The General's Daughter

been made a few days ago, for all we know. It hasn’t rained here in about a week.”

“Right. But it’s something to think about.”

We flipped through reports from the various forensic units for about fifteen minutes, then Cal called over to us from one of his makeshift lab areas, and we joined him at a table where a female technician was peering through a microscope. Cal said, “You may have hit pay dirt with that hairbrush. Where’d it come from?”

I patted his bald head. “Not from you.”

The technician laughed as she buried her face in the microscope.

Cal was not amused and said to Cynthia, “Since you’re the one with the brains on this team, why don’t you look in that microscope?”

The technician moved aside, and Cynthia sat at the table. The technician, a Specialist Lubbick, said, “The hair on the right was recovered from the sink basin in the male latrine at rifle range six. The hair on the left was taken from the hairbrush.”

Cynthia looked into the microscope as Specialist Lubbick continued, “I actually examined twenty hairs taken from the brush to satisfy myself that the brush hairs all belonged to the same individual. My opinion is that they do, and that statistically and logically, there should be no other individual’s hair on that brush, though I’ll examine every one of them for my report.”

I wanted to say, “Get to the point,” but you have to let technical types do it their way or they get sulky.

Specialist Lubbick continued, “Hairs have what we call class characteristics. That means they can’t be matched absolutely to a given sample. They can be used to exclude a suspect, but not to identify a suspect in a court of law, unless both samples submitted have roots so that we can get the sex of an individual and a genetic marker.”

Cal said to her, “I think they know that.”

“Yes, sir. Anyway, the sample found in the latrine has no roots, but from the shaft, I’ve determined that the individual had blood type O, and that the individual whose hair was on the brush also had blood type O. Also, both samples are Caucasian, are visually similar in texture, color, lack of artificial treatment, and general condition of health.”

Cynthia looked up from the microscope. “Yup. They look similar.”

Specialist Lubbick concluded, “My opinion is that they’re from the same individual, though the sample from the sink basin is too small to perform other tests such as spectro-analysis that might yield more similarities. Any further tests will alter or destroy this single strand taken from the latrine.” She added, “Some of the hairs from the brush do have roots, and in about an hour I can tell you the sex of that individual and get a DNA marker for you.”

I nodded. “Understand.”

Cynthia stood and said to Lubbick, “Please mark and bag this and attach a report.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thanks.”

Seiver asked me, “Is this enough for an arrest?”

“No, but it’s enough to start looking at a guy real close.”

“What guy?”

I took him off to the side, away from the technicians, and said, “A guy named Colonel Charles Moore whose tire tracks you are going to compare. Moore’s office is also at the Psy-Ops School. He was the victim’s boss. I’m trying to get his office sealed until we can get authorization to bring it here.”

Cynthia joined us and said, “In the meantime, Cal, match the fingerprints found on Colonel Moore’s hairbrush to the fingerprints found on the humvee, and also to any fingerprints found on the trash bag and the articles found inside the bag.”

“Right.” He thought a moment, then said, “But a match doesn’t conclusively place this Colonel Moore at the scene if Moore and the victim knew each other. He has a believable reason why his fingerprints could be on, let’s say, her holster, or on the humvee.”

I replied, “I know, but he would have a harder time explaining why his prints are on the trash bag, or why his tire marks are out on range five.”

Cal nodded. “Still, you need to place him there at the time of the murder.”

“Right. So I want you to compare the fingerprints on the hairbrush to the partial prints you found on the tent pegs. If we have his tire marks and enough fingerprints that match, then the rope around his fucking neck gets much tighter. Okay?”

Cal nodded. “Okay. You’re the detective. I’d vote guilty, but you never know these days.” He turned and walked toward the fingerprint unit.

Cynthia said to me, “If we interrogate Moore and present him with the evidence, there’s a good chance he will tell us he did it.”

“Right, or he will tell us he didn’t. Then we wind up in front of a court-martial board, all holding our breaths while they decide if a colonel in the United States Army strangled General Campbell’s daughter, or if Warrant Officers Brenner and Sunhill got the wrong guy, missed the right guy, totally dishonored themselves and the Army, and blew it big-time.”

Cynthia thought a moment and asked me, “If all the forensic evidence points to Moore, do you have any reasonable doubts?”

“Do you?”

“Reasonable doubts, yes. I just can’t see Ann Campbell doing whatever she was doing out there with that guy, and I can’t see him strangling her. He looks like the kind of sicko who’d put poison in your coffee, but he’s not a hands-on killer.”

“That’s what’s bothering me. But you never know… she may have asked him to do it. Pleaded with him to kill her. I had one like that once. And for all we know, Moore could have been flying on mind-altering drugs. Something he got from work.”

“That’s possible.”

I looked over Cynthia’s shoulder. “Meanwhile, here comes the law.”

Colonel Kent was making the long walk across the hangar, and we met him halfway. He asked, “Anything new here?”

I replied, “We’re close to something, Bill. I’m waiting for fingerprints and tire tracks.”

His eyes widened. “No kidding? Who?”

“Colonel Moore.”

He seemed to think about that, then nodded. “It fits.”

“How does it fit, Bill?”

“Well… they had a close relationship, he would have the opportunity, and I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s weird. I just don’t know what his motive would be.”

“Me neither.” I asked Kent, “Tell me about Captain and General Campbell.”

“What about them?”

“Were they close?”

He looked me right in the eye and said, “They were not.”

“Go on.”

“Well… perhaps we can discuss that another time.”

“Perhaps we can discuss it in Falls Church.”

“Hey, don’t threaten me.”

“Look, Colonel, I’m the investigating officer in a homicide case. You may feel that you’re under some social and professional restraints, but you’re not. Your duty is to answer my questions.”

Kent did not seem happy, but at the same time, he seemed relieved to be told in no uncertain terms that he had to unburden himself. He walked off toward the center of the hangar, and we followed him. He said, “Okay. General Campbell disapproved of his daughter’s choice of military occupation specialty, her choice of men, her decision to live off post, her associations with people like Charles Moore, and probably a half dozen other things that I’m not privy to.”

Cynthia asked, “Wasn’t he proud of her?”

“I don’t think so.”