Murder at the Pentagon

by Margaret Truman

  “Still inside.”

  “I want to go in,” Margit said.

  “Sorry. It’s off-limits.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This man was my client. You can’t deny me access to him.”

  Jenko narrowed his eyes. “You want access to a dead body?”

  So much anger welled up in her that the only alternative to striking back at him physically was to turn and walk away. She returned to the front entrance and stood welded to the sidewalk, her brain a series of short circuits that rendered her incapable of processing what she’d just learned.

  The sight of a lieutenant coming out of the building cleared those circuits. He was one of the officers in charge of the detention center; she’d dealt with him before.

  “Lieutenant!” she shouted. “Lieutenant, please.”

  He detoured from the direction he’d been walking and came to her. “Major Falk, Captain Cobol’s defense counsel. I just heard what happened.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How could it happen?” she asked. “Prisoners aren’t allowed anything in their cells to hang themselves with.”

  “We don’t know what happened. His mother was here yesterday to visit. Maybe …”

  Flo Cobol bringing her son something with which he could kill himself? It was an absurd contemplation. Still, what was the answer? She asked the lieutenant what Cobol had used.

  “Looks like a sash, maybe from a bathrobe.”

  Margit saw Jenko start toward them. The lieutenant saw him, too, “Sorry about your client, Major,” he said. “I can’t say any more. This is going to be some mess.”

  Jenko saw them separate and turned away. Margit took the occasion to pursue the lieutenant again. “Lieutenant, please tell me …”

  “No comment,” he said, obviously aware that he’d already said too much.

  “Sergeant Davis. Is Sergeant Davis inside?”

  “Davis? We don’t have any Sergeant Davis.”

  “Yes, you do. He left a message for me with my base locator last night that Captain Cobol wanted to speak with me. That’s why I came here this morning.”

  “Ma’am, there is no Sergeant Davis assigned to this facility. Excuse me.”

  “All right, clear the area, clear the area!” someone barked. Margit watched a stretcher, carried by two enlisted men, come through the front door, down the steps, and to the ambulance. Beneath the sheet, Margit knew with deadening certainty, was the body of Captain Robert Cobol. She felt anger again, but it quickly dissolved into despair of such intensity that she wondered whether she could continue standing. She watched the doors to the ambulance close and saw it drive away.

  She walked slowly to her car, looking back a few times, tears stinging her eyes, teeth clamped tightly shut. She paused and placed her hands on the auto’s roof and took deep breaths. It was inconceivable that this could have happened. It shouldn’t have happened. It made no sense.

  She drove in the direction of Bolling but changed her mind halfway there and headed for the Pentagon, where she went to her office and opened the safe in which all materials bearing on the Cobol case were kept. She removed Cobol’s personnel file, placed it on her desk, stared at it for a while, then opened it. There he was, his I.D. photo. Smiling. Alive.

  Four hours later, after she’d reviewed everything from the safe, some of it more than once, she picked up the phone and started to call Jeff. Instead, she dialed a number that rang in Mackensie Smith’s study.

  19

  Margit sat in Mac and Annabel’s kitchen that night. In the center of the table was a large pot of lamb stew, compliments of the chef.

  “Sorry,” Margit said. “It’s delicious, but I just don’t have much appetite.”

  “I wouldn’t either,” said Annabel. “It’s horrible what happened.”

  Margit leaned back and rolled her fingers on the tabletop. “I keep going over and over it in my mind. Every time I do, it makes less sense. He would not have hanged himself, even if the means to do it had been accidently left in his cell.”

  “There’ll undoubtedly be a full investigation,” Smith said.

  “Sure,” Margit said. “Full. It’ll be behind closed doors, and they’ll come to whatever conclusion they want. Like what happened with my father.”

  Mac and Annabel stopped eating and looked at her.

  “I guess I never told you about that.” She recounted for her friends the unceremonious departure from the service that had been forced upon her father. “It was a travesty. And it killed him.”

