Four Blind Mice

Point.
    He had avoided me the night Owen Handler had been murdered, but that wasn’t going to happen again.

Chapter 110
    I CLIMBED STEEP stone steps and let myself into the well-kept building that housed the offices of the commandant of West Point. A soldier with a “high and tight” haircut was sitting behind a dark wooden desk that held a highly polished brass lamp and orderly stacks of papers and portfolios.
    He looked up, cocking his head like a curious and alert grade-school student. “Yes, sir. Can I help you, sir?”
    “My name is Detective Alex Cross. I believe General Hutchinson will see me. Please tell him that I’m here.”
    The soldier’s head remained tilted at the curious angle. “Yes, sir, Detective. Could you tell me something about your business with the general, sir?”
    “I’m afraid that I can’t. I believe the general
will
see me, though. He already knows who I am.” I went and sat on a stuffed chair across the room. “I’ll be right here waiting for the general.”
    The soldier at the desk was clearly frustrated; he wasn’t used to civil disobedience, especially not in General Hutchinson’s office. He thought about it, then finally picked up the plain black phone on his desk and called someone further up the chain of command. I figured that was a good thing, a necessary next step.
    A few minutes passed before a heavy wooden door behind his heavy wooden desk opened. An officer in uniform appeared and walked straight over to me.
    “I’m Colonel Walker, the general’s adjutant. You can leave now, Detective Cross,” he said. “General Hutchinson won’t be seeing you today. You have no jurisdiction here.”
    I nodded. “But I do have some important information General Hutchinson should listen to. It’s about events that took place during his command in the An Lao Valley. This was in ’sixty-seven through ’seventy-one, but in particular, ’sixty-nine.”
    “I assure you, the general has no interest in meeting with you or hearing any old war stories you have to tell.”
    “I have a meeting set up with the
Washington Post
about this particular information,” I said. “I thought the general should hear the allegations first.”
    Colonel Walker nodded his head once but didn’t seem impressed or worried. “If you have someone in Washington who wants to listen to your story, you should go there with it. Now please leave the building, or I’ll have you escorted out.”
    “No need to waste the manpower,” I said, and got up from the cushy armchair. “I’m good at escorting myself.”
    I went outside on my own steam and walked to my car. I got in and slowly drove up the pretty main drag that cuts through West Point. I was thinking hard about what to do next. I eventually parked on a side street lined with tall maples and oaks that had a majestic view of the Hudson.
    I waited there.
    The general will see me.

Chapter 111
    IT WAS PAST dark when a black Ford Bronco turned into the driveway of a large Colonial-style house that was flanked by elm trees and ringed by stockade fencing.
    General Mark Hutchinson stepped out of his vehicle. The interior lights illuminated his face for a few seconds. He didn’t look one bit worried. Why should he? He had been to war several times, and he’d always survived.
    I waited about ten minutes for him to put the houselights on, then get settled in. I knew that Hutchinson was divorced and lived alone. Actually, I knew a lot about the general by now.
    I walked up the front steps, much as I’d gone up the steps to the general’s office earlier that afternoon. The same deliberate pace. Relentless, unstoppable, stubborn as hell. I was going to talk to Hutchinson today, one way or the other. I had business to finish. This was my last case, after all.
    I banged the front door’s iron knocker a couple of times, a tarnished winged goddess that I found to be more imposing than inviting.
    Hutchinson finally came to the door in a blue-checked sport shirt and pressed khaki slacks. He looked like a corporate executive caught at home by a pesky door-to-door salesman, and none too happy about the interruption at this time of night.
    “I’m going to have you arrested for trespassing,” he said when he saw me. As I’d told the soldier in his reception area, the general knew who I was.
    “That being the case . . .” I pushed my way through the front door. Hutchinson was a broad-shouldered man, but in his sixties. He didn’t try to stop me,