“Go on.”
“Well, at about 0100 hours, Campbell says to St. John that she is going to take the jeep and check the guard posts—”
“Why? Isn’t that something the sergeant of the guard or the officer of the guard should do? The duty officer should stay with the phones.”
Kent replied, “St. John said the officer of the guard was some young lieutenant, still pissing water from West Point. And Campbell, as I’ve indicated, is gung ho and she wants to go out there and check things for herself. She knew the sign and countersign, so off she goes.” Kent turned onto Rifle Range Road. He continued, “At about 0300 hours, St. John says he got a little concerned—”
“Why concerned?”
“I don’t know… You know, it’s a woman and—well, maybe he was annoyed because he thought she was goofing off somewhere and maybe he wanted to go to the latrine and didn’t want to leave the phones.”
“How old is this guy?” I asked.
“Fifty something. Married. Good record.”
“Where is he now?”
“Back at the provost building catching some cot time. I told him to stay put.”
We had passed rifle ranges one, two, three, and four, all of which lie to the right of the road, huge expanses of flat, open terrain, backed by a continuous earthen berm. I hadn’t been out here in over twenty years, but I remembered the place.
Colonel Kent continued, “So St. John calls the guardhouse, but Captain Campbell is not there. He asks the sergeant of the guard to call the guard posts and see if Campbell has come by. The sergeant of the guard calls back a while later and reports negative. So St. John asks the sergeant of the guard to send a responsible person to headquarters to watch the phones, and when one of the guards shows up, St. John gets in his POV and heads out. He starts checking the posts in order—NCO Club, Officers’ Club, and so on—but not one of the guards has seen Captain Campbell. So, at about 0400 hours, he goes out toward the last guard post, which is an ammo storage shed, and on the way, at rifle range six, he sees her jeep… in fact, there it is.”
Up ahead, off to the right on the narrow road, was the humvee, which we old guys still refer to as a jeep, in which, presumably, Ann Campbell had driven to her rendezvous with death, if you will. Near the humvee was someone’s POV—a red Mustang. I asked Kent, “Where is the guard post and the guard?”
“The ammo shed is another klick up the road. The guard, a PFC Robbins, heard nothing, but saw headlights.”
“You questioned him?”
“Her. Mary Robbins.” Kent smiled for the first time. “PFC is a gender-neutral term, Paul.”
“Thank you. Where is PFC Robbins now?”
“On a cot in the provost building.”
“Crowded in there. But good thinking.”
Kent stopped the car near the humvee and the red Mustang. It was nearly light now, and I could see the six MPs—four men, two women—standing at various spots around the area. All of the rifle ranges had open bleacher seats off to the left side of the road facing the ranges, where the troops received classroom instruction before proceeding to the firing line. In the nearby bleachers to my left sat a woman in jeans and windbreaker, writing on a pad. Kent and I got out of the car, and he said to me, “That is Ms. Sunhill. She’s a woman.”
I knew that. I asked Kent, “Why is she here?”
“I called her.”
“Why?”
“She’s a rape counselor.”
“The victim doesn’t need counseling. She’s dead.”
“Yes,” Kent agreed, “but Ms. Sunhill is also a rape investigator.”
“Is that a fact? What is she doing at Hadley?”
“That female nurse, Lieutenant Neely. You know about that?”
“Only what I read in the papers. Could there be a connection between these cases?”
“No. An arrest was made yesterday.”
“What time yesterday?”
“About four P.M. Ms. Sunhill made the arrest and by five P.M. we had a confession.”
I nodded. And at six P.M. Ms. Sunhill was having a drink in the O Club, quietly celebrating her success, and Ann Campbell, I was about to discover, was alive and having dinner there, and I was at the bar watching Cynthia and trying to get up the courage to say hello or make a strategic withdrawal.
Kent added, “Sunhill was supposed to go off to another assignment today. But she says she’ll stay for this.”
“How lucky we are.”
“Yes, it’s good to have a woman on these kinds of things. And she’s good. I saw her work.”
“Indeed.” I noticed that the red Mustang, which was probably Cynthia’s car, had Virginia license plates, like my own POV, suggesting that she was working out of Falls Church, as I was. But fate had not caused our paths to cross at the home office but had put us here under these circumstances. It was inevitable, anyway.
I looked out over the rifle range, on which sat a morning mist. In front of the berm stood pop-up targets, at different ranges, dozens of nasty-looking fiberboard men with rifles. These lifelike targets have replaced the old black silhouette targets, the point being, I suppose, that if you’re being trained to kill men, then the targets should look you in the eye. However, from past experience, I can tell you that nothing prepares you for killing men except killing men. In any case, birds were perched on many of the mock men, which sort of ruined the effect, at least until the first platoon of the day fired.
When I went through infantry training, the firing ranges were bare of vegetation, great expanses of sterile soil unlike any battlefield condition you were likely to encounter, except perhaps the desert. Now, many firing ranges, like this one, were planted with various types of vegetation to partially obscure the fields of fire. About fifty meters opposite of where I was standing on the road there was a pop-up silhouette partially hidden by tall grass and evergreen bushes. Standing around this target and vegetation were two MPs, a man and a woman. At the base of the silhouette, I could make out something on the ground that didn’t belong there.
Colonel Kent said, “This guy was a sick puppy.” He added, as if I didn’t get it, “I mean, he did it to her right there on the rifle range, with that pop-up guy sort of looking down at her.”
If only the pop-up guy could talk. I turned and looked around the area. Some distance behind the bleachers and the fire control towers was a tree line in which I could see latrine sheds. I said to Colonel Kent, “Have you searched the area for any other possible victims?”
“No… well… we didn’t want to disturb evidence.”
“But someone else may also be dead, or alive and in need of assistance. Evidence is secondary to aiding victims. Says so in the manual.”
“Right…” He looked around and called to an MP sergeant. “Get on the horn and have Lieutenant Fullham’s platoon get down here with the dogs.”
Before the sergeant could respond, a voice from the top of the bleachers said, “I already did that.”
I looked up at Ms. Sunhill. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I wanted to ignore her, but I knew this wasn’t going to be possible. I turned and walked onto the rifle range. Kent followed.
As we walked, Kent’s stride got a bit shorter, and he fell behind. The two MPs there were at parade rest, pointedly looking away from the ground upon which lay Captain Ann Campbell.
I stopped a few feet from the body, which was lying on its back. She was naked, as Kent had indicated, except for a sports watch on her left wrist. A few feet from the body lay what we call a commercially purchased undergarment—her bra. As Kent had also said, her uniform was missing from the scene. Also missing were her boots, socks, helmet, pistol belt, holster, and sidearm. More interestingly, perhaps, was the fact that Ann Campbell was spread-eagled on her back, her wrists and ankles bound to tent pegs with cord. The pegs were a green vinyl plastic, and the cord was green nylon, both Army issue.
Ann Campbell was about thirty and well built, the sort of build you see on female aerobic instructors with
