Kent turned away and began walking back toward the layout of Ann Campbell’s house. I exchanged glances with Cynthia and Cal, then Cynthia and I followed.
Kent sat on an arm of an upholstered chair in the living room and looked down at the carpet for a while, staring, I suppose, at the spot where he’d raped her on the floor.
I stood in front of him and said, “You know your rights as an accused, of course, and I won’t insult you by reading them. But I’m afraid I have to take your weapon and put the cuffs on you.”
He glanced up at me, but didn’t respond.
I said, “I won’t take you to the provost building lockup, because that would be gratuitously humiliating to you. But I am going to take you to the post stockade for processing.” I added, “May I have your weapon?”
He knew it was over, of course, but like any trapped animal, he had to have a last growl. He said to me and to Cynthia, “You’ll never prove any of this. And when I’m vindicated by a court-martial board of my peers, I’ll see to it that you’re both brought up on charges of misconduct.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied. “That is your right. A trial by your peers. And if you are found not guilty, you may well decide to bring charges against us. But the evidence of your sexual misconduct is fairly conclusive. You may beat the murder charge, but you should plan on at least fifteen years in Leavenworth for gross dereliction of duty, misconduct, concealing the facts of a crime, sodomy, rape, and other violations of the punitive articles contained in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”
Kent seemed to process this, then said, “You’re not playing very fair, are you?”
“How so?”
“I mean, I voluntarily told you about my involvement with her in order to help find her killer, and here you are charging me with misconduct and sexual crimes and then twisting the other evidence around to try to show that I killed her. You’re desperate.”
“Bill, cut the crap.”
“No, you cut the crap. For your information, I was out there before St. John, and when I got there, she was already dead. If you want to know what I think, I think Fowler and the general did it.”
“Bill, this is not good. Not at all.” I put my hand on his shoulder and said to him, “Be a man, be an officer and a gentleman—be a cop, for Christ’s sake. I shouldn’t even be asking you to take a lie-detector test. I should just be asking you to tell me the truth, without me having to use a lie detector, without me having to show you evidence, without me having to spend days in an interrogation room with you. Don’t make this embarrassing for any of us.”
He glanced at me, and I could see he was on the verge of crying. He looked at Cynthia to see if she noticed, which was important to him, I think.
I continued, “Bill, we know you did it, you know you did it, and we all know why. There’s a lot of extenuating and mitigating circumstances, and we know that. Hell, I can’t even stand here and look you in the eye and say to you, ‘She didn’t deserve that.’ ” Actually, I could, because she didn’t deserve it, but just as you give a condemned man any last meal he wants, so, too, you give him anything he wants to hear.
Kent fought back the tears and tried to sound angry. He shouted, “She did deserve it! She was a bitch, a fucking whore, she ruined my life and my marriage…”
“I know. But now you have to make it right. Make it right for the Army, for your family, for the Campbells, and for yourself.”
The tears were running down his cheeks now, and I knew he would rather be dead than be crying in front of me, Cynthia, and Cal Seiver, who was watching from the other side of the hangar. Kent managed to get a few words out and said, “I can’t make it right. I can’t make it right anymore.”
“Yes, you can. You know you can. You know how you can. Don’t fight this. Don’t disgrace yourself and everyone else. That’s all that’s left in your power to do. Just do your duty. Do what an officer and a gentleman would do.”
Kent stood slowly and wiped his eyes and nose with his hands.
I said, “Please hand me your weapon.”
He looked me in the eye. “No cuffs, Paul.”
“I’m sorry. I have to. Regulations.”
“I’m an officer, for Christ’s sake! You want me to act like an officer, treat me like one!”
“Start acting like one first.” I called out to Cal, “Get me a pair of handcuffs.”
Kent pulled the .38 Police Special out of his shoulder holster and shouted, “Okay! Okay! Watch this!” He put the revolver to his right temple and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
The human eye can distinguish fifteen or sixteen shades of gray. A computer image processor, analyzing a fingerprint, can distinguish two hundred fifty-six shades of gray, which is impressive. More impressive, however, is the human heart, mind, and soul, which can distinguish an infinite number of emotional, psychological, and moral shadings, from the blackest of black to the whitest of white. I’ve never seen either end of that spectrum, but I’ve seen a lot in between.
In truth, people are no more constant or absolute in their personalities than a chameleon is in terms of color.
The people here at Fort Hadley were no different from, no better or worse than, people I’d seen at a hundred other posts and installations around the world. But Ann Campbell was most certainly different, and I try to imagine myself in conversations with her if I’d met her when she was alive, if, for instance, I’d been assigned to investigate what was going on here at Fort Hadley. I think I would have recognized that I was not in the presence of a simple seductress, but in the presence of a unique, forceful, and driven personality. I think, too, that I could have shown her that whatever hurts other people does not make her stronger, it only increases the misery quotient for everyone.
I don’t think I would have wound up like Bill Kent, but I don’t discount the possibility, and, therefore, I’m not judging Kent. Kent judged himself, looked at what he had become, was frightened to discover that another personality lurked inside his neat, orderly mind, and he blew it out.
