The Enemy

My oppo at Jackson was a guy called Sanchez. I knew him fairly well, and I liked him better. He was smart, and he was good. I put the call on the speaker to include Summer and we talked briefly about jurisdiction, but without much enthusiasm. Jurisdiction was always a gray area, and we all knew we were beaten from the get-go. Brubaker had been on vacation, he had been in civilian clothes, he had been in a city alley, and therefore the Columbia PD was claiming him. There was nothing we could do about it. And the Columbia PD had notified the FBI, because Brubaker’s last known whereabouts were the North Carolina golf hotel, which added a possible interstate dimension to the situation, and interstate homicide was the Bureau’s bag. And also because an army officer is technically a federal employee, and killing federal employees is a separate offense, which would give them another charge to throw at the perp if by any miracle they ever found him. Neither Sanchez nor I nor Summer cared a whole hell of a lot about the difference between state courts and federal courts, but we all knew if the FBI was involved the case was well beyond our grasp. We agreed the very best we could hope for was that we might eventually see some of the relevant documentation, strictly for informational purposes only, and strictly as a courtesy. Summer made a face and turned away. I took the phone off the speaker and picked it up and spoke to Sanchez one-on-one again.

“Got a feeling?” I asked him.

“Someone he knew,” Sanchez said. “Not easy to surprise a Delta soldier as good as Brubaker was, in an alley.”

“Weapon?”

“Paramedics figured it for a nine-millimeter handgun. And they should know. They see plenty of GSWs. Apparently they do a lot of cleaning up every Friday and Saturday night, in that part of town.”

“Why was he there?”

“No idea. Rendezvous, presumably. With someone he knew.”

“Got a feeling about when?”

“The body’s stone cold, the skin is a little green, and rigor is all gone. They’re saying twenty-four or forty-eight hours. Safe bet would be to split the difference. Let’s call it the middle of the night before last. Maybe three, four A.M. City garbage truck found him at ten this morning. Weekly trash collection.”

“Where were you on December twenty-eighth?”

“Korea. You?”

“Panama.”

“Why did they move us?”

“I keep thinking we’re about to find out,” I said.

“Something weird is going on,” Sanchez said. “I checked, because I was curious, and there are more than twenty of us in the same boat, worldwide. And Garber’s signature is on all the orders, but I don’t think it’s legit.”

“I’m certain it isn’t legit,” I said. “Anything happening down there before this Brubaker situation?”

“Not a thing. Quietest week I ever spent.”

We hung up. I sat still for a long moment. Seemed to me that Columbia in South Carolina was about two hundred miles from Fort Bird. Drive southwest on the highway, cross the state line, find I-20 heading west, drive some more, and you were there. About two hundred miles. The night before last was the night we found Carbone’s body. I had left Andrea Norton’s office just before two o’clock in the morning. She could alibi me up until that point. Then I had been in the mortuary at seven o’clock, for the postmortem. The pathologist could confirm that. So I had two unconnected alibi bookends. But 0200 until 0700 still gave me a possible five-hour window, with Brubaker’s likely time of death right there in the middle of it. Could I have driven two hundred miles there and two hundred miles back in five hours?

“What?” Summer said.

“The Delta guys have already got me in the frame for Carbone. Now I’m wondering whether they’re going to be coming at me for Brubaker too. How does four hundred miles in five hours sound to you?”

“I could probably do it,” she said. “Average of eighty miles an hour all the way. Depends on what car I was using, of course, and road construction, and traffic, and weather, and cops. It’s definitely possible.”

“Terrific.”

“But it’s marginal.”

“It better be marginal. Killing Brubaker will be like killing God, to them.”

“You going over there to break the news?”

I nodded. “I think I have to. It’s a question of respect. But you inform the post commander for me, OK?”