“Including me.” Kent looked at his watch. “Is that it? Did you want to see me for something in particular?”
“Well, whatever it was, it’s not real important now.”
“Right. I’m going home. You can reach me there until 0700, then I’ll be in my office. Where can I find you tonight if something comes up?”
Cynthia replied, “We’re both in the VOQ.”
“All right. Well, my wife’s probably been trying to call me from Ohio. She’ll start thinking I’m having an affair. Good evening.” He turned and left, making the long walk with a lot less spring in his step than when he’d entered.
Cynthia commented, “I can’t
“Yes, he did. Now we know who those men were in her photos.”
She nodded. “And now we know why this place seemed so strange.”
“Right. The suspect list just got real long.”
So, I thought, Colonel Kent, Mr. Clean, Mr. Law and Order, broke nearly every damned rule in the book. This brittle, stuffy man had a libido, and it led him right to the dark side of the moon. I said to Cynthia, “Would Bill Kent commit murder to safeguard his reputation?”
Cynthia replied, “It’s conceivable. But I think he was indicating that his secret was public knowledge, and his career was just waiting for General Campbell to have a chance to ax it.”
I nodded. “Well, if not to avoid disgrace and humiliation, as it says in the manual, then how about jealousy?”
She thought a moment, then said, “Kent is also indicating that his relationship with Ann Campbell was just sport for him. A little lust, but no emotional involvement. I can believe that.” She saw that I wanted more from her, and she pondered a moment, then added, “On the other hand, the motive he assigned to Major Bowes— possessiveness and, by extension, jealousy may not be true and may actually be what Bill Kent himself felt. Remember, this guy’s a cop, and he read the same manual we did. He knows how we think.”
“Precisely. Yet, I find it hard to think of that guy as passionate, jealous, or emotionally involved with any woman.”
“I know. But it’s the cool ones who burn hot at the center. I’ve seen his type before, Paul. Authoritarian, control freaks, conservative, and obsessed with rules and regulations. It’s a mechanism they use because they’re frightened of their own passions, and they know what lurks beneath the neat suit or uniform. In reality, they have no natural checks and balances on their behavior, and when they spin out of control, they’re capable of anything.”
I nodded. “But maybe we’re getting too psychobabbly.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. But let’s keep an eye on Colonel Kent. He’s got a different agenda than we do.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Cal Seiver said he was finished with Ann Campbell’s study, or what was once her study, so I sat on her sofa and played another videotape of her psyops lecture series. Around me, the men and women of the forensic laboratory went about their occupation of examining the microscopic particles of a person’s existence, the type of stuff that other people called dirt—hairs, fibers, dust, fingerprints, smudges, and stains.
In and of themselves, hairs, fibers, prints, and all that were innocuous, but if, for instance, a set of fingerprints was lifted from a liquor bottle in Ann Campbell’s cupboard, and if the prints turned out to belong to, say, Colonel George Fowler, then the possibilities were two: he gave the bottle to her and she took it home, or he was in her home. But if Fowler’s prints were found, say, on the mirror of her bathroom, that would be presumptive evidence that he was actually in the bathroom. In fact, however, the latent-fingerprint section, using prints on file, had not yet matched any known prints to the ones they’d found, except mine, Cynthia’s, Ann Campbell’s, and Colonel Kent’s—which could be explained two ways. Eventually, they would match prints to Chief Yardley, and again, Yardley, being one of the polluters of the stored evidence, had an explanation. They’d find Moore’s prints, too, but as her boss and neighbor, that was meaningless. And since we had no further access to things like Ann Campbell’s bathroom mirror or her shower, those kinds of prints, which were very suggestive, were not going to be found by us, but by Chief Yardley, who would have the whole house dusted by now. And any prints he didn’t like, such as his son’s, would disappear.
Knowing who had been in her house might eventually lead to her killer in a conventional, plodding type of homicide investigation, and knowing who was in her basement boudoir would give me a list of men who suddenly had a lot to lose unless they cooperated fully. But that room remained sealed for now, and that might be a false, though very scenic trail to follow.
Knowing who was at the crime scene was more to the point, and we were close to establishing that Colonel Charles Moore was there, though when he was there and what he was doing there needed clarification.
Colonel William Kent. Now, there was a man who suddenly had a career problem, not to mention the little chat he’d eventually have to have with Mrs. Kent. Thank God I don’t have those kinds of problems.
Kent had made what amounted to a confession of sexual misbehavior, dereliction of duty, and actions unbecoming an officer, to name just three charges that the JAG office could come up with. People often do this in a murder investigation, like making a small sacrifice on the altar of the goddess of Justice, hoping that the goddess will accept it and go someplace else to find a human blood sacrifice.
Cynthia’s estimation of Kent was interesting because literally no one would think that William Kent was a passionate, possessive, or jealous man. But in some instinctive way, she saw or sensed something that I never did. What we knew now was that Kent had had sexual relations with Ann Campbell. And I don’t believe Kent is into sport-fucking. Ergo, Kent was in love with her and killed her out of jealousy. But I didn’t know that, and there were too many suppositions on the way to that ergo.
One of the side benefits of having forensic lab people all over the place is that you can lie to suspects about this or that, though it doesn’t say so in the manual. I had to know, or suspect, of course, that a person was here or there or did this or that before trying to bully and deceive that person. And sometimes you get your head handed to you, the way Kent did to me. Still, I think I smoked him out with the accusation.
My mind returned to the television screen and I focused on Ann Campbell. She stood in front of me, speaking directly to me, and we made good eye contact. She wore the light summer green B uniform with a short-sleeve blouse and a skirt, and now and then she’d walk away from the lectern and stand at the edge of the stage in the lecture hall, speaking as she moved around, very much at ease in her gestures, body language, and facial expressions.
For all her reported coolness, she seemed accessible during her lecture. She smiled, looked directly at a questioner in the audience, and laughed at her own occasional joke and at amusing comments from the hundred or so men in the lecture hall. She had this sexy habit of throwing back her head and brushing her long blond hair away from her face. Now and then, she’d bite her lip in thought or look wide-eyed as a combat veteran told an interesting anecdote, then she’d ask intelligent questions of her own. This was no programmed android droning on behind the lectern like so many Army and academic lecturers, as I’m sure Colonel Moore was. This was a woman with an inquiring mind, a good sense of when to talk and when to listen, and an exuberance for her slightly offbeat subject. Now and then, the camera would scan the audience and you could see a lot of alert men out there who clearly enjoyed what they were hearing as much as what they were seeing.
Ann Campbell was talking about psychological operations directed at specific individuals, and I tuned in to what she was saying. “We’ve spoken about psy-ops directed toward enemy combat soldiers, toward support personnel, and toward the civilian population as a whole. Now I’d like to speak about psychological operations directed toward individuals, specifically enemy military commanders and political leaders.”
Cynthia sat down beside me with a fresh cup of coffee and a plate of donuts. She asked me, “Good movie?”
“Yes.”
“Can we turn this off?”
