Rebel in Time

Chapter 8

Troy Harmon had filed his final report, yet he still wondered if he would ever hear about Colonel Wesley McCulloch again. He had added, at the end of the report, the request that he be notified if there were any further developments in the case. There had to be a reason for the purchase of all that gold and he dearly wanted to know what it was.

But as far as he had been able to determine there was no case at all. Yes, the colonel had been buying a lot of gold. But no, there was no reason why he shouldn't. Since the law had been changed gold was freely available, it was not necessary to produce identification to buy it, nor were records necessarily kept. Nothing that McCulloch had done was illegal. Just very interesting. He had purchased gold with all the money that he possessed — then stowed the gold away in his safe. He had used his savings, sold his new car and bought an old one, got a second mortgage on his house. And had bought gold and still more gold with it all. What he had done might be considered eccentric — but it still wasn't against the law. Troy had reported this in great detail, made a copy of the report for his own files, and delivered it to Admiral Colonne's secretary. Sorry, the admiral would be out of town for two days, but he will contact you upon return. Fine. Troy could use two days off as well. An old friend was getting married in New York. He had already made his excuses — but it still wasn't too late to phone and say that he was coming. It was Friday afternoon and no one in Washington would miss him if he slipped away early.

It had been a good week-end. First there had been the bachelor dinner, an excuse for a lot of drink, with a bunch of the guys from Jamaica High School he hadn't heard about or thought about in years. More of them had stayed in the old neighbourhood than he had realized. He was the one who had moved on, had got out of touch. Going away first to college, upstate in Ithaca, then right into the Army; too much time had gone by. He had always meant to come back for a visit, but had never quite got around to it. He had no family left in Jamaica; his few remaining relatives were in Detroit. Dad had died while he was in Nam, cancer, and his mother had followed him just a few months later. Out of loneliness, people said. It could be true. She had been that kind of woman. But that was all in the past. Getting back here had turned out to be a lot of fun despite these memories. But he had been too tired, had drunk too much, to even consider returning to Washington on the Sunday.

The first shuttle flight out of LaGuardia on a damp, chill Monday morning is a special kind of hell. Particularly with a hangover. Packed behind the chromium rails waiting for the flight to be called, cardboardy Eastern Airlines coffee spilling out of the container, poked in the eye by the New York Times, then jammed into the tiny shuttle seats. Wonderful, only twelve planes ahead of them waiting for take-off. Longer on the ground than in the air. We're glad you chose to fly Eastern today, the outside temperature is…

The coffee from the QCIC machine was a lot better; Troy sipped it from a crockery mug in order to get the cardboard taste out of his mouth. There was a single item in his In tray. A phone call, please return urgent. From a lieutenant with a telephone number he didn't recognize. But there were a lot of lieutenants in the Army.

Except this wasn't the Army. This was a lieutenant in the District police.

'I'm returning your call, Lieutenant… Anderson. This is Lieutenant Harmon.'

'Yes, lieutenant. I wonder if you could get down here to talk to me. I'll give you the address …'

'Can you tell me what this is about?'

'Only that this is a homicide investigation and we think you might be able to help us. Can you come here this morning?'

'On my way now.'

A murder of some kind? What could it have to do with him? But at least it would be a change from working on the case of the surly, gold-hoarding colonel. He had the receptionist phone for a cab. A thin pounding behind his eyeballs had reminded him that the week-end was still more than a distant memory. He had no real desire to walk around the city in the cold drizzle.

The police station was modern and clean and nothing at all like the rundown wooden dumps that you saw in the television serials. Lieutenant Anderson was no TV hero either. He was scrawny and well past fifty, his short-cropped grey hair and granny glasses making him look more like a school teacher than a cop. He was also very, very black.

'Sit down, lieutenant,' Anderson said in a soft Virginia accent. 'I'm getting some coffee — want some?'

'Yes, please.'

'Sorry to drag you out like this, but we are having trouble running down a lead on a double homicide. Now, I've come to believe that maybe you could assist us. All at once it appears that the military are in the picture.'

'Glad to help. It has been a rotten Monday morning so far. If I can do anything constructive…'

'Good.' Anderson pulled over a thick file and opened it. 'At first it looked like we had an ordinary break and entry, with homicide as a fringe benefit. The incident occurred in an apartment out on Connecticut past the park. Fire escape window kicked in — there's a big Fox lock on the front door but no bars on this window — they never learn. Place torn apart, valuables missing, girl name of Marianne Sobell beaten to death with a steel poker on the living-room floor. Looks like she surprised the party or parties unknown and got wasted for her interest. Had a roommate, one Tricia Broderick, who apparently walked in on all this fun and got choked for her troubles. This is the kind of thing we get too often, a couple every day.'

'I don't see how this has anything to do with the military. Either girl work for the Army?'

'Nope. Just wait a moment, then I'll tell you about the Army connection. First off, a couple of things interested us, like why was the electricity turned off at the fuse box? It didn't fit the MO. Then it appears that the killer, or killers, went out through the front door, since it was slammed shut and the safety locks weren't locked. But the thing that we found most interesting was this.' He took a photographic print out of the file. 'We found this written on a mirror by the door.'

Troy took the photograph and his eyes narrowed. OAFFEY PIGS DIE. He threw it back.

'So what? So a black did it. Some militant with his head screwed on wrong. Who doesn't even know how to spell ofey. Probably doesn't even know that it is pig-latin for "foe". Is that special? You're a little dark for a Kluxer, aren't you…'

'Peace, brother,' Lieutenant Anderson said. 'I got this assignment by routine of rota and I didn't know what you looked like until you came through that door. I'm not trying to make a racial case out of this. But someone else is. Let me show you what smells bad about this, what really stinks. Here's a photograph of the first murdered girl, Marianne.'