The hangar was filled with MPs now, and FBI men, medical personnel, plus the forensic people who had remained behind at Fort Hadley and who had thought they were almost finished with this place.
I said to Cal Seiver, “After you’re done with the body, get the carpet and furniture cleaned up and have all the household goods packed and shipped to the Campbells in Michigan. They’ll want their daughter’s things.”
“Right.” He added, “I hate to say this, but he saved everybody but me a lot of trouble.”
“He was a good soldier.”
I turned and walked the length of the hangar, past an FBI guy who was trying to get my attention, and out the door into the hot sun.
Karl and Cynthia were standing beside an ambulance, talking. I walked past them toward my Blazer. Karl came up to me and said, “I can’t say I’m satisfied with this outcome.”
I didn’t reply.
He said, “Cynthia seems to believe that you knew he was going to do that.”
“Karl, all that goes wrong is not my fault.”
“No one’s blaming you.”
“Sounds like it.”
“Well, you might have anticipated it and gotten his gun—”
“Colonel, to be perfectly honest with you, not only did I anticipate it, but I encouraged it. I did a fucking head number on him. She knows that and you know that.”
He didn’t acknowledge this because it was not what he wanted to hear or know. It wasn’t in the manual, but, in fact, giving a disgraced officer the opportunity and encouragement to kill himself was historically a time-honored military tradition in many armies of the world but never caught on in this Army and has fallen out of favor nearly everywhere. Yet, the idea, the possibility, permeates the subconscious of every officer corps who are linked by common attitudes and overblown feelings of honor. Given my choice of a court-martial for rape, murder, and sexual misconduct that I knew I couldn’t
beat, or taking the .38-caliber easy way out, I might just consider the easy way. But I couldn’t picture myself in Bill Kent’s situation. Then again, neither could Bill Kent a few months ago.
Karl was saying something, but I wasn’t listening. Finally, I heard him say, “Cynthia’s very upset. She’s still shaking.”
“Comes with the job.” In fact, it’s not every day that someone blows his brains out right in front of you. Kent should have excused himself and gone into the men’s room to do it. Instead, he splattered his brains, skull, and blood all over the place, and Cynthia caught a little of it on her face. I said to Karl, “I’ve been splattered in ’Nam.” In fact, once I’d gotten hit in the head by a head. I added, helpfully, “It washes off with soap.”
Karl looked angry. He snapped, “Mister Brenner, you’re not funny.”
“May I go?”
“Please do.”
I turned and opened my car door, then said to Karl, “Please tell Ms. Sunhill that her husband called this morning, and he wants her to call him back.” I got into the Blazer, started it, and drove off.
Within fifteen minutes, I was back at the VOQ. I got out of my uniform, noticing a spot of gore on my shirt. I undressed, washed my face and hands, and changed into a sports coat and slacks, then gathered up my things, which Cynthia had laid out. I gave the room a last look and carried my luggage downstairs.
I checked out, paying a modest charge for maid and linen service, but I had to sign an acknowledgment-of-damage slip regarding my writing on the wall. I’d be billed later. I love the Army. The CQ helped me put the bags in my Blazer. He asked me, “Did you solve the case?”
“Yes.”
“Who did it?”
“Everybody.” I threw the last bag in the back, closed the hatch, and got in the driver’s seat. The CQ asked me, “Is Ms. Sunhill checking out?”
“Don’t know.”
“Do you want to leave a forwarding address for mail?”
“Nope. No one knows I’m here. Just visiting.” I put the Blazer in gear and headed out through main post, north to the MP gate, and out onto Victory Drive.
I drove past Ann Campbell’s town-house complex, then reached the interstate and got on the northbound entrance. I put a Willie Nelson tape in the deck, sat back, and drove. I would be in Virginia before dawn, and I could catch a morning military flight out of Andrews Air Force Base. It didn’t matter where the flight was going, as long as it was out of the continental United States.
My time in the Army had come to an end, and that was okay. I knew that before I’d even gotten to Fort Hadley. I had no regrets, no hesitation, and no bitterness. We serve to the best of our ability, and if we become incapable of serving, or become redundant, then we leave, or, if we’re dense, we’re asked to leave. No hard feelings. The mission comes first, and everyone and everything are subordinate to the mission. Says so in the manual.
I suppose I should have said something to Cynthia before I left, but no one was going to benefit from that. Military life is transient, people come and go, and relationships of all kinds, no matter how close and intense, are understood to be temporary. Rather than good-bye, people tend to say, “See you down the road,” or “Catch you later.”
This time, however, I was leaving for good. In a way, I felt that it was appropriate for me to leave now, to put away my sword and armor, which were getting a little rusty anyway, not to mention heavy. I had entered the service at the height of the cold war, at a time when the Army was engaged in a massive land war in Asia. I had done my duty, and gone beyond my two years of required national service, and had seen two tumultuous decades pass. The nation had changed, the world had changed. The Army was engaged now in a drawdown, which means, “Thanks for everything, good job, we won, please turn out the lights when you leave.”
