Power, I’ve learned, is derived in many legitimate ways. But if the institution has not fully empowered you, but has given you a job that is very important and really sucks, then you have to take the power you need to get it done. I think the Army expects that, expects you to demonstrate initiative, as they constantly tell you. But you have to be careful, because this only works if you’re getting the job done. If you’re not getting the job done, then they get you. Worse, when the job is successfully completed, they pat you on the head like an exhausted sled dog, then eat you, which is why I never stay around for cocktails when a case is completed. Karl says I hide under his desk for a week, which is not true, but I have been known to take a few weeks in Switzerland.
It was 1400 hours and Warrant Officer Sunhill had not made an appearance yet, so I left the provost building to get my vehicle and discovered my partner parked at the front door, sleeping behind the wheel, the Grateful Dead on the CD player, which may have been appropriate.
I got in and slammed the door, waking her up. “Sleeping?” I asked.
“No, resting my eyes.”
She always used to say that, and we exchanged quick smiles of recognition. I said, “Rifle range six, please.”
CHAPTER
TEN
Cynthia shifted into high gear as we cleared the main post and broke out into the wooded reservation. She said, “Nice suit.”
“Thank you.” The Grateful Dead was singing “A Touch of Grey.” I shut off the CD player.
“Did you have lunch?” she inquired.
“No.”
“Did you do anything useful?” she asked.
“Probably not.”
“Are you annoyed about something?”
“Yes.”
“Karl can be annoying.”
“If you call him again regarding this case, I’ll have you up on charges.”
“Yes, sir.”
We drove in silence awhile, then she said, “I need your phone number and address.”
I gave them to her and she said, “I’m staying in the visiting officers’ quarters.” She added, “Why don’t you move in? I mean, into the VOQ. It’s more convenient.”
“I like Whispering Pines Trailer Park.”
“Trailer parks in the woods are spooky.”
“Not for real men.”
“Oh, do you have one living with you?” She thought this was funny and laughed at her own joke, then covered her mouth in a theatrical gesture and said, “Oops, sorry, I should be trying to get on your good side.”
“Don’t waste your time.”
Cynthia is not a manipulator, but she has been known to manipulate. A fine distinction, but an important one. She’s basically ingenuous and honest, and if she likes the way a man looks or acts, she tells him. I’ve told her to be a little less sincere, that some men take this as a come-on. But she doesn’t get it, and this is a woman who handles rape cases.
I said to her, “We have a clerk-typist, a Specialist Baker.”
“Male or female?”
“I don’t notice these things. And by the way, what religion are you?”
She smiled and pulled her dog tags out of her shirt, and read them as she drove. “Let’s see… AB… American Baptist? No, that’s my blood type… Here it is. Presbyterian.”
“I’m not amused.”
“I’m sorry about that. Karl knew it was a joke.”
“Karl can’t identify a joke unless people around him are laughing.”
“Come on, Paul. You don’t take any of this sensitivity stuff seriously anyway. If I may give you a suggestion—be careful. You don’t have to talk newspeak or confess to your prejudices, but don’t make fun of the new stuff, either. There’s no upside to that, professionally speaking.”
“Are you a commissar?”
“No, I’m your partner.” She poked my arm. “Don’t get old on me.”
“Okay.” Obviously, Cynthia was in a somewhat less confrontational mode. Either something good had happened to her in her two-hour absence, or she had rethought or remembered things about Paul Brenner that weren’t all bad. To get back to business, I inquired, “Did you look up ‘sexual asphyxia’?”
“Of course. It’s totally weird.”
“Sex is weird if you think about it.”
“Maybe for you.”
“Tell me about sexual asphyxia.”
“All right… it’s basically having a tightened cord around your neck during sexual arousal. Usually men do it to themselves while masturbating. Autoerotic. But women have been known to practice autoerotic asphyxia, too. Sometimes heterosexual and homosexual partners do it to each other during sex. It’s usually consensual, but not always, and sometimes it leads to a fatality, either accidental or on purpose. That’s when it becomes a police matter.”
