Murder at the Pentagon Read online

Caldwell strung out his response. “Maybe you do, Joe. Think about it.”

  They ate eggs and sausage, largely in silence. Over coffee, Caldwell said, “There is no need to panic, Joe. Wishengrad and his committee are fishing, that’s all. Wishengrad is a knee-jerk son of a bitch who sees a villain in every defense contractor.”

  Maize replied, “But he wouldn’t hold this hearing without some hard information. I mean, he must have some facts to justify it.”

  “Maybe. It depends upon how much Joycelen provided before he checked out.”

  “Maybe there were others.”

  “Maybe. Were there?”

  It took a moment for Maize to realize that Caldwell was suggesting that he might be a source of leaks to Wishengrad and his staff. That upset him. More than anything, he needed the confidence and friendship of Sam Caldwell in the event the committee went beyond probing the activities of Starpath’s lobbyist. If it expanded into Caldwell’s connections within the Pentagon, particularly in the auditing section, he’d need every friend he could muster. “You aren’t suggesting that I might have leaked something,” he said.

  Caldwell managed his first smile of the morning. “Of course not, Joe. I can’t imagine that you’d foul your own nest. Doesn’t make sense, does it?”

  A shaky laugh from Maize. “Sure doesn’t.” He sat up straight and forced positiveness into his voice. “A molehill made into a mountain by Senator Henry Wishengrad. Sometimes I question his patriotism.”

  Caldwell looked quizzically at him. “Why?” he asked.

  Maize shrugged, realized he’d made a comment he couldn’t support. “He’s so antimilitary, so anti-national defense. You’d almost think …”

  “Wishengrad is as loyal an American as you and me, Joe. He sees things different because that’s what the people who put him in office want him to see. Plunk him in Orange County, and you’d have a raging hawk. He’s a politician. Nothing more to it.”

  Caldwell picked up the check. As he was leaving, he said to Maize, “If you hear anything, you’ll call me first.”

  “Of course, Sam. But I don’t expect to hear anything.”

  “Maybe not, but if you do, have my number at the top of your list.” He delivered that final order in a voice that said he meant it. He left Maize standing in the Jockey Club’s lobby looking gray and worried and old. Good, Caldwell thought. If things got bad, the one thing he didn’t need was a civil servant acting with unexpected, unwelcome bravado.

  That same morning Margit went to work at the Pentagon at her usual time. Everything had been moved back to her original office. She walked through the door and looked around. Jay Kraft glanced up, smiled, and turned a page of what he’d been reading.

  It’s as though nothing has happened, she thought. Cobol, Joycelen, the daily meetings with Bellis—it simply never happened. Except that Kraft smiled.

  But it had happened, and her memory of it had grown more bitter with each passing hour since the funeral. She’d returned from Long Island, dropped Maitland off at the Sign of the Whale, and had gone directly to her BOQ, where she spent what turned out to be a sleepless night.

  She’d no sooner sat at her desk when her phone rang.

  “Major Falk, this is Louise Harrison of the Post.”

  “Hello,” Margit said, glancing nervously at Kraft, who seemed preoccupied with what he was reading.

  “Major Falk, I would really appreciate a chance to sit down with you.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible,” Margit said.

  “I’ll do it any way you wish. Strictly off the record, background only. I’ll meet you where and when you say, under any circumstances.”

  “Thank you for calling but …”

  Kraft got up and left the office. Margit said, “Look, Ms. Harrison, I’m no longer involved in the Cobol case. He’s dead. As far as everyone is concerned, that means the murderer of Dr. Joycelen is dead, too. Case closed.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Harrison said. “No, to be more precise, I don’t think you believe it. Am I right?”

  Margit lowered her voice. “Ms. Harrison, your instincts are sound. At the same time, I am a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force. I don’t make it a habit of breaching Command.”

