quartermasters currently had no crowbars on general issue and
therefore I was convinced our bad guys had used a civilian
source of supply. I gave him some guff about not wanting to
duplicate his efforts because we had a more promising line of
inquiry to spend our time on. He paused again at that point, like
cops everywhere, waiting to hear the proffered quid pro quo. I
told him that as soon as we had a name or a profile or a
description he would have it too, just as fast as stuff can travel
down a fax line. He perked up then. He was a desperate man,
staring at a brick wall. He asked what exactly I wanted. I told
him it would be helpful to us if he could expand his canvass
to a three-hundred-mile radius around Green Valley, and
check hardware store purchases during a window that started
late on New Year’s Eve and extended through, say, January
4th.
‘What’s your promising line of inquiry?’ he asked.
‘There might be a military connection with Mrs Kramer. We
might be able to give you the guy on a plate all tied up with a
bow.’
‘I’d really like that.’
‘Co-operation,’ I said. ‘Makes the world go around.’
‘Sure does,’ he said.
He sounded happy. He bought the whole bill of goods. He
promised to expand his search and copy me in. I hung up the
phone and it rang again immediately. I picked it up and heard a
woman’s voice. It sounded warm and intimate and southern. It
asked me to 10-33 a 10-16 from the MP XO at Fort Jackson,
which meant please stand by to take a secure landline call from
your opposite number in South Carolina. I waited with the phone
by my ear and heard empty electronic hiss for a moment. Then
there was a loud click and my oppo in South Carolina came on
and told me I should know that Colonel David C. Brubaker, Fort
Bird’s Special Forces CO, had been found that morning with
two bullets in his head in an alley in a crummy district of
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Columbia, which was South Carolina’s capital city, and which
was all of two hundred miles from the North Carolina golf
course hotel where he had been spending his holiday furlough
with his wife. And according to the local paramedics he had
b-,en dead for a day or two.
195
FOURTEEN
M
Y OPPO AT JACKSON WAS A GUY CALl.El) SANCHEZ. I KNEW
him fairly well, and I liked him better. He was smart,
and he was good. I put the call on the speaker to
include Summer and we talked briefly about jurisdiction, but
without much enthusiasm. Jurisdiction was always a grey area,
and we all knew we were beaten from the get-go. Brubaker had
been on vacation, he had been in civilian clothes, he had been
in a city alley, and therefore the Columbia PD was claiming
him. There was nothing we could do about it. And the Columbia
PD had notified the FBI, because Brubaker’s last known whereabouts
were the North Carolina golf hotel, which added a
possible interstate dimension to the situation, and interstate
homicide was the Bureau’s bag. And also because an army
officer is technically a federal employee, and killing federal
employees is a separate offence, which would give them
another charge to throw at the perp if by any miracle they ever
found him. Neither Sanchez nor I nor Summer cared a whole
hell of a lot about the difference between state courts and
federal courts, but we all knew if the FBI was involved the case
was well beyond our grasp. We agreed the very best we could
hope for was that we might eventually see some of the relevant
196
documentation, strictly for informational purposes only, and
strictly as a courtesy. Summer made a face and turned away. I
took the phone off the speaker and picked it up and spoke to
Sanchez one on one again.
‘Got a feeling?’ I asked him.
‘Someone he knew,’ Sanchez said. ‘Not easy to surprise a
Delta soldier as good as Brubaker was, in an alley.’
‘Weapon?’
‘Paramedics figured it for a nine-millimetre handgun. And