  “That’s very sad, Margit,” Smith said. “But you can’t extend what happened with him to the Cobol situation. Every bureaucracy—military, civilian, it doesn’t matter—likes to keep its dirty laundry from public view. That doesn’t mean the results in this case will be less than honest.”

  “I know that,” Margit said, her rising level of exasperation causing her voice to do the same. “I don’t want to be cynical. I want to believe that I didn’t know Cobol, that he was capable of taking his own life, maybe even had been planning it. I can tell myself that all I want, but it doesn’t stand up to what I feel.” She became reflective; there was palpable sadness in her voice. “When my father was forced to retire, I hated anything military. The sight of a uniform made me sick. But then you grow up a little, you mature, and you realize that you can’t broad-brush any organization because of the actions of one person. This colonel who did my father in could have been a vice president at any corporation, in any branch of government, or in a university. I came to realize that. Maybe that’s why I decided to make the military my career. I remember thinking at my commissioning that I was going to make sure that the air force had one officer who wouldn’t lie, or hold a grudge, or play dirty pool.”

  “Whom have you spoken with about Cobol’s death?” Annabel asked.

  “My boss, Colonel Bellis.”

  “What did he have to say?” Smith asked.

  “He was sympathetic enough. He said he knew this was upsetting to me. But he also said that it meant I no longer had to handle an assignment I didn’t want in the first place, and that I could get back to the job for which I’d come to the Pentagon.”

  “Sounds pretty cold to me,” Annabel said.

  “I thought it was, too, but I suppose he was only trying to point out the positives.”

  “What do you think of Bellis?” Smith asked.

  “Mixed emotions. He’s smart, and from what I can gather, he’s an excellent general counsel to SecDef. He’s military through and through, but there’s a soft side that leaks out on occasion. All in all? I like him.”

  Smith said, “You received a message last night from your base locator that supposedly came from a Sergeant Davis?”

  “Right. Only the lieutenant I spoke with this morning claims there is no Sergeant Davis.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Smith said, “unless he got the name wrong.”

  “That’s possible, but I did repeat it to him. “Margit stood and went to a corner of the kitchen, where she leaned against a large refrigerator. “I should have gone to see Cobol the minute Sergeant Silbert told me Cobol was acting strangely. I should have canceled anything I had to do that day and gone right over there. Worse, when I received the call at Jeff’s apartment, I should have followed my instincts, got dressed, and headed for McNair. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.”

  Annabel broke an ensuing silence. “What do you intend to do, Margit?” she asked. “What can you do?”

  Margit raised her arms in a gesture of helplessness. “What can I do? I suppose I’ll be asked to clean out my desk Monday morning and go back to being legal liaison on Project Safekeep.”

  “You don’t sound especially excited about it,” Smith said.

  “You’re right. I’m not even sure I can do it.”

  “Why?” Annabel asked.

  “Because I wonder if I will ever be able to focus on anything again until my questions about Joycelen and Cobol are answered.”
>
  “Maybe they’ll put you on the investigative team,” Smith offered.

  “Fat chance,” Margit said. “I said I didn’t want to be cynical. I’m trying not to be. But—maybe skeptical is a better word. No, cynical is right. I have this nagging, hurtful feeling that … Cobol has been a pawn in this whole Joycelen mess. I don’t believe he and Joycelen had a relationship, and I believed Cobol when he said he didn’t know the man. I certainly don’t believe he killed him, any more than I think he took his own life.”

  “If your feelings have validity, Margit, you’re charging the military with a cover-up,” said Smith.

  “If that’s what comes out of my feelings, so be it.”

  She rejoined them at the table. “Cobol had his duty assignment changed at the last minute so that he was at the Pentagon the Saturday morning Joycelen was killed. Why? Who changed it? They claim Cobol’s weapon was used to kill Joycelen. That isn’t very compelling to me. How simple to switch weapons in Cobol’s apartment. He didn’t carry it routinely, only used it on the firing range, so he wouldn’t be checking it on a regular basis.”

