Astride a Pink Horse

by Robert Greer

  She was busy poring over papers, missile-silo site maps, charts, and military personnel records. Maps now covered most of her desktop. Maps with hundreds of red dots that pinpointed the locations of deactivated air force missile silos across Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Missouri.

  For close to two hours she’d been trying to come up with a connection between the Tango-11 break-in, the Giles murder, and the hundreds of air force flight squadrons and flight wings that had once overseen a thousand land-based missile sites and just over 2,300 nuclear warheads during the height of the Cold War. She hadn’t found a connection, but she knew a lot more about Thurmond Giles than she’d known hours earlier. She knew, for instance, that Giles had served most of his twenty years in the air force as a member, at one time or another, of the 564th Minuteman Missile Squadron at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana; the 66th Strategic Missile Squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, South Dakota; the 321st Strategic Missile Wing at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota; and finally her own 90th Missile Wing at Warren. She’d also discovered that Giles had at least one very large blemish on an otherwise distinguished air force career. While stationed in Rapid City, he’d run afoul of regs forbidding fraternizing between enlisted men and officers. That indiscretion had involved a liaison with a female lieutenant, and it had cost him a pay cut, a reduction in rank, and a transfer.

  The lieutenant, who at the time had been married to a civilian air force contractor, had been a nuclear-warhead electronics expert. Details concerning the affair had been hard to piece together, but Bernadette had been able to uncover the fact that Lieutenant Annette Colbain and her husband, Howard, were white, that the punishment meted out to Giles and Colbain had been pretty much equal, and that Lieutenant Colbain had received a career-busting flag-officer-level reprimand, a transfer to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, and a pay cut. Six months later her marriage had ended in divorce.

  Bernadette hadn’t yet been able to determine what had happened to Annette Colbain’s husband or how he’d reacted to his wife’s affair, but she did know that Annette Colbain had left the service after a three-year tour of duty and that Sergeant Giles’s otherwise distinguished, much-decorated military career had drifted laterally and then downhill after the incident. Reasoning that Howard Colbain might have had at least two reasons for wanting to kill Giles, jealousy and revenge, she sat back from her desk and decided to take a break. As she sneezed and walked over to the only window to check on the rain, she had the sense that the answers to the Thurmond Giles murder and the Tango-11 security breach wouldn’t come easily or quickly.

  Thunder, wind noise, and the sound of BB-sized pellets of hail hitting her window gave the rolling High Plains thunderstorm a sense of raw power. Aware that hail damage, power outages, and flooding were part of life in southeastern Wyoming, she’d begun to wonder whether the storm might not have flooded the engine compartment of her ground-hugging Austin-Healey when a light tapping on her office door broke her concentration. She’d barely uttered, “Come in,” when Colonel Joel DeWitt pushed open the door and walked in. Eyeing the maps and piles of paperwork on her desk before looking her up and down from head to toe as if he were hoping to find some flaw in her appearance, he said, “Working hard, I see.”

  “I’ve been trying to come up with a motive for the Giles murder,” Bernadette said, turning to face her up-bucking superior. DeWitt, now a desk jockey like her, constantly boasted about his three-month stint as an Iraq War A-10 pilot. In addition to being a braggart, DeWitt was also a man who constantly played air force politics and had a reputation for crushing the careers of subordinates. Suppressing a sigh, Bernadette walked back to her desk and took a seat.

  “Seems pretty simple to me,” said DeWitt, who remained standing. “Our former crackerjack warhead maintenance sergeant paid the price for rubbing someone the wrong way.”

  “Perhaps. But if so, why the missile-silo theatrics? Why not just dump his body in a dark alley somewhere and be done with it?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Well, it sure has me puzzled,” said Bernadette. “There has to be a reason that Giles ended up at Tango-11.”

  “I’m thinking the reason is more than likely linked to those antinuke protesters from last night. Maybe they wanted to let people know that they’re still around. So they decided to hang the good sergeant upside down from his ankles at a silo site to get the publicity ball rolling once again.”

