We put our bags on the floor and I put my sergeant’s paperwork
on the bed. The counterpane felt slightly damp. I fiddled
with the heater under the window until I got some warmth out
of it.
‘What next?’ Summer asked.
‘The phone records,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for a call to a nine
one nine area code.’
‘That’ll be a local call. Fort Bird is nine one nine too.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘There’ll be a million local calls.’
I spread the print-out on the bed and started looking. There
weren’t a million local calls. But there were certainly hundreds.
I started at midnight on New Year’s Eve and worked forward
from there. I ignored the numbers that had been called more
than once from more than one phone. I figured those would
be cab companies or clubs or bars. I ignored the numbers that
had the same exchange code as Fort Bird. Those would be
off-post housing, mainly. Soldiers on duty would have been
calling them in the hour after midnight, wishing their spouses
and children a happy new year. I concentrated on numbers that
stood out. Numbers in other North Carolina cities. In particular
I was looking for a number in another city that had been called
once only maybe thirty or forty minutes after midnight. That
was my target. I went through the print-out, patiently, line by
line, page by page, looking for it. I was in no hurry. I had all
day.
I found it after the third concertina fold. It was listed at twelve
thirty-two. Thirty-two minutes after 1989 became 1990. That
was right about when I would have expected it. It was a call
that lasted nearly fifteen minutes. That was about right too, in
terms of duration. It was a solid prospect. I scanned ahead.
Checked the next twenty or thirty minutes. There was nothing
338
else there that looked half as good. I went back and put my
finger under the number I liked. It was my best bet. Or my only
hope.
‘Got a pen?’ I said.
Summer gave me one from her pocket.
‘Got quarters?’ I said.
She showed me fifty cents. I wrote the best-bet number on
the army memo paper right underneath the D.C. number for
the Jefferson Hotel. Passed it to her.
‘Call it,’ I said. ‘Find out who answers. You’ll have to go back
across the street to the diner. The motel phone is busted.’
She was gone about eight minutes. I spent the time cleaning
my teeth. I had a theory: if you can’t get time to sleep, a shower
is a good substitute. If you can’t get time to shower, cleaning
your teeth is the next best thing.
I left my toothbrush in a glass in the bathroom and Summer
came through the door. She brought cold and misty air in with
her.
‘It was a golf resort outside of Raleigh,’ she said.
‘Good enough for me,’ I said.
‘Brubaker,’ she said. ‘That’s where Brubaker was. On vacation.’
‘Probably dancing,’ I said. ‘Don’t you think? At half past
midnight on New Year’s Eve? The desk clerk probably had to
drag him out of the ballroom to the phone. That’s why the call
lasted a quarter of an hour. Most of it was waiting time.’
‘Who called him?’
There were codes on the print-out indicating the location of
the originating phone. They meant nothing to me. They were
just numbers and letters. But my sergeant had supplied a key
for me. On the sheet after the last concertina fold was a list of
the codes and the locations they stood for. She had been right.
She was better than the day guy. But then, she was an E-5
sergeant and he was an E-4 corporal, and sergeants made the
U.S. Army worth serving in.
I checked the code against the key.
‘Someone on a pay phone in the Delta barracks;’ I said.
‘So a Delta guy called his CO,’ Summer said. ‘How does that
help us?’
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‘The timing is suggestive,’ I said. ‘Must have been an urgent
matter, right?’
‘Who was it?’
‘One step at a time,’ I said.
‘Don’t shut me out.’
‘I’m not.’