  “I assure you, Major Falk, that no one will ever know we’ve spoken. I’m not looking to quote you. I’m not looking to get you in trouble. I’ve been assigned, along with another reporter, to do an investigative piece on this supposed suicide of Captain Cobol. All I’m looking for is a better understanding of what happened. And maybe I can be of help to you. Please. Just a half hour. You pick the woods where we meet.”

  “Could I have your number and call you back at a more convenient time?”

  “Sure,” Harrison said. Margit wrote it down. As she was about to hang up, she turned in her chair because she sensed the presence of someone behind her. She was right; standing in the doorway was Max Lanning, typical boyish grin painted all over his face. She placed the receiver in its cradle and swiveled to face him. “Good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning, Major. I didn’t know whether I’d see you for a while. I heard you took leave.”

  “Just a few days off.”

  “Boy, that was incredible what happened to Captain Cobol.”

  “Among other things.”

  He stepped into the office. “Where’s Major Kraft?”

  “He left a few minutes ago. Are you here to see him?”

  “No. Actually, I came to ask you something.”

  Margit’s raised eyebrows invited the next sentence.

  “I was wondering if you’d have lunch with me. Dinner would be even better, but lunch is okay.”

  Did he want to discuss something with her, or was he asking for a date?

  “I hope you don’t think this is out of place. I mean, I know I’m a lieutenant and you’re a major, but I didn’t think there’d be anything wrong in just having lunch or dinner.”

  To say nothing of age, Margit thought. “I’d like that,” she said. “Let’s make it lunch. Today?”

  “Sure. I meant today. I know a great place on the Metro line. Anna’s Gateway. Just a couple of stops.”

  “What time?”

  “Noon?”

  “Pick me up here,” Margit said.

  “Happy to have me back?” Margit asked Kraft when he returned.

  “I kind of liked the office to myself,” he replied.

  “So did I,” said Margit. “Looks like we’re roommates again. Might as well make the best of it.”

  “You’re back as liaison with T and E?”

  “Looks like it. What are you working on?”

  “Base closings. Maybe reopenings is more like it. Some of the closings announced last year are on hold because of this Mideast thing.”

  “Cutting military funds isn’t popular these days,” Margit said.

  “Good for us.”

  “I suppose so,” Margit said.

  “Must be dull back on T and E after the Cobol thing.”

  “Assuming you consider the Cobol ‘thing’ to be have been exciting. It wasn’t. Upsetting is more like it.”

  “Just as well,” Kraft said.

  “What do you mean?”

  He glanced at the empty doorway before saying, “They tossed you to the wolves.”

  “They did?”

  “Sure,” Kraft said, satisfied smile on his face. “They weren’t going to deal you a full deck of cards, and you know it. It made sense for them, I guess, to use a woman, considering the circumstances.”

  Margit’s temperature rose. She didn’t want to believe what Kraft was saying—and resented him for saying it. Simultaneously, she was angry at her own awareness that what he’d said might be true. “Excuse me,” she said.

  She went downstairs and out into the center court. The first hint of fall was in the air, which, coupled with sustained sunshine, made for a perfect day, at least where weather was concerned. She stayed outside for a half hour
before returning to her office, where she tried to get back, mentally, into Project Safekeep files.

  At noon sharp Lanning arrived. “I’ll be back about two,” Margit said to Kraft, whose expression said that he found their having lunch together interesting beyond reason.

  They went to the lobby and rode a long escalator down into the depths of the building to the Metro stop called Pentagon, where they boarded a blue-line car heavy with passengers, most of them military men and women of every conceivable rank except private. After a stop at Pentagon City with its spectacular new shopping mall, they got off at Crystal City. They walked through an underground maze of shops and fast-food restaurants that bustled with shoppers and noontime diners until reaching a large, brightly lit, and appealing window that afforded them a look into Anna’s Gateway. Inside, they waited to be seated by the Anna. She spotted Lanning and greeted him effusively.

  “You must come here often,” Margit said.

