The General's Daughter

rising sun on my face. I rolled up the window and sat back, trying to picture what preceded what I had just seen, like running the film backward; Ann Campbell staked out on the ground, then standing naked, then walking from the jeep, and so on. A lot of it didn’t compute.

Cynthia broke into my thoughts. “Paul, the uniform had her name tag on it, and so did her dog tags, obviously, and probably her helmet and boots had her name stenciled inside. So what do the missing items have in common? Her name. Correct?”

“Correct.” Women bring different things to the party. And that’s okay. Really.

She said, “So this guy is into… what? Trophies? Proof?

Mementos and souvenirs? That’s consistent with the personality and profile of an organized sex offender.”

“But he left her underwear and handbag.” I added, “Actually, what all the missing items have in common is that they are all her military issue, including her holster and sidearm, and they would not have her name on them. He left the civilian stuff behind, including her watch and her handbag, which has all sorts of things with her name on them. Correct?”

“Is this a contest?”

“No, Cynthia. It’s a homicide investigation. We’re brainstorming.”

“Okay. Sorry. That’s what partners are supposed to do in a homicide investigation.”

“Right.” Partner?

Cynthia stayed silent a moment, then said, “You know this stuff.”

“I hope so.”

“Okay, why did he take only her military issue?”

“Ancient warriors stripped the arms and armor from their dead enemies. They left the loincloths.”

“That’s why he took her military issue?”

“Maybe. Just a thought. Could be a red herring. Could be some other mental derangement that I’m not familiar with.”

She glanced at me as she drove.

I added, “He may not have raped her. But he staked her out like that to draw attention to the sexual nature of his act, or possibly to dishonor her body, to reveal her nakedness to the world.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Maybe you do.”

“I have to think about it. I’m starting to think he knew her.” Actually, I knew he knew her. We rode in silence a while longer, then I said to Cynthia, “I don’t know why it happened, but how does this sound for how it happened: Ann Campbell leaves Post Headquarters and goes directly to the rifle range, stopping a good distance from PFC Robbins’s guard post. She has a preplanned rendezvous with a lover. They do this often. He plays the armed bandito and gets the drop on her, makes her strip, and they get into some kinky S&;M and bondage thing.” I glanced at Cynthia. “You know what I mean?”

“I know nothing about sexual perversions. That’s your department.”

“Well said.”

She added, “Your scenario sounds like male fantasy. I mean, what woman would go through all that trouble to be staked out on the cold ground and call that fun?”

I could see this was going to be a long day, and I hadn’t even had my breakfast yet. I said, “Do you know why her panties were under the rope around her neck?”

“No, why?”

“Check the homicide manual under sexual asphyxia.”

“Okay.”

“Also, did you notice that there seemed to be a blacktop stain on the sole of her right foot?”

“I didn’t.”

“If it came from the road, why was she barefoot on the road?”

“He made her strip in, or near, the jeep.”

“Then why was her underwear on the rifle range?”

Cynthia replied, “She may have been forced to take off her clothes at, or in, the jeep, then she or the perpetrator carried them to where she was staked out.”

“Why?”

“Part of the script, Paul. Sex offenders have incredibly involved fantasies that they perfect in their minds, things that have a strong sexual meaning for them but for no one else. Making a woman strip, then walk naked carrying her own clothes to a place where he intends to rape her may be his unique fantasy.”

“So you know this stuff? I’m not in sole charge of perversions.”

“I’m familiar with pathological sex acts and criminal deviations. I don’t know much about consenting sexual perversions.”

I let that one alone and pointed out, “The line between the two is a bit thin and indistinct on occasion.”

“I don’t believe that Ann Campbell was a consenting partner. Certainly, she didn’t consent to being strangled to death.”

“There are many possibilities,” I mused, “and it’s a good idea not to get married to any of them.”

“We need forensic, we need the autopsy, and we need to question people.”

We? I looked out at the landscape as we drove in silence. I tried to recall what I knew about Cynthia. She was originally from rural Iowa, a graduate of the state university, with a master’s in criminology, which she received at some civilian university through the Army’s Technological Enhancement Program. Like a lot of women, as well as minorities that I’ve known in the Army, the military offered more money, education, prestige, and career possibilities than they would have hoped for back on the farm, in the ghetto, or whatever disadvantaged background they came from. Cynthia, I seemed to recall, expressed positive views toward the Army—travel, excitement, security, recognition, and so on. Not bad for a farm girl. I said to her, “I’ve thought about

you.”

No reply.

“How are your parents?” I inquired, though I never met them.

“Fine. Yours?”

“Fine. Still waiting for me to get out, grow up, get hitched, and make them grandparents.”

“Work on growing up first.”

“Good advice.” Cynthia can be sarcastic at times, but it’s just a defense mechanism when she’s nervous. People who’ve had a prior sexual relationship, if they’re at all sensitive and human, respect the relationship that existed, and perhaps even feel some tenderness toward the ex-partner. But there’s also that awkwardness, sitting side by side as we were, and neither of us, I think, knew the words or the tone of voice we should adopt. I said again, “I’ve thought about you. I want you to respond to that.”

She responded, “I’ve thought about you, too,” and we fell into a long silence as she drove, head and eyes straight ahead.

A word about Paul Brenner in the passenger seat. South Boston, Irish Catholic, still don’t recognize a cow when I see one, high school graduate, working-class family. I didn’t join the Army to get out of South Boston; the Army came looking for me because they’d gotten involved in a large ground war in Asia, and someone told them that the sons of working-class stiffs made good infantrymen.

Well, I must have been a good infantryman, because I survived a year over there. Since that time, I’ve taken college courses, compliments of the Army, as well as criminology courses and career courses. I’m sufficiently transformed so that I don’t feel comfortable back in South Boston any longer, but neither do I feel comfortable at the colonel’s house, watching how much I drink and making small talk with officers’ wives who are either too ugly to talk to or too good-looking to stick to small talk.

So there we were, Cynthia Sunhill and Paul Brenner, from opposite ends of the North American continent, different worlds, lovers in Brussels, reuniting in the Deep South, having just had the common experience of looking at the naked body of a general’s daughter. Can love and friendship flourish under those circumstances? I wasn’t putting money on it.