an eye. “Just like that? Lydia approached you, out of the blue?”

“I know, right?” Elton gave her a leering wink. “Hell, I didn’t even know her name . . . but it ain’t like you really need one to fuck.” He turned to me and with a guy-to-guy smirk, confided, “She wasn’t that good-lookin’ or nothin’, but I figured, hey, she’s got a pussy and that righteous attitude, right?”

When neither Katherine nor I responded to that uncharitable assessment, he leaned far back into his seat and let loose a loud chortle. “Tell you what—that chick was crazier’n hell. Once she turns on, she’s like that Eveready rabbit. Wasn’t nuthin’ she wasn’t willing to try. Hell, I couldn’t walk right for two days.”

Well, he may have looked nicely dressed and coiffed, but beneath that rehabilitated veneer Danny Elton was every bit the coarse asshole suggested by his personnel files and by his earlier Article 32 testimony.

Katherine paused for a moment and, though her demeanor and expression remained indifferent, I was sure her insides were in a high boil. For Katherine, who obviously is into the whole women’s lib thing, I didn’t think the lady reversing roles issue would shock or appall her in the least. But Katherine is still every inch the lady, with all the personal rectitude that entails, and Danny Elton, with his vulgar disclosures and masculine brutality, was waving a red cape at a bull.

I mean, even I felt like driving a fist down Elton’s throat.

Captain Delong, however, apparently found his client’s humor irresistible, because he chuckled.

Katherine said, a little coolly and stiffly, “So the two of you developed a relationship?”

“A . . .
relationship
?” He frowned.

“Do I need to spell it for you?”

Elton studied her a moment with narrowed eyes, obviously trying to fit Katherine in some sort of mental box. I don’t think he spent a lot of time around women like Katherine, educated women of higher intelligence who did not find his company enthralling or his humor titillating. He said, “We screwed a lot, if that’s what it means.”

“I suppose that’s one definition of a relationship.”

He slapped his sides and laughed. “You gotta point there, girl.” He stopped laughing. “Anyway, when we all got to Iraq, Lydia became my fuck buddy. She—”

“What do you mean by that?” Katherine interrupted.

Elton gave her a sarcastic smirk. “Do I need to spell it for you, honey?”

“A definition would suffice.”

“Jesus, where you been? My fuck buddy—if I needed to get my rocks off, she was there, legs behind her ears, ready’n able.”

Katherine, to her credit, did not blink or even blush. “So your relationship was sexual, not romantic?”

“What’n the hell kinda question is that? Christ, that girl’s nothin’ more’n a life support system for a vagina. She’s stupider’n dirt.”

Neither Katherine nor I replied.

Once again he seemed amused by his own insults, however, and couldn’t resist going one step further. “Mind you, I ain’t complainin’ or nothin’. In Iraq, the other guys was all watching porn and whackin’ the donkey to get their rocks off. I was getting my lights balled off anytime I got the itch.”

He turned to me. “Tell you what, pal. That chick’s pussy ain’t got no off switch.”

I was not his pal before, and I was becoming less so by the second. Elton laughed again, as did his lawyer, while I considered jumping across the table and kneeing them both in the nuts. But Katherine gave me a look I interpreted to mean, their balls are off-limits.

So instead I leaned forward and asked, “Whose idea was it to use the women in the special treatments?”

“Shit, man, wasn’t nobody’s
idea
.”

“Come now. It had to be somebody’s idea. I thought you were . . . a man . . . a leader, Sergeant Elton. I didn’t realize you were such a wimp that you allowed your visitors to take control over your cellblock.”

As I suspected he might, he did not like this dig at his personal virility. His eyes narrowed and he cleared his throat. “Well, y’know, sometimes, you just gotta let shit happen. Go with the flow.” He hesitated then added, “See, ole Lydia, she’s got what I’d call a real imaginative mind.”

“You’re saying it was Lydia’s initiative?”

“I’m saying her and June was there one night when I brought a prisoner back from interrogation. And Lydia, with her, she’s such a slut . . . everything’s about fucking, about how she can get off. So she talked June into doing this stripper act. At first, I went whoa, put the clothes back on, girl—but when I saw it was workin’, y’know, I went, well . . . what the fuck?”

“Working? What exactly does that mean?”

