his house and tell him that his daughter—”
“Who made the tentative identification?”
“A Sergeant St. John. He found the body.”
“And he knew her?”
“They were on duty together.”
“Well, that’s a pretty positive identification. And you knew her?”
“Yes, of course. I made a positive identification.”
“Not to mention dog tags and the name on her uniform.”
“Well, that’s all gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes… whoever did it took her uniform and dog tags…”
You get a sense for these things, or maybe you get a backlog of cases stored in your head, and when you hear the evidence and see the scene, you ask yourself, “What’s wrong with this picture?” I asked Colonel Kent, “Underwear?”
“What? Oh… it’s there…” He added, “Usually they take the underwear. Right? This is weird.”
“Is Sergeant St. John a suspect?”
Colonel Kent shrugged. “That’s your job.”
“Well, with a name like St. John, we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment.” I looked around at the deserted barracks, the Battalion Headquarters, the mess hall, and the company assembly areas overgrown with weeds now, and in the gray light of dawn, I could imagine the young troops falling in for roll call. I can still remember being always tired, cold, and hungry before breakfast. I remember, too, being frightened, knowing that ninety percent of us standing there in formation were going to Vietnam, and knowing that the casualty rate among the frontline troops was high enough so that a Midland bookie wouldn’t give you better than two-to-one odds that you’d make it back in the same shape you left. I said to Kent, “That was my company over there. Delta Company.”
“I didn’t know you were infantry.”
“Long time ago. Before I became a copper. You?”
“Always an MP. But I saw some stuff in ’Nam. I was at the American Embassy when the Cong came over the walls that time. January ’68.” He added, “I killed one of them.”
I nodded. “Sometimes I think the infantry was better. The bad guys were never one of your own. This crap is different.”
“Bad guys are bad guys,” Kent informed me. “The Army is the Army. Orders are orders.”
“Yup.” And therein lies the essence of military mentality. Ours is not to reason why, and there is no excuse for failure. This works pretty well in combat and most other military-type situations, but not in the CID. In the CID you must actually disobey orders, think for yourself, ignore the brass, and, above all, discover the truth. This does not always sit well in the military, which thinks of itself as a big family, where people still like to believe that “all the brothers are valiant, and all the sisters virtuous.”
As though reading my thoughts, Colonel Kent said, “I know this could be a real messy case. But maybe not. Maybe it was committed by a civilian. Maybe it can be wrapped up right away.”
“Oh, I’m sure it can, Bill. And you and I will get letters of commendation inserted into our permanent files, and General Campbell will invite us for cocktails.”
Kent looked very troubled. He said, “Well, my ass is on the line here, frankly. This is my post, my beat. You can beg off if you want and they’ll send another homicide guy. But you happen to be here and you happen to be special unit, and we’ve worked together before, and I’d like your name next to mine on the prelim report.”
“And you didn’t even bring me a cup of coffee.”
He smiled grimly. “Coffee? Hell, I need a drink.” He added, “You can get some rank out of this.”
“If you mean a reduction, you’re probably right. If you mean a promotion, I’m topped out.”
“Sorry. I forgot. Bad system.”
I asked him, “Are you up for a star?”
“Maybe.” He looked a bit worried, as if the twinkling general’s star that he’d seen in his dreams just blinked out.
I asked, “Have you notified the local CID yet?”
“No.”
“Why in the world not?”
“Well… this is not going to be handled by them, anyway… I mean, Jesus, this is the post commander’s daughter, and the CID commander here, Major Bowes, knew her, and so did everyone else here, so we need to show the general that we’ve gotten top talent from Falls Church—”
“The word you’re looking for is scapegoat. But, okay, I’ll tell my boss in Falls Church that this is best handled by a special investigator, but I don’t know if I’m the guy who wants to do it.”
“Let’s go see the body, then you can decide.”
As we started to walk to his car, we heard the post cannon boom—actually a recording of some long- scrapped artillery piece—and we stopped and faced the direction of the sound. From the loudspeakers mounted on the empty barracks came the recorded bugle sound of reveille, and we saluted, two solitary men standing in the predawn light, reacting to a lifetime of conditioning and centuries of military custom and ceremony.
The ancient bugle call, going back to the Crusades, echoed through the company streets and the alleyways between the barracks, and over the grassy assembly fields, and somewhere, the flags were being raised.
It’s been years since I’ve been caught outdoors at reveille, but I sort of enjoy the pomp and ceremony once in a while, the communion with the living and the dead, the idea that there is something bigger and more important than I, and that I am part of it.
There is no civilian equivalent of this, unless watching
The final sounds of the bugle died away, and Kent and I continued toward his car. He remarked to me, “Another day begins at Fort Hadley, but one of its soldiers will not see it.”
CHAPTER
THREE
We headed south in Kent’s car toward the far reaches of the military reservation.
Colonel Kent began: “Captain Ann Campbell and Sergeant Harold St. John were on duty at Post Headquarters. She was duty officer, he was duty sergeant.”
“Did they know each other?”
Kent shrugged. “Maybe in passing. They don’t work together. He’s in the motor pool. She’s an instructor at the Special Operations School. They just came down on orders and wound up together.”
“What does she teach?”
“Psy-ops.” He added, “She’s got—she had a master’s in psychology.”
“Still has.” There’s always a question of tenses when referring to the recently dead. I asked Kent, “Do instructors usually pull that sort of duty?”
“No, not usually. But Ann Campbell put her name on several duty rosters she didn’t have to be on.” He added, “She tried to set an example. General’s daughter.”
“I see.” The Army runs duty rosters for officers, noncommissioned officers, and enlisted men and women. These are completely random lists, ensuring that as nearly as possible everyone gets his or her chance at some sort of crap duty. There was a time when female personnel were not on all lists, such as guard duty, but times change. What doesn’t change is that young ladies walking around alone at night are at some risk. The hearts of evil men remain the same; the compulsion to stick it in the most available vagina supersedes Army regulations. I asked, “And she was armed?”
“Sure. Had her sidearm.”