  Bernadette shook her head. “I’m not buying it. They had their hour in the sun. And why the genital mutilation?”

  “That I can’t answer,” DeWitt said with a shrug. “But I know this. Those antinuclear folks have been linked to killings before. What about that Echo-9 fiasco over in Bismarck several years back? You’re a little too young to remember that, though.”

  “I’ve read about it. But that was different. A truck on its way back to town to pick up more protesters skidded on ice and plowed into those airmen at Echo-9.”

  “Factually, you’re correct, Major, but those airmen wouldn’t have died if the protesters hadn’t been there. So, in my book, any way you slice it, a bunch of antinuke wackos triggered those boys’ deaths.”

  “And if our protesters from last night turn out not to have been involved in the events at Tango-11? What then?”

  “Then I’d pursue the hate-crime angle. I’ve had NAACP types calling and traipsing through my office all day, spearheaded by a local-yokel preacher named Wilson Jackson. What a bag of wind.”

  Thinking, Takes one to know one, and recalling her own phone conversation with Reverend Jackson, Bernadette nodded understandingly. “Have you had a look at Sergeant Giles’s UIF papers?”

  “Of course.”

  “He had some problems, sir.”

  “He had one problem, Major, and it cost him a loss in rank and a transfer,” DeWitt said, sounding defensive.

  “What eventually happened to Lieutenant Colbain and her husband?” Bernadette asked, suspecting from the colonel’s reaction that he more than likely had insight into the Annette Colbain–Thurmond Giles story that she didn’t.

  “My understanding is that Lieutenant Colbain left the service when her tour was up. I had Sergeant Milliken do some extra digging into what happened to her and her husband in the long run. Turns out the husband still does civilian contracting for the air force. Milliken couldn’t get a solid lead on the lieutenant.”

  “What does the husband do?”

  “The same thing he did before his wife started two-timing him. Heavy-equipment transport. Hauling around pipe and dozers and Cats—things like that.”

  “So he’s still got a link to the kind of equipment and the kind of materials used in the construction and repair of missile silos. Interesting.”

  “Very.”

  “Sounds like Mr. Colbain is someone I should talk to.”

  “I’d start with Sergeant Milliken, then. If anyone can get the lowdown on Colbain and his unfaithful, under-the-radar ex-wife, that man can.”

  “I’ll do that,” Bernadette said.

  “By the way, has the coroner’s report come in on Giles, and have you been able to find out what he did for a living after he left the air force?”

  “All I’ve been able to find out so far is that he went to work for an electronics firm in Seattle after he retired. And there’s no official coroner’s report yet. But I do have verbal confirmation that three of the five stab wounds in Giles’s back were serious enough to have killed him, and that wadded-up piece of paper they found stuffed in his mouth along with the head of his penis was probably used to shut him up and to absorb blood. There weren’t any fingerprints on the paper, but Sheriff Bosack said it’s probably a piece torn from a map of Wyoming’s missile-silo sites. He’s faxing me a photocopy of it.”

  “Sounds like the killer needed a map to get to Tango-11. Now, that’s strange,” DeWitt said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “You’ll need to look into
the issue more thoroughly, Major. There’s one other thing you need to keep in mind. Our job here is to handle the security-breach issue, not to investigate a murder.”

  “I know that, sir. That’s why I’m going to take a closer look at that protest leader from last night.”

  “The Goldbeck woman. Why? You already talked to her and her minions. What more is there to learn?”

  “I did, but that was here on our turf, where I’d expect her to have her guard up. I’ve been thinking that a follow-up interview at her home in Hawk Springs might yield better results.”

  “There’s nothing much out there but sagebrush and gophers, you know.”

  “And the pottery shop she runs,” said Bernadette. “Goldbeck mentioned the shop during the interrogation this morning. She’s pretty proud of it. I’ve checked out her website, which looks, by the way, as if it could’ve been designed by the animation folks at DreamWorks. Her pottery sells for thousands.”

  “Sounds like she’s making enough money to finance a few protests.”

  “Or a murder. I’ll know more after talking to her this evening.”

