‘So?’
‘This Carbone guy was a shirtlifter. He was a damn fudgepacker, for Christ’s sake. An elite unit has got perverts in
it? You think the army needs forpeople to know that? At a
time like this? You should have written him up as a training
accident.’
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‘That wouldn’t have been true.’
‘Who cares?’
‘He wasn’t killed because of his orientation.’
‘Of course he was.’
‘I do this stuff for a living,’ I said. ‘And I say he wasn’t.’
He glared at me. Went quiet for a moment.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ll come back to that. Who else but you saw
the body?’
‘My guys,’ I said. ‘Plus a Psy-Ops light colonel I wanted an
opinion from. Plus the pathologist.’
He nodded. ‘You deal with your guys. I’ll tell Psy-Ops and the
doctor.’
‘Tell them what?’
‘That we’re writing it up as a training accident. They’ll under
stand. No harm, no foul. No investigation.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘You think the army wants this to get around? Now? That
Delta had an illegal soldier for four years? Are you nuts?’
‘The sergeants want an investigation.’
‘I’m pretty sure their CO won’t. Believe me. You can take that
as gospel.’
‘You’ll have to give me a direct order,’ I said. ‘Words of one
syllable.’
‘Watch my lips,’ he said. ‘Do not investigate the fag. Write a
situation report indicating that he died in a training accident. A
night manoeuvre, a run, an exercise, anything. He tripped and
fell and hit his head. Case closed. That is a direct order.’
‘I’ll need it in writing,’ I said.
‘Grow up,’ he said.
We sat quiet for a moment or two, just glaring at each other
across the desk. I sat still, and Willard rocked and plucked. I
clenched my fist, out of his sight. I imagined smashing a
straight right to the centre of his chest. I figured I could stop
his lousy heart with a single blow. I could write it up as a
training, accident. I could say he had been practising getting in
and out of his chair, and he had slipped and caught his sternum
on the corner of the desk.
‘What was the time of death?’ he asked.
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‘Nine or ten last night,’ I said.
‘And you were off post until eleven?’
‘Asked and answered,’ I said.
‘Can you prove that?’
I thought of the gate guards in their booth. They had logged
me in.
‘Do I have to?’I said.
He went quiet again. Leaned to his left in the chair.
‘Next item,’ he said. ‘You claim the but>bandit wasn’t killed
because he was a butt-bandit. What’s your evidence?’
‘The crime scene was overdone,’ I said.
‘To obscure the real motive?’
I nodded. ‘That’s my judgement.’
‘What was the real motive?’
‘I don’t know. That would have required an investigation.’
‘Let’s speculate,’ Willard said. ‘Let’s assume the hypothetical
perpetrator would have benefited from the homicide. Tell me
how.’
‘The usual way,’ I said. ‘By preventing some future action on
Sergeant Carbone’s part. Or to cover up a crime that Sergeant
Carbone was a party to or had knowledge of.’
‘To silence him, in other words.’
‘To dead-end something,’ I said. ‘That would be my guess.’
‘And you do this stuff for a living.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do.’
‘How would you have located this person?’
‘By conducting an investigation.’
Willard nodded. ‘And when you found this person, hypothetically,
assuming you were able to, what would you have done?’
‘I would have taken him into custody,’ I said. Protective
custody, I thought. I pictured Carbone’s squadron buddies in my
mind, pacing anxiously, ready to lock and load.
‘And your suspect pool would have been whoever was on post
at the time?’
I nodded. Lieutenant Summer was probably struggling with
reams of print-out paper even as we spoke.
‘Verified via strength lists and gate logs,’ I said.
‘Facts,’ Willard said. ‘I would have thought that facts would be
very important to someone who does this stuff for a living. This
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post covers nearly a hundred thousand acres. It was last strung
with perimeter wire in 1943. Those are facts. I discovered them
with very little trouble, and you should have too. Doesn’t it