  Mac and Annabel waited for Margit to continue.

  She said, “I sat in my office for four hours today going over every scrap of paper in the safe. None of it looked the same. Can you understand that? I’ve read that material a dozen times, but it all came off the page at me as though it had just been written, and I’d never seen it before.”

  “Give me an example,” Smith said.

  “Cobol’s personnel file. As many times as I’ve examined it, I never noticed that someone had written ‘HP-5’ in very small letters after his serial number.”

  “What does that mean?” Annabel asked.

  “I don’t know, but someone made that notation. I went through my Pentagon Handbook, which includes a glossary of terms and abbreviations. I couldn’t find it there. I checked the Pentagon phone book, which also runs a list, and didn’t see it.”

  “Can you check with Personnel on Monday?” Smith suggested.

  “I intend to, provided I’m allowed.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be allowed?” Annabel asked.

  “Because, Annabel, I think this entire investigation, beginning with my so-called defense of Cobol, is being slowed, maybe stonewalled. I can’t prove that, but my gut says I’m right.”

  Smith said, “You mentioned this Major Reich. Does it strike you as strange that his whereabouts aren’t known?”

  Margit thought before replying. “I suppose it does, although obviously the CIA acts in mysterious ways. Lots of their people have to go undercover to accomplish a mission. I assume that’s the case with Reich. There’s not much chance of pursuing that avenue until he returns to above-ground duty.”

  “You also mentioned this psychiatrist in New York. What was his name? Half?”

  “Yes, Marcus Half. I’d intended to contact him as part of my defense preparation. It’s too late now.”

  Smith took dishes from the table and started to scrape and rinse them. Margit and Annabel moved to help, but he said, “Leave it to me. You two go relax in the living room. I’ll join you in a minute.”

  When he entered the room fifteen minutes later, Margit was sitting silently and Annabel had been consoling her. Smith waited for a moment. “You’re between the proverbial rock and a hard place, Margit,” he said. “It’s obvious from what you’ve been saying all evening that you know what you want to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You want to continue investigating Joycelen and Cobol. But if what you say is true about the sense of a cover-up, you’re going to be kept from doing that. Ordered not to.”

  “I haven’t received that order yet,” Margit said coldly. “I honestly don’t know what I’ll do if I’m told to drop it. All I can think about is something my father repeated to me many times when he was bringing me up.”

  Mac and Annabel waited.

  Tears formed in Margit’s eyes. “He told me that no matter what I did with my life, I was to make sure I could always live with myself. He told me to never sell out, never be pushed over, never let myself be bought.”

  Annabel handed her a Kleenex.

  “Would you consider an order to forget Joycelen’s murder and Cobol’s death as ‘selling out’?” Smith asked.

  Margit dabbed at her eyes. “Right now—sitting in this living room—I would.”

  “Then I’ve got a suggestion. The military can move slowly. They can overlook the obvious. Don’t say you’re continuing the investigation if you decide to do so, and don’t hang around asking for orders. Feel like a look at the news?” Smith asked.

  “Sure,” Margit said.

  They were watching a report about alleged police corruption in Washington when the phone rang. Smith answered, held it out to Margit. “For you.”

  “Margit Falk,” she said.

  “Major Falk, this is Louise Harrison from The Washington Post. The base locator at Bolling gave me this number.”

  “You’re calling about Captain Cobol.”

  “That’s right. I have some questions for you.”

  “Sorry. I have no comment.”

  “Just one or two. You were his defense counsel. What was your first thought when you heard the news?”

  “My first thought? You mean, was I happy that he’d spared me months of work, and the government a long and costly court-martial?” The reporter tried to refine her question, but Margit forged on. “The fact is, I went to visit Captain Cobol because he asked me to. When I heard what had happened, it sickened me. I am still sick about it.”

  Smith came around to where Margit could see him and shook his head. She ignored him.

  “Does this mean the case is closed?” the reporter asked.

  “I suppose it is.”

