We had been given a key to open the front door. Sampson and I stepped inside. The house still smelled like cat after all this time.
“It’s good not having anybody in the way for a change,” I said to John. “No other police, no FBI.”
“Killer’s been caught,” Sampson said. “Case is closed. Nobody cares but us now. And Cooper sitting there on death row. The clock’s ticking.”
Apparently nobody had figured out what to do about the apartment yet. Ellis Cooper had felt secure enough in his posting that he’d bought the place a few years back. When he retired, he’d planned to live in Spring Lake.
The table in the front hallway contained photos of Cooper posing with friends in several locations: what looked like Hawaii, the south of France, maybe the Caribbean. There was also a more recent photo of Cooper hugging a woman who was probably his girlfriend, Marcia. The furniture in the apartment was comfortable-looking, not expensive, and appeared to have been bought at stores like Target and Pier 1.
Sampson called me over to one of the windows. “It’s been jimmied. The place was broken into. Could be how somebody got Cooper’s knife, then returned it. If that’s what happened. Coop said he left it in the closet of his bedroom. The police say the knife was in the attic.”
We went into the bedroom next. The walls were covered with more photographs, mostly from places where Cooper had been posted: Vietnam, Panama, Bosnia. A Yukon Mighty weightlifting bench was lined up near one wall. Near the closet was an ironing board. We searched through the closet. The clothes were mostly military, but there were civilian threads too.
“What do you make of this stuff?” I asked Sampson. I pointed to a table with a grouping of odd knickknacks that looked as though they came from Southeast Asia.
I picked up a straw doll that looked strangely menacing, even evil. Then a small crossbow with what looked like a claw for its trigger. A silver amulet in the shape of a watchful, lidless eye. What was this?
Sampson took a careful look at the creepy straw doll, then the eye. “I’ve seen the evil eye before. Maybe in Cambodia or Saigon. Don’t remember exactly. I’ve seen the straw dolls too. Think they have something to do with avenging evil spirits. I’ve seen the dolls at Viet funerals.”
The creepy artifacts notwithstanding, the sense I got from the apartment was that Ellis Cooper had been a lonely man without much of a life besides the army. I didn’t see a single photograph of what might be called family.
We were still in Cooper’s bedroom when we heard a door open inside the apartment. Then came the sound of heavy shoes approaching.
The bedroom door was thrown open and banged hard against the wall.
Soldiers with drawn pistols stood in the doorway.
“Put your hands up! Military police. Hands up now!” one of them yelled.
Sampson and I slowly raised our arms.
“We’re homicide detectives. We have permission to be here,” Sampson told them. “Check with Captain Jacobs at CID.”
“Just keep those hands up. High!” the MP in charge barked.
Sampson spoke calmly to the leader of the three MPs who now crowded into the bedroom with their guns leveled at us.
“I’m a friend of Sergeant Cooper’s,” Sampson told them.
“He’s a convicted murderer,” snarled one MP out of the side of his mouth. “Lives on death row these days. But not for much longer.”
Sampson kept his hands high but told them there was a note from Cooper in his shirt pocket and the house key we’d been given. The head MP took the note and read:
To whom it may concern:
John Sampson is a friend, and the only person I know who’s working on my behalf. He and Detective Cross are welcome in my house, but the rest of you bastards aren’t. Get the hell out. You’re trespassing!
Sergeant Ellis Cooper
Chapter 16
I WOKE UP the next morning with the phrase dead man walking repeating itself in my head. I couldn’t get back to sleep. I kept seeing Ellis Cooper in the bright orange jumpsuit that death row prisoners wore at Central Prison.
Early in the morning, before it got too hot, Sampson and I took a run around Bragg. We entered the base on Bragg Boulevard, then turned onto a narrower street called Honeycutt. Then came a maze of similar side streets, and finally Longstreet Road. Bragg was immaculate. Not a speck of trash anywhere. A lot of soldiers were already up running p.t.
As we jogged side by side we planned out our day. We had a lot to do in a relatively short time. Then we needed to get back to Washington.
