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Most rural ar Even if the built infrastructure is coe of spare land reserved around it This was uessed it would be no exception It would be like a sovernment-owned tract of poor sandy earth with low hills and shallow valleys and a thin covering of trees and scrub Over the post&039;s long life the trees would have ihty firs of Central Europe and the swaying pal theory would have coone there There would be old trenches and foxholes and firing pits There would be beres and barbed-wire obstacles and isolated huts where psychiatrists would challenge masculine emotional security There would be concrete bunkers and exact replicas of governes There would be cross-country running routes where out-of-shape boot caer and where so would be ringed by miles of ancient rusty wire and clai notices fixed to every third fence post
I called a bunch of specialists and went out to the ht in the clip on the dash Then I fired it up and followed the private&039;s directions south and west of the inhabited areas until I was on a rough sandy track leading straight out into the hinterland The darkness was absolute I drove hts in the distance The private&039;s vehicle was parked at a sharp angle about twenty feet off the road and its high bea evil shadows deep into the woods The private hiainst its hood His head was bowed and he was looking down at the ground
First question: How does a guy on motor patrol in the dark spot a corpse hidden way the hell out here, deep in the trees?
I parked next to hiht out of the clip and slid out into the cold and i starting in the center of the track Right on the crown of the cale boot It was a standard-issue black leather combat boot, old, worn, not very well shined West of it was a sock, a yard away Then another boot, another sock, a BDU jacket, an olive drab undershirt The clothes were all spaced out in a line, like a grotesque parody of the doerie ite you up the stairs to the bedroom Except that the jacket and the undershirt were stained dark with blood
I checked the condition of the ground at the edge of the track It was rock hard and frosted over I wasn&039;t going to co to blur any footprints, because there weren&039;t going to be any footprints So I took a deep breath and followed the trail of clothes to its conclusion When I got there I understood why ht have thrown up three times
The corpse was facedown in the frozen leaf litter at the base of a tree Naked Mediuuy, but he was mostly covered in blood There were bone-deep knife cuts all over his arms and shoulders From behind I could see that his face looked beaten and swollen His cheeks were protruding His dog tags were ht around his neck It had a brass buckle and the long tail looped away from his head There was some kind of thick pink-white liquid pooled on his back He had a broken tree liround was black with blood I guessed e rolled hienitals had been re the trail of clothes and made it to the road Stepped over next to the MP private He was still staring down at the ground
"Where are we exactly?" I asked him
"Sir?"
"No question we&039;re still on the base?"
He nodded "We&039;re a mile inside the fence line In every direction"
"OK," I said Jurisdiction was clear Arets access in there until I say so Clear?"
"Sir," he said
"You&039;re doing a good job," I said
"You think?"
"You&039;re still on your feet," I said
I went back to eant Told her as up and where and asked her to find Lieutenant Suency channel Then I waited An ambulance arrived two minutes later Then two Humvees showed up with the cri my office Guys spilled out I told theency
Suot on the radio within five uy in the woods," I told her "I want you to find that Psy-Ops wo me about"
"Lieutenant Colonel Norton?"
"I want you to bring her out here"
"Willard said you can&039;t ith me"
"He said I can&039;t involve you in special unit stuff This is regular police business"
"Why do you want Norton there?"
"I want to ot out of my truck Joined the medics and the forensics people We all stood around in the cold We kept our engines running to keep the batteries charged and the heaters working Clouds of diesel smoke drifted and pooled and for I told the cri on the road I told them not to touch it and not to leave the track
We waited There was no hts and our idling diesels I thought about Leon Garber Korea was one of the biggest branch offices the US Arlamorous, but probably the most active and certainly the most difficult MP command out there was a feather in anyone&039;s cap It meant he would probably retire with two stars, which ay ht and axes were getting ready to fall, then Leon had already coht side of the cut I was happy for hi at his situation from a different perspective I worried at it for another ten ot nowhere with it
Su a Humvee and she had a bareheaded blonde woer seat She stopped the truck in the center of the track with her headlights full on us She stayed in the vehicle and the blonde got out and scanned the crowd and stepped into the ht for me I saluted her out of courtesy and checked her naht colonel&039;s oak leaves sewn on her lapels She was a little older than me, but not much She was tall and thin and had the kind of face that should have made her an actress or a model
"How can I help you, Major?" she said She sounded like she was froed outside in theI need you to see," I said
"Why?"