  “You don’t sound convinced it should be,” Harrison said.

  “He’s dead, allegedly because he killed himself.”

  “ ‘Allegedly’? Are you questioning that?”

  Margit looked at Smith, who was now reinforcing his advice by waving his hands at her.

  “I have nothing more to say,” Margit said.

  “Could I meet with you?” Harrison asked. “I’d like to follow up on this.”

  “No, that would be inappropriate at this time. Thank you for calling.” Margit hung up.

  They settled in their chairs again and sat through a few commercials before the story of Cobol’s hanging came on the newscast:

  “Army Captain Robert Cobol, the accused murderer of leading scientist Dr. Richard Joycelen back in August, who was shot to death in the basement of the Pentagon, hanged himself in the early morning hours today in his cell at the Fort McNair detention center. Cobol, who’d denied his guilt in the Joycelen murder, and who also denied that he’d had a homosexual relationship with the scientist, used what was described by an army spokesman as a sash of some sort. How that sash ended up in his cell, as well as all aspects of this unfortunate ending to what has been one of this city’s most talked-about murders, will receive a full investigation, according to an army spokesman.”

  Margit’s only comment when the segment was over was, “I only hope they got to his mother before she saw it on television. I was going to call her, but I wasn’t sure I should.”

  “Maybe she’ll be in touch with you,” Annabel said.

  “I hope so.” Margit’s face twisted in anger. “A sash from a bathrobe ending up in a cell with an accused murderer. Nonsense!”

  They were interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. Smith glanced at his watch. “I forgot that Tony and Alicia were stopping by,” he said to Annabel. “Tony wanted to drop off a gift.”

  As Smith left the living room to answer the door, Annabel said to Margit, “Tony is Tony Buffolino. He was a Washington vice-squad cop until he got trapped in a sting. One of his children was sick, and he was desperate for money. He made one mistake, and that was it. Mac defended him and managed to get criminal charges dropped, but Tony was kicked off
the force. He owned a nightclub here in town for a while, is a private investigator at the moment, and, among many things, is a real character.”

  Smith led Buffolino and third wife, Alicia, into the room and introduced them to Margit.

  “Major?” Tony said. “A lady soldier, huh?”

  “That’s right,” Margit said.

  “Every time I turn around, I see women in uniform,” Buffolino said, a wide grin on his craggy pugilist’s face. “They look cute in their uniforms.”

  At any other time Margit might have smiled.

  “Margit is a helicopter pilot,” Annabel offered.

  Alicia’s eyes opened wide. “I didn’t know women flew planes,” she said.

  “Lots of us do,” Margit said.

  “Sure,” Buffolino said to his wife. “Don’t you remember all those women pilots over there when we were kicking butt in the Persian Gulf?”

  “Of course I do, Tony,” Alicia replied, annoyed at his tone. “I just didn’t think they were real. I mean, I never met a real one.”

  “Join us for a drink, coffee?” Smith asked the recent arrivals.

  “Nah,” Buffolino said. “Thanks. It’s been a long day.”

  “We have Grand Marnier cream puffs,” Annabel said. “Fresh from Watergate Pastry.” Buffolino’s penchant for sweets was well known to the Smiths.

  Buffolino looked at his wife. “Maybe we stay just a few minutes, huh?”

  “Whatever you say, Tony.”

  They talked about many things during the next hour, none having to do with Margit’s recent experiences until Buffolino mentioned the Cobol hanging. “How do you figure?” he asked.

  “Margit was Captain Cobol’s defense counsel,” Smith said.

  Buffolino sprang forward in his chair. “No kiddin’? You’re a pilot and a lawyer?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Margit replied.

  “Sure, I read about it,” Buffolino said. “The guy must have been real guilty, huh, to kill himself?”

  “Not necessarily,” Smith said.

  “I don’t think so,” Margit said. “Maybe that’s what’s so terrible about this whole thing, that the world will now assume that Cobol killed Richard Joycelen, and he’s not here to defend himself.”