The General's Daughter

I said, “Given the amount of evidence—including the evidence for motive, which is the diary entries, the letter to your wife, and other evidence of your sexual involvement and obsession with the deceased—given all that, plus this forensic evidence and other evidence, I have to ask you to take a polygraph test, which we are prepared to administer now.”

Actually, we weren’t, but now or later it didn’t really matter. I said to him, “If you refuse to take the test now, I have no choice but to place you under arrest, and I will get someone in the Pentagon to order you to take the polygraph.”

Kent turned away and began walking back toward the layout of Ann Campbell’s house. I exchanged glances with Cynthia and Cal, then Cynthia and I followed.

Kent sat on an arm of an upholstered chair in the living room and looked down at the carpet for a while, staring, I suppose, at the spot where he’d raped her on the floor.

I stood in front of him and said, “You know your rights as an accused, of course, and I won’t insult you by reading them. But I’m afraid I have to take your weapon and put the cuffs on you.”

He glanced up at me, but didn’t respond.

I said, “I won’t take you to the provost building lockup, because that would be gratuitously humiliating to you. But I am going to take you to the post stockade for processing.” I added, “May I have your weapon?”

He knew it was over, of course, but like any trapped animal, he had to have a last growl. He said to me and to Cynthia, “You’ll never prove any of this. And when I’m vindicated by a court-martial board of my peers, I’ll see to it that you’re both brought up on charges of misconduct.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied. “That is your right. A trial by your peers. And if you are found not guilty, you may well decide to bring charges against us. But the evidence of your sexual misconduct is fairly conclusive. You may beat the murder charge, but you should plan on at least fifteen years in Leavenworth for gross dereliction of duty, misconduct, concealing the facts of a crime, sodomy, rape, and other violations of the punitive articles contained in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

Kent seemed to process this, then said, “You’re not playing very fair, are you?”

“How so?”

“I mean, I voluntarily told you about my involvement with her in order to help find her killer, and here you are charging me with misconduct and sexual crimes and then twisting the other evidence around to try to show that I killed her. You’re desperate.”

“Bill, cut the crap.”

“No, you cut the crap. For your information, I was out there before St. John, and when I got there, she was already dead. If you want to know what I think, I think Fowler and the general did it.”

“Bill, this is not good. Not at all.” I put my hand on his shoulder and said to him, “Be a man, be an officer and a gentleman—be a cop, for Christ’s sake. I shouldn’t even be asking you to take a lie-detector test. I should just be asking you to tell me the truth, without me having to use a lie detector, without me having to show you evidence, without me having to spend days in an interrogation room with you. Don’t make this embarrassing for any of us.”

He glanced at me, and I could see he was on the verge of crying. He looked at Cynthia to see if she noticed, which was important to him, I think.

I continued, “Bill, we know you did it, you know you did it, and we all know why. There’s a lot of extenuating and mitigating circumstances, and we know that. Hell, I can’t even stand here and look you in the eye and say to you, ‘She didn’t deserve that.’ ” Actually, I could, because she didn’t deserve it, but just as you give a condemned man any last meal he wants, so, too, you give him anything he wants to hear.

Kent fought back the tears and tried to sound angry. He shouted, “She did deserve it! She was a bitch, a fucking whore, she ruined my life and my marriage…”

“I know. But now you have to make it right. Make it right for the Army, for your family, for the Campbells, and for yourself.”

The tears were running down his cheeks now, and I knew he would rather be dead than be crying in front of me, Cynthia, and Cal Seiver, who was watching from the other side of the hangar. Kent managed to get a few words out and said, “I can’t make it right. I can’t make it right anymore.”

“Yes, you can. You know you can. You know how you can. Don’t fight this. Don’t disgrace yourself and everyone else. That’s all that’s left in your power to do. Just do your duty. Do what an officer and a gentleman would do.”

Kent stood slowly and wiped his eyes and nose with his hands.

I said, “Please hand me your weapon.”

He looked me in the eye. “No cuffs, Paul.”

“I’m sorry. I have to. Regulations.”

“I’m an officer, for Christ’s sake! You want me to act like an officer, treat me like one!”

“Start acting like one first.” I called out to Cal, “Get me a pair of handcuffs.”

Kent pulled the .38 Police Special out of his shoulder holster and shouted, “Okay! Okay! Watch this!” He put the revolver to his right temple and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SEVEN

The human eye can distinguish fifteen or sixteen shades of gray. A computer image processor, analyzing a fingerprint, can distinguish two hundred fifty-six shades of gray, which is impressive. More impressive, however, is the human heart, mind, and soul, which can distinguish an infinite number of emotional, psychological, and moral shadings, from the blackest of black to the whitest of white. I’ve never seen either end of that spectrum, but I’ve seen a lot in between.

In truth, people are no more constant or absolute in their personalities than a chameleon is in terms of color.

The people here at Fort Hadley were no different from, no better or worse than, people I’d seen at a hundred other posts and installations around the world. But Ann Campbell was most certainly different, and I try to imagine myself in conversations with her if I’d met her when she was alive, if, for instance, I’d been assigned to investigate what was going on here at Fort Hadley. I think I would have recognized that I was not in the presence of a simple seductress, but in the presence of a unique, forceful, and driven personality. I think, too, that I could have shown her that whatever hurts other people does not make her stronger, it only increases the misery quotient for everyone.

I don’t think I would have wound up like Bill Kent, but I don’t discount the possibility, and, therefore, I’m not judging Kent. Kent judged himself, looked at what he had become, was frightened to discover that another personality lurked inside his neat, orderly mind, and he blew it out.

The hangar was filled with MPs now, and FBI men, medical personnel, plus the forensic people who had remained behind at Fort Hadley and who had thought they were almost finished with this place.

I said to Cal Seiver, “After you’re done with the body, get the carpet and furniture cleaned up and have all the household goods packed and shipped to the Campbells in Michigan. They’ll want their daughter’s things.”

“Right.” He added, “I hate to say this, but he saved everybody but me a lot of trouble.”

“He was a good soldier.”

I turned and walked the length of the hangar, past an FBI guy who was trying to get my attention, and out the door into the hot sun.

Karl and Cynthia were standing beside an ambulance, talking. I walked past them toward my Blazer. Karl came up to me and said, “I can’t say I’m satisfied with this outcome.”

I didn’t reply.

He said, “Cynthia seems to believe that you knew he was going to do that.”

“Karl, all that goes wrong is not my fault.”

“No one’s blaming you.”

“Sounds like it.”