11
Ernie pointed to the rubber tube sticking up the MP’s nose.
“That must hurt,” he said.
“Only when I yodel,” the MP replied.
His name was Dorsett. He was the MP assigned last night to guard the Country Western All Stars after we’d left Waegwan. His hospital bed had been cranked up so he could watch the soap operas playing on AFKN. It was an open bay, and about a half dozen other G.I. s lounged in beds in various states of repose.
“So who popped you?” Ernie asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” he said.
Dorsett told the story. He’d been assigned to guard the rear of the Camp Carroll Female BOQ., bachelor officers’ quarters. The Quonset hut assigned to the Country Western All Stars was deserted except for them, and they each had their own room, but they had to share a communal bathroom. Through the high windows, Dorsett could hear the showers running.
“Did you let your imagination get the best of you?” Ernie asked.
“No way. I was plenty alert. Whoever hit me hid himself inside the closet that holds the water heaters. He must’ve been in there for over an hour, because that’s how long we’d been there, even before the band finished their show. As I passed by, the door creaked open and before I could turn something hit me. I went down.”
“Did you see anything?”
“Nothing. It happened too fast.”
“What about your. 45?”
“They found it later. In a trash can toward the front of the BOQ.”
“What’s the doc say?” Ernie asked.
“He says I’m a stupid butt for not checking inside the room that held the water heaters.”
Marnie wasn’t as excited to see Ernie this time. She seemed distracted and, for the first time since I’d known her, she was puffing away on a cigarette. As we strode up onto the stage of the Camp Henry NCO Club, the other girls greeted us. Cymbals clanged and the bass guitar plunked as Ernie sat down in front of Marnie and asked her what was wrong.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, turning her head, blowing out smoke.
“None of you were hurt last night, were you?”
“No. Nobody hurt. Scared shitless, but not hurt.”
“Tell us what happened, Marnie,” I said.
Marnie shook her head, making her stiff blonde locks rustle beneath the cowgirl hat. She sighed and started talking. “Shelly was taking a shower. The rest of us were in our rooms. I heard footsteps tromping down the central aisle, you know, man’s footsteps, those big combat boots that the G.I. s wear, but I didn’t think anything of it. I figured it was just the MP patrol or the base commander coming over to thank us or something like that. The footsteps went down the hallway, past my room toward the bathroom.”
“The latrine,” Ernie said.
“Whatever you call it. So I thought that was sort of weird, some man walking toward our bathroom, but before I could do anything about it, somebody screamed.”
“Shelly?” I asked.
“None other. I threw on my robe and I was about to step out my door when I heard the same heavy footsteps coming back down the hallway, and I was looking for my shotgun and then I realized I’d left it back in Austin and suddenly I was afraid to open the door. Finally, when the footsteps subsided I ran to the bathroom and found Shelly. She was okay. She said some man had been there rummaging in her bag that was sitting on the bench in front of her shower stall.”
“Did she see him?”
“Ask her.”
By now, Shelly had joined us. She pulled over a stool and sat down. “I saw his back,” she said. “He was wearing an army uniform, the same one everyone else wears around here.”
“Fatigues,” Ernie said.
“Yeah. But I didn’t see his face. Only his back. He was Caucasian, I think, but even that I can’t be sure of.”
“But he could’ve been black,” Marnie said.
Shelly shrugged. “Could’ve been. All I saw was his back and then I pulled the shower curtain shut and knelt down in the corner, trying to make myself small.”
“But he left when you screamed?” I asked.
“Yes,” Shelly replied. “In a hurry.”
“Did he take anything?” Ernie asked.
Shelly rolled her eyes. “It’s embarrassing.”
Marnie spoke for her. “Damn, Shelly. It’s only a bra and panties.”
“Yeah, but they were my bra and panties.”
“What color were they?” Ernie asked, deadpan.
Shelly rolled her eyes. “Red.”
“Lace,” Ernie asked, “or straight cotton?”
Shelly glared at him. “Lace,” she said.
Ernie tipped an imaginary hat. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said.
After Shelly left, Marnie inhaled deeply on her cigarette, held the smoke in her lungs for a while, and then blew the gray mist out in a steady stream. When it was gone, she seemed out of breath. Her voice came out weak.
“What she’s not telling you is what happened after the guy ran out of the building.”
“Tell us,” I said.
“There’s a phone in the hallway and the emergency number for the Military Police is painted on the wall, so I dialed it and a few minutes later the MPs showed up. They found that poor MP out back, still unconscious, and called an ambulance and took him away. They also found someone else outside. Someone in a jeep.”
Marnie continued to puff on her cigarette.
Finally, Ernie said, “Freddy Ray.”
“How’d you know?” Marnie asked.
“Just a guess. He knew you were playing at Camp Carroll. He hopped in a jeep and drove out there.”
Marnie nodded.
“Did the MPs question him?” I asked.
“They questioned him.”
“Did you have a chance to talk to him?”
Marnie shook her head. “No.”
I finished her thought for her. “And some of the MPs thought that Freddy Ray might be the peeper, the guy who’d stolen Shelly’s bra and panties.”
“That’s what they thought,” she said.
“What do you think?” Ernie asked.
Marnie stubbed out her cigarette. “I don’t know what to think.”
She rose from her chair and strode over to her keyboard and plugged it in.
Camp Henry is a small compound, just five or six hundred yards wide in any direction. We walked the hundred or so yards from the NCO Club to the 19th Support Group headquarters. In the foyer, we read the signs and Ernie followed me down to the 19th Support Group Personnel Service Center (PSC). The door was locked. Ernie rattled it and then turned back to me. “It’s six p.m. The duty day ends at five.”
I went back to the entranceway and checked the sign. The Staff Duty Officer was in room 102. We went back down the hallway, turned left, and spotted a light on and a door open. We stepped inside.
The Duty Officer was a young man with curly brown hair. He sat behind a gray army-issue desk, his chair
