A Long Day for Dying Page 11

  She appeared puzzled by his comment. “I’d like to think so.”

  “You took an oath to be loyal to the military and the officers above you?”

  “I swore to defend the Constitution. It’s not quite the same thing.”

  “But you swore to obey the orders of superior officers.”

  She flipped a few strands of hair from her eyes with a single gleaming red nail. “I see where you’re going. No one ordered me to say what I did. I certainly didn’t do it out of any sense of loyalty. I’ve been around the other chiefs enough to know they couldn’t have killed General Garber. They’re honorable, decent men.”

  “They’re soldiers,” Simon said. “And soldiers kill.”

  He said it casually, but the remark struck a nerve. Weller’s face tightened, and she seemed to fight the urge to respond.

  “Honorable,” Simon said.

  She looked at him.

  “You said the chiefs were honorable men?”

  “It’s true.”

  “Including General Markel?”

  “General Markel’s war record speaks for itself. He’s probably the most courageous man in the military. If you’re insinuating anything else, you’re mistaken.” Her eyes were dark, angry.

  Simon smiled apologetically. “I’m sure the general is very brave.”

  “You bet he is.”

  “Curious,” Simon said. “I thought you said you weren’t familiar with the other chiefs.”

  “They’re heroes. They deserve my respect—and yours.”

  “So your defense of General Markel isn’t predicated upon any personal—”

  “Of course not. I’d say the same thing about General Sessler and General Johnson and any of the other chiefs.”

  “Including General Garber?”

  A silence. She shifted in her seat and stared at her nails.

  Simon said, “You must have an opinion of his character, Colonel?”

  She looked up. “He’s dead. What does it matter what I thought of him?”

  “I take it you didn’t particularly care for General Garber.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Simon reassured her that anything she said would be kept confidential. Her brow knitted as she considered his offer. She shook her head again. “I’d rather not say.”

  “Colonel Weller…”

  “No.”

  A trace of irritation crossed Simon’s face. He leaned over the table and stared right at her. He didn’t blink. It was creepy. Weller turned away, trying to ignore him. But as the seconds passed, you could see he was getting to her. She kept shooting him glances, as if expecting him to say something.Wanting him to say something.

  But he never did. He just kept staring at her.

  Frankly, I thought Simon was going to lose this test of wills. This was a murder investigation, and Colonel Weller had to know her relationship to Garber made her a suspect. No way would she dare admit—

  “Damn you.” Weller glared at him. “Damn you.”

  “You disliked the general, then?”

  She almost came out of her chair. “Disliked? Idespised him. He was petty and mean and vindictive. He made my life a living hell. There. I said it. Satisfied?”

  Simon seemed unprepared by the intensity of her response. The raw emotion. Amanda and I waited for the obvious follow-up, but he continued to sit there with a puzzled expression, as if trying to understand.

  Amanda looked to me. I nodded.

  “Colonel Weller,” she asked, “if you despised General Garber, why were you so distraught when you found the body?”

  Weller turned to her and slowly sagged back into her chair. She suddenly sounded tired. “To be honest, my reaction surprised me too. But I’ve been under a lot of stress from the trip. Putting up with General Garber’s demands. Almost no sleep. Anyway, I think it all contributed to the shock I felt. When I walked in and saw him lying there, I…I sort of freaked out.”

  Understandable, I thought. Amanda must have thought so, too, because she changed the subject and asked Weller if she knew who purchased the bottle of Glenlivet whisky that the General Garber was drinking.

  “I think General Garber bought some in London.”

  “Youthink? ”

  “I saw a bottle in his room last night. On the desk. It might have been Glenlivet. I didn’t notice the label.”

  “What time was this?”

  “A couple hours into the flight. I was returning his uniform that I’d had pressed. I stayed maybe five minutes. To discuss his schedule for the next day. Today.”

  “The general was alone?”

  “Yes. He said he was tired and was going to bed. He told me he didn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Was that the last time you saw him?”

  “Yes. Until this morning.”

  Amanda consulted her notepad. “Do you remember if his bed had been made up?”

  Good question: Amanda was trying to determine if anyone saw Garber after Weller.

  “It wasn’t,” Weller said. “When I left, I told Sergeant Blake to make it up.”

  Amanda made a note. “Could you tell whether General Garber was drunk?”

  “He could hold a lot without showing it. But his words were a little…sloppy.” She added, “I could also smell the alcohol on him.”

  “Do you wear lipstick, Colonel?”

  Weller paused, thrown by the question. “Uh, sure. Sometimes.”

  “What color?”

  “Red, mostly. Why?”

  “The same color as your nails.”

  Weller glanced down. “Pretty close.”

  Amanda leaned to her left and pointed to a leather purse that was sitting on the floor beside Weller’s chair. “Is your lipstick in there, Colonel?”

  Weller flinched visibly, and something approaching fear appeared in her eyes. I felt a buzz of anticipation. Simon hunched forward, watching her intently.

  “Why…why do you want it?” Weller asked Amanda.

  Amanda was already on her feet and stepping over to the purse. “May I, Colonel?” She reached down.

