Kent said, “I’m glad that’s over.”
“We all are.”
He asked me, “Why did you want me to meet John Campbell?”
“I thought you might like to say something comforting to him.”
Kent did not respond to that.
I noticed that the refrigerator in Ann Campbell’s kitchen had been plugged into an extension cord, and I walked through the invisible walls, opened the refrigerator, and saw that it was filled with beer and soft drinks. I took three cans of Coors and carried them back into the study, giving one to Kent.
We popped them and drank. Kent said, “You’re off the case now. Right?”
“I’ve been handed a few more hours.”
“Lucky you. Do they pay overtime in the CID?”
“Yes, they do. Double time after the first twenty-four hours of each day, triple that on Sundays.”
He smiled, then informed me, “I have a pile of work back in my office.”
“This won’t take long.”
He shrugged and finished his beer. I gave him the extra one, and he opened it. He said, “I didn’t know that the Campbells were leaving on the aircraft.”
“Took me by surprise, too. But it was a smart move.”
“He’s finished. He could have been the next vice-president, maybe president one day. We were ready for a general again.”
“I don’t know much about civilian politics.” I saw Grace put the printouts and floppy disk on the table beside her. She got up, waved to me, then headed out. Cal went over to the PC and put his footprint graphic program in and began fooling around with it.
Kent asked me, “What are they doing?”
“Trying to figure out who did it.”
“Where’s the FBI?”
“Probably crowded around the door outside waiting for my clock to run out.”
“I don’t enjoy working with the FBI,” Kent commented. “They don’t understand us.”
“No, they don’t. But none of them slept with the deceased.”
The door opened, and Cynthia appeared. She came into the study and exchanged greetings with Kent. I got her an RC Cola from the refrigerator and another beer for Kent. We all sat. Kent, at this point, began to look uneasy.
Cynthia said, “It was very sad. She was young… I felt awful for her parents and her brother.”
Kent did not respond.
I said to him, “Bill, Cynthia and I have turned up some things that are disturbing us and that we think need some explaining.”
He drank more of his beer.
Cynthia said, “First of all, there’s this letter.” She took the letter from her bag and handed it to Kent.
He read it, or actually didn’t read it, since he probably knew it by heart, and handed it back to Cynthia.
She said, “I could see how you’d be disturbed by that. I mean, here was a woman who was giving it out all over post, and the one person who cared for her is the person who she causes trouble for.”
He seemed a bit more uncomfortable and took a long hit on his beer. Finally he asked, “What makes you think I cared for her?”
Cynthia replied, “Just intuition. I think you cared for her, but she was too self-absorbed and disturbed to respond to your concern and honest feelings for her.”
A homicide cop has to speak badly of the dead in front of the suspect, of course. The murderer doesn’t want to hear that he killed a paragon of virtue, a child of God, as Colonel Fowler had described Ann Campbell. You don’t completely remove the moral question of right and wrong, as Karl suggested; you just cast the question in a different light and suggest to the suspect that what he did was understandable.
But Bill Kent was no idiot, and he saw where this was going, so he said nothing.
Cynthia continued, “We also have her diary entries regarding each and every sexual encounter she had with you.”
I added, “They’re over there near the computer.”
Cynthia went to the computer desk and came back with the printouts. She sat in front of Kent on the coffee table and began reading. The descriptions were, of course, explicit, but not really erotic. They were the sort of thing you’d read in a clinical study; there was no mention of love or emotion, as you’d expect in a diary, just a cataloging of the sex that transpired. Certainly, this was embarrassing to Bill Kent, but it was also an affirmation that Ann Campbell thought no more of him than she did of her vibrator. I could see in his face that he was getting angry, which is the least controllable of human emotions, and the one that invariably leads to self-destruction.
Kent stood and said, “I don’t have to listen to this.”
I stood also. “I think you should. Please sit down. We really need you here.”
He seemed to be deciding whether to stay or go, but it was an act. The most important thing in his life was happening here and now, and, if he left, it would happen without him.
With feigned reluctance, he sat, and I sat.
Cynthia continued reading as if nothing had happened. She found a particularly kinky entry and read, “ ‘Bill has really gotten into sexual asphyxia now after resisting it for so long. His favorite is putting a noose around his neck and hanging from a spike on the wall while I give him a blow job. But he also likes to tie me to the bed, which he did tonight, and tightening the rope around my neck while he uses the big vibrator on me. He’s become good at it, and I have intense and multiple orgasms.’ ” Cynthia looked up at Kent for a moment, then flipped through the pages.
Kent seemed no longer angry, nor embarrassed, nor uncomfortable. He seemed, in fact, sort of far away, as if he were remembering those better days, or looking into a bad future.
Cynthia read the last entry, the one that Grace had read to us over the phone. “ ‘Bill is becoming possessive again. I thought we solved that problem. He showed up here tonight when Ted Bowes was here. Ted and I hadn’t gone downstairs yet, and Bill and he had a drink in the living room, and Bill was nasty to him and pulled rank on him. Finally, Ted left, and Bill and I had words. He says he’s prepared to leave his wife and resign his commission if I promise to live with him or marry him or something. He knows why I do what I do with him and the other men, but he’s starting to think there’s more to it with us. He’s pressing me, and I tell him to stop. Tonight, he doesn’t even want sex. He just wants to talk. I let him talk, but I don’t like what he’s saying. Why do some men think they have to be knights in shining armor? I don’t need a knight. I am my own knight, I am my own dragon, and I live in my own castle. Everyone else are props and bit players. Bill is not very cognitive. He doesn’t understand, so I don’t try to explain. I did tell him I’d consider his offer, but in the meantime, would he only come here with an appointment? This put him into a rage, and he actually slapped me, then ripped off my clothes and raped me on the living room floor. When he was done, he seemed to feel better, then left in a sulk. I realize he could be dangerous, but I don’t care, and, in fact, of all of them, he’s the only one except for Wes who has actually threatened me or hit me, and it’s the only thing that makes Bill Kent interesting.’ ”
Cynthia put the papers down, and we all sat there. I asked Kent, “You raped her right over there on the living room floor?” I nodded toward the next room.
Kent wasn’t answering questions. But he did say, “If your purpose is to humiliate me, you’re doing a fine job of it.”
I replied, “My purpose, Colonel, is to find out who murdered Ann Campbell, and, not least of all, to find out why.”
“Do you think I… that I know something I’m not telling?”
“Yes, we think so.” I picked up the remote control and turned on the TV and the VCR. Ann Campbell’s face came into focus, in the middle of a lecture. I said to Kent, “Do you mind? This woman fascinates me, as I’m sure she fascinated you and others. I need to see her every once in a while. It helps.”
Captain Ann Campbell was speaking. “The moral question arises concerning the use of psychology, which is usually a healing science, as a weapon of war.” Ann Campbell took the microphone from the lectern and walked toward the camera. She sat on the floor with her legs dangling over the edge of the stage and said, “I can see you guys better now.”
