“I think it’s all muck out there.”
“Okay, forget it. We got lucky enough for one case. Where’s Grace?”
“Glued to her screen. She wanted me to tell you that she pulled up a recent letter from the deceased to Mrs. William Kent—you were interested in Kent.”
“Still am. What did the letter say?”
“Basically, it said that Colonel Kent was making more of a platonic friendship than he should, and would Mrs. Kent be so kind as to speak to her husband before she—Captain Campbell—had to make an official complaint. Captain Campbell suggested counseling for the Kents.” He added, “Wouldn’t want one of those to go to my wife.”
“What was the date of the letter?”
“Hold on.”
I watched Cynthia separating underwear from toilet articles. That bastard Yardley.
Cal came back on the line. “Ten August.”
That would be eleven days ago, and I assumed that Mrs. Kent had decamped Bethany Hill upon receipt of that letter. Obviously, too, the letter was written as a result of Kent’s unscheduled visit to Ann Campbell’s house, not to mention his bad manners in throwing her boyfriend of the evening out, and raping his hostess. My goodness. So Ann Campbell had decided to do something about Kent, but she was handling unstable explosives, and that letter was the detonator. I said to Cal, “Need a printout of that. Hold it for me.”
“Right. Also, three gentlemen of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrived about a half hour after you left.”
“Were they charming?”
“Couldn’t have been nicer. Complimenting me on the setup here, congratulating me on every fucking fingerprint I took. They poked around and grilled me for about an hour. Grace played possum on a cot. One of the guys was messing with the computer, but the disk was in the cot with Grace.” He added, “They said they’d be back in the morning with their own forensic people.”
“Okay. Turn it all over to them at noon. Anything else?”
“Nope. It’s late, raining, too wet to plow, and I’m too tired to dance.”
“Right. Get on the footprint guy in Oakland. This case is hanging on the question of who stepped on whose bootprint. Talk to you tomorrow.” I hung up and briefed Cynthia while I helped her get me straightened out.
I’ve had live-in friends on occasion, and I enjoy the presence of a woman in the house for brief periods of time. They fall into two categories: the organizers and the slobs. There’s probably a third category—the naggers, who try to get you to do things, but I’ve never run into one of those. Oddly, I have no preference regarding organizers or slobs, as long as they don’t try to pick my clothes for me. Basically, all women are nurturers and healers, and all men are mental patients to varying degrees. It works fine if people stick to their fated roles. But nobody does, so you have six or seven good months, then you discover exactly what it is you hate about each other, then you run the moving-in and unpacking tape in reverse and watch the door slam.
Cynthia folded the last pair of socks and said to me, “Who does your laundry and ironing?”
“Oh, I have a sort of housekeeper. Farm woman, keeps an eye on things when I’m gone.”
“Are you the helpless type?”
“Well, yes, with fabrics and stuff, and needles and thread, but I can field-strip an M-16 rifle blindfolded and have it together again within three minutes.”
“So can I.”
“Good. I have one at home you can clean for me.”
The phone rang, and I motioned to Cynthia to answer it. It was Kiefer, and I went into the bathroom and dried my hair with a towel. Cynthia had laid out my toilet articles, and I combed my hair, brushed my teeth, and slipped my shorts off under my robe. Second greatest feeling in the world.
I ditched the shorts in the trash can and went back into the bedroom. Cynthia was sitting at the edge of the bed, listening on the phone, her legs crossed, rubbing her foot with her free hand. Cynthia, I noted in passing, had good legs.
She looked up and smiled at me, then said into the phone, “Okay, thanks. Good work.” She hung up and stood. “Well, Kiefer turned up one interesting tidbit. Seems that Mrs. Kent drives a black Jeep Cherokee, and that Mrs. Kent is known in MP radio circles as the Bat Lady, and the Jeep is called the Batmobile. Kiefer heard one reference on the master radio tape to the Batmobile. An unidentified MP on mobile patrol said, ‘Niner-niner, Batmobile with Randy Six parked in library lot. Heads up.’ ” Cynthia added, “That’s a typical officer-in-the-area kind of warning to the troops. Also, in case you never noticed, the library is across the road from Post Headquarters.”
“Right. What time was that?”
“At 0032. And at about 0100, Ann Campbell left Post Headquarters, got into the humvee, and drove out to rifle range six.” Cynthia asked me, “What was Kent doing in his wife’s car across the street?”
“What every lovesick jerk does. Just sitting there watching the light in the window.”
“Maybe he had something more malevolent in mind.”
“Maybe. Could be, though, that he was just trying to decide if he should go into the building and say hello. Or he was waiting for St. John to leave on some business. Or he was waiting for the object of his desire to do the same, which she in fact did.”
Cynthia tucked her feet under her, sort of like the lotus position. I don’t know how people can sit like that. I sat in the only chair, which faced the bed, and noticed that she’d kept her panties on. She modestly adjusted her kimono. I said, “If my wife had gotten a letter like that from my girlfriend, I’d be damned angry, and I’d keep my distance from the girlfriend. On the other hand, if my wife had left town because of the letter, and my girlfriend was working late, I might not he able to resist the temptation to try to make contact.”
“Sounds like you’ve been there.”
“Hey, we’ve all been there.”
“Not I,” said Cynthia, “except there was this guy once in Brussels, and I would make sure I bumped into him wherever he went, and the jerk finally figured it out.”
“The jerk probably figured it out sooner than you think, but you looked like trouble.”
“No comment.” She thought a moment—I guess the lotus position lends itself to contemplation—then said, “He followed her, obviously.”
“Right. But he may also have confronted her in the headquarters parking lot first. We don’t know.”
“But how could he follow her without her seeing his vehicle on the range road?”
“It was his wife’s vehicle.”
“Would Ann know Mrs. Kent’s vehicle?”
I replied, “Every girlfriend knows every wife’s car. But there’re enough Jeep Cherokees on this post to transport a battalion, so it wouldn’t stand out. Fact is, the Fowlers own a Cherokee, though it’s red.”
“Still, Paul, how far down Rifle Range Road could Kent follow her without her becoming concerned about the headlights behind her?”
“Not too far. But far enough.” I stood and rummaged around in a side pocket of my overnight bag, coming up with a marking pen. There was a blank expanse of white wall between the windows, and I began drawing. “Okay, the road goes south from main post and dead-ends at the last rifle range, a distance of about ten miles. There are only two turnoffs—the first, here, is General Pershing Road, coming off to the left; the second, a mile farther down to the right, is Jordan Field Road, here.” I drew a road on the wall. “Okay, he follows her at a normal distance with his headlights on, sees that she doesn’t turn left on General Pershing Road, and he keeps following. She also doesn’t turn off on Jordan Field Road, but he knows that
“So far.”
“So he turns toward Jordan Field, and she sees this in her rearview mirror and breathes easy. But Kent now knows that she’s bottled up on the range road and can’t go anywhere except to the end and back. Correct?”
She looked at my scribbles on the wall and nodded. “Sounds right. What does he do then? Follow without lights? Walk? Wait?”
“Well… what would I do? It’s a moonlit night, and, even without headlights, the vehicle can be seen at a few hundred meters. Also, there’s the noise of the engine, and the interior lights when you open the door, and even the
