The General's Daughter

by Nelson DeMille

“Okay.”

  “And I need an office at your place, and a clerk.”

  “One desk or two?”

  I glanced at Cynthia. “I guess two desks. But I’m not committing to this yet.”

  “Don’t blow smoke up my ass, Paul. You in or not?”

  “I’ll see what they say at Falls Church. Okay, delay notifying the public information officer until about ten hundred hours. Send two guys to Captain Campbell’s office and physically remove her desk, furniture, and all her personal possessions, and have everything locked up in your evidence room. And have Sergeant St. John and PFC Robbins remain in the provost marshal’s office until I can see them. I don’t want anyone speaking a word of this until they’ve spoken to me. And it is your unpleasant duty, Colonel, to pay an official call on General and Mrs. Campbell at their home. Go unannounced and with an appropriate chaplain and a medical officer in case anyone needs a sedative or something. They may not view the body at the scene. Okay?”

  Kent nodded and let out a long breath. “Jesus Christ…”

  “Amen. Meanwhile, instruct your people not to say a word about what we found here, and give forensic a set of disqualifying fingerprints from PFC Casey, and disqualifying bootprints from everyone here at the scene, including yourself, of course.”

  “Right.”

  “Also, tape off the latrine sheds and don’t let anyone use them. Also, the latrines are off limits to forensic until I have a chance to check them out.”

  “Okay.”

  I walked over to Cynthia, who was now putting everything back in the handbag, still using a handkerchief. “Anything interesting?”

  “No. Basic stuff. Wallet, money, keys, and everything appears intact. Here’s a chit from the O Club. She had dinner last night. Salad, chicken, white wine, and coffee.” She added, “She was probably there in the dining room about the same time we were having a drink.”

  Kent had joined us and he asked, “You two had drinks together? You know each other?”

  I replied, “We had drinks separately. We are nodding acquaintances.” I asked Cynthia, “Campbell’s address?”

  “Off post, unfortunately. Victory Gardens on Victory Drive in Midland. Unit forty-five.” She added, “I think I know the place—a town-house complex.”

  Kent said, “I’ll call Chief Yardley—that’s the Midland police chief, and he’ll get a court order and he can meet us there.”

  “No. We’ll keep this in the family, Bill.”

  “You can’t go search her off-post house without a civilian search warrant—”

  Cynthia handed me the keys from Ann Campbell’s bag and said, “I’ll drive.”

  Kent protested, “You can’t go off post without civilian authority.”

  I detached Ann Campbell’s car keys from the key chain and gave them to Kent, along with the victim’s handbag. “Find out where her car is and impound it.”

  As we walked toward Cynthia’s Mustang, I said to Kent, “You should stay here to direct things. When you write your report, you can write that I said I was going to the Midland police. I’ll take responsibility for my change of mind.”

  “Yardley is a tough, redneck son-of-a-bitch,” Kent informed me. “He’ll get your ass, Paul.”

  “He has to stand in line and wait his turn.” To get Kent squared away so he didn’t do anything stupid, I said, “Look, Bill, I have to have first look at Ann Campbell’s place. I have to remove anything that might embarrass her, her family, the Army, or her military colleagues and friends. Right? Then we’ll let Chief Yardley have his shot at the house. Okay?”

  He seemed to process this correctly and nodded.

  Cynthia got behind the wheel of her Mustang and I got in the passenger seat. I said to Kent, “I may call you from there. Think positive.”

  Cynthia threw the five-liter Mustang into first gear, made a U-turn, and we were off, zero to sixty in about six seconds, along the lonely Rifle Range Road.

  I listened to the engine for a while and neither of us spoke, then Cynthia said, “I feel queasy.”

  “Pretty awful,” I agreed.

  “Disgusting.” She glanced at me. “Are you used to it?”

  “God, no.” I added, “I don’t see that many homicides and not many like this.”

  She nodded, then took a deep breath. “I think I can help you on this one. But I don’t want it to be awkward.”

