The General's Daughter

by Nelson DeMille

  Midland is officially six miles from Fort Hadley, but as I said, the town has grown southward along Victory Drive, great strips of neon commerce, garden apartments, and car dealers, so that the main gate resembles the Brandenburg Gate, separating chaotic private enterprise and tackiness from spartan sterility. The beer cans stop at the gate.

  Cynthia’s Mustang, which I had noted sported a visitor’s parking sticker, was waived through the gate by an MP, and within a few minutes we were in the center of the main post, where traffic and parking are only slightly better than in downtown Midland.

  She pulled up to the provost marshal’s office, an older brick building that was one of the first permanent structures built when Fort Hadley was Camp Hadley back around World War I. Military bases, like towns, start with a reason for being, followed by places to live, a jail, a hospital, and a church, not necessarily in that order.

  We expected to be expected, but it took us a while, dressed as we were—a male sergeant and a female civilian—to get into his majesty’s office. I was not happy with Kent’s performance and lack of forethought so far. When I went through Leadership School, they taught us that lack of prior planning makes for a piss-poor performance. Now they say don’t be reactive, be proactive. But I have the advantage of having been taught in the old school, so I know what they’re talking about. I said to Kent, in his office, “Do you have a grip on this case, Colonel?”

  “Frankly, no.”

  Kent is also from the old school, and I respect that. I asked, “Why not?”

  “Because you’re running it your way, with my support services and logistics.”

  “Then you run it.”

  “Don’t try to browbeat me, Paul.”

  And so we parried and thrusted for a minute or two in a petty but classical argument between uniformed honest cop and sneaky undercover guy.

  Cynthia listened patiently for a minute, then said, “Colonel Kent, Mr. Brenner, there is a dead woman lying out on the rifle range. She was murdered and possibly raped. Her murderer is at large.”

  That about summed it up, and Kent and I hung our heads and shook hands, figuratively speaking. Actually, we just grumbled.

  Kent said to me, “I’m going to General Campbell’s office in about five minutes with the chaplain and a medical officer. Also, the victim’s off-post phone number is being forwarded to Jordan Field, and the forensic people are still at the scene. Here are Captain Campbell’s medical and personnel files. The dental file is with the coroner, who also wants her medical file, so I need it back.”

  “Photocopy it,” I suggested. “You have my authorization.”

  We were almost at it again, but Ms. Sunhill, ever the peacemaker, interjected, “I’ll copy the fucking file.”

  This sort of stopped the fun, and we got back to business. Kent showed us into an interrogation room—now called the interview room in newspeak—and asked us, “Who do you want to see first?”

  “Sergeant St. John,” I replied. Rank has its privileges.

  Sergeant Harold St. John was shown into the room, and I indicated a chair across a small table at which Cynthia and I sat. I said to St. John, “This is Ms. Sunhill and I am Mr. Brenner.”

  He glanced at my name tag, which said White, and my stripes, which said staff sergeant, and he didn’t get it at first, then he got it and said, “Oh… CID.”

  “Whatever.” I continued, “You are not a suspect in the case that we are investigating, so I will not read you your rights under Article 31 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. You are therefore under orders to answer my questions fully and truthfully. Of course, your voluntary cooperation would be preferable to a direct order. If, during the course of this interview, you say something that I or Ms. Sunhill believes would make you a suspect, we will read you your rights, and you have the right to remain silent at that point.” Not fucking likely, Harry. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” We chatted about nothing important for five minutes while I sized him up. St. John was a balding man of about fifty-five, with a brownish complexion that I thought could be explained by caffeine, nicotine, and bourbon. His life and career in the motor pool had probably predisposed him to look at the world as a continuing maintenance problem whose solution lay somewhere in the Maintenance Handbook. It may not have occurred to him that some people needed more than an oil change and a tune-up to get them right.

  Cynthia was jotting a few notes as St. John and I spoke, and in the middle of my small talk, he blurted out, “Look, sir, I know I was the last person to see her alive, and I know that means something, but if I killed her, I wasn’t going to go report I found her dead. Right?”

  Sounded reasonable, except for the verb tenses and syntax. I said to him, “The last person to see her alive was the person who murdered her. The person who murdered her was also the first person to see her dead. You were the second person to see her dead. Right?”

  “Yeah… yes, sir… What I meant—”

  “Sergeant, if you would be good enough not to think ahead of the questions, I would really like that. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ms. Compassion said, “Sergeant, I know this has been very trying for you, and what you discovered must have been fairly traumatic, even for a veteran—have you been in a theater of war?”

  “Yes, ma’am. ’Nam. Saw lots of dead, but never nothing like that.”

  “Yes, so when you discovered the body, you couldn’t believe what you were seeing. Correct?”

  He nodded enthusiastically. “I couldn’t, you know, believe my eyes. I didn’t even think it was her. You know, I didn’t recognize her at first, because… I never… never saw her that way… Jesus Christ, I never saw anybody that way. You know, there was a good moon last night, and I see the humvee, and I get out of my car, and off a ways I see… you know—this thing lying there on the rifle range, and I get a little closer and a little closer, and then I know what it is and go right up to her and see if she’s dead or alive.”