"Maybe you&039;ll have a professional opinion"
"Why me?"
"Because you&039;re here in North Carolina It would take et someone from somewhere else"
"What kind of someone do you need?"
"Someone in your line of work"
"I&039;m aware that I work in a classroom," she said "I don&039;t need constant reminders"
"What?"
"It see Andrea Norton that she&039;s just a bookish academic, while everybody else is out there busy with the real thing"
"I wouldn&039;t know about that I&039;m new here I just want first impressions from someone in your line of work, is all"
"You&039;re not trying to et some help"
She ht "Follow the trail of clothes to the end Please don&039;t touch anything Just fix your first impressions in your mind Then I&039;d like to talk to you about theht frohtly backlit for the first twenty feet by the MP private&039;s headlights His Hu the woods Her shadow danced ahead of her Then she stepped beyond the range of the headlights&039; illu and spearing through the darkness Then I lost sight of it All that was visible was a faint reflection froh in the air
She was gone about tenback toward us She caht up to ht off and handed it back
"My office," she said "In one hour"
She got back in Summer&039;s Humvee and Summer backed up and turned and accelerated away into the dark
"OK, guys, go to work," I said I sat in ht beaht blue ca the ain and told her to get the baseby, first thing in theAfter thirty uys loaded a sheet-draped shape into it They closed the doors and slapped on thes were filled and labeled Crime scene tape ound between tree trunks It was tied off in a rough rectangle maybe forty yards by fifty
I left theh the dark to the ot directions to the Psy-Ops facility It was a low brick structure with green doors and s that ht have housed the quartermaster offices way back when it was built It was set at a distance from post headquarters, maybe halfway to where Special Forces bunked There was darkness and silence all around it but there was a light burning in the central hallway and in one of the office s I parked loolassset in its upper half The glass had light behind it and Lt/Col A Norton stenciled on it I knocked and went in I saw a small neat office It was clean and it sured ere past that point
Norton was behind a big oak army-issue desk and she had it covered with open textbooks She had so o that she had taken her telephone off the desk and put it down on the floor She had a yellow legal pad in front of her with handwritten notes on it The pad was in a pool of light from her desk lamp and its color was reflected upward into her hair
"Hello," she said
I sat down in her visitor&039;s chair
"Who was he?" she asked
"I don&039;t know," I said "I don&039;t think we&039;ll get a visual ID He was too badly beaten We&039;ll have to use fingerprints Or teeth If he&039;s got any left in there"
"Why did you want me to look at him?"
"I told you why I wanted your opinion"
"Why did you think I would have an opinion?"
"Seemed to me there were elements in there that you would understand"
"I&039;m not a criminal profiler"
"I don&039;t want you to be I just want so out in the right direction"
She nodded Swept her hair back off her face
"The obvious conclusion is that he was a homosexual," she said "Possibly killed because of it Or if not, then with full awareness of it on the part of his attackers"
I nodded
"There was genital amputation," she said
"You checked?"
"I moved him a little," she said "I&039;m sorry I know you asked me not to"
I looked at her She hadn&039;t been wearing gloves She was a tough lady Maybe her classroom-bound reputation was undeserved
"Don&039;t worry about it," I said
"My guess is you&039;ll find his testicles and his penis in his mouth I doubt if his cheeks would have swelled thatIt&039;s an obvious symbolic statement, fro the deviant organs, si oral sex"
I nodded
"Likewise the nudity and thethe ar the deviant fron object insertion speaks for itself," she said "In the anus"
I nodded
"And then there&039;s the fluid on his back," she said
"Yogurt," I said
"Probably strawberry," she said "Or ay roans a bit," I said "And then he throws yogurt on his lover&039;s back"
"Yes," she said She didn&039;t smile And she watched me, to see if I would
"What about the cuts and the beating?" I said
"Hate," she said
"And the belt around the neck?"
She shrugged "It&039;s suggestive of an autoerotic technique Partial asphyxiation creates heightened pleasure during orgasm"
I nodded
"OK," I said
"OK what?"
"Those were your first impressions Do you have an opinion based on them?"
"Do you?" she asked
"Yes," I said
"You first"
"I think it&039;s bogus"
"Why?"
"Too s there The nudity, the urt, and the belt Any tould have done it Maybe three It&039;s like they were trying toone Maybe trying too hard"
Norton said nothing
"Toohi hi hi a damn Christmas tree with clues"