Four Blind Mice

high but told them there was a note from Cooper in his shirt pocket and the house key we’d been given. The head MP took the note and read:

    To whom it may concern:
    John Sampson is a friend, and the only person I know who’s working on my behalf. He and Detective Cross are welcome in my house, but the rest of you bastards aren’t. Get the hell out. You’re trespassing!
    Sergeant Ellis Cooper

Chapter 16
    I WOKE UP the next morning with the phrase
dead man walking
repeating itself in my head. I couldn’t get back to sleep. I kept seeing Ellis Cooper in the bright orange jumpsuit that death row prisoners wore at Central Prison.
    Early in the morning, before it got too hot, Sampson and I took a run around Bragg. We entered the base on Bragg Boulevard, then turned onto a narrower street called Honeycutt. Then came a maze of similar side streets, and finally Longstreet Road. Bragg was immaculate. Not a speck of trash anywhere. A lot of soldiers were already up running p.t.
    As we jogged side by side we planned out our day. We had a lot to do in a relatively short time. Then we needed to get back to Washington.
    “Tell you what’s bothering me the most so far,” Sampson said as we toured the military base on foot.
    “Same thing that’s bothering me probably,” I huffed. “We found out about Ronald Hodge and the Hertz car in about a day. What’s wrong with the local police and the army investigations?”
    “You starting to believe Ellis Cooper is innocent?”
    I didn’t answer Sampson, but our murder investigation was definitely disturbing in an unusual way: it was going too well. We were learning things that the Fayetteville police didn’t seem to know. And why hadn’t Army CID done a better job with the case? Cooper was one of their own, wasn’t he?
    When I got back to my room after the run, the phone was ringing. I wondered who’d be calling this early. Had to be Nana and the kids. It was just past seven. I answered in the slightly goofy Damon Wayans voice I sometimes use around the kids. “Yeah-lo.
Who’s
calling me so early in the morning? Who’s waking me up? You have some nerve.”
    Then I heard a woman’s voice. Unfamiliar, with a heavy southern accent. “Is this Detective Cross?”
    I quickly changed my tone and hoped she didn’t hang up. “Yes, it is. Who’s this?”
    “I’d rather not say. Just listen, please. This is hard for me to tell you, or anyone else.”
    “I’m listening. Go ahead.”
    I heard a deep sigh before she spoke again.
    “I was with Ellis Cooper on the night of the three terrible murders. We were together when the murders took place. We were intimate. That’s all I can say for now.”
    I could tell that the caller was frightened, maybe close to panic. I had to keep her on the line if I could. “Wait a minute. Please. You could have helped Sergeant Cooper at the trial. You can still help him. You could prevent his execution!”
    “No. I can’t say any more than I already have. I’m married to someone on the base. I won’t destroy my family. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
    “Why didn’t you tell the police in town, or CID?”
Why didn’t Cooper tell us?
“Please stay on the line. Stay with me.”
    The woman moaned softly. “I called Captain Jacobs. I told him. He did nothing with the information, with the truth. I hope you do something. Ellis Cooper didn’t kill those three women. I didn’t believe my testimony would be enough to save him. And . . . I’m afraid of the consequences.”
    “What consequences? Think about the consequences for Sergeant Cooper. He’s going to be executed.”
    The woman hung up. I couldn’t tell much about her, but I was sure she was sobbing. I stood there staring at the phone receiver, not quite believing what I’d just heard. I had just talked to Ellis Cooper’s alibi — and now she was gone.

Chapter 17
    ABOUT FIVE O’CLOCK Sampson and I received terrifically good news: the commanding officer at Bragg was willing to see us at his house on the base. We were to be there at seven-thirty sharp. General Stephen Bowen would give us ten minutes to share the information we had about the murder case. In the meantime, Sampson got through to Sergeant Cooper at Central Prison. He
denied
that he’d been with a woman that night. What was worse, Sampson said that Cooper wasn’t very convincing. But why would he hold back the truth from us? It didn’t make sense.
    General Bowen’s quarters looked to be from the twenties or