“Let’s talk about this tomorrow, or next week.”
“Fine.”
After a minute or two, I asked, “Are you seeing anyone else?”
“Is it next week already?”
“I just don’t want to get shot. You know?”
“No, I’m not seeing anyone.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to get shot.”
She said, “Paul, shut up or I’ll shoot you. God, you bug me.”
“Don’t shoot.”
She laughed. “Stop it.”
We rode the last mile in silence, then I said, “Pull over here and kill the lights and the engine.”
The sky was a clear moonlit blue, and the temperature had dropped, but it was still comfortable despite the humidity. It was a nice evening, the kind of night made for romantic trysts out in the countryside. I listened to the nightbirds and the breeze in the pines. I said, “Not only have I thought about you, but I’ve missed you.”
“I know. Me, too.”
I nodded. “So what did we do wrong? Why did we go our own ways?”
She shrugged. “Maybe we just blew it.” She added, “I wanted you to… well, but that’s past.”
“What did you want me to do?”
“I wanted you not to accept my decision to break it off. I wanted you to take me away from him.”
“That’s not my style, Cynthia. You made a decision. I respected it.”
“Oh, God, Paul, you’re such a goddamned sharp detective, aren’t you? You can read a killer’s heart at a hundred yards, and spot a liar in the blink of an eye. But you don’t know how to read yourself, and you damned sure don’t know much about women.”
So I sat there, like the idiot I am, realizing she was right, and at a loss for words, knowing what I felt in my heart, but unable to express it or unwilling actually to commit my feelings to words. I wanted to say, “Cynthia, I love you, I’ve always loved you. I will continue to love you. Run away with me.” But I couldn’t, so I said, slowly and deliberately, “I know what you’re saying, I agree with you, I’m working on it, and we’ll work it out.”
She took my hand and held it awhile, then said, “Poor Paul. Do I make you nervous?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t like that feeling, do you?”
“No.”
She squeezed my hand. “But I see some improvement since last year in Brussels.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re trying my patience.”
“We’re going to be okay.”
“Good.” She leaned over and kissed me lightly, then released my hand. “What now?”
“Well, let’s get to work.” I opened my door.
“This is not rifle range six,” she pointed out.
“No, this is five.”
“Why are we getting out here?”
“Take the flashlight.” I got out of the car and she followed.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
We stood a few feet apart listening for a while, adjusting to the darkness and the nuances of the night, the way we were taught in school.
Finally I said, “I have this nagging thought that the headlights that PFC Robbins saw at 0217 hours were not from Ann Campbell’s humvee. That, indeed, as you suggested, she drove to rifle range six without her headlights. She knew where the guard was posted, of course, and didn’t want to attract attention. She turned off her lights about here and went the rest of the way in the dark, which is no problem with this moonlight. She had come directly here to meet someone after she left Sergeant St. John at headquarters at 0100 hours. That’s why no other guard post saw her. Logical?”
“If you’re assuming that this was a preplanned rendezvous, then, yes, it’s logical so far.”
“Let’s assume that. She could have gotten here as early as 0115 hours.”
“Possible.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to think this out, “the person she was supposed to meet probably got here first.”
“Why?”
“Because she told him to. She knew she could be held up by something at headquarters. She calls this person from Post Headquarters and says, ‘Be there no later than half past midnight. Wait for me.’ ”
“Okay.”
“So this person she was supposed to meet may have had no business or reason to be out here, and he may have been driving a POV. So as not to attract attention from the guard post, which he also knows is up the road, he goes as far as here, range five, and turns off the road to the left.” We walked off the road into a graveled parking area.
I said to Cynthia, “This graveled field also serves ranges four and six. The troop carriers stop here, leave off the men for all three ranges, turn around and leave, and the men walk to their assigned ranges. I remember that from my days here.”
“Except they don’t use muskets anymore.”
“Right. So the guy who was supposed to meet her here knows to pull off on the gravel so as not to leave tire marks. Follow me.” We walked across the gravel, which was crisscrossed with the impressions of dozens of tires, none of them distinct enough in the crushed stone to be worth photographing or trying to get a cast of. But as we got past the bleachers of rifle range five, the gravel thinned, and with the flashlight we could make out tire marks where no truck or car should have been. The tire marks continued toward a stand of scrub pine, then stopped. I said, “Any vehicle parked here would not be seen from the road, but he did leave his tire marks.”
“Paul, this is incredible. These could be the tire marks of the perpetrator.”
“These are probably the tire marks of the person who met her here. The person did not want his vehicle seen by a passing MP patrol or by the guard truck that would have come by this way at about 0100 hours to relieve the guard at the ammo shed a kilometer up the road, and to post PFC Robbins at that shed. This person was already here before that time and parked here, then walked on the back trail to rifle range six and went into the latrine to wait. While there, he may have used the latrine and may have washed his face and hands, leaving water spots and a hair behind. Logical so far?”
“So far.”
