mile later. We merged with the east-west highway spur and
came off at the cloverleaf next to Kramer’s motel. We left it
behind us and drove the thirty miles down to Fort Bird’s gate.
The guard shack MPs signed us in at 1930 hours exactly. I told
them to copy their logs starting at 0600 hours January 1st and
ending at 2000 hours January 4th. I told them to have a Xerox
record of that eighty-six-hour slice of life delivered to my office
immediately.
My office was very quiet. The morning mayhem was long gone.
The sergeant with the baby son was back on duty. She looked
tired. I realized she didn’t sleep much. She worked all night and
probably played with her kid all day. Tough life. She had coffee
going. I figured she was just as interested in it as I was. Maybe
more.
‘Delta guys are restless,’ she said. ‘They know you arrested
the Bulgarian guy.’
‘I didn’t arrest him. I just asked him some questions.’
‘That’s a distinction they don’t seem willing to make. People
have been in and out of here looking for you.’
vVere they armed?’
‘They don’t need to be armed. Not those guys. You should
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have them confined to quarters. You could do that. You’re
acting MP CO here.’
I shook my head. ‘Anything else?’
‘You need to call Colonel Willard before midnight, or he’s
going to write you up as AWOL. He said that’s a promise.’
I nodded. It was Willard’s obvious next move. An AWOL
charge wouldn’t reflect badly on a CO. Wouldn’t make him look
like he had lost his grip. An AWOL charge was always on the
man who ran, fair and square.
‘Anything else?’ I said again.
‘Sanchez wants a ten-sixteen,’ she said. ‘Down at Fort
Jackson. And your brother called again.’
‘Any message?’ I said.
‘No message.’
‘OK,’ I said.
I went inside to my desk. Picked up my phone. Summer
stepped over to the map. Traced her fingers across the pins,
D.C. to Sperryville, Sperryville to Green Valley, Green Valley to
Fort Bird. I dialled Joe’s number. He answered, second ring.
‘I called Morn,’ he said. ‘She’s still hanging in there.’
‘She said soon, Joe. Doesn’t mean we have to mount a daily
vigil.’
‘Bound to be sooner than we think. And than we want.’
‘How was she?’
‘She sounded shaky.’
‘You OK?’
‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘You?’
‘Not a great year so far.’
‘You should call her next,’ he said.
‘I will,’ I said. ‘In a few days.’
‘Do it tomorrow,’ he said.
He hung up and I sat for a minute. Then I dabbed the cradle
to clear the line and asked my sergeant to get Sanchez for me.
Down at Jackson. I held the phone by my ear and waited.
Summer was looking right at me.
‘A daily vigil?’ she said.
‘She’s waiting for the plaster to come off,’ I said: ‘She doesn’t
like it.’
Summer looked at me a little more and then turned back to
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the map. I put the phone on speaker and laid the handset down
on the desk. There was a click on the line and we heard
Sanchez’s voice.
‘I’ve been hassling the Columbia PD about Brubaker’s car,’
he said.
‘Didn’t they find it yet?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘And they weren’t putting any effort into finding
it. Which was inconceivable to me. So I kept on hassling them.’
‘And?’
‘They dropped the other shoe.’
‘Which is?’
‘Brubaker wasn’t killed in Columbia,’ he said. ‘He was dumped
there, is all.’
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SEVENTEEN
S
ANCHEZ TOLD US THE COLUMBIA MEDICAL EXAMINERS HAD FOUND confused lividity patterns on Brubaker’s body that in
their opinion meant he had been dead about three hours
before being tossed in the alley. Lividity is what happens to a
person’s blood after death. The heart stops, blood pressure
collapses, liquid blood drains and sinks and settles into the
lowest parts of the body under the simple force of gravity.
It rests there and over a period of time it stains the skin
liverish purple. Somewhere between three and six hours later
the colour fixes permanently, like a developed photograph. A guy who falls down dead on his back will have a pale chest and