Child, Lee – The Enemy

but the database brought them back as the husband’s. And the

ratio of hers to his suggests he was hardly there over the last

five years or so. Is that usual?’

‘He’ll have stayed on post a lot,’ I said. ‘But he should have

been home for the holidays every year. The story here is that

the marriage wasn’t so great.’

‘People like that should just go ahead and get divorced,’

Clark said. ‘I mean, that’s not a dealbreaker even for a general,

right?’

‘Not that I’ve heard,’ I said. ‘Not any more.’

157

Then he went quiet for a minute. He was thinking.

‘How bad was the marriage?’ he asked. ‘Bad enough that we

should be looking at the husband for the doer?’

‘The timing doesn’t work,’ I said. ‘He was dead when it

happened.’

‘Was there money involved?’

‘Nice house,’ I said. ‘Probably hers.’

‘So what about a paid hit, maybe set up way ahead of time?’

Now he was really clutching at straws.

‘He’d have arranged it for when he was away in Germany.’

Clark said nothing to that.

‘Who called you for this progress report?’ I asked him.

‘You did,’ he said. ‘An hour ago.’

‘I don’t recall doing that.’

‘Not you personally,’ he said. ‘Your people. It was the little

black chick I met at the scene. Your lieutenant. I was too busy

to talk. She gave me a number, but I left it somewhere. So I

called back on the number you gave me originally. Did I do

wrong?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘You did fine. Sorry we can’t help you.’

We hung up. I sat quiet for a moment and then I buzzed my

corporal.

‘Ask Lieutenant Summer to come see me,’ I said.

Summer showed up inside ten minutes. She was in BDUs and

between her face and her body language I could see she was

feeling a little nervous of me and a little contemptuous of me all

at the same time. I let her sit down and then I launched right

into it.

‘Detective Clark called back,’ I said.

She said nothing.

‘You disobeyed my direct order,’ I said.

She said nothing.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Why did you give me the order?’

‘Why do you think?’

‘Because you’re toeing Willard’s line.’

‘He’s the CO,’ I said. ‘It’s a good line to toe.’

‘I don’t agree.’

158

‘You’re in the army now, Summer. You don’t obey orders just

because you agree with them.’

‘We don’t cover things up just because we’re told to, either.’

‘We do,’ I said. 5Ve do that all the time. We always have.’

‘Well, we shouldn’t.’

‘Who made you Chief of Staff?’

‘It’s unfair to Carbone and Mrs Kramer,’ she said. ‘They’re

innocent victims.’

I paused. ‘Why did you start with Mrs Kramer? You see her

as more important than Carbone?’

Summer shook her head. ‘I didn’t start with Mrs Kramer. I

got to her second. I had already started on Carbone. I went

through the personnel lists and the gate log and marked who

was here at the time and who wasn’t.’

‘You gave me that paperwork.’

‘I copied it first.’

‘You’re an idiot,’ I said.

‘Why? Because I’m not chicken?’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘So next year you’ll be twenty-six. You’ll

be a twenty-six-year-old black woman with a dishonourable

discharge from the only career you’ve ever had. Meanwhile the

civilian job market will be flooded because of force reduction

and you’ll be competing with people with chests full of medals

and pockets full of testimonials. So what are you going to do?

Starve? Go work up at the strip club with Sin?’

She said nothing.

‘You should have left it to me,’ I said.

‘You weren’t doing anything.’

‘I’m glad you thought so,’ I said. ‘That was the plan.’

‘What?’

‘I’m going to take Willard on,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be him or

me.’

She said nothing.

‘I work for the army,’ I said. ‘Not for Willard. I believe in the

army. I don’t believe in Willard. I’m not going to let him trash

everything.’

She said nothing.

159

‘I told him not to make an enemy out of me. But he didn’t

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *