The General's Daughter

“Why not?”

“I already have an unfinished case here.”

“Finish it.”

“Karl, do you understand that this murder is very sensitive… very…”

“Did you have any personal involvement with the victim?”

“No.”

“Fax me a preliminary report to be on my desk by 1700 hours today. Diane will assign a case number. Anything further?”

“Well, yes. There’s the media, the official statement from the Department of the Army, the Judge Advocate General’s Office, the Justice Department, the general’s own personal statement and that of his wife, the general continuing his duties here, the—”

“Just investigate the murder.”

“That’s what I want to hear.”

“You’ve heard it. Anything further?”

“Yes. I want Ms. Sunhill removed from the case.”

“I didn’t assign her to the case. Why is she on the case?”

“For the same reason I’m on the case. We were here. We’re not connected to the power structure or personalities here. Kent asked us to help him until you officially assign a team.”

“You’re officially assigned. Why don’t you want her on the case?”

“We don’t like each other.”

“You never worked together. So what is the basis of that dislike?”

“We had a personal falling-out. I have no knowledge of her professional abilities.”

“She’s quite competent.”

“She has no homicide experience.”

“You have very little rape experience. Now, here we have a rope homicide, and you two will make an excellent team.”

“Karl, I thought we discussed this once. You promised not to assign us to the same duty station at the same time. Why was she here?”

“I never made such a promise. The needs of the Army come first.”

“Fine. The needs of the Army would best be served if you reassigned her today. Her case here is finished.”

“Yes, I have her report.”

“So?”

“Hold on.”

He put me on hold. Karl was being particularly insensitive and difficult, which I know is his way of telling me he has every confidence in my ability to handle a tough assignment. Still, it would have been nice to hear a word or two acknowledging that I’d caught a bad squeal. Yes, Paul, this will be very sensitive, very difficult, and potentially harmful to your career. But I’m behind you all the way. Maybe even a few words about the victim and her family. Tragic, yes, tragic. Such a young, beautiful, and intelligent woman. Her parents must be devastated. I mean, get human, Karl.

“Paul?”

“Yes?”

“That was Ms. Sunhill on the line.”

I thought it might be. I said, “She has no business going over my head—”

“I reprimanded her, of course.”

“Good. You see why I don’t—”

“I told her you don’t wish to work with her, and she claims that you are discriminating against her because of her sex, her age, and her religion.”

“What? I don’t even know her religion.”

“It’s on her dog tags.”

“Karl, are you jerking me around?”

“This is a serious charge against you.”

“I’m telling you, it’s personal. We don’t get along.”

“You got along very well in Brussels, from what I’ve been told.”

Fuck you, Karl. “Look, do you want me to spell it out?”

“No, I’ve already had it spelled out for me by someone in Brussels last year and by Ms. Sunhill a minute ago. I trust my officers to behave properly in their personal lives, and, while I don’t require that you be celibate, I do require that you be discreet, and that you don’t compromise yourself, the Army, or your assignment.”

“I never did.”

“Well, if Ms. Sunhill’s fiance had put a bullet through your head, you would have left me with the mess.”

“That would have been my last thought as my brain exploded.”

“Good. So you are a professional, and you will establish a professional relationship with Ms. Sunhill. End of discussion.”

“Yes, sir.” I asked him, “Is she married?”

“What difference does it make to you?”

“There are personal considerations.”

“Neither you nor she has a personal life until you conclude this case. Anything further?”

“Did you tell Ms. Sunhill about your rather odd experiment?”

“That’s your job.” Karl Gustav hung up, and I sat a moment, considering my options, which boiled down to resigning or pushing on. Actually, I had my twenty years in, and I could put in my papers anytime, get out with half pay, and get a life.

There are different ways to end an Army career. Most men and women spend the last year or so in a safe assignment and fade away into oblivion. Some officers stay too long, fail to make the next grade, and are asked to leave quietly. A fortunate few go out in a blaze of glory. And then there are those who go for that last moment of glory and crash in flames. Timing is everything.

Career considerations aside, I knew that if I pulled out, this case would haunt me forever. The hook was in, and, in fact, I don’t know what I would have said or done if Karl had tried to take me off the case. But Karl was a contrary and counter-suggestible son-of-a-bitch, so when I said I didn’t want the case, I had the case, and when I said I didn’t want Cynthia, I had Cynthia. Karl is not as smart as he thinks.

On the desk in my new office were Captain Ann Campbell’s personnel and medical files, and I flipped through the former. These files contain a soldier’s entire Army career, and they can be informative and interesting. Chronologically, Ann Campbell entered West Point some twelve years before, graduated in the top ten percent of her class, was given the traditional thirty-day graduation leave, and was assigned, at her request, to the Military Intelligence Officer Course at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. From there, she went to graduate school at Georgetown and received her master’s in psychology. Her next step was to apply for what we call a functional area, which in this case was psychological operations. She completed the required course at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, then joined the 4th Psychological Operations Group, also at Bragg. From there, she went to Germany, then back to Bragg. Then the Gulf, the Pentagon, and finally Fort Hadley.

Her officer efficiency reports, at first glance, looked exceptional, but I didn’t expect otherwise. I found her Army test battery of scores and noted that her IQ put her into the genius category, the top two percent of the general population. My professional experience has been that an inordinate number of two-percenters wind up on my desk as suspects, usually in homicide cases. Geniuses don’t seem to have much tolerance for people who annoy them, or hinder them, and they tend to think they are not subject to the same rules of behavior as the mass of humanity. They are often unhappy and impatient people, and they can also be sociopaths, and sometimes psychopaths who see themselves as judge and jury and, now and then, as executioner, which is when they come to my attention.

But here I had not a suspect, but a victim who was a two-percenter, which could be a meaningless fact in this case. But my instinct was telling me that Ann Campbell was a perpetrator of something before she became a