sixteen of them in the service. Infantry, airborne, the Rangers,
Delta. Sixteen years of hard time. He had done nothing except
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try to keep a secret he should never have had to keep. And try
to alert his unit to a threat. Nothing much wrong with either of
those things. But he was dead. Dead in the woods, dead on a
slab. Then I thought about the fat guy at the strip club. I didn’t
really care about the farmer. A busted nose was no big deal. But
the fat guy was messed up bad. On the other hand, he wasn’t
one of North Carolina’s finest citizens. I doubted if the governor
was lining him up for a civic award.
I thought about both of those guys for a long time. Carbone,
and the fat man in the parking lot. Then I thought about myself.
A major, a star, a hotshot special unit investigator, a go-to guy
headed for the top.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Bring the colonel back in.’
The captain got up out of his chair and opened the door. Held
it for the colonel. Closed it behind him. Sat down again next to
me. The colonel shuffled past us and sat down at the desk.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s wrap this thing up. The complaint is
baseless, yes?’
I looked at him. Said nothing.
‘Well?’
You’re going to do the right thing. ‘The complaint is true,’ I said.
He stared at me.
‘The complaint is accurate,’ I said. ‘In every detail. It went
down exactly like Carbone described.’
‘Christ,’ the colonel said.
‘Are you crazy?’ the captain said.
‘Probably,’ I said. ‘But Carbone wasn’t a liar. That shouldn’t
be the last thing that goes in his record. He deserves better
than that. He was in sixteen years.’
The room went quiet. We all just sat there. They were looking
at a lot of paperwork. I was looking at being an MP captain
again. No more special unit. But it wasn’t a big surprise. I had
seen it coming. I had seen it coming ever since I closed my eyes
on the plane and the dominoes started falling, end over end, one
after the other.
‘One request,’ I said. ‘I want a two-day suspension included.
Starting now.’
‘Why?’
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‘I have to go to a funeral. I don’t want to beg my CO for leave.’
The colonel looked away.
‘Granted,’ he said.
I went back to my quarters and packed my duffel with everything
I owned. I cashed a check at the commissary and left
fifty-two dollars in an envelope for my sergeant. I mailed
fifty back to Franz. I collected the crowbar that Marshall had
used from the pathologist and I put it with the one we had on loan from the store. Then I went to the MP motor pool and
looked for a vehicle to borrow. I was surprised to see Kramer’s
rental still parked there.
‘Nobody told us what to do with it,’ the clerk said.
‘Why not?’
‘Sir, you tell me. It was your case.’
I wanted something inconspicuous, and the little red Ford
stood out among all the olive drab and black. But then I realized
the situation would be reversed out in the world. Out there, the
little red Ford wouldn’t attract a second glance.
‘I’ll take it back now,’ I said. ‘I’m headed to Dulles anyway.’
There was no paperwork, because it wasn’t an army vehicle.
I left Fort Bird at twenty past ten in the morning and drove
north towards Green Valley. I went much slower than before,
because the Ford was a slow car and I was a slow driver, at least
compared to Summer. I didn’t stop for lunch. I just kept on
going. I arrived at the police station at a quarter past three
in the afternoon. I found Detective Clark at his desk in the
bullpen. I told him his case was closed. Told him Summer
would give him the details. I collected the crowbar he had on
loan and drove the ten miles to Sperryville. I squeezed through
the narrow alley and parked outside the hardware store. The
window had been fixed. The square of plywood was gone. I