“Correct. Have you ever seen it in practice?”
“No. Have you?”
“Have you ever done it?”
“No, Paul. Have you?”
“No, but I have seen it once. A guy rigged up something to hang himself while he masturbated, looking at a porno video. He didn’t mean to die, but the stool he was standing on slipped away and he hanged himself for real. An autoerotic fatality. The MPs thought it was suicide, of course. But when the victim is naked, and there is erotic paraphernalia around, then you can be pretty sure it was an accident. Try explaining that to the family.”
“I can imagine.” She shook her head and said, “I’m not sure how that’s fun. Didn’t say in the manual.”
“Well, it’s in other manuals. Here’s how it’s fun: When you get a disruption of blood supply and oxygen to the brain, certain sensations are heightened, partly as a result of diminished ego controls. A temporary lack of oxygen causes giddiness, lightheadedness, and even exhilaration. It’s a high without drugs or alcohol. In this state, many people experience a more intense sexual arousal and feeling.” I added, “I’ve heard that when you come, you really come, but if you misjudge, then you’ve come and gone. You’re history.”
“That’s not fun.”
“No. Also, only part of the kick is physiological. The other thing is the ritualistic behavior that accompanies most acts of sexual asphyxia—the nakedness or the wearing of unusual clothes, the sexual paraphernalia and erotic materials, the fantasy, the setting, and ultimately the danger.”
“Who invented this one?”
“Undoubtedly, it was discovered accidentally. Maybe there’re pictures of it in Egyptian pyramids. Human beings are ceaselessly ingenious when it comes to self-gratification.”
She stayed silent while she drove, then glanced at me, and finally asked, “And you think something like this happened to Ann Campbell?”
“Well… the panties around her neck were put there so as not to leave a telltale rope mark. That’s very specific for sexual asphyxia when it is not meant to lead to death.” I added, “That is one way to interpret the scene that presented itself to us, but let’s examine the forensic evidence.”
“Where were her clothes?”
“She may have dropped them off somewhere.”
“Why?”
“It’s part of the danger and the fantasy. As you mentioned earlier, we have no way of knowing what was sexually significant to her, or what elaborate constructs she had developed in her mind. Think, if you will, of your own secret garden of delights, and try to imagine how those scenarios would be viewed by another person.” To fill the awkward silence, I added, “This type of personality is ultimately only satisfied with his or her own elaborate fantasies, with or without a partner. I’m beginning to think that what we saw on rifle range six was produced, directed, and scripted by Ann Campbell, not by her partner or assailant.”
Cynthia said nothing, so I continued, “Most likely, it was a consensual act that included sexual asphyxia in which her partner strangled her to death by accident, or on purpose, in a moment of anger. An assailant, a stranger, who was bent on rape and murder would not have put the panties around her nec
k to minimize tissue damage.”
“No, but as we discussed, consider that perhaps the partner did not kill her in a moment of anger. Consider that the partner intended to kill her, and she thought it was a game.”
“That’s another possibility.”
Cynthia said, “I keep thinking about that room in the basement. There may have been men who wanted her dead out of jealousy or revenge, or she may have been blackmailing someone.”
“Right. She was a homicide victim waiting to happen. But we need more information. You’ll write all of that in your case book. Okay?”
Again she nodded but said nothing. Clearly, Cynthia, who dealt with garden-variety rapes that did not lead to murder, was somewhat overwhelmed by these new facets of human depravity and sexual diversity. Yet, I was sure she had seen women brutalized by men, but she must have compartmentalized those crimes or categorized them in some fashion that she could deal with. She didn’t seem to hate all men—in fact, she liked men—but I could see how she could, or would, one day begin to hate. I asked Cynthia, “The Neely case. Who was the guy?”