  “No problem,” I said. “But we’ll always have Brussels.”

  “Where?”

  “Belgium. The capital.” Bitch.

  We sat in silence, then Cynthia asked, “Why?”

  “Why is Brussels the capital? Or why will we always have it?”

  “No, Paul, why was she murdered?”

  “Oh… well, the possible motives in homicide cases,” I replied, “are profit, revenge, jealousy, to conceal a crime, to avoid humiliation or disgrace, and homicidal mania. Says so in the manual.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “Well, when rape precedes homicide, it usually comes down to revenge or jealousy or possibly to conceal the identity of the rapist. She may have known him, or she could have identified him afterward if he wasn’t wearing a mask or disguise.” I added, “On the other hand, this certainly looks like a lust murder, the work of a homicidal rapist—a person who gets his sexual release from the killing itself, and he may not even have penetrated her with his penis. That’s what it looks like, but we don’t know yet.”

  Cynthia nodded, but offered nothing.

  I asked her, “What do you think?”

  She let a few seconds go by, then replied, “Obviously premeditated. The perpetrator had a rape kit—the tent pegs, rope, and presumably something to drive the pegs into the ground. The perpetrator must have been armed in order to overcome the victim’s own weapon.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, the perpetrator got the drop on her, then made her toss away her weapon, then made her strip and walk out on the rifle range.”

  “Okay. I’m trying to picture how he managed to stake her out and still keep her under his control. I don’t think she was the submissive type.”

  Cynthia replied, “Neither do I. But there may have been two of them. And I wouldn’t make the assumption that the perpetrator or perpetrators was a he until we have some lab evidence.”

  “Okay.” I was obviously having trouble with personal pronouns this morning. “Why weren’t there any signs of struggle on her part, or brutalization on his—on the perpetrator’s part?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t know. You usually get some brutalization… The ligature isn’t what you’d call friendly, however.”

  “No,” I replied, “but the guy didn’t hate her.”

  “He didn’t like her much, either.”

  “He may have. Look, Cynthia, you do this stuff for a living. Does this resemble any rape you’ve ever seen or heard about?”

  She mulled that over, then said, “It has some of the elements of what we call an organized rape. The assailant planned a rape. But I don’t know if the assailant knew her, or if the assailant was just cruising and she was a victim of opportunity.”

  “The assailant may have been in uniform,” I suggested, “which was why she was not on her guard.”

  “Possible.”

  I looked out the open window, smelled the morning dews and damps among the thick pines, and felt the rising sun on my face. I rolled up the window and sat back, trying to picture what preceded what I had just seen, like running the film backward; Ann Campbell staked out on the ground, then standing naked, then walking from the jeep, and so on. A lot of it didn’t compute.

  Cynthia broke into my thoughts. “Paul, the uniform had her name tag on it, and so did her dog tags, obviously, and probably her helmet and boots had her name stenciled inside. So what do the missing items have in common? Her name. Correct?”

  “Correct.” Women bring different things to the party. And that’s okay. Really.

  She said, “So this guy is into…
what? Trophies? Proof?

  Mementos and souvenirs? That’s consistent with the personality and profile of an organized sex offender.”

  “But he left her underwear and handbag.” I added, “Actually, what all the missing items have in common is that they are all her military issue, including her holster and sidearm, and they would not have her name on them. He left the civilian stuff behind, including her watch and her handbag, which has all sorts of things with her name on them. Correct?”

  “Is this a contest?”

  “No, Cynthia. It’s a homicide investigation. We’re brainstorming.”

  “Okay. Sorry. That’s what partners are supposed to do in a homicide investigation.”

  “Right.” Partner?

  Cynthia stayed silent a moment, then said, “You know this stuff.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Okay, why did he take only her military issue?”

  “Ancient warriors stripped the arms and armor from their dead enemies. They left the loincloths.”

  “That’s why he took her military issue?”