“The prisoner was flipping out, man. Screaming, crying, waving his arms, like, totally freak. Christ, it was even better’n beatin’ the shit out of the guy.” He paused for a moment to mull this trade-off between force and libido. “Thing is, Iraqis have this thing about pussy.” He thought about it a moment longer, then expanded on his sociological theory. “Shit, they’re all momma’s boys. Y’know, afraid of snatch. That religion really fucks with their heads, man.”

Katherine ignored his scatology and his brawny take on Iraqi sexual pathologies, and asked, “And Andrea, what was her role in this?”

“Christ, she’s as much stuck on stupid as Lydia. It’s a miracle she remembers to breath.”

“I did not ask you to describe her, I asked what her role was.”

“Yeah . . . I heard that. Another chick willing to lend her twat to the cause is all. Anything you asked, pretty much, she’d do.”

Katherine asked, “And what was your relationship to Captain Willborn and Chief Ashad?”

He slumped back into his chair with an amused expression. “That relationship word again, huh?”

“It’s a straightforward question. Please answer it.”

“Well, they was tryin’ to get information from the prisoners and I knew how to make ’em squeal. They didn’t have the balls to do what it took. I did. That was the relationship, all right?” He then added, “Call it a ball swap.”

“Technically, you were not in their chain of command, and technically, there was supposed to be a firewall between your activities as a jailor and their responsibilities as interrogators. So what I’m asking is this—Did you and Captain Willborn and Chief Ashad formalize this arrangement?”

“Formalize?” He looked at Katherine like that word did not compute. “Lady, what world are you lawyers livin’ in?”

Good question, but Katherine explained, very patiently, “I’m asking if you and the interrogators worked out an arrangement, if they gave you orders, if you and the girls were doing their bidding.”

Elton came forward in his chair and began using his finger to talk. “Tell you what . . . Ashad tole me he
liked
what we was doin’. He gave me a camera. He asked me to take pictures so’s he could see what worked, and how it worked. I debriefed him every mornin’ after our little sessions and since I don’t know shit about computers I gave him the camera to put the fuckin’ pictures in his. He figured his whole daily interrogation strategy on what I told him.” He looked at Katherine. “That fuckin’ formalized enough for you?”

In an effort to confirm what Lydia had told us, I asked Elton, “Did Chief Ashad ever directly witness your prep sessions?”

“Sure.”

“You’re positive?”

“Oh, he popped by a coupla times.”

“How often?”

“Like I said, a few times. More, maybe . . . I ain’t exactly sure.” He paused for a moment, then he winked at me. “He didn’t like to interrupt the flow, so he hadda hidey place where he liked to sneak peeks.”

“Where was this place?”

“End of the cellblock. He’d disconnected the lightbulbs there, y’know, so’s he could hide in the shadows.”

I thought about what he’d said so far, and what Lydia and June had told us, and it was interesting that only Ashad was mentioned as the overseer of the group’s activities, and only Ashad had actually visited the cellblock during the nightly sessions. “What about Captain Willborn?” I asked. “Was his involvement as deep as Ashad’s?”

“He was Ashad’s boss,” he replied as though that answer was enough to ensure the captain’s culpability. “Oh, yeah, he knew everything goin’ down. And don’t let ’em tell you no different.”

Katherine quickly informed him, “In fact, he has denied it. We spoke with the captain earlier this morning and he emphatically told us he had no idea what was going on in the cellblock.”

“He said that? Well . . . he’s a big, fat liar.”

“But neither Lydia nor June ever met Ashad or Willborn. That leaves only
your
word that they knew what was happening.”

Elton’s face had gone redder. “I
know
Ashad told him what was going down. A coupla times when I was briefing Ashad, Willborn came into the room. But he wanted to keep his distance. You know the type—he wanted all the credit but he didn’t want to stick his hands in the shit.” Elton’s face scrunched up with disgust. “That guy’s a ballless a-hole. He bolted like a scared jack rabbit as soon as it dawned on him what we was talking about.”

Katherine asked, “So would it be safe to say that most of your dealings were with Ashad?”

“Look, if you’re talkin’ about who gave me the instructions, and who I briefed, and who I talked to . . . yeah, Ashad. All Ashad, all the time. But if you’re sayin’ Willborn wasn’t in on this, you’re suckin’ a hundred gallons of horseshit through a straw, lady.” He added, “Don’t you let that asshole weasel out of it.”

When neither Katherine nor I responded to that charge, he insisted, loudly and with great vehemence, “He
knew
what we was doin’ in there. Damn sure, he did.”