“Oh… some young trainee at the Infantry School. He fell in love with this nurse and followed her out to her car one night as she left the hospital. He made a full confession and will make a full apology, then plead guilty and take five to ten.”
I nodded. It was not Army policy, but it was becoming more common to have the convicted or confessed criminal apologize to the victim or the family, and also to his or her own commanding officer. This sounded more Japanese than English common law to me, but I suppose it’s okay. Ironically, General Campbell had instituted this policy here at Fort Hadley. I said, “Good God, I wouldn’t want to be the guy who had to apologize to the general for raping and murdering his daughter.”
“It would be hard to find just the right words,” Cynthia agreed. She added, “Are we back to rape and murder?”
“Perhaps. But it could have been murder and rape. Do you want to discuss necrophilia?”
“No. Enough.”
“Amen.” Up ahead, I could see the outline of a huge green open-sided tent, like a pavilion that you see at lawn parties. The forensic people pitch these over an outdoor crime scene to protect the evidence from the elements.
Cynthia said, “I appreciate the confidence in me that you’ve expressed to Karl.”
I didn’t recall that conversation with Karl, so I let that pass and said, “Karl wants us to reconstruct the crime. Complete with tent pegs, ropes, and so forth. You’re Ann Campbell.”
She thought about this a moment, then said, “All right… I’ve done that before…”
“Good. I’m looking forward to it.”
We had arrived at the scene, and Cynthia pulled over behind a forensic unit van. She said, “Are we going to see the body again?”
“No.” By now the body was bloating, and there would be a faint odor about it, and, as irrational and unprofessional as this sounds, I wanted to remember Ann Campbell as she was.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
There were about a dozen vans and cars on the narrow road, belonging to the CID forensic lab and the local MPs.
Cynthia and I walked on a trail of green tarpaulin toward the open pavilion.
It was a typically hot Georgia afternoon, with an occasional soft breeze that carried the resinous scent of pines through the humid air.
Death does not cause a halt in military activities, and the rifle ranges to our left and right were being used despite the problem at rifle range six. I could hear the far-off fusillades of M-16s, sharp, staccato bursts of fire, and, as always, that sound stirred unpleasant memories. But those memories did put things into perspective. I mean, this case was unpleasant, but jungle combat was way down there on the list of unpleasant activities. Things could be worse. I was alive, and a young woman, fifty meters away, wasn’t.
In and around the pavilion were at least thirty men and women, all engaged in the business of forensic work.
Forensic science is based largely on the theory of transfer and exchange. It is an article of faith with forensic people that the perpetrator will take away traces of the scene and of the victim, and will leave traces of himself at the scene or on the victim. This is especially true with sexual assault, which by its nature puts the perpetrator and victim in close juxtaposition.
There are, however, cases where the perpetrator is extremely bright and savvy, and has no intention of giving the forensic lab so much as a pubic hair or a drop of semen or saliva, or even a whiff of after-shave lotion. Based on what I’d seen earlier, this seemed like it could be one of those cases. And if it turned out that it was, then I had to rely solely on old-fashioned interrogation, intuition, and legwork. But even if I found the perpetrator, a conviction without a shred of forensic evidence was unlikely.
I stopped before I got to the pavilion, and a short, bald man separated himself from the crowd around the body and came toward us. I recognized Chief Warrant Officer Cal Seiver, who was probably the OIC—the officer in charge—of the entire team. Seiver is basically a good guy, a professional with an uncanny sense of what piece of thread or what speck of dust is important. But, like many technical types, he lives and breathes minutiae and can’t see the forest for the trees. This is good, though, because the forest is my job, and the trees are his. I don’t like forensic types who play detective.
Cal was looking a bit pale as he always does when he sees a body. We shook hands and I introduced him to Cynthia, but they knew each other. He said, “The entire fucking world walked around this body, Paul.”
We go through this every time. I replied, “Nobody knows how to levitate yet.”
“Yeah, well, you people stomped on everything.”
“Any nonmilitary footwear?”