  “Maybe. Just a thought. Could be a red herring. Could be some other mental derangement that I’m not familiar with.”

  She glanced at me as she drove.

  I added, “He may not have raped her. But he staked her out like that to draw attention to the sexual nature of his act, or possibly to dishonor her body, to reveal her nakedness to the world.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “Maybe you do.”

  “I have to think about it. I’m starting to think he knew her.” Actually, I knew he knew her. We rode in silence a while longer, then I said to Cynthia, “I don’t know why it happened, but how does this sound for how it happened: Ann Campbell leaves Post Headquarters and goes directly to the rifle range, stopping a good distance from PFC Robbins’s guard post. She has a preplanned rendezvous with a lover. They do this often. He plays the armed bandito and gets the drop on her, makes her strip, and they get into some kinky S&;M and bondage thing.” I glanced at Cynthia. “You know what I mean?”

  “I know nothing about sexual perversions. That’s your department.”

  “Well said.”

  She added, “Your scenario sounds like male fantasy. I mean, what woman would go through all that trouble to be staked out on the cold ground and call that fun?”

  I could see this was going to be a long day, and I hadn’t even had my breakfast yet. I said, “Do you know why her panties were under the rope around her neck?”

  “No, why?”

  “Check the homicide manual under sexual asphyxia.”

  “Okay.”

  “Also, did you notice that there seemed to be a blacktop stain on the sole of her right foot?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “If it came from the road, why was she barefoot on the road?”

  “He made her strip in, or near, the jeep.”

  “Then why was her underwear on the rifle range?”

  Cynthia replied, “She may have been forced to take off her clothes at, or in, the jeep, then she or the perpetrator carried them to where she was staked out.”

  “Why?”

  “Part of the script, Paul. Sex offenders have incredibly involved fantasies that they perfect in their minds, things that have a strong sexual meaning for them but for no one else. Making a woman strip, then walk naked carrying her own clothes to a place where he intends to rape her may be his unique fantasy.”

  “So you know this stuff? I’m not in sole charge of perversions.”

  “I’m familiar with pathological sex acts and criminal deviations. I don’t know much about consenting sexual perversions.”

  I let that one alone and pointed out, “The line between the two is a bit thin and indistinct on occasion.”

  “I don’t believe that Ann Campbell was a consenting partner. Certainly, she didn’t consent to being strangled to death.”

  “There are many possibilities,” I mused, “and it’s a good idea not to get married to any of them.”

  “We need forensic, we need the autopsy, and we need to question people.”

  We? I looked out at the landscape as we drove in silence. I tried to recall what I knew about Cynthia. She was originally from rural Iowa, a graduate of the state university, with a master’s in criminology, which she received at some civilian university through the Army’s Technological Enhancement Program. Like a lot of women, as well as minorities that I’ve known in the Army, the military offered more money, education, prestige, and career possibilities than they would have hoped for back on the farm, in the ghetto, or whatever disadvantaged background they came from. Cynthia, I seemed to recall, expressed positive views toward the Army—travel, excitement, security, recognition, and so on. Not bad for a farm girl. I said to her, “I’ve thought about

  you.”

  No reply.

  “How are your parents?” I inquired, though I never met them.

  “Fine. Yours?”

  “Fine. Still waiting for me to get out, grow up, get hitched, and make them grandparents.”

  “Work on growing up first.”

  “Good advice.” Cynthia can be sarcastic at times, but it’s just a defense mechanism when she’s nervous. People who’ve had a prior sexual relationship, if they’re at all sensitive and human, respect the relationship that existed, and perhaps even feel some tenderness toward the ex-partner. But there’s also that awkwardness, sitting side by side as we were, and neither of us, I think, knew the words or the tone of voice we should adopt. I said again, “I’ve thought about you. I want you to respond to that.”

  She responded, “I’ve thought about you, too,” and we fell into a long silence as she drove, head and eyes straight ahead.

