“I can tell you he was murdered by a pro. I can tell you it had something to do with the story he was covering. And I’ll repeat again, I believe it was connected to my investigation.”
I decided not to mention that I was also being framed for his death. Or that my office was tapped and that the conversation Berkowitz and I had there might’ve been the trigger to his murder. After all, I needed her to trust me, and I already seemed to be having a bit of trouble in that department.
She said, “And that’s it?”
I said, “Well, what do you think got him murdered?”
She seemed ambivalent for a few seconds, and I hoped her mental coin toss landed in my direction. I gave her my most endearing expression, which, like my look of fiery conviction, tends to get mixed results.
Finally she said, “Major Drummond, I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m still having a little trouble trusting you.”
I said, “Story of my life. Every pretty girl I ever met says that.”
She chuckled a bit, and that took some of the edge off.
“Look, Janice,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster, “we’re headed in the same direction. I’m an Army officer. I don’t like the idea that someone who wears my same uniform slipped a garrote around a reporter’s neck. I’m also an officer of the court. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe crime should pay.”
She said, “All right, all right. I just don’t think I can help you. If we had any idea what got Berkowitz murdered, you’d be reading about it on the front page of the Herald. He was covering your investigation. And he was doing the occasional routine piece on the operation in Kosovo. We just don’t see any angles there that got him killed.”
“Was there anything else?” I asked.
“Well, he was also running some silly investigation on neoNazis and white supremacists in the Army. It was a personal passion of his. A crazy thing he’d been working on for years. Berkowitz was Jewish, you know. His grandparents actually died in the Nazi death camps.”
Only with great difficulty did I keep a perfectly straight face. “What kind of investigation?”
“This time he was following a trail he had picked up at Fort Bragg. I don’t know much about it. Some group of soldiers helping train a bunch of hicks to blow up and burn synagogues and Black churches. Nobody took it too seriously. From what I hear, he was always finding new leads for his story, and they always went nowhere.”
“And that’s why he was here?”
“According to Bob Barrows, his editor, it’s one of the things he was checking on. Remember that string of church arsons about a year back? Berkowitz thought the man behind it might be here.”
I said, “You’re kidding.”
She said, “No, really.”
I almost blurted out, “You’re not going to believe this. I think I know exactly who he was looking for.”
I didn’t, though. Partly because my mind suddenly got very busy. It would be an incredible coincidence, but fate owed me a break. Sergeant Major Williams was an expert with a garrote, since all of us in the outfit were taught how to use that ghoulish thing. He’d been thrown out of the outfit for mucking around with a bunch of backwoods, redneck racists. And he had a brutally short fuse and a bent toward cruelty. I could testify to that in excruciating detail. But murder? Yes, I could see that son of a bitch murdering somebody. With a garrote, too. Hell, he’d probably smile as he did it.
Then one more piece of the puzzle suddenly went kaplunk! Maybe this was how Berkowitz knew about the existence of the outfit. Maybe he had a source somewhere who told him about Williams, and maybe that same source put him on to me.
My thoughts were interrupted by a now-curious Miss Warner, who grabbed my arm. “Do you know something about this?”
I summoned every ounce of innocence I could. “No, not really. I mean, bigots sometimes slip through our net, but I think you’re right. Probably just some crazy idea he had that didn’t pan out. I’d be willing to do some checking around, though.”
She looked disappointed. The edges of her lips sagged a little, and she said, “I have to admit that the first time you called, I thought this was what it was about. Hufnagel’s a good German name, and you said you were a sergeant. I mean, I thought it fit, and-”
As much as I didn’t want to arouse her suspicions, I glanced down at my watch and said, “Geez, look what time it is! Listen, I’ve got to take another interrogatory. Why don’t I give you a call, if I find something?”
She was no dummy. Her eyes got even narrower, almost squinty. “Yeah, why don’t you do that,” she said as I dashed away.
It is an old Army axiom that you should never defecate in your own mess kit, but I really couldn’t tell her about my old buddy Sergeant Major Williams. For one thing, she was a reporter, and all I had was a suspicion based on an odd coincidence. A suspicion with pretty strong legs, but still. Besides, I had other plans for my newest revelation.
The neat box Tretorne and Murphy had built around me had suddenly developed a fatal flaw. They’d lose all their leverage over me if I could prove Williams murdered Berkowitz. I rather looked forward to that. I still owed Williams for two false teeth and about a month of pissing blood out of my pummeled kidneys anyway. As for Tretorne and crew, I owed them something special, too. I’d rewrite my investigation summary and blow them all to pieces. I’d say I had great difficulty getting at the truth because of Tretorne’s plotting and Murphy’s conspiracy. I’d write about the director of the National Security Agency, who was in the cover-up so deep he’d even fabricated false evidence. I still wasn’t positive whether Clapper was in or out. His calls had been strategically timed, and that was suspicious, but not ironclad. Anyway, I’d find some way to take a whack at him, too.
Chapter 26
Lisa Morrow was still in a sulky funk when I got back to the office. She was seated at the desk outside my office and gave me a sulfurous look when I walked by. Give the girl credit. She was very tenacious.
I drafted a brief note to Sergeant Major Williams, then asked Imelda to please have one of her aides deliver it to him in the ops center. Then I left and went back to the MP station. Martie and David had been given a conference room in the rear, right next to Captain Wolkowitz’s office.
I knocked and someone called for me to come in. All three of them, Martie, David, and Wolky, were seated around a conference table. A large easel had been erected on a flimsy metal stand. On the easel was their own Chinese puzzle, with lots of little boxes filled with scribbled-in names, and lots of intersecting lines that connected this suspect with that suspect and this motive with that motive. It looked to me like a hopeless montage.
About two dozen empty white foam coffee cups were strewn around, and both Martie and David had loosened their ties and rolled up their shirtsleeves. The room reeked from the acrid smell of body odor. And my ever-acute nose also detected a fragrance of desperation. I’d smelled enough of it on my own body these past few days to recognize it.
I said, “Hi guys,” and gave them my cheeriest smile. At least somebody around here was getting less sleep than me.
Then I fell into a chair that allowed me to face them. “Any new suspects?” I asked.
Of course, they were not about to answer this question to a man who, only that morning, had been a suspect himself. And maybe still was in their fevered minds; General Murphy’s alibi notwithstanding. Martie stared back at me with clouded indifference.
“We’re making headway,” he said. He didn’t sound real convincing, though.
I said, “Oh good. Then I won’t waste your time by telling you who the killer is.”
Wolky was the first to recover and open his mouth. “Is this some kind of a joke, Major?”
“Actually, no. Did you ever get around to asking the Herald what stories Berkowitz was working on?”
“Of course,” Martie said. “All they said, though, was that he was writing about the Kosovo operation. They were too worried about disclosing sources and stories in progress to offer specifics. The only reason we knew your investigation was one of his subjects was because of the article he wrote about it. And, of course, you admitted it.”
