phone, and maybe the tape player. You walked along the corduroy trail to the latrines at rifle range six, and perhaps called her again from there to confirm that she’d left Post Headquarters.”
I spent the next ten minutes re-creating the crime for him, basing my narrative on forensic evidence, conjecture, and supposition. Colonel Moore looked duly impressed, very surprised, and increasingly unhappy.
I continued, “You called the general’s red phone, and when he answered, Ann played the taped message. It was then, knowing you had about twenty minutes or so, that you both began to set the stage. She undressed in or near the jeep in case someone came along unexpectedly. You put her things in a plastic bag which you left at the humvee. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“She kept her watch on.”
“Yes. She wanted to keep track of the time. She could see the watch face, and she thought that would be reassuring somehow as she waited for her parents.”
Odd, I thought, but a lot less odd than the scene that presented itself to me the first time I saw her naked and staked out, wearing a watch and nothing else. In fact, I had come a long way since that morning, when I thought I was looking at the work of a homicidal rapist. In truth, the crime had taken place in phases, in stages, and the genesis of the crime was a decade old, and what I saw was not what it seemed to all the world to be. What I saw was the end product of a bizarre night that could have ended differently.
I said to Moore, “By the way, did you notice if she had her West Point ring on?”
He replied without hesitation, “Yes, she did. It was a symbolic link to the original rape. It was engraved with her name on the inside, of course, and she intended to give it to her father as a token of some sort—as a way of saying that the bad memories that it symbolized were in his possession, and she did not want to be reminded of them again.”
“I see. . .” My goodness, this was a unique, if somewhat troubled, woman. And it occurred to me that there was some sort of psychosexual thing between father and daughter that was buried deep down there, and probably Moore understood it, and maybe all the Campbells understood it, but I damned sure didn’t want to know about it.
I exchanged glances with Cynthia, and I think she had the same thought that I did. But back to the crime in question. I said to Moore, “Then you both walked out on the range, picked a spot at the base of the closest pop-up target about fifty meters from the road, and she lay down and spread her arms and legs.” I looked at him and asked, “How does it feel to be thought of as a handy eunuch?”
He showed a flash of anger, then controlled it and said, “I have never taken sexual advantage of a patient. No matter how bizarre you may think this therapy was, it was designed to help, to act as a catharsis for both parties. The therapy did not include me having sex with, or raping, my patient when she was tied up.”
“You’re one hell of a guy, an absolute paragon of professional standards. But let me not get myself all pissed-off again. What I want to know from you is what happened after you tied the last knot. Talk to me.”
“All right. . . Well, we spoke a moment, and she thanked me for risking so much to assist her in her plan —”
“Colonel, cut the self-serving crap. Continue.”
He took a deep breath and went on. “I walked back to the humvee, collected the plastic bag of clothes, and also my briefcase, which I had used to carry the tent stakes and rope, and which now held only the hammer, then I went to the latrine sheds behind the bleacher seats and waited.”
“Waited for what? For whom?”
“Well, for her parents, of course. Also, she was concerned that someone else might come by first and see her humvee, so she asked me to stay until her parents got there.”
“And what were you supposed to do if anyone else showed up first? Hide your head in the toilet bowl?”
I felt Cynthia kick me under the table, and she took over the interview. She asked Moore, nicely, “What were you supposed to do, Colonel?”
He looked at her, then at the donut, then at her again and replied, “Well, I had her pistol in the plastic bag. But. . . I don’t know exactly what I was supposed to do, but if anyone else came along and saw her before her parents did, I was prepared to see that no harm came to her.”
“I see. And it was at this point that you used the latrine?”
Moore seemed a little surprised, then nodded. “Yes. . . I had to use the latrine.”
I said to him, “You were so scared, you had to piss. Right? Then you washed your hands like a good soldier, then what?”
He stared at me, then directed his reply to Cynthia. “I stood behind the latrine shed, then I saw the headlights on the road. The vehicle stopped, and when the driver’s side door opened, I could see it was the general. In any case, it was full moonlight, and I recognized Mrs. Campbell’s car, though I didn’t see her.” He added, “I was afraid that General Campbell might not take his wife along.”
“Why?”
“Well. . . without Mrs. Campbell, the situation had the potential to get out of hand. I never thought that the general would he able to approach his own daughter, naked. . . I was fairly certain that, if it were only those two, the sparks would fly.”
Cynthia looked at him a long moment, then asked, “Did you stay around for the exchange between General Campbell and his daughter?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“We decided that I should not. As soon as I was sure it was the general, I threw the plastic bag with her clothing onto the latrine roof, then I hurried back along that log trail. It was about a five-minute walk back to my car, and I couldn’t be certain how long this exchange between the two was going to last. I wanted to get my car on the road and head back toward post as soon as possible, which I did.”
Cynthia asked, “And did you see any other vehicle on the road as you were driving back to post?”
“No, I did not.”
Cynthia and I glanced at each other, and I looked at Moore. I said to him, “Colonel, think. Did you see any other headlights going in either direction?”
“No. Absolutely not. That’s what I was concerned about. . .” He added, “I was certain I wasn’t seen.”
“And you saw no one on foot?”
“No.”
“Did you see or hear anything when you were at rifle range five or six? How about at the latrine, the humvee, on the trail?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“So after you left, someone killed her.”
“Yes. I left her alive.”
“Who do you think killed her?”
He looked at me, sort of surprised. “Well, the general, of course. I thought you knew that.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Why? You know what happened. You know that my part was only to help her re-create the rape scene for her parents to see. He got there—I saw him with my own eyes—and later that morning she was found strangled. Who else could have done it?”
Cynthia asked him, “What did she expect her parents to do? What did she say to you about that?”
Moore thought a moment, then replied, “Well. . . I think she expected them to. . . She didn’t know quite how they were going to deal with what they saw, but she fully expected them to get her out of there no matter how difficult it was for them.” He added, “She knew they wouldn’t leave her there, so they would be forced to confront her, confront her nakedness, her shame and humiliation, and to physically undo her bonds, and thereby psychologically free not only her but themselves.” He looked at us. “Do you understand?”
Cynthia nodded. “Yes, I understand the theory.”
I put in my opinion. “Sounds screwy to me.”
Moore said to me, “If Mrs. Campbell had been there, it might have worked. Certainly, it would not have ended in tragedy.”
“Well, the best-laid plans of shrinks usually go astray.”