“Tell you what’s bothering me the most so far,” Sampson said as we toured the military base on foot.
“Same thing that’s bothering me probably,” I huffed. “We found out about Ronald Hodge and the Hertz car in about a day. What’s wrong with the local police and the army investigations?”
“You starting to believe Ellis Cooper is innocent?”
I didn’t answer Sampson, but our murder investigation was definitely disturbing in an unusual way: it was going too well. We were learning things that the Fayetteville police didn’t seem to know. And why hadn’t Army CID done a better job with the case? Cooper was one of their own, wasn’t he?
When I got back to my room after the run, the phone was ringing. I wondered who’d be calling this early. Had to be Nana and the kids. It was just past seven. I answered in the slightly goofy Damon Wayans voice I sometimes use around the kids. “Yeah-lo. Who’s calling me so early in the morning? Who’s waking me up? You have some nerve.”
Then I heard a woman’s voice. Unfamiliar, with a heavy southern accent. “Is this Detective Cross?”
I quickly changed my tone and hoped she didn’t hang up. “Yes, it is. Who’s this?”
“I’d rather not say. Just listen, please. This is hard for me to tell you, or anyone else.”
“I’m listening. Go ahead.”
I heard a deep sigh before she spoke again.
“I was with Ellis Cooper on the night of the three terrible murders. We were together when the murders took place. We were intimate. That’s all I can say for now.”
I could tell that the caller was frightened, maybe close to panic. I had to keep her on the line if I could. “Wait a minute. Please. You could have helped Sergeant Cooper at the trial. You can still help him. You could prevent his execution!”
“No. I can’t say any more than I already have. I’m married to someone on the base. I won’t destroy my family. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police in town, or CID?” Why didn’t Cooper tell us? “Please stay on the line. Stay with me.”
The woman moaned softly. “I called Captain Jacobs. I told him. He did nothing with the information, with the truth. I hope you do something. Ellis Cooper didn’t kill those three women. I didn’t believe my testimony would be enough to save him. And . . . I’m afraid of the consequences.”
“What consequences? Think about the consequences for Sergeant Cooper. He’s going to be executed.”
The woman hung up. I couldn’t tell much about her, but I was sure she was sobbing. I stood there staring at the phone receiver, not quite believing what I’d just heard. I had just talked to Ellis Cooper’s alibi — and now she was gone.
Chapter 17
ABOUT FIVE O’CLOCK Sampson and I received terrifically good news: the commanding officer at Bragg was willing to see us at his house on the base. We were to be there at seven-thirty sharp. General Stephen Bowen would give us ten minutes to share the information we had about the murder case. In the meantime, Sampson got through to Sergeant Cooper at Central Prison. He denied that he’d been with a woman that night. What was worse, Sampson said that Cooper wasn’t very convincing. But why would he hold back the truth from us? It didn’t make sense.
General Bowen’s quarters looked to be from the twenties or thirties, a stucco house with a Spanish tile roof. Up on the second floor there was a sunporch with glass on three sides, probably the master suit
e.
A man was watching from up there as we parked in the semicircular driveway. General Bowen himself?
We were met at the front door by an officer aide who identified himself as Captain Rizzo. The general’s staff included an officer aide, an enlisted aide who was part of the general’s security but also worked as the cook, and a driver, who was also security.
We stepped into a large foyer with sitting rooms on either side. The decor was eclectic, and probably reflected the general’s career around the world. I noticed a beautiful carved cabinet that looked German, a painted screen showing rolling hills and cherry trees from Japan, and an antique sideboard that suggested a possible posting in New England.
Captain Rizzo showed us into a small den, where General Stephen Bowen was already waiting for us. He was in uniform. The aide leaned in to me. “I’ll return in exactly ten minutes. The general wants to talk to you alone.”
“Please sit down,” said Bowen. He was tall and solidly built, probably in his mid-fifties. He tented his fingers on top of a well-worn desk that looked as if it had been with him for most of his career. “I understand that you’ve come down here to try and reopen the Cooper murder case. Why do you think we should reconsider the case? And Cooper’s death sentence?”