“Let’s walk.” We found the back trail, made from small logs laid side by side to form an all-weather road or path, what the Army calls a corduroy surface. This surface left no footprints. We followed it for about a hundred meters through the brush until it came out into the area behind the latrines of rifle range six. “Okay, the guy waits here, in or around the latrines. The first thing he sees is the guard truck going up the road to the ammo shed, then, a while later, the truck returns after having relieved the original guard and posting Robbins. The truck does not go all the way to main post, where it may have met Ann Campbell coming the other way. It turns off toward Jordan Field to post and relieve guards at the hangars, which takes a while. I recall that from when I was stationed here. So Ann Campbell probably did not cross the path of the guard truck and proceeded directly to range six. She extinguished her headlights at some point and parked the humvee where we found it on the road. Okay?”
“So far. But it’s all speculation.”
“Right. That’s what reenactment mostly is. You’re here to find holes, not tell me I’m making it up.”
“All right. Go on.”
“Okay. The person waiting here near the latrines sees her stop her humvee on the road, and he walks across this open area—” I began to walk toward the road, and Cynthia followed. “He approaches Ann Campbell, who is in or near her humvee, and tells her that the guard truck has come and gone, as it should have by this time, and there’s nothing to worry about now, except perhaps a random MP patrol. But that’s not likely out here. This road dead-ends at range ten, and there will be no through traffic. The only other people who might come by are the officer of the guard or the sergeant of the guard, but they would not come out this way so soon after the changing of the guard, and, most likely, they wouldn’t bother at all. The only other person who would conceivably come
out here is the post duty officer, and on this night, the duty officer is Captain Ann Campbell. Follow?”
“Up to a point. Why would she pull up here? Why not hide her vehicle if she was here for a sexual rendezvous? In fact, why the hell was she on the rifle range, so close to the road?”
“I’m not sure. Except that whatever she did, she did it the way she wanted to do it. None of this was random, and everything was planned, including apparently volunteering for duty officer on a moonlit night. Therefore, she had a reason for leaving her vehicle right here, and a reason for picking that spot, fifty meters from the road.”
“Okay… we’ll let that slide.”
“So, to continue, I have no idea what transpired between her and the person she met, but at some point here on the road, she took off her pistol, then all her clothes except her bra and panties. She had a blacktop smudge on her foot. She and this person walked on the well-trod path between the firing lanes. Her clothes and pistol were probably back in the jeep. She, or the other person, is carrying tent pegs, precut rope, and a small sledgehammer. They pick their spot at the base of that pop-up target over there.” We both looked out onto the range. The pavilion was still pitched, and the tarpaulins were still laid out to form a trail to the spot where the body had lain. I asked Cynthia, “How does this sound so far?”
“It has its own internal logic. But I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I. But it’s pretty much what happened.” I said, “Let’s walk.” We followed the tarpaulin trail and stopped under the pavilion. Cynthia shined her flashlight on the spot where Ann Campbell had lain, revealing an outline of the spread-eagled body made with white chalk powder. Yellow marker flags stuck out of the holes where the tent pegs had been.
Cynthia said, “Shouldn’t there be MPs here?”
“There should be. Kent slipped up.” I looked out over the moonlit rifle range where about fifty lifelike targets stood like a platoon of infantry advancing through the brush. I said to Cynthia, “Obviously, this had some symbolism for Ann Campbell—armed men coming to gang-rape her, or watching her as she was tied naked on the ground—or who knows what she was trying to create or express?”
Cynthia said, “All right, they’re standing here. Ann Campbell in her bra and panties, this man carrying the rape kit or sexual paraphernalia if she’s a willing accomplice. He’s not armed, and she’s going along with this.”
“Right. So together they bind one end of each rope around her wrists and ankles. Probably at this point, she removes her bra and panties and puts the panties around her neck, since we found no trace of soil on them.”
“Why did she wear the bra?”
“I can’t say for sure, but she may have just left it on without thinking, then threw it on the ground where we found it. They’ve planned this, but they’re understandably a little nervous. Okay?”
“Okay. I’m nervous just talking about it.”
“So they pick their spot at the base of this pop-up target, she lies down here, spreads her arms and legs, and he pounds the four tent pegs into the ground.”
“Doesn’t this make noise?”
“The pegs were polyvinyl. Also, he may have used a handkerchief to muffle the sound. The wind is blowing from the direction of the guard post a kilometer away, and PFC Robbins couldn’t even hear a car door slam.”
“All right,” Cynthia said. “The tent pegs are in, and he ties her ankles and wrists to the pegs.”
“Correct. Then he wraps the long rope around her neck, over the panties.”
“So she’s now as we found her.”
“Yes,” I said, “she is now as we found her, except, at this point, she was still alive.”
Cynthia had one hand in the pocket of her pants now and was staring at the ground where her flashlight beam ended, obviously deep in thought. Finally, she said, “He knelt near her and applied tension to the rope, inducing sexual asphyxia. Maybe, using his fingers, or an object, he stimulates her. She had an orgasm…” Cynthia added, “He would have masturbated at some point though we found no semen on her, and he may have taken photos, which is common after going through all this trouble. I’ve had cases where an audiotape was made, and one where a videotape was made…” She paused a moment, then continued, “All right… she’s done, he’s done, she wants to be untied. At this point, he snaps for some reason and strangles her to death, or he’d planned to do that all along, or he may have honestly strangled her by accident during the act.” She looked at me. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“But there’s more to it,” Cynthia reminded me. “Her clothes, dog tags, her West Point ring, and her pistol are missing.”
