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I took the first tentative step toward finding out at one , in Fort Bird&039;s mortuary I had slept for three hours and I hadn&039;t eaten breakfast There aren&039;t ation Mostly we depend on instinct and improvisation But one of the few rules that exist is: You don&039;t eat before you walk into an army postmortem
So I spent the breakfast hour with the crime scene report It was a fairly thick file, but it had no useful information in it It listed all the recovered uniform items and described them in minute detail It described the corpse It listed times and temperatures All the thousands of words were backed by dozens of Polaroid photographs But neither the words nor the pictures told me what I needed to know
I put the file in my desk drawer and called the Provost Marshal&039;s office for any AWOL or UA reports The dead guy ht have been able to pick up on his identity that way But there were no reports Nothing out of the ordinary The post was hu with all its ducks in a row
I walked out into thecold
Thethe Eisenhower administration and it was still fit for its purpose We weren&039;t looking for a high degree of sophistication This wasn&039;t the civilian world We knew last night&039;s victim hadn&039;t slipped on a banana skin I didn&039;t much care which particular injury had been the fatal one All I wanted to knoas an approximate time of death, and who he was
There was a tiled lobby inside the ht If you went left, you found the offices If you went right, you found cold storage I went straight ahead, where knives cut and sahined and water sluiced
There were two dished ht lights above therocer scales hanging on chains ready to weigh excised organs, and by rolling steel carts with elass jars ready to receive them, and other carts with rows of knives and saws and shears and pliers lying ready for use on green canvas sheets The whole place was glazed hite subway tiles and the air was cold and sith the sht-hand table was clean and empty The left-hand table was surrounded by people There was a pathologist and an assistant and a clerk taking notes Su They were h the process The tools were all in use So loudly I could see the corpse&039;s legs through the crowd They had been washed They looked blue-white under the laone
I stood next to Suuy was on his back They had taken the top of his skull off They had cut around the center of his forehead and peeled the skin of his face down It was lying there inside out, like a blanket pulled down on a bed It reached to his chin His cheekbones and his eyeballs were exposed The pathologist was dissecting his brain, looking for so He had used the saw on his skull and popped the top off like a lid
"What&039;s the story?" I asked hierprints," he said
"I faxed them in," Summer said "We&039;ll know today"
"Cause of death?"
"Blunt trauma," the doctor said "To the back of the head Three heavy bloith so like a tire iron, I should think All this dra"
"Any defensive injuries?"
"Not a thing," the doctor said "This was a surprise attack Out of the blue There was no fight, no struggle"
"How ician The fatal bloere probably all delivered by the sa around and watching"
"Best guess?"
"I&039;uesser"
"One assailant only," Su"
I nodded
"Time of death?" I asked
"Hard to be sure," the doctor said "Nine or ten last night, probably But don&039;t take that to the bank"
I nodded again Nine or ten would make sense Well after dark, several hours before any reasonable expectation of discovery Plenty of tiuy to lure him out there, and then to be somewhere else when the alarms sounded
"Was he killed at the scene?" I asked
The pathologist nodded
"Or very close to it," he said "No est otherwise"
"OK," I said I glanced around The broken tree li on a cart Next to it was a jar with a penis and two testicles in it
"In his ain Said nothing
"What kind of a knife?"
"Probably a K-bar," he said
"Great," I said K-bars had been manufactured by the tens of millions for the last fifty years They were as coht-handed person," the doctor said
"And the tire iron?"
"Same"
"OK," I said
"The fluid was yogurt," the doctor said
"Strawberry or raspberry?"