  Weller snatched up the purse and clutched it to her chest. “Why do you want it?” she demanded.

  “Colonel,” Amanda said, standing over her, “you’re aware that anyone on a military reservation is subject to search without consent. I have the authority to physically take your purse from you.”

  Weller’s eyes darted to Simon and me almost pleadingly. We gazed back, unsympathetic. Her small shoulders dropped as she accepted the inevitable. She held out the purse to Amanda, her hand shaking.

  “Wait outside, please,” Amanda ordered.

  Weller rose wordlessly and walked out. The moment the door shut, Amanda dumped the contents of the purse onto the table.

  15

  Simon and I stood beside Amanda as she picked through the items.

  The usual assortment of things you’d expect to find in a woman’s purse: a leather wallet, a nail file, tweezers, gum, an opened packet of tissues, some loose change, a small cloth makeup bag with floral stitching—

  Amanda unzipped the makeup bag and removed two cylinders of lipstick. Designer brands. “The lady has good taste,” Amanda said. “This stuff goes for fifty dollars a tube.”

  She popped the caps. Both were shades of red.

  Studying them, she said, “Weller must know about the lipstick smear on the glass. That’s got to be why she’s so frightened.”

  “Perhaps not,” Simon said.

  We glanced at him.

  He was holding the wallet open, staring at something inside. He lowered it so we could see.

  And there, encased in plastic next to Weller’s driver’s license, was a picture of a smiling man in a medaled air force uniform, standing beside an American flag. After Weller’s emotional outburst, he was the last person we expected to see.

  It was General Garber.

  We all stared at the picture, trying to figure it. In the photo, Garber’s hair was dark brown inste
ad of gray, and his uniform had only one star.

  “It has to be at least eight to ten years old,” Amanda said.

  I nodded and opened the wallet. Weller’s military ID was on the inside cover. I checked her birth date. She was thirty-three. She’d made lieutenant colonel at least four years earlier than her peers. Not unusual for aides to be fast burners, since they often rode the coattails of their generals up the promotion chain.

  I leafed through past a few plastic inserts containing credit cards, pausing at a picture of a smiling older couple sitting in a canoe. I dug it out. An inscription on the back: “Mom and Dad at Lake Tahoe.” It was dated last August. Simon tapped my arm, and I passed it over. He studied it for what seemed a long time.

  I said, “Something?”

  He handed it back. “Not much of a resemblance.”

  Unlike their thin, dark-complected daughter, the couple were both heavy-set and fair-skinned. “Probably their weight,” I said. “It alters their appearance.”

  He nodded.

  As I returned the photo to the wallet and placed it on the table, I said to Amanda, “Get Weller back in here, then take the lipstick up to Martha. Tell her we want a comparison done ASAP on whether either color matches the smear on the glass.”

  She was tossing the items back into the purse. Glancing at me, she said, “Might be a good idea to search her luggage. See what else she’s holding back.”

  “Make it fast. I don’t want her to realize we’re focusing on her and start screaming harassment.” The passengers’ luggage was still sitting on the bus, parked outside the hangar.

  She handed me the purse and winked. “Goes with your shoes, Marty.”

  “But not my eyes,” I deadpanned.

  She grinned. As she headed for the door, Simon said to her, “Tell Weller we’ll need a few minutes.”

  Which meant he wanted to talk. As we eased into our seats, I eyed him.

  He tugged thoughtfully on a cheek. “It’s confusing.”

  “Yeah.” I stared at the wallet on the table. “If Weller hated Garber, it doesn’t figure she’d keep his picture.”

  “It’s more complicated than that, Martin. I’m curious about her change in attitude.”

  “Attitude?”

  “When she described seeing General Garber’s body, she tried to appear as if the process was traumatizing. But her eyes gave away her true feelings. You probably noticed.”

  I had. This was the inconsistency that had troubled me earlier. As she’d spoken, Weller’s shoulders had dropped and her lip had quivered. She’d been the picture of worry and grief. Except for her eyes. Cold and dispassionate.

  “Naturally,” Simon continued, “I assumed she was trying to deflect suspicion from herself by showing remorse over Garber’s death.”

  “And now?”

  “You heard her, Martin. Why would she be so vitriolic in her hatred toward General Garber?”

  “You pressured her for the truth.”

  “She could have simply said she disliked him, but she didn’t. She specifically said she despised him.”

  “Your point being…”

  He studied me. “It’s almost as if she’d decided to become a suspect.”

  I shook my head. Simon had come up with some doozies before, but—

  “I’ll admit it’s a little far-fetched, Martin.”

  “Alittle? Simon, you saw the way Weller reacted when Amanda asked for her purse. She practically laid an egg in the chair.”

  Simon tented his fingers, watching me. “Would you say Colonel Weller is an intelligent woman, Martin?”

  I hesitated, trying to figure out his angle. “Yes.”

  “Very intelligent.”

  “Probably.” As I said it, I realized where he was headed. “You’re wondering why Weller kept the lipstick if it could be traced to her.”

  He lowered his hands and nodded. “She had plenty of time of dispose of it.”