“Yeah. Running shoes.” He looked at Cynthia’s shoes. “Did you—”
“Yes,” she replied. “I’ll give you my footprints. Any other footprints aside from boots?”
“Yeah. I picked up a partial bare footprint, probably the deceased’s, but everything else is boots, boots, boots. Some soles make different marks, you know, uneven wear, cuts in the leather, different brands of heels—”
“I think you told me that once,” I reminded him.
“Yeah. We’ve got to take disqualifying sole prints from everybody, but I have to tell you, the area probably had dozens of prints already, and this range is covered with scrub brush and grass.”
“I see that.”
“I hate outdoor crime scenes.” He pulled out a handkerchief, took off his BDU cap, and mopped his sweaty pate.
I informed him, “New memo from the Pentagon, Cal. You are not short and bald—you are a vertically challenged man of scalp.”
He looked at Cynthia. “You got to work with this guy?”
“He’s trying to bug me, not you. I just gave him a lecture on sensitivity.”
“Yeah? Don’t waste your time.”
“Precisely,” agreed Cynthia. “Did you get the stuff I sent you on the Neely case?”
“Yeah. We did a DNA match on the semen we had from her vagina, and the stuff you sent over yesterday from the confessed rapist. Same stuff, so you got a true confession. Congratulations.”
I added my congratulations and inquired of Cal, “Any traces of semen on this victim?”
“I ran an ultraviolet light over her, and there’re no traces of semen. We took vaginal, oral, and anal swabs, and we’ll know about that in a half hour or so.” He added, “The latent-prints people have already done the body, the humvee, her handbag, the tent pegs, and ropes. The photographers are nearly done, and I have the serology people in the vans now with the blood, saliva, and orifice samples. The chemistry people are vacuuming trace evidence from the body, but I have to tell you, I don’t even see a stray hair on the body, and what lint there is probably came from her own underwear and clothes. I also brought along a team from the tool marks lab, and they’re examining the tent pegs and rope, but it’s standard-issue s
tuff and the pegs are old and used, and so is the rope. So, to answer all your questions, we don’t have a physical clue for you yet.”
Cal tends to be negative. Then later, be tells you that after hours of hard and brilliant lab work, he’s got something. The secret to becoming a legend is to make the job look harder than it is. I do that once in a while myself. Cynthia doesn’t get it yet. I asked Cal, “Have you removed the tent pegs?”
“Just the one near the left ankle to get at an anal sample, and to determine if there’s any dirt on the peg that’s different from the dirt it’s stuck in now. But it seems like all red Georgia clay.”
“I want you to determine if either of the tent pegs near the wrists could have been pulled out by the victim if she were free to do so. Also, see if either of the knots on the wrists is a slipknot. Also, I would like you to tell me if you think she had or could have had either end of the ligature in her hands.”
“Now?”
“Please.”
Cal turned and walked away.
Cynthia said to me, “If none of those things are true or possible, then we can rule out an autoerotic fatality. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“Then we look for a perpetrator.”
“A perpetrator or an accomplice. It still looks like it started out as fun.” I added, “That is not for public dissemination.”
“Obviously.” She said, “I don’t mind seeing the body again. I know what we’re looking for.” She followed the tarpaulin trail to the pavilion and disappeared into the crowd as she knelt beside the body. I turned and walked back to the road and stood beside the humvee. I looked up the road toward the guard post where PFC Robbins had stood, but I could not see the ammo shed from a kilometer away. I turned and looked down the road toward the direction we had come from and saw that the road made a right-hand bend, so that if a vehicle stopped about a hundred meters away, at rifle range five, its headlights might not be seen from where Robbins had been standing. There was something about the times of the headlights that bugged me, and I had to consider the possibility that the first headlights that Robbins saw were not necessarily those of Ann Campbell’s humvee—because if they were, what was Ann Campbell doing between the time she left Post Headquarters at 0100 hours and the time Robbins saw the first headlights at 0217 hours?