"I didn&039;t do a taste test"
Next to the jars of organs was a short stack of four Polaroid photographs They were all of the fatal wound site The first one was as-discovered The guy&039;s hair was relatively long and dirty and matted with blood and I couldn&039;t make out much detail The second ith the blood and dirt rinsed away The third ith the hair cut back with scissors The fourth ith the hair completely shaved aith a razor
"How about a crowbar?" I asked
"Possible," the doctor said "Maybe better than a tire iron I took a plaster cast, anyway You bring me the weapon, I&039;ll tell you yes or no"
I stepped in a little and took a closer look The corpse was very clean It was gray and white and pink It sanic odors The groin was a mess Like a butcher&039;s shop The knife cuts on the arms and the shoulders were deep and obvious I could see es of the wounds were blue and cold The blade had gone right through a tattoo on his left upper ar a scroll with Mother written on it Overall, the guy was not a pleasant sight But he was in better shape than I had feared he would be
"I thought there would be ist glanced at me
"I told you," he said "All the drama was after he was dead No heartbeat, no blood pressure, no circulation, therefore no swelling and no contusions Not ravity If he&039;d been alive when they cut hi like a river"
He turned back to the table and finished up inside the guy&039;s brain pan and put the lid of bone back where it belonged He tapped it twice to get a good seal and wiped the leaky join with a sponge Then he pulled the guy&039;s face back into place Poked and prodded and sers and when he took his hands away I saw the Special Forces sergeant I had spoken to in the strip club, staring blindly upward into the bright lights above him
I took a Humvee and drove past Andrea Norton&039;s Psy-Ops school to the Delta Force station It was pretty much self-contained in what had been a prison back before the arether at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas The old wire and the walls suited its current purpose There was a giant WW2-era airplane hangar next to it It looked like it had been dragged in froether to house their racks of stores and their trucks and their up-armored Humvees and maybe even a couple of fast-response helicopters
The sentry on the inner gate let ht to the adjutant&039;s office Seven-thirty in the , and it was already lit up and busy, which toldThe adjutant was at his desk He was a captain In the upside-doorld of Delta Force the sergeants are the stars, and the officers stay ho?" I asked hi more
"I assume you know I do," he said "Otherould you be here?"
"You got a name for me?"
"A na"
"This is not about an arrest," I said
"So what&039;s it about?"
"Does this guy get arrested a lot?"
"No He&039;s a fine soldier"
"What&039;s his name?"
The captain didn&039;t answer Just leaned down and opened a drawer and pulled a file Handed it to me Like all the Delta files I had ever seen, it was heavily sanitized for public consues in it The first was a name-rank-and-nuuy called Christopher Carbone He was an unmarried sixteen-year veteran He had served four years in an infantry division, four in an airborne division, four in a Ranger company, and four in Special Forces Detacheant first class There were no theater details and no mention of awards or decorations
The second sheet contained ten inky fingerprints and a color photograph of the man I had spoken to in the bar and just left on the mortuary slab
"Where is he?" the captain asked "What happened?"
"Someone killed him," I said
"What?"
"Hoht Nine or ten o&039;clock"
"Where?"
"Edge of the woods"
"What woods?"
"Our woods On-post"
"Jesus Christ Why?"
I put the file back together and slipped it under my arm
"I don&039;t knohy," I said "Yet"
"Jesus Christ," he said again "Who did it?"
"I don&039;t know," I said "Yet"
"Jesus Christ," the guy said, for the third time
"Next of kin?" I asked
The captain paused Breathed out
"I think he has a mother somewhere," he said "I&039;ll let you know"
"Don&039;t," I said "You&039;ll be
"Did Carbone have enemies here?" I asked
"None that I knew about"
"Any points of friction?"
"Like what?"
"Any lifestyle issues?"
He stared at ay?"
"What? Of course not"
I said nothing
"You&039;re saying Carbone was a fag?" the captain whispered
I pictured Carbone insix feet fro around at the time on her elbows and knees with her ass up in the air and her nipples brushing the stage, a long-neck bottle in his hand and a big say man to spend his leisure time But then I pictured the detachesture as he waved the brunette hooker away
"I don&039;t knohat Carbone was," I said
"Then keep your damn mouth shut," his captain said "Sir"
I took Carbone&039;s file with me back to the mortuary and collected Summer and took her to the O Club for breakfast We sat on our own in a corner, far fros and bacon and toast Suh the file I drank coffee Suay-bashing," she said "He thinks it&039;s obvious"
"He&039;s wrong"
"Carbone&039;s not married"
"Neither aay?"
"No"
"There you go"
"But ht? I ht have cra cards all around the place Then wedebts You see what I mean? It just doesn&039;t work if it&039;s not based on anything So that can be disproved in five uess?"
