“What time were you posted at the ammunition shed?”
“At 0100 hours. To be relieved at 0530 hours.”
“And between the time you were posted and the time the MPs came for you, did anyone else pass your post?”
“No.”
“Did you hear anything unusual?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Screech owl. Not many around these parts.”
“I see.”
“Saw the headlights.”
“What headlights?”
“Probably the humvee she came up in.”
“What time?”
“At 0217 hours.”
“Describe what you saw.”
“Saw the headlights. They stopped about a klick away, went out.”
“Did they go out right after they stopped, or later?”
“Right after. Saw the headlights bouncing, stop, out.”
“What did you think about that?”
“Thought somebody was headin’ my way.”
“But they stopped.”
“Yup. Didn’t know what to think then.”
“Did you think to report it?”
“Sure did. Picked up the phone and called it in.”
“Who did you call?”
“Sergeant Hayes. Sergeant of the guard.”
“What did he say?”
“He said there’s nothing to steal way out there except where I was at the ammo shed. Said to remain at my post.”
“And you replied?”
“Told him it didn’t look right.”
“And he said?”
“Said there was a latrine about there. Somebody might be using it. Said it could be an officer snooping around and to keep alert.” She hesitated, then added, “He said people go out there to fuck on nice summer nights. That’s his words.”
“Goes without saying.”
“I don’t like cussin’.”
“Me neither.” I regarded this young woman a moment. She was artless and ingenuous, to say the least: the best type of witness when coupled with some powers of observation, which she obviously had, by training or by nature. But apparently, I did not fit into her narrow frame of reference, so she wasn’t offering anything free. I said, “Look, Private, you know what happened to Captain Campbell?”
She nodded.
“I have been assigned to find the murderer.”
“Heard she got raped, too.”
“Possibly. So I need you to talk to me, to tell me things I’m not asking. Tell me your… your feelings, your impressions.”
Her face showed a little emotion, she bit her lower lip, and a tear ran from her right eye. She said, “I should’ve gone to see what was going on. I could’ve stopped it. That stupid Sergeant Hayes…” She cried quietly for a minute or two, during which time I sat looking at my boots. Finally, I said, “Your standing orders were to remain at your post until properly relieved. You obeyed your orders.”
She got control of herself and said, “Yeah, but anybody with a lick of common sense and a rifle would’ve gone over to see what was going on. And then, when the headlights never came on again, I just stood there like a fool, and I was afraid to call in again. Then when I saw the other headlights comin’ and they stopped, and then they turned around real quick and whoever it was goes barrelin’ back up the road like a shot, then I knew somethin’ bad happened.”
“What time was that?”
“At 0425 hours.”
Which would tally with the time St. John said he found the body. I asked her, “And you saw no headlights between the ones at 0217 and 0425?”
“No. But I saw some after that. ’Bout 0500. That was the MP who found the body. ’Bout fifteen minutes later, another MP came by and told me what happened.”
“Could you hear any of these vehicles from that distance?”
“No.”
“Hear the doors slam?”
“Could’ve if the wind was with me. I was upwind.”
“Do you hunt?”
“I do.”
“For what?”
“Possum, squirrels, rabbit.”
“Bird?”
“No. I like the looks of them.”
I stood. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
“Don’t think so.”
“I do.” I went toward the cell door, then turned back. “If I let you go back to your barracks, do I have your word that you won’t say anything about this to anyone?”
“Who’m I givin’ my word to?”
“An officer in the United States Army.”
“You got sergeant stripes, and me and you don’t know your name.”
“Where’s home?”
“Lee County, Alabama.”
“You have a one-week administrative leave. Give your CO a phone number.”
I went back to the interrogation room, where I found Cynthia, alone, her head in her hands, reading her notes or thinking.
We compared interviews and concluded that the time of death was somewhere between 0217 and 0425 hours. We speculated that the killer or killers were either in the humvee with Ann Campbell or already at the scene. If the killer had used his own vehicle, he had not used his headlights or had parked some distance from where PFC Robbins was posted. At that point, I leaned toward the theory that Ann Campbell had picked him or them up and driven him or them to the scene, but I did not discount the possibility of a prearranged rendezvous at the scene of the murder. A random and fateful encounter seemed less likely, considering her headlights went out immediately after the humvee stopped, because if Ann Campbell had been waylaid, there should have been some time lapse between the stopping of the vehicle and the extinguishing of the lights. Cynthia asked, “If this was a secret rendezvous or a tryst, why did she use her headlights at all?”
“Probably so as not to attract undue attention. She had legitimate business out there, but if she’d been spotted by a passing MP patrol without her headlights on, she’d be stopped and questioned.”
“That’s true. But PFC Robbins was alerted by the lights, so why didn’t Campbell check Robbins’s post first, assure her, then go back to her rendezvous?”
“Good question.”
“And why rendezvous within a kilometer of a guard post anyway? There are about a hundred thousand acres