Fine. This was what it was all about, anyway. It was not meant to be a war without end, though it seemed so at times. It was not meant to give employment to men and women who had few career prospects, though it did.
The American flag was being lowered on military installations all over the world, and all over the nation. Combat units were being dissolved, and their battle flags and streamers were being put into storage. Maybe someday they’d close up NATO Headquarters in Brussels. Truly, a new era was dawning, and, truly, I was happy to see it, and happier that I didn’t have to deal with it.
My generation, I think, was shaped and molded by events that are no longer relevant, and perhaps, too, our values and opinions are no longer relevant. So, even if we do have a lot of fight left in us, we’ve become, as Cynthia sort of suggested to me, anachronisms, like old horse cavalry. Good job, thanks, half pay, good luck.
But twenty years is a lot of learning, and a lot of good times. On balance, I wouldn’t have done it any differently. It was kind of interesting.
Willie was singing “Georgia on My Mind,” and I changed the tape to Buddy Holly.
I like driving, especially away from places, though I suppose if you’re driving away from a place, you have to be driving to a place. But I never see it like that. It’s always away.
A police car appeared in my rearview mirror, and I checked my speed, but I was only doing ten mph over the limit, which in Georgia means you’re obstructing the flow of traffic.
The jerk put his red flasher on and motioned me over. I pulled over to the shoulder and sat in the Blazer.
The officer got out of the police car and came over to my window, which I lowered. I saw that he was a Midland cop, and I remarked, “You’re a little far from home, aren’t you?”
“License and registration, sir.”
I showed him both, and he said, “Sir, we’re going to get off at the next exit, come around, and you’re going to follow me back to Midland.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know. Got it over the radio.”
“From Chief Yardley?”
“His orders, yes, sir.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then I have to take you in cuffs. You pick.”
“Is there a third choice?”
“No, sir.”
“All right.” I pulled back onto the highway. The cop car stayed behind, we went around the cloverleaf, and I found myself heading south toward Midland.
We got off at an exit near the west edge of town, and I followed him to the town recycling center, which used to be called the dump.
The car stopped at the incinerator, and I stopped behind him and got out.
Burt Yardley was standing near a big conveyor belt, watching a truck being unloaded onto the moving belt.
I stood and watched, too, as Ann Campbell’s basement bedroom headed into the flames.
Yardley was flipping through a stack of Polaroid photos and barely gave me a glance, but he said, “Hey, look at this, son. You see that fat ass? That’s me. Now look at that teeny weenie. Who you suppose that is?” He threw a handful of the photos onto the conveyor, then picked up a stack of videotapes at his feet and also threw them onto the belt. “I thought we had an appointment. You gonna make me do all this here work myself? Grab some of that shit, son.”
So I helped him throw furniture, sexual paraphernalia, linens, and such onto the belt. He said, “I’m as good as my word, boy. Didn’t trust me, did you?”
“Sure I do. You’re a cop.”
“Right. What a fucked-up week. Hey, you know what? I cried all through that funeral.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Cryin’ on the inside. Lots of fellas there cryin’ on the inside. Hey, did you get rid of that computer stuff?”
“I burned the disk myself.”
“Yeah? None of that shit floatin’ around, is there?”
“No. Everyone is clean again.”
“Until next time.” He laughed and pitched a black leather mask onto the conveyor. “God bless us, we’re all gonna sleep better now. Includin’ her.”
I didn’t reply.
He said, “Hey, sorry to hear about Bill.??
?
“Me, too.”
“Maybe them two are talkin’ it out now, up there at the pearly gates.” He looked into the incinerator. “Or someplace.”
“Is that it, Chief?”
He looked around. “Pretty much.” He took a photo out of his pocket and looked at it, then handed it to me. “Souvenir.”
It was a full frontal nude of Ann Campbell standing, or actually jumping, on the bed in the basement room, her hair billowing, her legs parted, her arms outstretched, and a big smile on her face.
Yardley said, “She was a lot of woman. But I never understood a goddamned thing about her head. You figure her out?”
“No. But I think she told us more about ourselves than we wanted to know.” I threw the photo onto the conveyor belt and headed back toward my Blazer.
Yardley called out, “You take care, now.”
“You, too, Chief. Regards to your kinfolk.”
I opened the car door and Yardley called out again, “Almost forgot. Your lady friend—she told me you’d be headin’ north on the interstate.”
I looked at him over the roof of my car.
He said, “She asked me to tell you good-bye. Said she’d see you down the road.”
“Thanks.” I got into the Blazer and drove out of the dump. I turned right and retraced my route to the interstate, along the road lined with warehouses and light industry, a perfectly squalid area to match my mood.
Down the road, a red Mustang fell in behind me. We got onto the interstate together, and she stayed with me past the exit that would have taken her west to Fort Benning.
I pulled off onto the shoulder and she did the same. We got out of our vehicles and stood near them, about ten feet apart. She was wearing blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and running shoes, and it occurred to me that we weren’t in the same generation. I said to her, “You missed your exit.”
“Better than missing my chance.”