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We went back across the road to the ain He was surly and he wasn&039;t talkative, but he ood witness Unhelpful people often do They&039;re not trying to please you They&039;re not trying to i all kinds of stuff up, trying to tell you what you want to hear
He said he was sitting in the office, alone, doing nothing, and at about eleven twenty-five in the evening he heard a vehicle door sla turbodiesel start up He described sounds thatinto reverse and a four-wheel-drive transfer case locking up Then there was tire noise and engine noise and gravel noise and so hurry He said he got off his stool and went outside to look Didn&039;t see the vehicle
"Why did you check the rooht maybe it was on fire"
"On fire?"
"People do stuff like that, in a place like this They set the roo I don&039;t know It was unusual"
"How did you knohich room to check?"
He went very quiet at that point Suood cop, bad cop thing Eventually he adht All the others were renting by the hour, and were being serviced by foot traffic from across the street, not by vehicles He said that was how he had been so sure there was never a hooker in Kramer&039;s room It was his responsibility to check them in and out He took the oings So he always knew for sure here It was a part of his function A part he was supposed to keep very quiet about
"I&039;ll lose ot worried to the point of tears and Summer had to calm him down Then he told us he had found Kramer&039;s body and called the cops and cleared all the hourly renters out for safety&039;s sake Then Deputy Chief Stockton had shown up within about fifteen minutes Then I had shown up, and when I left sonized the saine noise, sa He had already admitted that hookers used the place all the time, so he had no more reason to lie And Humvees were still relatively new Still relatively rare And they made a distinctive noise So I believed him We left hilow of the Coke machine
"No hooker," Summer said "A woman from the base instead"
"A woman officer," I said "Maybe fairly senior Sons out a pool vehicle for an assignation like that And she&039;s got his briefcase She must have"
"She&039;ll be easy to find She&039;ll be in the gate log, tiht have even passed her on the road If she left here at eleven twenty-five she wasn&039;t back at Bird before twelve-fifteen I was leaving around then"
"If she went straight back to the post"
"Yes," I said "If"
"Did you see another Humvee?"
"Don&039;t think so," I said
"Who do you think she is?"
I shrugged "Like we figured about the phantom hooker Someone he met somewhere Irwin, probably, but it could have been anywhere"
I stared across at the gas station Watched cars go by on the road
"Vassell and Coo-terht"
"Where do you think they are?"
"I don&039;t know," I said "But I&039;m sure I&039;ll find them if I need them"
I didn&039;t find the for ot back Summer dropped me at my door and went to park the car I walked past the outer desk The night-shift sergeant was back The mountain woestured at the inner door in a way that told her than either of us
"Got coffee?" I said
"The machine is on," she said
I took some with me My coat was still unbuttoned My hair was ain a parking lot I walked straight to the desk Put ht visitor chairs against the wall, facing adier General&039;s star on his collar and the other had a colonel&039;s eagle The general had Vassell on his nametape and the colonel had Coolasses and they were both poh to look vaguely ridiculous in BDUs They looked like Rotary Club members on their way to a fancy dress ball First impression, I didn&039;t like them very much
I sat down in my chair and sao slips of paper stacked square in the center of the blotter The first was a note that said: Your brother called again Urgent This time there was a phone nuton DC
"Don&039;t you salute senior officers?" Vassell said, from his chair
The second note said: Col Garber called Green Valley PD calculates Mrs K died approx 0200 I folded both notes separately and tucked them side by side under the base of my telephone Adjusted them so I could see exactly half of each one Looked up in ti red
"I&039;m sorry," I said "What was the question?"
"Don&039;t you salute senior officers when you enter a room?"
"If they&039;re in my chain of command," I said "You&039;re not"
"I don&039;t consider that an answer," he said
"Look it up," I said "I&039;m with the 110th Special Unit We&039;re separate Structurally we&039;re parallel to the rest of the army We have to be, if you think about it We can&039;t police you if we&039;re in your chain of command ourselves"
"I&039;m not here to be policed, son," Vassell said
"So why are you here? It&039;s kind of late for a social visit"
"I&039;m here to ask some questions"
"Ask away," I said "Then I&039;ll ask some of my own And you knohat the difference will be?"
He said nothing
"I&039;ll be answering out of courtesy," I said "You&039;ll be answering because the Uniform Code of Military Justice requires you to"
Vassell said nothing Just glared at lanced at Coomer Coomer looked back at him, and then at me
"We&039;re here about General Kramer," he said "We&039;re his senior staff"
"I knoho you are," I said
"Tell us about the general"
"He&039;s dead," I said
"We&039;re aware of that We&039;d like to know the circumstances"
"He had a heart attack"
"Where?"
"Inside his chest cavity"
Vassell glowered
"Where did he die?" Coomer said
"I can&039;t tell you that," I said "It&039;s ger inquiry"
"In ay?" Vassell said
"In a confidential way"
"It was around here soe"
"Well, there you go," I said "What&039;s the conference at Irwin about?"
"What?"
"The conference at Irwin," I said again "Where you were all headed"
"What about it?"
"I need to know the agenda"
Vassell looked at Coo when eant She had Summer out there with her She was unsure whether to send her in I told her to go right ahead So there was a tap on the door and Summer came in I introduced her all around and she pulled a spare chair over to ainst two I pulled the second note out from under the telephone and passed it to her: Col Garber called Green Valley PD calculates Mrs K died approx 0200 She unfolded it and read it and refolded it and passed it back to me I put it back under the phone Then I asked Vassell and Cooain, and watched their attitudes change They didn&039;t get any more helpful It was more of a sideways move than an improvement But because there was nooman in the room they dialed down the overt hostility and replaced it with sround and that kind of a generation They hated MPs and I was sure they hated women officers, but all of a sudden they felt they had to be polite
"It was going to be purely routine," Cooreat importance"
"Which explains why you didn&039;t actually go," I said
"Naturally It seemed much more appropriate to remain here You know, under the circumstances"
"How did you find out about Kramer?"
"XII Corps called us"
"From Germany?"
"That&039;s where XII Corps is, son," Vassell said
"Where did you stay last night?"
"In a hotel," Coomer said
"Which one?"
"The Jefferson In DC"
"Private or on a DoD ticket?"
"That hotel is authorized for senior officers"
"Why didn&039;t General Kramer stay there?"
"Because he ements"
"When?"
"When what?" Coomer said
"When did he eo"
"So it wasn&039;t a spur of the ?"
"No, it wasn&039;t"
"Do you knohat those arrangements were?"
"Obviously not," Vassell said "Or ouldn&039;t be asking you where he died"
"You didn&039;t think he waswith his wife?"
"Was he?"
"No," I said "Why do you need to knohere he died?"
There was a long pause Their attitudes changed again The sness fell away and they replaced it with a kind of winsome frankness
"We don&039;t really need to know," Vassell said He leaned forward and glanced at Summer like he wished she weren&039;t there Like he wanted this new intimacy to be purely man-to-man with e at all, but we&039;re worried that General Kraeht of the circumstances"
"Hoell did you know him?"
"On a professional level, very well indeed On a personal level, about as well as anyone knows his brother officer Which is to say, perhaps not well enough"
"But you suspect in general terht have been"