Four Blind Mice

women too. Maybe that’s the problem — I like women too much,” Sampson said, and laughed. “And women seem to like me.”
    “Sounds like you know who you are anyway.”
    “Good deal. Self-knowledge is a start,” Sampson said, and grinned broadly. “What do I owe you, Dr. Cross?”
    “Don’t worry about it. I’ll put it on your tab.”
    I saw a road sign up ahead: Harpers Ferry, two miles. A man was being held there for murder.
    A former army colonel with no past record.
    And currently a Baptist minister.
    I wondered if anyone had seen three suspicious-looking men in the area of the murder. And if one of them had been filming what happened.

Chapter 47
    SAMPSON AND I met with Reverend Reece Tate in a tiny room inside the modest jailhouse in Harpers Ferry. Tate was a slight, balding man with shaped sideburns down to the bottom of his earlobes; he didn’t look much like a former soldier. He had retired from the army in 1993 and now headed a Baptist congregation in Cowpens, South Carolina.
    “Reverend Tate, can you tell us what happened to you yesterday on the Appalachian Trail?” I asked him after identifying who we were. “Tell us everything you can. We’re here to listen to your story.”
    Tate’s suspicious eyes darted from Sampson to me. I doubt he was even aware of it, but he kept scratching his head and face as he looked around the small room. He also looked terribly confused. He was obviously nervous and scared, and I couldn’t blame him for that, especially if he’d been set up and framed for a double murder.
    “Maybe you can answer a few of my questions first,” he managed. “Why do you two care about what happened out there on the Trail? I don’t understand that. Or
anything
else that’s happened in the past two days.”
    Sampson looked at me. He wanted me to explain. I began to tell Tate about our connection to Ellis Cooper, and the murders that had taken place near Fort Bragg.
    “You actually believe that Master Sergeant Cooper was innocent?” he asked when I had finished.
    I nodded. “Yes, we do. We think he was framed, set up. But we don’t know what the reason is yet. We don’t know why and we don’t know who.”
    Sampson had a question. “You and Ellis Cooper ever meet while you were in the army?”
    Tate shook his head. “I was never stationed at Bragg. I don’t remember a Sergeant Cooper from ’Nam. No, I don’t think so.”
    I tried to remain low-key. Reece Tate was an uptight, buttoned-down, and formal man, so I kept our conversation as nonthreatening as I possibly could.
    “Reverend Tate, we’ve answered your questions. Why don’t you answer a few of ours? If you’re innocent of these murders, we’re here to help you out of this mess. We’ll listen, and we’ll keep an open mind.”
    He looked thoughtful for a moment before he spoke. “Sergeant Cooper, he was judged guilty, I assume. Is he in prison? I’d like to talk with him.”
    I looked at Sampson, then back at Reece Tate. “Sergeant Cooper was executed in North Carolina recently. He’s dead.”
    Tate shook his head in a soft, low arc. “My God, my God in heaven. I was just taking a week off, giving myself a break. I love to camp and hike. It’s a carryover from my days in the army, but I always loved it. I was a Boy Scout, an Eagle Scout in Greensboro. Sounds kind of ridiculous, under the circumstances.” I let him talk. The Eagle Scout in him wanted to —
needed
to — get this out.
    “I’ve been divorced for four years. Camping is my only decent escape, my release. I take off a couple of weeks a year, plus a few days here and there when I can grab them.”
    “Did anybody know you were planning the trip to the Appalachian Trail?”
    “Everyone at our church knew. A couple of friends and neighbors. It wasn’t any big secret. Why should it be?”
    Sampson asked, “Did your ex-wife know?”
    Tate thought about it, then shook his head. “We don’t communicate very much. I might as well tell you, I beat Helene up before we divorced. She may have drove me to it, but I hit her. It’s on me, my fault. No excuse for a man ever to strike a woman.”
    “Can you tell us about yesterday? Go through as much of what you did as you can remember,” I said.
    It took Tate about ten minutes to take us through the day in detail. He said he woke up about seven and saw that the morning was fogged in. He was in no hurry to get on the trail, so he had breakfast at camp. He started hiking by eight-thirty and