  A word about Paul Brenner in the passenger seat. South Boston, Irish Catholic, still don’t recognize a cow when I see one, high school graduate, working-class family. I didn’t join the Army to get out of South Boston; the Army came looking for me because they’d gotten involved in a large ground war in Asia, and someone told them that the sons of working-class stiffs made good infantrymen.

  Well, I must have been a good infantryman, because I survived a year over there. Since that time, I’ve taken college courses, compliments of the Army, as well as criminology courses and career courses. I’m sufficiently transformed so that I don’t feel comfortable back in South Boston any longer, but neither do I feel comfortable at the colonel’s house, watching how much I drink and making small talk with officers’ wives who are either too ugly to talk to or too good-looking to stick to small talk.

  So there we were, Cynthia Sunhill and Paul Brenner, from opposite ends of the North American continent, different worlds, lovers in Brussels, reuniting in the Deep South, having just had the common experience of looking at the naked body of a general’s daughter. Can love and friendship flourish under those circumstances? I wasn’t putting money on it.

  She said, “I was sort of startled to see you last night. I’m sorry if I was rude.”

  “No ifs about it.”

  “Well, then, I apologize unequivocally. But I still don’t like you.”

  I smiled. “But you’d like to have this case.”

  “Yes, so I’ll be nice to you.”

  “You’ll he nice to me because I’m your superior officer. If you’re not nice, I’ll send you packing.”

  “Cut the posturing, Paul. You’re not sending me anywhere, and I’m not going anywhere.” She added, “We’ve got a case to solve, and a personal relationship to straighten out.”

  “In that order.”

  “Yes, in that order.”

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Victory Drive, formerly Pine Hollow Road, had been renamed during World War II in a frenzy of Orwellian name changing. It was once a two-lane country road heading south out of Midland, but by the time I saw it first in 1971, it was becoming a mixture of garden apartments and commercial garishness. Now, almost a quar
ter century later, there wasn’t even a hint of Pine Hollow Road.

  There is something uniquely ugly and depressing about commercial strips in the old South, great expanses of parking lots, motels, fast-food places, discount stores, car dealers, and what passes for nightclubs hereabouts. The old South, as I remember it, was perhaps not so prosperous, but it was picturesque with its tiny gas stations with the Coke cooler next to the fish-bait cooler, the sagging pine houses, the country stores, and the baled cotton bursting from sheds along the railroad sidings. These were the things that grew organically out of the soil, the lumber from the forests, the gravel roads from nearby quarries, and the people themselves a product of their environment. These new things seem artificial, transplanted. Convenience stores and shopping strips with mammoth plastic signs and no relationship to the land or the people, to history, or to local custom.

  But, of course, the new South had embraced all of this, not quickly, as we had done up North, but embraced it nonetheless. And in some strange way, the garish commercial strip was now more associated with the South than with anywhere else in the country. The carpetbaggers have finally taken over.

  Within fifteen minutes of leaving the post, we arrived at Victory Gardens and parked the Mustang near unit forty-five.

  Victory Gardens was actually a pleasant sort of place, comprised of about fifty attached town houses around a central courtyard, with landscaping and ample parking. There were no signs that said, “Officers Only,” but the place had that air about it, and the rents probably approximated the offpost quarters’ allowance for lieutenants and captains. Money aside, there are unwritten rules about where officers may live off post, and thus, Ann Campbell, daughter of a general and good soldier that she was, had not gone to the funky side of town, nor had she opted for the anonymity of a newer high-rise building, which, in this town, is somewhat synonymous with swinging singles. Yet, neither did she live in her parents’ huge, government-issue house on post, which suggested that she had a life of her own, and I was about to discover something about that life.

  Cynthia and I looked around. Though the Army workday starts early, there were still a few cars parked in front of the units. Most of them had the blue post bumper stickers signifying an officer’s car, and some had the green bumper sticker of a civilian post employee. But mostly, the place looked as deserted as a barracks after morning mess call.