smugness fell away and they replaced it with a kind of winsome
frankness. .:]
‘We don’t really need to know,’ Vassell said. He leaned
forward and glanced at Summer like he wished she wasn’t
there. Like he wanted this new intimacy to be purely man-to
man with me. ‘And we have no specific information or direct
knowledge at all, but we’re worried that General Kramer’s
private arrangements could lead to the potential for embarrass
ment, in light of the circumstances.’
‘How well did you know him?’
‘On a professional level, very well indeed. On a personal level,
about as well as anyone knows his brother officer. Which is to
say, perhaps not well enough.’
‘But you suspect in general terms what his arrangements
might have been.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We have our suspicions.’
‘So it wasn’t a surprise to you that he didn’t bunk at the hotel.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t.’
70
‘And it wasn’t a surprise when I told you he wasn’t visiting
with his wife.’
‘Not entirely, no.’
‘So you suspected roughly what he might be doing, but you
didn’t know where.’
Vassell nodded his head. ‘Roughly.’
‘Did you know with whom he might have been doing it?’
Vassell shook his head.
‘We have no specific information,’ he said.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t really matter. I’m sure you know the
army well enough to realize that if we discover a potential for
embarrassment, we’ll cover it up.’
There was a long pause.
‘Have all traces been removed?’ Coomer asked. ‘From
wherever it was?’
I nodded. ‘We took his stuff.’
‘Good.’
‘I need the Irwin conference agenda,’ I said.
There was another pause.
‘There wasn’t one,’ Vassell said.
‘I’m sure there was,’ I said. ‘This is the army. It’s not the
Actors’ Studio. We don’t do free improvisation sessions.’
There was a pause.
‘There was nothing on paper,’ Coomer said. ‘I told you, major,
it was no big deal.’
‘How did you spend your day today?’
‘Chasing rumours about the general.’
‘How did you get down here from D.C.?’
‘We have a car and a driver on loan from the Pentagon.’
‘You checked out of the Jefferson.’
‘Yes, we did.’
‘So your bags are in the Pentagon car.’
‘Yes, they are.’
‘Where is the car?’
‘Waiting outside your post headquarters.’
‘It’s not my post headquarters,’ I said. ‘I’m here on temporary
detachment.’
I turned to Summer and told her to go fetch their briefcases
from the car. They got all outraged, but they knew they couldn’t
71
stop me doing it. Civilian notions about unreasonable search
and seizure and warrants and probable cause stop at an army
post main gate. I watched their eyes while Summer was gone.
They were annoyed, but they weren’t worried. So either they
were telling the truth about the Irwin conference or they had
already ditched the relevant paperwork. But I went through
the motions anyway. Summer got back carrying two identical
briefcases. They were exactly like the one Kramer had in his
silver-framed photographs. Staffers kiss up in all kinds of ways.
I searched through them on my desk. I found passports,
plane tickets, travel vouchers and itineraries in both of them.
But no agendas for Fort Irwin.
‘Sorry for the inconvenience,’ I said.
‘Happy now, son?’ Vassell said.
‘Kramer’s wife is dead, too,’ I said. ‘Did you know that?’
I watched them carefully, and I saw that they didn’t know.
They stared at me and stared at each other and started to get
pale and upset.
‘How?’ Vassell said.
‘When?’ Coomer said.
‘Last night,’ I said. ‘She was a homicide victim.’
‘Where?’
‘In her house. There was an intruder.’
‘Do we know who it was?’
‘No, we don’t. It’s not our case. It’s a civilian jurisdiction.’
‘What was it? A burglary?’
‘It maybe started out that way.’
They said nothing more. Summer and I walked them out to
the sidewalk in front of post headquarters and watched them
climb into their Pentagon car. It was a Mercury Grand Marquis,
a couple of model-years newer than Mrs Kramer’s big old boat,
and black rather than green. Their driver was a tall guy in
BDUs. He had subdued-order badges on and I couldn’t make