  Looking at Bernadette as if she somehow posed a threat, DeWitt said, “Good. Get what you can out of her, but remember, don’t have the air force take any lumps. We’ve already had enough unnecessary publicity with this Tango-11 thing to carry us through the year. Preachers, protesters, media types, and of course that smear piece on the web.”

  “What smear piece?”

  “A trash piece by some web-based outfit out of Denver calling themselves Digital Registry News. Surprised you haven’t seen it. They obviously had a reporter at Sheriff Bosack’s press conference last night. The story was written by the Digital Registry News publisher himself, some flake named Frederick Dames.” Watching a flash of recognition spread across Bernadette’s face, DeWitt asked, “Know him?”

  “No, but I think I’ve met his wingman. A tall, curly-headed, athletic-looking guy named Elgin Coseia. He dropped by my office earlier today. Pumped me for information for a good half hour. What was the story on the web about?”

  “What’s with any news story these days? Mudslinging and hype. I suggest you have a look at the piece and judge for yourself, Major. Especially since you’re mentioned in it.”

  “I’ll do that. Right now, in fact.” Unnerved, Bernadette spun around in her chair and turned on the computer on the credenza behind her.

  “Just remember, as far as this Tango-11 investigation goes, no news is good news for the both of us, Major.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Bernadette said, upset with herself for having talked to Cozy Coseia.

  “Here’s a final piece of advice,” said DeWitt, turning to leave. “You need to work on masking your feelings a tad better. I’d say from the look on your face that if that Coseia fellow were here right now, you’d take his head off.”

  “I’ll work on the problem,” Bernadette said, knowing she’d be fighting an uphill battle. Hiding her feelings had never been her style, nor had biting her tongue. Her grandfather, a Tuskegee airman, hadn’t been able to do either when he’d once told Eleanor Roosevelt, when she’d visited Tuskegee at FDR’s request, that Negroes could fly airplanes as well as, if not better than, any white man. And her outspoken father, an air force fighter pilot during Vietnam who should have been one of only three American aces from that war but who was never credited, had always had the same problem.

  Kimiko Takata’s house looked smaller, more confining, and much darker inside than Sarah Goldbeck remembered. The only thing that seemed the same after such a long absence was the smell of ginger that filled the living room where she, Kimiko, and Rikia now sat.

  Kimiko had greeted her at the front door with a polite bend from the waist before ushering her into a living room filled with lithographs of Japanese country scenes, expensive Japanese pottery, and Oriental rugs. The room’s furniture, as delicate as that in a dollhouse, was exactly as Sarah remembered. Thinking that someone who’d spent a year and a half living in barracks in an internment camp should want more light, Sarah kept her thoughts to herself, taking a seat only after she’d been offered one and smiling at Rikia Takata, who’d given her a limp-wristed handshake before quickly taking a seat in a chair next to the room’s small bay window and immediately starting to clean his fingernails with a small screwdriver.

  Looking embarrassed, Kimiko said, “It’s great to have Sarah come to visit after such a long time, isn’t it, Rikia?”

  Slightly built, fragile-looking, and severely tongue-tied for most of his formative years—so severely tongue-tied, in fact, that even after corrective surgery as a teenager he still had a noticeable speech impediment—Rikia, who’d always looked oddly out of place to Sarah with his buzz cut, classic Asian features, and oblong face, simply nodded.

  Before seating herself, Kimiko rolled a tea cart with cups, a large pot of steeping tea, a bowl of cubed sugar, and a dozen or so raspberry-filled jelly pastries into the living room from the kitchen.

  As Sarah studied Kimiko’s face, she realized that the woman who’d once been her mother’s best friend looked every bit of her seventy-six years. Her once thick, coal-black hair was now thin and gray. Her eyes were cloudy, and she’d lost a few pounds over the years.

  Ignoring Sarah’s stare, Kimiko quickly filled three cups with tea and, without asking Rikia or Sarah if they cared for any, offered the cups to them, sat back, and adjusted herself in her seat. Plopping two cubes of sugar into her tea, she asked, “How did things go during your interrogation at Warren this morning?”

