The Enemy

Willard. Go up the chain of command and tell someone I hurt your feelings. See if anyone believes you. Or see if anyone believes you can’t fix a thing like that all by yourself. Watch
that
note go in your file. See what kind of an impression it makes at your one-star promotion board.”
    He squirmed in his chair. Hitched his body from side to side and stared around the room. Fixed his gaze on Summer’s map.
    “What’s that?” he said.
    “It’s a map,” I said.
    “Of what?”
    “Of the eastern United States.”
    “What are the pins for?”
    I didn’t answer. He got up and stepped over to the wall. Touched the pins with his fingertips, one at a time. D.C., Sperryville, and Green Valley. Then Raleigh, Fort Bird, Cape Fear, and Columbia.
    “What is all this?” he said.
    “They’re just pins,” I said.
    He pulled the pin out of Green Valley, Virginia.
    “Mrs. Kramer,” he said. “I told you to leave that alone.”
    He pulled all the other pins out. Threw them down on the floor. Then he saw the gate log. Scanned down it and stopped when he got to Vassell and Coomer.
    “I told you to leave them alone as well,” he said.
    He tore the list off the wall. The tape took scabs of paint with it. Then he tore the map down. More paint came with it. The pins had left tiny holes in the Sheetrock. They looked like a map all by themselves. Or a constellation.
    “You made holes in the wall,” he said. “I won’t have army property abused in this way. It’s unprofessional. What would visitors to this room think?”
    “They’d have thought there was a map on the wall,” I said. “It was you that pulled it down and made the mess.”
    He dropped the crumpled paper on the floor.
    “You want me to walk over to the Delta station?” he said.
    “Want me to break your back?”
    He went very quiet.
    “You should think about
your
next promotion board, Major. You think you’re going to make lieutenant colonel while I’m still here?”
    “No,” I said. “I really don’t. But then, I don’t expect you’ll be here very long.”
    “Think again. This is a nice niche. The army will always need cops.”
    “But it won’t always need clueless assholes like you.”
    “You’re speaking to a senior officer.”
    I looked around the room. “But what am I saying? I don’t see any witnesses.”
    He said nothing.
    “You’ve got an authority problem,” I said. “It’s going to be fun watching you try to solve it. Maybe we could solve it man-to-man, in the gym. You want to try that?”
    “Have you got a secure fax machine?” he said.
    “Obviously,” I said. “It’s in the outer office. You passed it on your way in. What are you? Blind as well as stupid?”
    “Be standing next to it at exactly nine hundred hours tomorrow. I’ll be sending you a set of written orders.”
    He glared at me one last time. Then he stepped outside and slammed the door so hard that the whole wall shook and the air current lifted the map and the gate log an inch off the floor.

    I stayed at my desk. Dialed my brother in Washington, but he didn’t answer. I thought about calling my mother. But then I figured there was nothing to say. Whatever I talked about, she would know I had called to ask:
Are you still alive?
She would know that was what was on my mind.
    So I got out of my chair and picked up the map and smoothed it out. Taped it back on the wall. I picked up all seven pins and put them back in place. Taped the gate log alongside the map. Then I pulled it down again. It was useless. I balled it up and threw it in the trash. Left the map there all on its own. My sergeant came in with more coffee. I wondered briefly about her baby’s father. Where was he? Had he been an abusive husband? If so, he was probably buried in a swamp somewhere. Or several swamps, in several pieces. My phone rang and she answered it for me. Passed me the receiver.
    “Detective Clark,” she said. “Up in Virginia.”
    I trailed the phone cord around the desk and sat down again.
    “We’re making progress now,” he said. “The Sperryville crowbar is our weapon, for sure. We got an identical sample from the hardware store and our medical examiner matched it up.”
    “Good work,” I said.
    “So I’m calling to tell you I can’t keep on looking. We found ours, so we can’t be looking for yours anymore. I can’t justify the overtime budget.”
    “Sure,” I said. “We anticipated that.”
    “So you’re on your own with it now, bud. And I’m