It was bad, but he had seen a lot worse. Of course in Nam they weren't good-looking girls like this. But death was death. There was too damn much of it. 'And this is the other girl, Tricia.' Troy took the photograph and looked at it — and froze. His eyes rose slowly to meet Andersen's.

'Goddamned son-of-a-bitch,' he breathed. Anderson nodded agreement.

Tricia Broderick was a black girl. She was — or had been — a dark skinned, black haired beauty. Still lovely in death.

'It has to be a cover-up of some kind,' Troy said. 'This is no ordinary break-in.'

'My thoughts exactly. Deliberate murder made to look like homicide during a burglary. Some grey-skinned bastard trying to disguise it as a race killing to get the pressure off him. I don't know what the killer had in mind, but I did know that I wasn't going to put this case on the spike and have it forgotten. That's when I started to dig deeper into it myself. I investigated both girls and found Tricia's boyfriend first. He drives big crosscountry rigs. He's just back from a run and he and the girl had a date that night. They were going to be married next month. He's really broken up. And he's not a suspect since he was at the garage at the time of the killings. He sent Tricia home from his parents' house in a cab. His garage is just two blocks away so he walked. He called her from there, always does, to see if she got home all right. No answer. He's on a tight schedule. He took out his rig, but was worried. Called again an hour later from an all-night eatery out on Interstate Ninety-five. Still no answer, so he telephoned the police. Which is how we got onto the case so fast.'

'How fast is fast?' Troy asked, staring grimly at the photographs. Anderson sighed.

'Never fast enough. I've reached a dead-end with Tricia, but we found a possible lead with the other girl, Marianne. In her typing pool. She has no real friends, but there are a couple of girls there that she talks to during coffee breaks. It appears that she has had a new but steady boyfriend for the last few months, an Army officer…'

'The military connection?'

'Right. And it gets better. We wanted to talk to him, so we could trace her movements early that night. But she never mentioned his name or his rank, nothing at work. But the day of the killing she left early because, as she told the other girls, this was going to be a big date. At The Jockey Club where she had never been before. She said that she had to be there by seven. So we checked. There was only one officer who had reserved a table for two at that time, a man name of Colonel McCulloch.'

Troy's hands slammed down on the desk as he half rose to his feet. 'Colonel McCulloch? Do you mean Colonel Wesley McCulloch?'

'The same one. Now you know why you are here. We of course wanted to interview the colonel — but for some reason he couldn't be found. Not at home or at work. He's gone. As you can imagine our investigation lit some fires. The FBI was on to us ten minutes after we called him at the lab where he is stationed. After we told them what was happening they told us to contact you. They didn't say why, just that you were the man we should talk to. Can you tell me why?'

'I don't know if I am permitted to. Let me make a call first.'

Anderson pushed over the phone and busied himself with his paper work while Troy called Admiral Colonne and described this latest development. Then listened to his orders. He replaced the receiver and Lieutenant Anderson looked up from the papers he was working on, raising a quizzical eyebrow. Troy counted off the items on his fingers.

'One. The colonel is involved in high security work. So if I don't give you some of the details please don't ask what they are. Two — I am permitted to tell you everything that the FBI knows about the colonel, which frankly is just about all I know. If you can whistle up a car, just like they do on TV, I'll tell you about it on the way to McCulloch's house.'

'On the way. But we don't have any TV chauffeurs here. Just a five year old Ford that needs a ring job. And I drive it myself. Let's go.'

At least the Ford had a siren and some flashing lights which got them through the traffic to Alexandria. The messenger from QCIC was waiting in front of the house; on his motorcycle he had managed to reach there ahead of them. He handed Troy the envelope, then roared away. Troy tore it open and took out the ring of keys.

'Is this legal?' he asked as he unlocked the front door of McCulloch's house.

'This is a murder investigation. I'd have the thing broken down if you weren't here. Just unlock it and step aside.' Anderson opened his jacket and drew his police.38. Troy smiled at the middle-aged policeman.

'I think that after Nam I've been through more doors than you have, lieutenant. So just stay close behind me and keep that thing ready.'

They went in fast, though it turned out to be an unnecessary precaution. The house was empty. Nothing appeared to have changed since Troy had been there on his first illicit visit. In the bedroom he kicked the rug aside, opened the panel and pointed to the safe concealed beneath it.

'What if I opened that? Does a murder investigation cover this kind of thing as well?'

Anderson shrugged. 'Depends on what we find. I imagine you can close it just as easily as you can open it. You saw the photographs. I saw the girls. So crack the damned thing and we'll worry about legality later.'

Troy still had the little printed slip in his wallet that the locksmith had given him. He bent and spun the knob in slow, careful sequence. At the last number the door pressed up against his hand in eager welcome. He opened it wide.

The safe was empty. The gold was gone.

No, not completely empty. There was a folded piece of paper in the bottom. They bent together to look in at it.

'Got your name on it,' Anderson said.

'Do I get to read it?'

'Why not? Too small for a booby trap. Just hold it by the edge when you take it out. Push it open with a pen. There could be some fingerprints.'

Troy caught it between his fingernails and drew it carefully out, then laid the folded slip on the dresser. Anderson held it secure with the end of his own pen while Troy poked it open.

The lettering inside was bold and clear, printed with a large red felt-tip pen.

Keep looking for me, jig.

But you're not going to

find me!