As concisely as I could, I told the general what we had already found out, and also our reactions to the evidence as homicide detectives. He was a practiced listener who punctuated what I had to say by uttering, “Interesting,” several times. He seemed open to other points of view and eager for new information. For the moment, I was hopeful.
When I stopped, he asked, “Is there anything else either of you wants to add? This is the time for it.”
Sampson seemed unusually quiet and reserved in the general’s presence. “I’m not going to get into my personal feelings for Sergeant Cooper,” he finally spoke, “but as a detective, I find it impossible to believe that he’d bring the murder weapon, plus several incriminating photographs, back to his house.”
Surprisingly, General Bowen nodded agreement. “I do too,” he said. “But that’s what he did. I don’t understand why either, but then again, I don’t understand how a man could willfully murder three women, as he most definitely did. It was the worst peacetime violence I’ve seen in my career and, gentlemen, I’ve seen some bad business.”
The general leaned forward across his desk. His eyes narrowed and his jaw tensed. “Let me tell you something about this murder case that I haven’t shared with anyone else. No one. This is just for the two of you. When Sergeant Cooper is executed at Central Prison by the state of North Carolina, I will be there with the families of those murdered women. I’m looking forward to the lethal injection. What that animal did revolts and disgusts me. Your ten minutes are up. Now get the hell out of here. Get the fuck out of my sight.”
His aide, Captain Rizzo, was already back at the door.
Chapter 18
THE THREE BLIND Mice were in Fayetteville again, headed toward Fort Bragg for the first time in several months. Thomas Starkey, Brownley Harris, and Warren Griffin were admitted through the security gates on All American Freeway. No problem. They had official business on post; they had an appointment.
The three men were unusually quiet as Starkey drove the dark blue Suburban across the base. They hadn’t been at Bragg since the murders of the three women. Not that the place had changed one iota; change happened very slowly in the military.
“This is a trip I personally could do without,” Brownley Harris contributed from the backseat of the Suburban.
“It’s not a problem,” said Starkey, taking control as he always did. “We have a legitimate reason to be here. Be a mistake if we stopped showing our faces at Bragg. Don’t disappoint me.”
“I hear you,” said Harris. “I still don’t like being back at the scene of the crime.” He decided that things needed some lightening up. “You all hear the differential theory of the U.S. Armed Forces — the so-called snake model?” he asked.
“Haven’t heard that one, Brownie,” said Griffin, who also rolled his eyes. He knew a joke was coming, probably a bad one.
“Army Infantry comes in after the snake. Snake smells them, leaves the area unharmed. Aviation comes next, has Global Positioning Satellite coordinates to the snake. Still can’t find the snake. Returns to base for refuel, crew rests, and manicures. Field Artillery comes. Attacks the snake with massive Time On Target barrage with three Artillery battalions in support. Kills several hundred civilians as unavoidable collateral damage. All participants, including cooks, mechanics, and clerks, are awarded Silver Stars.”
“What about us Rangers?” asked Griffin, playing the straight man.
Harris grinned. “Single Ranger comes in, plays with the snake, then eats it.”
Starkey snorted out a laugh, then he turned off Armistead Street into the lot for the Corps Headquarters. “Remember, this is just business. Conduct yourselves accordingly, gentlemen.”
Griffin and Harris barked, “Yes, sir.”
The three of them gathered their briefcases, put on lightweight suit jackets, and tightened their neckties. They were the senior sales team for Heckler & Koch, and they were at Bragg to promote the sale of guns to the army. In particular, they were trying to build common interest in the gun manufacturer’s PDW, which weighed just over two pounds, fully loaded, and could “defeat all known standard-issue military body armor.”
“Hell of a weapon,” Thomas Starkey liked to say during his sales pitch. “If we’d had it in ’Nam, we would have won the war.”
