The Enemy

start with the force reduction.”
    “I’ll tell them,” I said.
    “Don’t,” she said. “Won’t help a bit, coming from you. You’ll either be dead or in prison.”
    “You brought all this stuff,” I said. “You haven’t given up on me yet.”
    She said nothing.
    “Where did Vassell and Coomer park their car?” I asked.
    “On the fourth?” she said. “Nobody knows for sure. The first night patrol saw a staff car backed in all by itself at the far end of the lot. But you can’t take that to the bank. Patrol didn’t get a plate number, so it’s not a positive ID. And the second patrol can’t remember it at all. Therefore it’s one guy’s report against another’s.”
    “What exactly did the first guy see?”
    “He called it a staff car.”
    “Was it a black Grand Marquis?”
    “It was a black something,” she said. “But all staff cars are black or green. Nothing unique about a black car.”
    “But it was out of the way?”
    She nodded. “On its own, far end of the lot. But the second guy can’t confirm it.”
    “Where was Major Marshall on the second and the third?”
    “That was easier,” she said. “Two travel warrants. To Frankfurt on the second, back here on the third.”
    “An overnight in Germany?”
    She nodded again. “There and back.”
    We sat quiet. The counterman came over with a pad and a pencil. I looked at the menu and the forty-seven dollars on the table and ordered less than two bucks’ worth of coffee and eggs. Summer took the hint and ordered juice and biscuits. That was about as cheap as we could get, consistent with staying vertical.
    “Am I done here?” my sergeant asked.
    I nodded. “Thanks. I mean it.”
    Summer slid out to let her get up.
    “Kiss your baby for me,” I said.
    My sergeant just stood there, all bone and sinew. Hard as woodpecker lips. Staring straight at me.
    “My mom just died,” I said. “One day your son will remember mornings like these.”
    She nodded once and walked to the door. A minute later we saw her in her pickup truck, a small figure all alone at the wheel. She drove off into the dawn mist. A rope of exhaust followed behind her and then drifted away.

    I shuffled all the paper into a logical pile and started with Marshall’s personal file. The quality of the fax transmission wasn’t great, but it was legible. There was the usual mass of information. On the first page I found out that Marshall had been born in September of 1958. Therefore he was thirty-one years old. He had no wife and no children. No ex-wives either. He was wedded to the military, I guessed. He was listed at six-four and two hundred twenty pounds. The army needed to know that to keep their quartermaster percentiles up to speed. He was listed as right-handed. The army needed to know
that
because bolt-action sniper rifles are made for right-handers. Left-handed soldiers don’t usually get assigned as snipers. Pigeonholing starts on day one in the military.
    I turned the page.
    Marshall had been born in Sperryville, Virginia, and had gone all the way through kindergarten and grade school and high school there.
    I smiled. Summer looked at me, questions in her eyes. I separated the pages and slid them across to her and stretched over and used my finger to point out the relevant lines. Then I slid her the memo paper with the Jefferson Hotel number on it.
    “Go find a phone,” I said.
    She found one just inside the door, on the wall, near the register. I saw her put two quarters in, and dial, and talk, and wait. I saw her give her name and rank and unit. I saw her listen. I saw her talk some more. I saw her wait some more. And listen some more. She put more quarters in. It was a long call. I guessed she was getting transferred all over the place. Then I saw her say thank you. I saw her hang up. I saw her come back to me, looking grim and satisfied.
    “He had a room,” she said. “In fact he made the booking himself, the day before. Three rooms, for him, and Vassell, and Coomer. And there was a valet parking charge.”
    “Did you speak to the valet station?”
    She nodded. “It was a black Mercury. In just after lunch, out again at twenty to one in the morning, back in again at twenty past three in the morning, out again finally after breakfast on New Year’s Day.”
    I riffed through the pile of paper and found the fax from Detective Clark in Green Valley. The results of his house-to-house canvass. There was a fair amount of vehicle activity