“I know. That’s a problem.” I said, “We’re back to souvenirs.”
“Yes, they do take souvenirs. But you know, if I had just killed a general’s daughter out on the rifle range, on purpose or by accident, I don’t think I’d put her clothes in my car and drive around with the evidence that would put me in front of a firing squad.”
“Not likely, is it? And remember, she had her watch on. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Cynthia replied. “That may be insignificant.”
“It may be. Let’s walk.” We retraced our steps along the tarpaulin path and came back to the road where Ann Campbell’s humvee had been parked. “All right,” I said, “he comes back here to the vehicle. He takes her BDUs, her helmet, dog tags, socks, boots, and so forth, but leaves her handbag on the passenger seat of the vehicle.”
“He may have forgotten the handbag. Men often do. I’ve seen that before.”
I turned toward the latrines. “Carrying those items, he crosses the grassy area, passes the bleachers, passes the latrines, and finds the corduroy trail. He would not walk on the road.”
“No.”
“Okay, if they’d started at about 0115 hours, it is now about 0215 hours, give or take a few minutes. It can’t be later because PFC Robbins saw headlights at 0217 hours.”
“And you’re sure they were not Ann Campbell’s headlights?”
“I’m making the strong assumption she got here earlier, and she drove up without headlights. So this vehicle comes by, sees her parked humvee, stops, turns off the lights, and gets out of his or her vehicle. That is what Robbins saw at 0217 hours.”
“And he or she can see Ann Campbell from the road. Right?”
“Sergeant St. John did. The moon was nearly full. Anyone who saw the parked humvee would look around. Fifty meters away, this person sees something on the rifle range. It’s almost a human instinct to recognize another human form, especially a naked one. We’ve both heard similar stories—someone walking in the woods sees something lying on the ground, and so on.”
“All right. So what does that person do?”
“That person goes up to her and sees that she’s dead, goes back to his or her vehicle, makes a U-turn, and gets the hell out of there.”
“Without turning his or her headlights back on.”
“Apparently. PFC Robbins was transfixed by the headlights and kept watching, but never saw them go on again. The next lights she saw were Sergeant St. John’s at 0425 hours.”
“Why would this person not turn their headlights back on when they were leaving? Why turn them off to begin with? It’s damned spooky out here, Paul. I’d leave my lights on if I got out of my car. And who is this new person you’ve introduced, and why didn’t this person make a report?”
“The only answer I can come up with is that Ann Campbell had not gone through all this trouble for one tryst. Her fantasy may have been multiple rapes. She may have had several appointments.”
“That’s very weird.” She added, “But possible.”
I said, “Let’s follow the path that Ann Campbell’s assistant or assailant took back.” We retraced our steps and intersected the corduroy path in the bush behind the rifle ranges, then turned left onto it and headed back to rifle range five. I said, “Here, in these bushes, will probably be a pl
astic bag containing her clothes.”
Cynthia looked at me. “Are you psychic, too?”
“The area search turned up nothing, and neither did the dogs, so the clothes will be in a plastic, odorproof bag, probably a trash bag, and they will be farther away than the search. When we get closer to rifle range five, you’ll turn that flashlight into the bush. We may have to come back tomorrow—”
Cynthia stopped. “Wait.”
“What?”
“The latrine sheds.”
“Damn it! You’re right.”
So back we went to the latrine sheds. A line of steel-mesh trash pails sat between the two sheds, and I turned one of them over and jumped onto the roof of the shed for male personnel. There was nothing on the flat, pitched roof, but as I scrambled to my feet, I saw on the next latrine roof a brown plastic trash bag shining in the moonlight. I took a running start, jumped onto the adjoining shed, and kicked the bag off, following it to the ground. Somewhere in midair, I remembered my paratrooper training, flexed my knees into a shoulder roll, and bounded up on my feet.
Cynthia asked, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Get a handkerchief.”
She took a handkerchief from her pocket, knelt, and untwisted the wire tie, then carefully pulled open the mouth of the bag and shined her flashlight into it. Inside, we could see a jumble of clothing, a pair of boots, and a white sock. Carefully, with her hand wrapped in the handkerchief, Cynthia moved the things around, uncovering the pistol belt and holster with the automatic still in it, then finally the dog tags, which she held up and read in the beam of her flashlight. “Campbell, Ann Louise.” She let the dog tags drop back into the bag and stood. She looked up at the top of the latrine shed. “One of the older tricks in the book. But why did this guy care about hiding her clothes?”
I thought a moment. “It seems that the clothes were supposed to be recovered later.”
“By whom? The perpetrator? A third party?”
“Don’t know. But I like the idea of a third party.”