Chapter 19
THE MEETING WENT as well as any of them could have hoped. The three salesmen left the Army Corps offices at a little past eight that night, with assurances of support for the Personal Defense Weapon. Thomas Starkey had also demonstrated the latest version of the MP5 submachine gun and talked knowledgeably and enthusiastically about his company’s fabrications system, which made its gun parts 99.9 percent interchangeable.
“Let’s get some cold beers and thick steaks,” Starkey said. “See if we can get in a little trouble in Fayetteville, or maybe some other town down the line. That’s an order, gentlemen.”
“I’m up for that,” said Harris. “It’s been a good day, hasn’t it? Let’s see if we can spoil it.”
By the time they left Fort Bragg, darkness had fallen. “On the road again,” Warren Griffin started in on his theme song, the old Willie Nelson standard that he sang just about every time they started an adventure. They knew Fayetteville, not only from business trips but from when they’d been stationed at Bragg. It was only four years since the three of them had left the army, where they’d been Rangers: Colonel Starkey, Captain Harris, Master Sergeant Griffin. Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment, Third Battalion, originally out of Fort Benning, Georgia.
They were just entering town when they saw a couple of hookers loitering on a dark street corner. In the bad old days Hays Street in town had block after block of rough bars and strip joints. It used to be known as Fayette-nam. No more, though. The locals were trying to gentrify the downtown area. A billboard put up by the chamber of commerce read METRO LIVING AT A SOUTHERN PACE. Made you want to throw up.
Warren Griffin leaned out the side window of the Suburban. “I love you, and especially you. Stop the car this minute! Oh God, please stop the vehicle. I love you, darling. I’ll be back!” he called to the two girls.
“I’m Vanessa!” one of them called. She was a real cutie too.
Starkey laughed, but he drove on until they reached the Pump, which had been there for at least twenty years. They strolled inside to eat and party. Why work, if you couldn’t get a reward? Why feel the pain, unless you got some gain?
During the next few hours, they drank too many beers, ate twenty-four-ounce steaks with fried onions and mushrooms slathered on top, smoked cigars, and told their best war stories and jokes. Even the waitresses and bartenders got into the act some. Everybody liked Thomas Starkey. Unless you happened to get on hi
s bad side.
They were leaving Fayetteville about midnight when Starkey pulled the Suburban over to the curb. “Time for a live-fire exercise,” he said to Griffin and Harris. They knew what that meant.
Harris just smiled, but Griffin let out a whoop. “Let the war games begin!”
Starkey leaned out his window and talked to one of the girls loitering on Hays Street. She was a tall, rail-thin blonde, wobbling slightly on silver platform heels. She had a little pouty mouth, but it disappeared when she flashed them her best hundred-dollar smile.
“You are a very beautiful lady,” Starkey said. “Listen, we’re heading over to our suite at the Radisson. You be interested in three big tips, instead of just one? We kind of like to party together. It’ll be good, clean fun.”
Starkey could be charming, and also respectful. He had an easy smile. So the blond hooker got into the Suburban’s backseat, beside Griffin. “You all promise to be good boys,” she said, and smiled that wonderful smile of hers again.
“Promise,” the three of them chorused. “We’ll be good boys.”
“On the road again,” Griffin sang.
“Hey, you’re pretty good,” the girl said, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She was good with men, knew how to handle them, especially soldiers from Fort Bragg, who were usually decent enough guys. Once upon a time, she’d been an army brat herself. Not so long ago. She was nineteen.
“You hear that? This beautiful lady likes my singing. What’s your name, sweetie?” asked Griffin. “I like you already.”
“It’s Vanessa,” said the girl, giving her made-up street handle. “What’s yours? Don’t say Willie.”
Griffin laughed out loud. “Why, it’s Warren. Nice to make your acquaintance, Vanessa. Pretty name for a pretty lady.”
They rode out of town, in the direction of I-95. Starkey suddenly pulled the Suburban over after a mile or so and shouted, “Pit stop!” He let the Suburban roll until it was mostly hidden in a copse of evergreens and prickle bushes.