  “Did you kneel beside the body?”

  “Hell, no, ma’am. I just beat feet the hell out of there, got into my car, and tore ass right over to the provost marshal.”

  “Are you certain she was dead?”

  “I know dead when I see dead.”

  “You’d left headquarters at what time?”

  “About 0400 hours.”

  “What time did you find the body?” Cynthia asked.

  “Well, must have been about twenty, thirty minutes later.”

  “And you stopped at the other guard posts?”

  “Some of them. Nobody saw her come by. Then I get to thinking she headed off toward the last post first. So I skipped some posts and went right out there.”

  “Did you ever think she was malingering somewhere?”

  “No.”

  “Think again, Sergeant.”

  “Well… she wasn’t the type. But maybe I thought about it. I do remember thinking she could have got lost out on the reservation. That ain’t hard to do at night.”

  “Did you think she could have had an accident?”

  “I thought about it, ma’am.”

  “So when you found her, you weren’t actually taken by complete surprise?”

  “Maybe not.” He fished around for his cigarettes and asked me, “Okay to smoke?”

  “Sure. Don’t exhale.”

  He smiled and lit up, puffed away, and apologized to Ms. Sunhill for fouling the air. Maybe what I don’t miss about the old Army is twenty-five-cent-a-pack cigarettes, and the blue haze that hung over everything except the ammo dumps and fuel storage areas.

  I let him get his fix, then asked, “Did the word ‘rape’ ever cross your mind as you were driving around looking for her?”

  He nodded.

  “I didn’t know her,” I said. “Was she good-looking?”

  He glanced at Cynthia, then looked at me. “Real good-looking.”

  “What we call rape bait?”
<
br />   He didn’t want to touch that one, but he replied, “She never flaunted it. Real cool customer. If a guy had anything on his mind, he’d get it out of there real quick. Everything I heard about her said she was a fine woman. General’s daughter.”

  Harry was going to learn otherwise in the coming days and weeks, but it was interesting that the conventional wisdom seemed to be that Ann Campbell was a lady.

  St. John added gratuitously, “Some of these women, like the nurses, you know, they should be a little more… you know?”

  I could actually feel Cynthia heating up beside me. If I had any real balls, I would have told him that the CID women were worse. But I survived ’Nam, and I wasn’t going to push my luck. Back to business. I asked, “After you discovered the body, why didn’t you go on to the next guard post, where PFC Robbins was, and use her telephone?”

  “Never thought to do that.”

  “And never thought to post Robbins at the scene of the crime?”

  “No, sir. I was really shook.”

  “What made you go out and look for Captain Campbell in the first place?”

  “She was gone a long time, and I didn’t know where she was at.”

  She was supposed to be behind the preposition, but I let that slide and asked, “Do you make it a habit to check up on superior officers?”

  “No, sir. But I had the feeling something was wrong.”

  Ah-ha. “Why?”

  “Well… she was… kind of… like jumpy all night…”

  Cynthia’s turn. “Will you describe her behavior for me?”

  “Yeah… well, like I said—jumpy. Kind of like out of it. Worried, maybe.”

  “Did you know her prior to that night?”

  “Yeah… not real well. But like everybody knew her. General’s daughter. She did that recruiting commercial on TV.”

  I asked him, “Did you ever speak to her before that night?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you ever see her on post?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Off post?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So you really can’t compare her normal behavior with the behavior of that evening?”

  “No, sir, but I know what worried looks like.” He added, in probably a rare moment of insight, “I could tell she was a cool customer, like the way she did her job that night, real cool and efficient, but every once in a while, she’d get quiet and I could see she had something on her mind.”

  “Did you comment to her about that?”

  “Hell, no. She woulda snapped my fucking head off.” He smiled sheepishly at Cynthia, revealing two decades of victimization by Army dentists. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Speak freely,” said Ms. Sunhill with a winning smile that indicated good dental hygiene and civilian dentists.

  And, actually, Cynthia was right. Half these old Army types couldn’t express themselves without swearing, jargon, foreign words from some duty station or another, and a little regional southern dialect, even if they weren’t from around here.

  Cynthia asked him, “Did she make or receive any phone calls during the night?”

  Good question, but I already knew the answer before St. John said, “She never made one while I was in the room. But maybe the times I was out. She got a call, though, and asked me to leave the room.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Oh, about… about ten minutes before she left to check the guard.”

  I asked, “Did you eavesdrop?”

  He shook his head emphatically. “No, sir!”

  “Okay, tell me, Sergeant, how close did you get to the body?”

  “Well… a few feet.”

  “I don’t understand how you could determine she was dead.”

  “Well… I just figured she was dead… Her eyes were open… I called out to her…”

  “Were you armed?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be armed for duty?”

  “I guess I forgot to bring it along.”

  “So you saw the body, figured she was dead, and hightailed it.”