"Carbone was gay, and someone knew it, but it wasn&039;t the reason"
I nodded
"It wasn&039;t the reason," I said "Let&039;s say he was gay He was in sixteen years He survived hties So ould it happen now? Ti better at hiding it, going out to strip joints with his buddies No reason for it to happen now, all of a sudden It would have happened before Four years ago, or eight, or twelve, or sixteen Whenever he joined a new unit and new people got to know him"
"So as the reason?"
"No idea"
"Whatever, it could be e Just like Kraain "Bird see place"
"You think this is why you&039;re here? Carbone?"
"It&039;s possible Depends on what he represents"
I asked Summer to file and forward all the appropriate notifications and reports and I headed back to eants waiting forfor inforuys Shtly unkempt, hard as nails Two of the a beard He was tan, like he was just back fro in eant with the baby son was there with the at the with spells of hitting on her She looked very civilized, in coenteel I ushered them all into my inner office and closed the door and sat down atin front of it
"Is it true about Carbone?" one of them asked
"He was killed," I said "Don&039;t knoho, don&039;t knohy"
"When?"
"Last night, nine or ten o&039;clock"
"Where?"
"Here"
"This is a closed post"
I nodded "The perp wasn&039;t a eneral public"
"We heard he was ood"
"When are you going to knoho it was?"
"Soon, I hope"
"You got leads?"
"Nothing specific"
"When you know, are we going to know too?"
"You want to?"
"You bet your ass"
"Why?"
"You knohy," the guy said
I nodded Gay or straight, Carbone was aHis buddies were going to stand up for hiot offed in the woods late one night, I doubted if three tough guys would go straight to so at the bit, ready for revenge Then I looked at the three of theht, This particular perp could be in a shitload of trouble All I&039;d have to do is drop a name
"I need to ask you some cop questions," I said I asked them all the usual stuff Did Carbone have any enehts? The three guys all shook their heads and answered every question in the negative
"Anything else?" I asked "Anything that put him at risk?"
"Like what?"
"Like anything," I said It was as far as I wanted to go
"No," they all said
"Got any theories?" I asked
"Look at the Rangers," the young one said "Find so, and thinks he still has a point to prove"
Then they left, and I sat there chewing on their final coer with a point to prove? I doubted it Not plausible Delta sergeants don&039;t go out in the woods with people they don&039;t know and get hit on the back of the head They train long and hard to make such eventualities very unlikely, even iht with Carbone, it would have been the Ranger we found at the base of the tree If two Rangers had gone out there with hiers dead Or at the very least ould have found defensive injuries on Carbone hione down easily
So he went out there with someone he knew and trusted I pictured hi like he had done in the bar in town Maybe leading the way so Then I pictured a tire iron or a crowbar being fu with a crunching iain It had taken three hard blows to put hiuy like Carbone doesn&039;t get surprised very often
My phone rang I picked it up It was Colonel Willard, the asshole in Garber&039;s office, up in Rock Creek
"Where are you?" he asked
"Ino anywhere, don&039;t do anything, don&039;t call anyone Those are my direct orders Just sit there quietly and wait"
"For what?"
"I&039;m on my way down"
He clicked off I put the phone back in its cradle
I stayed there I didn&039;t go anywhere, I didn&039;t do anything, I didn&039;t call anyone My sergeant brought me a cup of coffee I accepted it Willard hadn&039;t told me to die of thirst
After an hour I heard a voice in the outer office and then the young Delta sergeant came back in, alone The one with the beard and the tan I told hio anywhere, don&039;t do anything, don&039;t call anyone I guessed talking with the guy would a, which would contravene the don&039;t do anything part of the co, technically So was , all twenty of ht It was i So I decided that component of the order was purely rhetorical
"Help you, Sergeant?" I said
"I think Carbone was gay," the sergeant said
"You think he was?"
"OK, he was"
"Who else knew?"
"All of us"
"And?"
"And nothing I thought you should know, is all"
"You think it has a bearing?"
He shook his head "We were comfortable with it And whoever killed him wasn&039;t one of us It wasn&039;t anyone in the unit That&039;s not possible We don&039;t do stuff like that Outside the unit, nobody knew Therefore it wasn&039;t a factor"
"So why tell me?"
"Because you&039;re bound to find out I wanted you to be ready for it I didn&039;t want it to be a surprise"
"Because?"