  “I do,” said Lanning. “Anna’s famous here in D.C. She owned Anna Maria’s on Connecticut for years, an institution. She sold it, but they still use her name. That’s her husband, Manny.” He pointed to a handsome, heavyset man at the cash register.

  Margit smiled. “You amaze me, Max. How do you know these things?”

  “I listen to people,” he replied. “I guess they trust me and like to tell me things.”

  “I guess so,” Margit said.

  Over chicken-salad sandwiches and iced coffee, Lanning did most of the talking, encouraged by Margit. She asked him about Pentagon reaction to what had happened to Cobol. He said he hadn’t heard much, except that Bellis had commented to someone that she—Margit—was a fine young woman and officer.

  “He said that?”

  “Sure did. I guess you feel pretty bummed-out about how things ended up.”

  “Bummed-out is as good a phrase as any. What else has Colonel Bellis said about me?”

  “Nothing that I’ve heard.”

  “I was very upset when Captain Cobol took his life.”

  “Do you think he really did?” Lanning asked.

  She paused. “No,” she said.

  “I don’t either.”

  “What do you base that on?” she asked.

  “Nothing special. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “That’s good enough. By the way, who puts the security-duty roster together?”

  “Security.”

  “Besides the Security Department. The special security details, the ones the sections control.”

  “Oh. Major Kraft does for our division.”

  “He does?”

  “Sure.”

  “I haven’t pulled security duty since I got here.”

  “That’s because Colonel Bellis told Major Kraft not to put you on as long as you were defending Captain Cobol.”

  “Oh. What about other divisions? Do you know who’s in charge of their security rosters?”

  “No.”

  She’d been trying for the past few minutes to put together something she’d recently heard with the person who’d said it. It came to her. As Major Mucci was leaving the Officers’ Club after having dinner with her and Bill Monroney, he’d declined a nightcap because he’d had to “run the duty roster.” Was that the same roster that had put Cobol at the scene of the murder Saturday morning?

  “Would you be up to doing me a favor?” she asked Lanning.

  “Sure.”

  “Could you—do your contacts include someone who has access to duty rosters over the past month?”

  “Major Kraft can …”

  “Not for our division, Max. For another. T and E, for example.”

  “I guess I could find out.”

  “Would you for me?”

  “Sure. At least I’ll try.”

  “I’m especially interested in the week Dr. Joycelen was killed.”

  “Okay, but how come? I thought it was over.”

  “It is,” she said lightly, “but I have to tie up loose ends. You know, for a final report.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’d ask my assistants to do it, but they’ve gone back to their commands. Frankly, I’m overwhelmed being back on Project Safekeep and could use a hand. If it’s not too much trouble, of course.”

  “No, no trouble. I do a lot of sitting around waiting for the elephant to move.” It wasn’t a particularly disparaging remark about Bellis. In the Pentagon, bosses were routinely referred to as “elephants.”

  “Great,” said Margit. “Do it at your leisure, Max, and don’t make a fuss about it. Let’s keep it between us. Command wants the Cobol case wrapped up quietly, strictly on a need-to-know basis. I’m including you in that list.”

  “I’ll get it done,” he said enthusiastically.

  “By the way,” she said, “in this vast network of contacts you seem to have, do you know anyone in Personnel?”

  “Sure. Which Personnel?”

  “Army.”

  “Gee, no, I—maybe I do. Why?”

  “Nothing important. I had dinner with a friend, and she was talking about a designation Personnel uses. I’d never heard of it.”

  “What is it?”

  “HP-5.”

  “HP-5?”

  “Yes. HP-5. Ever hear of it?”

  “No.”

  “Think you could ask your friend?”

  “Sure. HP-5. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Great. Just a silly bet.” He looked at her quizzically. “My friend. She thinks it’s an assignment designation. I think it’s a category of specialization.”

  “How much if I say you’re right?”

