somewhere.
Not far enough, though. If there was one other man on this compound who wore size thirteen, double E’s, then Williams was home free. And we already knew there was a reporter in Los Angeles who wore thirteen, double E’s.
We went back to trying to figure out how Williams discovered Berkowitz was on to him. We decided they either met face-to-face or at least talked to each other on the phone.
We sat and stared at the tabletop for a while. How would Berkowitz have learned where Sergeant Major Williams worked, I wondered. I mean, assume his source gave him Williams’s name and told him he was now with Tenth Group at Tuzla Air Base. Berkowitz still would’ve needed to track him down. Maybe he did what Janice Warner tried with Harry Hufnagel.
I went to the phone and called the information office. That same friendly little sergeant named Jarvis answered again.
I said, “Hey, Sergeant Jarvis, Major Sean Drummond here.”
“Good morning, sir. How can I help you?”
“Just answer a few questions. Who handles press inquiries in your office?”
“They come to me first. I sort through them and parcel ’em out.”
“So if a reporter calls or sends a paper request, you would see it?”
“That’s right. But I only handle the easy stuff. If it’s a complicated request, it goes to the information officer, Major Lord. Usually he tasks it out to whoever in Tenth Group has the right expertise to answer the question. Then it comes back to us, and we send the response back to the journalist.”
“Okay,” I said. “Suppose a reporter wanted to track down somebody in Tenth Group. Who would handle that?”
“Me. I mean, it’s no toughie. I just access the group’s manning roster and get the answer.”
“Do you remember if Jeremy Berkowitz asked you to track anyone down?”
“Sure. He asked me to find you, for instance.”
“Good. That’s right. Anyone else?”
“Just a second, sir. I keep a record of every request. It’s SOP here.”
I heard his fingers tapping his computer keys, accessing some file. Then, “Yeah, I’ve got the list here.”
“Could you read it to me, please?”
“Sure. Uh, let’s see… Colonel Thomas Weathers… Major Sean Drummond… Captain Dean Walters… Sergeant Major Luther Williams-”
“Stop there,” I said. “Did you tell him how to get hold of Williams?”
“I did. But he asked me to get hold of him and have Williams call him back.”
“And did you?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. I’ve got it all logged right here. Let’s see… I called the sergeant major at 1030 hours at the ops center on the morning of the second.”
“Very good. Now, I’d like you to put a copy of that file you’re reading on a disk and bring it down to the MP station. Don’t mention anything to anybody, just do it. Ask for Captain Wolkowitz when you get here.”
Sergeant Jarvis was a smart kid, and no doubt deduced this had something to do with the Berkowitz murder. He sounded almost breathless when he said, “Be right there. Only take ten minutes.”
In a matter of only a few hours we now had a motive, and we had the makings of a very good circumstantial case. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when you know who the killer is and only have to fill in the blanks from there. Especially on an Army base.
What we didn’t have was tangible proof. And what I didn’t have was more time to build a better case.
We could prove Berkowitz was here trying to break a story on white supremacists. We could prove, with the outfit’s wiretaps, that Williams was associated with a backwoods band of bigots. We could prove Berkowitz made contact with Williams. We could prove Williams had the right shoe size to fit a mold from the murder scene. All this was great. Arithmetically speaking.
What we couldn’t prove was that Williams murdered him. No small inconvenience that last point.
It was nearly noon. I turned to Martie. “I need you to provide me a wire, and I need you to call your judge and get me permission to tape a conversation with Williams. You’ve got proximate cause.”
He called the judge and it took about ten minutes before the judge wrote out an order.
The note I had earlier sent to Williams asked him to meet me at 1230 hours at my office. I’d also told Imelda to make sure everyone was gone and that the building was empty.
I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything to directly confront Sergeant Major Williams. It wasn’t like he could escape. Tuzla Air Base was heavily guarded and, even if Williams could get out into the surrounding countryside, he wasn’t going to get far without a passport. It wasn’t like he could blend into the population. He didn’t even speak Serbo- Croatian.
I asked Wolky to position a few of his best ass-kicking MPs in the nearby vicinity, without their identifying brassards, just in case our man got violent. Williams was about six foot three, and weighed about 230. I’m about five foot ten and weigh only 170. I was always pretty good with my fists, but the laws of physics are what they are.
I then returned to my office to meet the man I was sure murdered Jeremy Berkowitz. Imelda had done her job, and the building was empty. She’d also brewed me a fresh pot of coffee. I love that woman. I got a cup and went into my office.
Sergeant Major Williams swaggered in two minutes late. I went out to meet him, offered him some coffee, he nodded, and I went over and poured him a cup. I owed him a cup anyway, so now we were even. Well, not exactly even, since there was the matter of nearly two dozen excessive ass-kickings I still owed him. He followed me back into the office and sat in a chair across from my desk.
“So what you doin’?” he asked, grinning. He had a cocky manner anyway, but in my case, since he’d once spent two weeks pounding me like Silly Putty, he felt a bit superior.
I said, “I’m leaving tomorrow. My investigation’s complete so I gave the rest of my staff the day off, and I’m left with a little time to kill. Us being old comrades and all, I just thought you and I should get together.”
He looked at me curiously and took a sip of coffee.
I took a sip, too, then said, “Ever get to thinking about the outfit days?”
“Sure do. Great fucking days. We did some wild-assed stuff.”
“Sure did, didn’t we? If it wasn’t for getting accepted to law school, I’d probably still… well…” I let that thought taper off. “So, why exactly did you leave?”
“Ah, y’know, you get burned out. Can’t live on a high wire like that forever.”
I said, “That’s funny. I heard different. I heard you got in some kinda trouble back there.”
He became noticeably tighter. “Yeah? Where’d you hear that?”
“Here and there. Something about you working with a bunch of bigots down in North Carolina.”
I had his undivided attention. He was staring at me hard and trying to figure out what was going down here. “You must be listenin’ to the wrong people,” he said. “Ain’t no such thing happened.”
I said, “Did you know the outfit tapped all of our phones? Probably not. Hell, I didn’t know it myself till a few days ago.”
He leaned back in his chair and drew in a heavy breath. “That legal?” he inquired.
Give the man credit; his mind was racing quickly. He was trying to get a little free legal advice. He wanted to know how the wiretaps would stand up in court if he ever got apprehended for Berkowitz’s murder.
“I’d guess the outfit has some kinda court order that allows it,” I answered. “Kinda like the CIA is allowed to impose lie detector tests on its employees. Unique privileges for unique organizations.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Well, that was a long time ago.”
“Yep, it was,” I agreed. “And you probably stopped whatever you were doing when you left.”
“I probably did,” he said.
I took another sip from my coffee, and he took another sip from his coffee. He knew now this was no friendly, idle chat.
“Hey,” I said, “ever meet that reporter who got murdered? What’s his name? Berkowitz, right? Jeremy Berkowitz.”
His eyes were now very narrow and guarded. “Nope, can’t say I ever did.”
