The Enemy

He nodded. “The privilege of independence.”

“Literally exclusive?”

He nodded again. “Unique in all the world.”

“When did you last sell one?”

“About nine months ago.”

“Does the paint wear off?”

“I know what you’re asking,” he said. “And the answer is yes, of course. If you find one that looks new, it’s the one that was stolen on New Year’s Eve.”

We borrowed an identical sample from him for comparative purposes, the same way Detective Clark had. It was dewed with machine oil and had tissue paper wrapped around the center shaft. We laid it like a trophy across the Chevy’s backseat. Then we ate in the car. Burgers, from a drive-through a hundred yards north of the tool store.

“Tell me three new facts,” I said.

“One, Mrs. Kramer and Carbone were killed by the same individual weapon. Two, we’re going to drive ourselves nuts trying to find a co

“And three?”

“I don’t know.”

“Three, the bad guy knew Sperryville pretty well. Could you have found that store in the dark, in a hurry, unless you knew the town?”

We looked ahead through the windshield. The mouth of the alley was just about visible. But then, we knew it was there. And it was full daylight.

Summer closed her eyes.

“Focus on the weapon,” she said. “Forget everything else. Visualize it. The custom crowbar. Unique in all the world. It was carried out of that alley, right there. Then it was in Green Valley at two A.M. on January first. And then it was inside Fort Bird at nine P.M. on the fourth. It went on a journey. We know where it started, and we know where it finished. We don’t know for sure where it went in between, but we do know for certain it passed one particular point along the way. It passed Fort Bird’s main gate. We don’t know when, but we know for sure that it did.”

She opened her eyes.

“We have to get back there,” she said. “We have to look at the logs again. The earliest it could have passed the gate is six A.M. on January first, because Bird is four hours from Green Valley. The latest it could have passed the gate is, say, eight P.M. on January fourth. That’s an eighty-six-hour window. We need to check the gate logs for everybody who entered during that time. Because we know for sure that the crowbar came in, and we know for sure that it didn’t walk in by itself.”

I said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “There’ll be a lot of names.”

The truant feeling was completely gone. We got back on the road and headed east, looking for I-95. We found it and we turned south, toward Bird. Toward Willard on the phone. Toward the angry Delta station. We slid back under the shelf of gray cloud just before the North Carolina state line. The sky went dark. Summer put the headlights on. We passed the State Police building on the opposite shoulder. Passed the spot where Kramer’s briefcase had been found. Passed the rest area a mile later. We merged with the east-west highway spur and came off at the cloverleaf next to Kramer’s motel. We left it behind us and drove the thirty miles down to Fort Bird’s gate. The guard shack MPs signed us in at 1930 hours exactly. I told them to copy their logs starting at 0600 hours January first and ending at 2000 hours January fourth. I told them to have a Xerox record of that eighty-six-hour slice of life delivered to my office immediately.

My office was very quiet. The morning mayhem was long gone. The sergeant with the baby son was back on duty. She looked tired. I realized she didn’t sleep much. She worked all night and probably played with her kid all day. Tough life. She had coffee going. I figured she was just as interested in it as I was. Maybe more.

“Delta guys are restless,” she said. “They know you arrested the Bulgarian guy.”

“I didn’t arrest him. I just asked him some questions.”

“That’s a distinction they don’t seem willing to make. People have been in and out of here looking for you.”

“Were they armed?”

“They don’t need to be armed. Not those guys. You should have them confined to quarters. You could do that. You’re acting MP CO here.”

I shook my head. “Anything else?”

“You need to call Colonel Willard before midnight, or he’s going to write you up as AWOL. He said that’s a promise.”

I nodded. It was Willard’s obvious next move. An AWOL charge wouldn’t reflect badly on a CO. Wouldn’t make him look like he had lost his grip. An AWOL charge was always on the man who ran, fair and square.

“Anything else?” I said again.

“Sanchez wants a ten-sixteen,” she said. “Down at Fort Jackson. And your brother called again.”

“Any message?” I said.

“No message.”

“OK,” I said.

I went inside to my desk. Picked up my phone. Summer stepped over to the map. Traced her fingers across the pins, D.C. to Sperryville, Sperryville to Green Valley, Green Valley to Fort Bird. I dialed Joe’s number. He answered, second ring.

“I called Mom,” he said. “She’s still hanging in there.”

“She said soon, Joe. Doesn’t mean we have to mount a daily vigil.”

“Bound to be sooner than we think. And than we want.”

“How was she?”

“She sounded shaky.”

“You OK?”

“Not bad,” he said. “You?”

“Not a great year so far.”

“You should call her next,” he said.

“I will,” I said. “In a few days.”

“Do it tomorrow,” he said.

He hung up and I sat for a minute. Then I dabbed the cradle to clear the line and asked my sergeant to get Sanchez for me. Down at Jackson. I held the phone by my ear and waited. Summer was looking right at me.

“A daily vigil?” she said.

“She’s waiting for the plaster to come off,” I said. “She doesn’t like it.”

Summer looked at me a little more and then turned back to the map. I put the phone on speaker and laid the handset down on the desk. There was a click on the line and we heard Sanchez’s voice.

“I’ve been hassling the Columbia PD about Brubaker’s car,” he said.

“Didn’t they find it yet?” I said.

“No,” he said. “And they weren’t putting any effort into finding it. Which was inconceivable to me. So I kept on hassling them.”

“And?”

“They dropped the other shoe.”

“Which is?”

“Brubaker wasn’t killed in Columbia,” he said. “He was dumped there, is all.”

seventeen

Sanchez told us the Columbia medical examiners had found confused lividity patterns on Brubaker’s body that in their opinion meant he had been dead about three hours before being tossed in the alley. Lividity is what happens to a person’s blood after death. The heart stops, blood pressure collapses, liquid blood drains and sinks and settles into the lowest parts of the body under the simple force of gravity. It rests there and over a period of time it stains the skin liverish purple. Somewhere between three and six hours later the color fixes permanently, like a developed photograph. A guy who falls down dead on his back will have a pale chest and a purple back. Vice versa for a guy who falls down dead on his front. But Brubaker’s lividity was all over the place. The Columbia medical examiners figured he had been killed, then kept on his back for about three hours, then dumped in the alley on his front. They were pretty confident about their estimate of the three-hour duration, because three hours was the point where the stains would first start to fix. They said he had signs of early fixed lividity on his back and major fixed lividity on his front. They also said he had a broad stripe across the middle of his back where the dead flesh had been partially cooked.

“He was in the trunk of a car,” I said.

“Right over the muffler,” Sanchez said. “Three-hour journey, plenty of temperature.”