  Margit laughed. “Half.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  She looked around the large, appealing restaurant. It was still packed; a line longer than they’d waited on had formed at the door. Their waitress laid their check on the table, and Margit picked it up. “Major’s treat,” she said.

  Margit handed Lanning the check and money and suggested he go to the cashier. “I have to make a quick phone call,” she said.

  She went to a booth, inserted coins, and punched in a number she read from a slip of paper from her purse. “Louise Harrison,” said the woman who answered.

  23

  She left the Pentagon at five, drove across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, and headed in the direction of the Capitol Building. She found a parking space on Sixth and walked toward the Mall, which stretched from the Washington Monument on its western end to the U.S. Capitol on the east. The Mall was at its usual busy best, Frisbees flying, bikes rolling, droves of tourists and natives (“residents” is more accurate) enjoying its open spaces, and the myriad museums of the Smithsonian Institution.

  She strolled the Mall’s length. After passing the museums of American History and Natural History on her left, she paused at the skating rink and looked across the expanse of grass to the Freer Gallery, known for its collection of Oriental art; to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; and to the original Smithsonian “castle,” which now served as that institution’s “Pentagon.”

  She continued her walk until reaching the National Gallery of Art, its two buildings directly across from the National Air and Space Museum, enjoying, among other features of a fine day, the diversity of architecture in view. The gallery’s West Building, designed by John Russell Pope in the 1930s, was, architectural critics noted, the last great building in Washington conceived in the classical style. Next to it, in sharp contrast, was the East Building, completed in 1978, a vision of I. M. Pei; a trapezoid divided into two triangles of pink marble. That the collections housed in each of the buildings reflected their individual designs was to be expected—da Vinci, Degas, Renoir, and Monet in the West; Henry Moore and Noguchi sculptures, Mirό tapestries, and Alexander Calder mobiles in the East. It might be nice, Margit thought, if everything in Washington were as appropriate and as well thought out.

  A cobblestone courtyard spanned the two buildings. Most people used an under
ground concourse that linked them, but Margit went to the courtyard where she was to meet Louise Harrison, who said she’d wait at the center fountain. Margit admired the fountain, a design that spewed streams of water into the air and, because there was no enclosure, allowed it to flow freely over cobblestones and down terraced concrete to a sheet of glass that formed a wall of the lower concourse.

  “Major Falk?” a female voice said from behind. Margit turned. The woman smiled and extended her hand. “Louise Harrison.”

  “Yes.” Margit shook the reporter’s hand.

  Louise Harrison didn’t look the way Margit expected she would. Funny how voices can throw you off. Like having a favorite radio disc jockey for years and building a mental image of the person to whom the voice belongs. Then, meeting the big, booming voice and discovering its slight, slender owner. Margit had pictured Harrison as tall and lanky—somehow British in appearance (because of the name? a female version of Rex Harrison?)—and similarly regal in bearing. Instead, she faced a woman no taller than five feet two inches, with a pug nose, ruddy, fleshy cheeks, and heavy black eyebrows. Her hair was brown and straight, the cut severe.

  “I’ve always loved this fountain,” Harrison said. “I can sit for hours and watch the water lift and flow.”

  “It is beautiful,” Margit agreed.

  “I appreciate your agreeing to meet me,” Harrison said.

  “I’m still not sure I should have,” said Margit. “I almost changed my mind.”

  “Glad you didn’t.” Harrison thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her tan raincoat and looked around. The buildings blocked the sun from the courtyard; it was chilly in the shade of a waning day. Few people were in the courtyard, most passing from one building to the other. Some lingered, including a young man pushing a baby carriage. He stood on the opposite side of the fountain and seemed to be admiring the flow of water over the cobblestones. His carriage was one of those tall British types, but his clothing was pure U.S. campus: jeans, white sneakers, and a black windbreaker. Margit’s initial, and fleeting, thought was that it was nice to see a young father taking his infant son or daughter for a stroll, perhaps freeing up the baby’s mother for errands, or for time with friends. Modern, and nice.