She paused. Relaxed.
"OK," she said.
I opened the passenger door and started to get in.
"I'm driving?" she asked.
"I was up most of the night."
"Who died?"
"General Kramer," I said. "Big tank guy in Europe."
She paused again. "So why was he here? We're all infantry."
"Passing through," I said.
She got in on the other side and racked the driver's seat all the way forward. Adjusted the mirror. I pushed the passenger seat back and got as comfortable as I could.
"Where to?" she said.
" Green Valley, Virginia," I said. "It'll be about four hours, I guess."
"That's where the widow is?"
"Home for the holidays," I said.
"And we're breaking the news? Like, Happy New Year, ma'am, and by the way, your husband's dead?"
I nodded. "Lucky us." But I wasn't really worried. Generals' wives are as tough as they come. Either they've spent thirty years pushing their husbands up the greasy pole, or they've endured thirty years of fallout as their husbands have climbed it for themselves. Either way, there's not much left that can get to them. They're tougher than the generals, most of the time.
Summer took her cap off and tossed it onto the backseat. Her hair was very short. Almost shaved. She had a delicate skull and nice cheekbones. Smooth skin. I liked the way she looked. And she was a fast driver. That was for damn sure. She clipped her belt and took off north like she was training for NASCAR.
"Was it an accident?" she asked.
"Heart attack," I said. "His arteries were bad."
"Where? Our VOQ?"
I shook my head. "A crappy little motel in town. He died with a twenty-dollar hooker wedged somewhere underneath him."
"We're not telling the widow that part, right?"
"No, we're not. We're not telling anyone that part."
"Why was he passing through?"
"He didn't come to Bird itself. He was transiting D.C. Frankfurt to Dulles, then National to LAX twenty hours later. He was going out to Irwin for a conference."
"OK," she said, and then she went very quiet. We drove on. We got about level with the motel, but well to the west, heading straight for the highway.
"Permission to speak freely?" she said.
"Please," I said.
"Is this a test?"
"Why would it be a test?"
"You're from the 110th Special Unit, aren't you?"
"Yes," I said. "I am."
"I have an application pending."
"To the 110th?"
"Yes," she said. "So, is this a covert assessment?"
"Of what?"
"Of me," she said. "As a candidate."
"I needed a woman partner. In case the widow is a hugger. I picked you out at random. The captain with the busted arm couldn't have driven the car. And it would be kind of inefficient for us to wait until we had a dead general to conduct personnel assessments."
"I guess," she said. "But I'm wondering if you're sitting there waiting for me to ask the obvious questions."
"I'd expect any MP with a pulse to ask the obvious questions, whether or not they had a special unit transfer pending."
"OK, I'm asking. General Kramer had a twenty-hour layover in the D.C. area and he wanted to get his rocks off and he didn't mind paying for the privilege. So why did he drive all the way down here to do it? It's what, three hundred miles?"
"Two hundred and ninety-eight," I said.
"And then he'd have to drive all the way back."
"Clearly."
"So why?"
"You tell me," I said. "Come up with something I haven't thought of myself and I'll recommend you for the transfer."
"You can't. You're not my CO."
"Maybe I am," I said. "This week, anyway."
"Why are you even here? Is something happening I should know about?"
"I don't know why I'm here," I said. "I got orders. That's all I know."
"Are you really a major?"
"Last time I checked," I said.
"I thought 110th investigators were usually warrant officers. Working plain clothes or undercover."
"They usually are."
"So why bring you here when they could send a warrant officer and have him dress up as a major?"
"Good question," I said. "Maybe one day I'll find out."
"May I ask what your orders were?"
"Temporary detached duty as Fort Bird 's Provost Marshal's executive officer."
"The Provost Marshal isn't on-post," she said.
"I know," I said. "I found that out. He transferred out the same day I transferred in. Some temporary thing."
"So you're acting CO."
"Like I said."
"MP XO isn't a special unit job," she said.
"I can fake it," I said. "I started out a regular MP, just like you."
Summer said nothing. Just drove.
"Kramer," I said. "Why did he contemplate a six-hundred-mile round-trip? That's twelve hours' driving time out of his twenty. Just to spend fifteen bucks on a room and twenty on a whore?"
"Why does it matter? A heart attack is a heart attack, right? I mean, was there any question about it?"
I shook my head. "Walter Reed already did the autopsy."
"So it doesn't really matter where or when it happened."
"His briefcase is missing."
"I see," Summer said.
I saw her thinking. Her lower eyelids flicked upward a fraction.
"How do you know he had a briefcase?" she said.
"I don't. But did you ever see a general go to a conference without one?"
"No," she said. "You think the hooker ran off with it?"
I nodded. "That's my working hypothesis right now."
"So, find the hooker."
"Who was she?"
Her eyelids moved again.
"Doesn't make sense," she said.
I nodded again. "Exactly."
"Four possible reasons Kramer didn't stay in the D.C. area. One, he might have been traveling with fellow officers and didn't want to embarrass himself in front of them by having a hooker come to his room. They might have seen her in the corridor or heard her through the walls. So he invented an excuse and stayed in a different place. Two, even if he was traveling alone he might have been on a DoD travel voucher and he was paranoid about a desk clerk seeing the girl and calling The Washington Post. That happens. So he preferred to pay cash in some anonymous dive. Three, even if he wasn't on a government ticket he might have been a well-known guest or a familiar face in a big-city hotel. So likewise he was looking for anonymity somewhere out of town. Or four, his sexual tastes ran beyond what you can get from the D.C. Yellow Pages, so he had to go where he knew for sure he could get what he wanted."
"But?"
"Problems one, two, and three could be answered by going ten or fifteen miles, maybe less. Two hundred and ninety-eight is completely excessive. And whereas I'm prepared to believe there are tastes that can't be satisfied in D.C., I don't see how they're more likely to be satisfied way out here in the North Carolina boonies, and anyway I would guess such a thing would cost a lot more than twenty bucks wherever you eventually found it."
"So why did he take the six-hundred-mile detour?"