  “Yes, sir… I guess I shoulda checked closer.”

  “Sergeant, a naked woman is lying at your feet, a superior officer at that, someone you knew, and you didn’t even bend over to see if she was alive or dead.”

  Cynthia gave me a tap under the table.

  Having become the bad cop, it was time for me to leave the witness with the good cop. I stood and said, “You two continue. I may be back.” I left the room and went to the holding cells, where PFC Robbins was lying on a cot, dressed in BDUs, barefoot. She was reading the post newspaper, a weekly effort of the Public Information Office, dealing mostly with manufacturing good news. I wondered how they were going to sanitize the rape and murder of the post commander’s daughter: Unidentified Woman Not Communicating on Rifle Range.

  I opened the unlocked cell and entered. PFC Robbins eyed me a moment, then put the newspaper down and sat up against the wall.

  I said, “Good morning. My name is Mr. Brenner from the CID. I’d like to ask you some questions about last night.”

  She looked me over and informed me, “Your name tag says White.”

  “My aunt’s uniform.” I sat on a plastic chair. “You are not a suspect in this case,” I began, and went through my rap. She seemed unimpressed.

  I began my inconsequential chatter, and I received one-word replies. I took stock of PFC Robbins. She was about twenty, short blond hair, neat appearance, and alert eyes considering her long night and day, and all in all not badlooking. Her accent was Deep South, not very far from here, I guessed, and her socioeconomic status prior to taking the oath was way down there. Now she was equal to every PFC in the Army, superior to the new recruits, and probably on the way up.

  I asked the first question of consequence. “Did you see Captain Campbell that evening?”

  “She came around the guardhouse about 2200 hours. Spoke to the officer of the guard.”

  “You recognized her as Captain Campbell?”

  “Everyone knows Captain Campbell.”

  “Did you see her at any time after that?”

  “No.”

  “She never came to your post?”

  “No.”

  “What time were you posted at the ammunition shed?”

  “At 0100 hours. To be relieved at 0530 hours.”

  “And between the time you were posted and the time the MPs came for you, did anyone else pass your post?”

  “No.”

  “Did you hear anything unusual?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Screech owl. Not many around these parts.”

  “I see.” Yo, Cynthia. Switch. “Did you see anything unusual?”

  “Saw the headlights.”

  “What headlights?”

  “Probably the humvee she came up in.”

  “What time?”

  “At 0217 hours.”

  “Describe what you saw.”

  “Saw the headlights. They stopped about a klick away, went out.”

  “Did they go out right after they stopped, or later?”

  “Right after. Saw the headlights bouncing, stop, out.”

  “What did you think about that?”

  “Thought somebody was headin’ my way.”

  “But they stopped.”

  “Yup. Didn’t know what to think then.”

  “Did you think to report it?”

  “Sure did. Picked up the phone and called it in.”

  “Who did you call?”

  “Sergeant Hayes. Sergeant of the guard.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said there’s nothing to steal way out there except where I was at the ammo shed. Said to remain at my post.”

  “And you replied?”

  “Told him it didn’t look right.”

  “And he said?”

  “Said there was a latrine about there. Somebody might be using
it. Said it could be an officer snooping around and to keep alert.” She hesitated, then added, “He said people go out there to fuck on nice summer nights. That’s his words.”

  “Goes without saying.”

  “I don’t like cussin’.”

  “Me neither.” I regarded this young woman a moment. She was artless and ingenuous, to say the least: the best type of witness when coupled with some powers of observation, which she obviously had, by training or by nature. But apparently, I did not fit into her narrow frame of reference, so she wasn’t offering anything free. I said, “Look, Private, you know what happened to Captain Campbell?”

  She nodded.

  “I have been assigned to find the murderer.”

  “Heard she got raped, too.”

  “Possibly. So I need you to talk to me, to tell me things I’m not asking. Tell me your… your feelings, your impressions.”

  Her face showed a little emotion, she bit her lower lip, and a tear ran from her right eye. She said, “I should’ve gone to see what was going on. I could’ve stopped it. That stupid Sergeant Hayes…” She cried quietly for a minute or two, during which time I sat looking at my boots. Finally, I said, “Your standing orders were to remain at your post until properly relieved. You obeyed your orders.”

  She got control of herself and said, “Yeah, but anybody with a lick of common sense and a rifle would’ve gone over to see what was going on. And then, when the headlights never came on again, I just stood there like a fool, and I was afraid to call in again. Then when I saw the other headlights comin’ and they stopped, and then they turned around real quick and whoever it was goes barrelin’ back up the road like a shot, then I knew somethin’ bad happened.”

  “What time was that?”

  “At 0425 hours.”

  Which would tally with the time St. John said he found the body. I asked her, “And you saw no headlights between the ones at 0217 and 0425?”

  “No. But I saw some after that. ’Bout 0500. That was the MP who found the body. ’Bout fifteen minutes later, another MP came by and told me what happened.”

  “Could you hear any of these vehicles from that distance?”

  “No.”