‘He didn’t come to Bird itself. He was transiting D.C.
Frankfurt to Dulles, then National to LAX twenty hours later.
He was going out to Irwin for a conference.’
‘OK,’ she said, and then she went very quiet. We drove on.
We got about level with the motel, but well to the west, heading
straight for the highway.
‘Permission to speak freely?’ she said.
‘Please,’ I said.
34
‘Is this a test?’
‘Why would it be a test?’
‘You’re from the llOth Special Unit, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am.’
‘I have an application pending.’
‘To the 110th?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So, is this a covert assessment?’
‘Of what?’
‘Of me,’ she said. ‘As a candidate.’
‘I needed a woman partner. In case the widow is a hugger. I
picked you out at random. The captain with the busted arm
couldn’t have driven the car. And it would be kind of inefficient
for us to wait until we had a dead general to conduct personnel
S
‘
asses., ments.
‘I guess,’ she said. ‘But I’m wondering if you’re sitting there
waiting for me to ask the obvious questions.’
‘I’d expect any MP with a pulse to ask the obvious questions,
whether or not they had a special unit transfer pending.’
‘OK, I’m asking. General Kramer had a twenty-hour layover
in the D.C. area and he wanted to get his rocks off and he didn’t
mind paying for the privilege. So why did he drive all the way
down here to do it? It’s what, three hundred miles?’
‘Two hundred and ninety-eight,’ I said.
‘And then he’d have to drive all the way back.’
‘Clearly.’
‘So why?’
‘You tell me,’ I said. ‘Come up with something I haven’t
thought of myself and I’ll recommend you for the transfer.’
‘You can’t. You’re not my CO.’
‘Maybe I am,’ I said. ‘This week, anyway.’
‘Why are you even here? Is something happening I should
know about?’
‘I don’t know why I’m here,’ I said. ‘I got orders. That’s all I
know.’
‘Are you really a major?’
‘Last time I checked,’ I said.
‘I thought ll0th investigators were usually warrant officers.
Working plain clothes or undercover.’
‘They usually are.’
35
‘So why bring you here when they could send a warrant
officer and have him dress up as a major?’
‘Good question,’ I said. ‘Maybe one day I’ll find out.’
‘May I ask what your orders were?’
‘Temporary detached duty as Fort Bird’s Provost Marshal’s
executive officer.’
‘The Provost Marshal isn’t on post,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I found that out. He transferred out the same
day I transferred in. Some temporary thing.’
‘So you’re acting CO.’
‘Like I said.’
‘MP XO isn’t a special unit job,’ she said.
‘I can fake it,’ I said. ‘I started out a regular MP, just like you.’
Summer said nothing. Just drove.
‘Kramer,’ I said. ‘Why did he contemplate a six-hundred-mile
round trip? That’s twelve hours’ driving time out of his twenty.
Just to spend fifteen bucks on a room and twenty on a whore?’
‘Why does it matter? A heart attack is a heart attack, right? I
mean, was there any question about it?’
I shook my head. ‘Walter Reed already did the autopsy.’
‘So it doesn’t really matter where or when it happened.’
‘His briefcase is missing.’
‘I see,’ she said.
I saw her thinking. Her lower eyelids flicked upward a
fraction.
‘How do you know he had a briefcase?’ she said.
‘I don’t. But did you ever see a general go to a conference
without one?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You think the hooker ran off with it?’
I nodded. ‘That’s my working hypothesis right now.’
‘So, find the hooker.’
‘Who was she?’
Her eyelids moved again.
‘Doesn’t make sense,’ she said.
I nodded again. ‘Exactly.’
‘Four possible reasons Kramer didn’t stay in the D.C. area.
One, he might have been travelling with fellow officers and
didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of them by having a
hooker come to his room. They might have seen her in the
36
corridor or heard her through the walls. So he invented an
excuse and stayed in a different place. Two, even if he was