He shrugged. “I thought maybe it was on fire.”
“On fire?”
“People do stuff like that, in a place like this. They set the room on fire. And then hightail out. For kicks. Or something. I don’t know. It was unusual.”
“How did you know which room to check?”
He went very quiet at that point. Summer pressed him for an answer. Then I did. We did the good cop, bad cop thing. Eventually he admitted it was the only room rented for the whole night. All the others were renting by the hour, and were being serviced by foot traffic from across the street, not by vehicles. He said that was how he had been so sure there was never a hooker in Kramer’s room. It was his responsibility to check them in and out. He took the money and issued the keys. Kept track of the comings and the goings. So he always knew for sure who was where. It was a part of his function. A part he was supposed to keep very quiet about.
“I’ll lose my job now,” he said.
He got worried to the point of tears and Summer had to calm him down. Then he told us he had found Kramer’s body and called the cops and cleared all the hourly renters out for safety’s sake. Then Deputy Chief Stockton had shown up within about fifteen minutes. Then I had shown up, and when I left sometime later the kid recognized the same vehicle sounds he had heard before. Same engine noise, same drivetrain noises, same tire whine. He was convincing. He had already admitted that hookers used the place all the time, so he had no more reason to lie. And Humvees were still relatively new. Still relatively rare. And they made a distinctive noise. So I believed him. We left him there on his stool and stepped outside into the cold red glow of the Coke machine.
“No hooker,” Summer said. “A woman from the base instead.”
“A woman officer,” I said. “Maybe fairly senior. Someone with permanent access to her own Humvee. Nobody signs out a pool vehicle for an assignation like that. And she’s got his briefcase. She must have.”
“She’ll be easy to find. She’ll be in the gate log, time out, time in.”
“I might have even passed her on the road. If she left here at eleven twenty-five she wasn’t back at Bird before twelve-fifteen. I was leaving around then.”
“If she went straight back to the post.”
“Yes,” I said. “If.”
“Did you see another Humvee?”
“Don’t think so,” I said.
“Who do you think she is?”
I shrugged. “Like we figured about the phantom hooker. Someone he met somewhere. Irwin, probably, but it could have been anywhere.”
I stared across at the gas station. Watched cars go by on the road.
“Vassell and Coomer might know her,” Summer said. “You know, if it was a long-term thing between her and Kramer.”
“Yes, they might.”
“Where do you think they are?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m sure I’ll find them if I need them.”
I didn’t find them. They found me. They were waiting for me in my borrowed office when we got back. Summer dropped me at my door and went to park the car. I walked past the outer desk. The night- shift sergeant was back. The mountain woman, with the baby son and the paycheck worries. She gestured at the inner door in a way that told me someone was in there. Someone that ranked a lot higher than either of us.
“Got coffee?” I said.
“The machine is on,” she said.
I took some with me. My coat was still unbuttoned. My hair was a mess. I looked exactly like a guy who had been brawling in a parking lot. I walked straight to the desk. Put my coffee down. There were two guys in upright visitor chairs against the wall, facing me. They were both in woodland BDUs. One had a Brigadier General’s star on his collar and the other had a colonel’s eagle. The general had
I sat down in my chair and saw two slips of paper stacked square in the center of the blotter. The first was a note that said:
“Don’t you salute senior officers?” Vassell said, from his chair.
The second note said:
“I’m sorry,” I said. “What was the question?”
“Don’t you salute senior officers when you enter a room?”
“If they’re in my chain of command,” I said. “You’re not.”
“I don’t consider that an answer,” he said.
“Look it up,” I said. “I’m with the 110th Special Unit. We’re separate. Structurally we’re parallel to the rest of the army. We have to be, if you think about it. We can’t police you if we’re in your chain of command ourselves.”
“I’m not here to be policed, son,” Vassell said.
“So why are you here? It’s kind of late for a social visit.”
“I’m here to ask some questions.”
“Ask away,” I said. “Then I’ll ask some of my own. And you know what the difference will be?”
He said nothing.
“I’ll be answering out of courtesy,” I said. “You’ll be answering because the Uniform Code of Military Justice requires you to.”
Vassell said nothing. Just glared at me. Then he glanced at Coomer. Coomer looked back at him, and then at me.
“We’re here about General Kramer,” he said. “We’re his senior staff.”
“I know who you are,” I said.
“Tell us about the general.”
“He’s dead,” I said.
“We’re aware of that. We’d like to know the circumstances.”
“He had a heart attack.”
“Where?”
“Inside his chest cavity.”
Vassell glowered.
“Where did he die?” Coomer said.
“I can’t tell you that,” I said. “It’s germane to an ongoing inquiry.”
“In what way?” Vassell said.
“In a confidential way.”
“It was around here somewhere,” he said. “That much is already common knowledge.”
“Well, there you go,” I said. “What’s the conference at Irwin about?”
“What?”
“The conference at Irwin,” I said again. “Where you were all headed.”
“What about it?”
“I need to know the agenda.”
Vassell looked at Coomer and Coomer opened his mouth to start telling me something when my phone rang. It was my desk sergeant. She had Summer out there with her. She was unsure whether to send her in. I told her to go right ahead. So there was a tap on the door and Summer came in. I introduced her all around and she pulled a
