“Unlikely,” I said again. “And how would he have rendezvoused with Sergeant Carbone?”
“Prearranged location.”
“It wasn’t a location,” I said. “It was just a spot near the track.”
“Map reference, then.”
“Unlikely,” I said, for the third time.
“But possible?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“So a man could have met with the shirtlifter, then killed him, then gotten back out through the wire, and then walked around to the main gate, and then signed in?”
“Anything’s possible,” I said again.
“What kind of timescale are we looking at? Between killing him and signing in?”
“I don’t know. I would have to work out the distance he walked.”
“Maybe he ran.”
“Maybe he did.”
“In which case he would have been out of breath when he passed the gate.”
I said nothing.
“Best guess,” Willard said. “How much time?”
“An hour or two.”
He nodded. “So if the fairy was offed at nine or ten, the killer could have been logging in at eleven?”
“Possible,” I said.
“And the motive would have been to dead-end something.”
I nodded. Said nothing.
“And you took six hours to complete a four-hour journey, thereby leaving a potential two-hour gap, which you explain with the vague claim that you took a slow route.”
I said nothing.
“And you just agreed that a two-hour window is generous in terms of getting the deed done. In particular the two hours between nine and eleven, which by chance are the same two hours that you can’t account for.”
I said nothing. Willard smiled.
“And you arrived at the gate out of breath,” he said. “I checked.”
I didn’t reply.
“But what would have been your motive?” he said. “I assume you didn’t know Carbone well. I assume you don’t move in the same social circles that he did. At least I sincerely hope you don’t.”
“You’re wasting your time,” I said. “And you’re making a big mistake. Because you really don’t want to make an enemy out of me.”
“Don’t I?”
“No,” I said. “You really don’t.”
“What do you need dead-ended?” he asked me.
I said nothing.
“Here’s an interesting fact,” Willard said. “Sergeant First Class Christopher Carbone was the soldier who lodged the complaint against you.”
He proved it to me by unfolding a copy of the complaint from his pocket. He smoothed it out and passed it across my desk. There was a reference number at the top and then a date and a place and a time. The date was January second, the place was Fort Bird’s Provost Marshal’s office, and the time was 0845. Then came two paragraphs of sworn affidavit. I glanced through some of the stiff, formal sentences.
“Delta Force looks after its own,” Willard said. “We all know that. I guess it’s part of their mystique. So what are they going to do now? One of their own is beaten to death after lodging a complaint against a smart-ass MP major, and the smart-ass MP major in question needs to save his career, and he can’t exactly account for his time on the night it went down?”
I said nothing.
“The Delta CO’s office gets its own copy,” Willard said. “Standard procedure with disciplinary complaints. Multiple copies all over the place. So the news will leak very soon. Then they’ll be asking questions. So what shall I tell them? I could tell them you’re definitely not a suspect. Or I could suggest you definitely
I said nothing.
“It’s the only complaint Carbone ever made,” he said. “In a sixteen-year career. I checked that too. And it stands to reason. A guy like that has to keep his head down. But Delta as a whole will see some significance in it. Carbone comes up over the parapet for the first time in his life, they’re going to think you boys had some previous history. They’ll think it was a grudge match. Won’t make them like you any better.”
I said nothing.
“So what should I do?” Willard said. “Should I go over there and drop some hints about awkward legal technicalities? Or shall we trade? I keep Delta off your back, and you start toeing the line?”
I said nothing.
“I don’t really think you killed him,” he said. “Not even you would go that far. But I wouldn’t have minded if you had. Fags in the army deserve to be killed. They’re here under false pretenses. You would have chosen the wrong reason, is all.”
“It’s an empty threat,” I said. “You never told me he lodged the complaint. You didn’t show it to me yesterday. You never gave me a name.”
“Their sergeants’ mess won’t buy that for a second. You’re a special unit investigator. You do this stuff for a living. Easy enough for you to weasel a name out of all the paperwork they think we do.”
I said nothing.
“Wake up, Major,” Willard said. “Get with the program. Garber’s gone. We’re going to do things my way now.”
“You’re making a mistake,” I said. “Making an enemy out of me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t agree. I’m not making a mistake. And I’m not making an enemy out of you. I’m bringing this unit into line, is all. You’ll thank me later. All of you. The world is changing. I can see the big picture.”
I said nothing.
“Help the army,” he said. “And help yourself at the same time.”
I said nothing.
“Do we have a deal?” he said.
I didn’t reply. He winked at me.
“I think we have a deal,” he said. “You’re not that dumb.”
He got up and walked out of the office and closed the door behind him. I sat there and watched the stiff vinyl cushion on my visitor’s chair regain its shape. It happened slowly, with quiet hissing sounds as air leaked back into it.
ten