  “Fine,” said Sarah, still upset that neither Kimiko nor Rikia had felt it necessary to take part in the Wheatland courthouse protest that Kimiko had helped organize. “Fine in spite of Buford’s injury, that is. Some overzealous air force officer, a woman, no less, kicked him in his privates during the protest. I was so angry about being hauled down to Warren from Wheatland and interrogated like a common criminal that I forgot to mention Buford’s injury when I called you earlier.”

  “Is Buford all right?” Kimiko asked.

  “He’s sore, but he is okay.”

  “A woman,” Rikia said, indignantly, straining to correctly enunciate his words. “Leave it to the U.S. military to turn a ballerina into a brute.”

  “You’re right there,” said Sarah.

  Sensing a need to move quickly past Rikia’s upset, Kimiko said, “I didn’t think there’d be as much television coverage as there has been about the protest. Especially since all we were really hoping for was to take advantage of the events at Tango-11 and enlighten people.”

  “Well, we ignited a bonfire,” said Rikia, beaming.

  “I’m not sure we did,” said Sarah. “But what’s selling is a murder, not our message. But for what it’s worth, we did have a dozen TV crews at the protest last night. Some from as far away as Denver and Salt Lake City.”

  Rikia rubbed his hands together excitedly and shouted, “Good! Good! Good!” An authoritative glance from Kimiko silenced him.

  “So where do we go from here?” Sarah asked, watching the rebuked-looking Rikia take a long sip of tea.

  “I’m not sure that we go anywhere,” said Kimiko. “We’ve made our point. At least for the moment.”

  “But there are hundreds of other missile-silo sites out there,” said Rikia, looking disappointed.

  “But none I’d wager with a dead man dangling on the grounds,” said Sarah.

  Rikia sat forward in his chair, prepared to offer a response, but the stern, intimidating, and unwavering look on Kimiko’s face told him that the best thing he could do right then was to remain silent. Looking pleased when he did, Kimiko smiled and offered Sarah more tea.

  Sarah watched the steaming tea flow into her cup. Nodding a thank-you to Kimiko, she took a sip of the lemony tea and relaxed back in her seat to think about where the three of them were headed from there.

  Muscular and clean-shaven from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes, Silas Breen w
as a slow-thinking, freckle-faced, six-foot-nine-inch, twenty-four-year-old giant of a black man with a strong resemblance to Howdy Doody. A Gulliver among Lilliputians, he had once been a high school basketball star, clumsy but powerful enough to overwhelm his prep school counterparts for four years and earn himself a college athletic scholarship to Kansas State. But after a year of college ball, his coaches could see that smaller, quicker, and more thoughtful players would forever run circles around the chubby-cheeked Breen.

  With his scholarship gone and his academic skills weak, Breen dropped out of college after the first semester of his sophomore year to bump his way around the West for a couple of years, making stops in Santa Fe, Denver, Rapid City, and Bozeman before finding his niche.

  Eleven months earlier he’d bought a used twenty-six-foot U-Haul Super Mover truck at auction; put a set of illegally recapped tires on it; reconditioned the radiator, transmission, and rear end; painted the truck shamrock green except for its white cab and cargo-bay roof, in honor of his beloved Fighting Irish of Notre Dame; stenciled “Breen’s Moving & Storage Company” on the side panels; and gone into the moving and hauling business.

  Using his brawn and contacts that his father had from twenty-five years as an army supply sergeant, he’d made enough money since starting his business to think about hiring someone to help him, and maybe after that to buy a second truck.

  But those were matters he planned to look into after he finished his current job, a long-haul trip that would earn him big dollars. He wasn’t sure why he’d ended up landing the plum of hauling old hospital equipment from Ottawa, Ontario, to Amarillo, Texas, especially since he was being paid 20 percent over scale, but he was happy he had.

  There were a few oddball things about the gig besides the fact that it had materialized out of the blue, the most glaring one being the fact that he didn’t know for certain who’d hired him. But when it came to the sort of money he was getting, Silas didn’t much care.