  I thought. “It probably never occurred to her that we’d dig the glasses from the trash. Or better yet, she probably thought she’d wiped all the lipstick off the rim.”

  “And General Garber’s picture…”

  At the sound of a knock, Simon looked toward the door. “We’ll see, Martin. Come in, Colonel Weller.”

  The change in Weller’s demeanor over the last few minutes was remarkable. She now appeared calm and in control. She sat in her chair and appraised Simon and me with something approaching amusement. “You found it, I take it?”

  “Found what?” Simon asked mildly.

  She smiled. “The picture in the wallet. I knew you’d misunderstand.”

  Simon picked up the wallet from the table, opened it to General Garber’s photo, and slid it to her. “Enlighten us.”

  “General Garber gave it to me.”

  “Why?”

  “I suppose he wanted me to have it.”

  “Why?”

  “He never said. I suspect it was ego. He assumed I’d want a picture of him.”

  “You said you hated him—”

  “I did.”

  “Then why did you keep it in your wallet?”

  Her voice hardened, matching her earlier bitterness. “You don’t know him. The kind of man he was. I knew he’d check someday and see if I was carrying it. He liked playing those kinds of games. Testing people’s loyalty.”

  Simon said, “It’s an older picture—”

  “The man’s ego again. That was his favorite picture because he still looked young and handsome. Or thought he did. In his office, he has a big portrait of himself painted from it. It hangs over his desk, large as you please. Like he was worshiping himself. It made me sick to look at it.”

  “If you were unhappy working for him, why didn’t you quit?” Simon asked.

  A harsh laugh. “Youserious? You know how hard I’ve worked to get where I am. If I tried to quit, he would have destroyed my career. You don’t leave General Garber unless he wants you to go. Ask him. He knows what I’m talking about.”

  She was referring to me, because I was nodding. In the military, four-stars were akin to gods. Once they decided to end someone’s career, whether it was justified or not, there was nothing the person could do. When I was stationed at the Pentagon, a fighter-pilot colonel with two Silver Stars for bravery committed the unpardonable sin of correcting a general’s figures during a budget briefing. That the colonel was right didn’t matter. The next day he was fired, his military career finished.

  After I told Simon that Weller’s concerns were valid, he still seemed skeptical. He was just being stubborn. Logic notwithstanding, once he got an idea in his head, he had trouble letting go.

  Moving on, he asked Weller if she knew any way into the compartment, once the doors were locked. She said she didn’t.

  “What if the general was ill, and you had to get inside?” Simon asked.

  She shrugged. “Same drill we used to enter this morning. We break the door down.”

  “When you discovered the body, did you notice if anyone seemed unusually interested in the closet doors?”

  “No one touched them.”

  “How can you be sure, Colonel? You were upset and—”

  “The way I was sitting. I was facing the closet. No one touched them.”

  Simon contemplated her, as if trying to reach a decision. This time Weller didn’t seem the least bit rattled by his scrutiny. Abruptly, Simon reached down and removed the photograph from the wallet. “You mind if we keep this?”

  “You can burn it, for all I care.”

  After pocketing the picture, he returned her wallet and purse. He looked to me: Your turn.

  I said to Weller, “You have quite a career going. I assume you’re min-time to light bird.” Min-time meant she’d been promoted two years early to major and two years early to lieutenant colonel.

  A curt nod. “I’ve worked hard for it.”

  “General Garber must have thought a lot of you, to push your promotions.”

 
; She bristled at the remark. “Implying what? That I’m ungrateful? That Iowed him something?”

  “Not at all. I was only pointing out—”

  “Let me tell you something, Agent Collins. I busted my ass for those promotions. Ideserved them.”

  “I’m sure you—”

  But she was on a roll, angrily dressing me down. “You think being an aide is easy? For four years, I’ve had no life of my own. I’ve been on call every minute of every day. I’ve been a goddamn secretary, a maid, a cook, a seamstress, and any other damn thing you could think of. And now you sit here, trying to make me feel guilty because I was promoted early. Go to hell.”

  She sat back, her face flushed and indignant.

  I didn’t say anything. I just focused on her eyes and found what I expected. They were flat, devoid of any real emotion.

  So this was another calculated outburst. Shewanted us to think she was someone who got riled up easily. For the first time, Simon’s theory didn’t sound quite so crazy.

  Bracing for another scripted eruption, I said, “I don’t want you to take my next question wrong, but it has to be asked.”

  She sighed. “You want to know if General Garber made a pass at me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Once.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What do you think?” she snapped. “I told him I wasn’t interested and walked out.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t hold it against you.”

  “Why would he? He had other women.”

  “You know who they were?”

  “No. He was careful. He knew even his father probably couldn’t protect him from another scandal.”

  “How do you know he was seeing other women?”

  “A few times, I answered the phone in his office. His direct line. There were women on the other end. They never left a message or their names. Just hung up when I told them the general wasn’t there.”

  “Could they have been the same woman, or—”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t really notice their voices.” She shrugged.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Simon shift in his seat. A finger began tapping the table. He seemed impatient for me to wrap up my questions. I told him I’d be only a few more minutes.