Williams, because of his history with the outfit, was going to have to be tried by us. The trail of his crime reached back to the days when he served in the outfit. In any case, he would no doubt threaten to publicly divulge the existence of the outfit, if he thought that would offer him some leverage. It was one of the first resorts of nearly every “black world” rascal who got caught. I could not allow that to happen.
It did not take Martie and David and Wolky long to realize their hands were tied. They talked and argued and bitched for a while, and I deferred every question they asked. Then I explained that, if necessary, I could always get on a phone, and they’d get a call from a four-star officer back in Washington ordering them to obey my instructions. In the end, they took the only recourse that would allow them to end this case and to get some rest. They caved in.
Only we now had to prove Williams did it. I was sure he was our man. Too many angles fit together. The court systems, however, have all those discommoding rules about evidence, and right at the moment that was the one thing we sorely lacked.
I explained as much about Sergeant Major Williams as they needed to know and nothing more. I asked Martie to call the lab in Heidelberg and have them immediately transmit the largest shoeprint that had been collected at the crime scene. Williams was a big boy, about six foot three, and, oddly enough, I had once spent about two weeks staring at his feet. One of his interrogation techniques was to order me to keep my eyes focused on the floor, like a repentant monk. Every time I made the mistake of lifting my eyes, he hammered me on the back of the head. I remembered that he had very big feet. Big hands, too. Big, hurtful hands.
The shoeprint came across the wire, marked and labeled with the size, shoe type, and manufacturer. The size was thirteen, double E. It was an Adidas running shoe, style name Excelsior. Martie told me there was a reporter from the Los Angeles Times staying at the Visiting Journalists’ Quarters the night of the murder who also wore size thirteen shoes and they had all assumed this was his shoeprint. Since the L.A. reporter was a civilian, they had no jurisdiction to question him or take his shoeprint, and he had returned to L.A. a day later. Martie pointed to where the reporter’s name was written into one of the little possible suspect blocks on their jigsaw puzzle. He told me he’d even wired the LAPD and asked if they had any background on the reporter. He was still awaiting a response.
I told him to get on the phone and ask the jurisdictional military judge to issue us a search order to get into Sergeant Major Williams’s room so we could get a pair of his shoes. I wasn’t hopeful, though. Williams was no dummy. If he’d worn his running shoes into the latrine that night, there was a good chance they would’ve gotten splattered with blood, and surely he would’ve been clever enough to dispose of them. We’d at least get his shoe size, though. That was a step in the right direction. Figuratively speaking, of course.
This led naturally to trying to figure out how Williams knew that Berkowitz was on to him.
David suggested, “Maybe Berkowitz’s source was double-dealing and put Williams on to it.”
This might’ve happened, but we quickly agreed it didn’t seem likely. Why would a source rat Williams out to Berkowitz, then Berkowitz out to Williams?
Wolky suggested, “Maybe Berkowitz actually met with Williams. Maybe he threatened to expose him.”
This seemed much more likely. I said, “Was there no mention of Sergeant Major Williams in Berkowitz’s notebook?”
Martie said, “None. We’ve been through every page two dozen times. And every little note in his room. Never saw that name.”
I turned to David. “Call the operations officer. Find out if Williams was on duty at the ops center that night.”
He ran out, and we bantered about the weather until he returned. The weather was nice, we all agreed. A little hot, but nice. David returned.
“He was on day shift,” he said a little breathlessly. “He was in the ops center from six in the morning till six at night, except from noon till one for lunch.”
So he was off duty when Berkowitz was murdered. That much fit. There was a knock at the door, then an MP entered carrying a pair of real big running shoes. They looked brand-new, which made it easy to read the shoe size, which was stamped in black letters on the inside of the shoe’s tongue. Thirteen, double E’s. We all nodded sagely. Brand-new shoes. Um-hummm, we all murmured. And the same size as the mold. Now we were getting somewhere.
Not far enough, though. If there was one other man on this compound who wore size thirteen, double E’s, then Williams was home free. And we already knew there was a reporter in Los Angeles who wore thirteen, double E’s.
We went back to trying to figure out how Williams discovered Berkowitz was on to him. We decided they either met face-to-face or at least talked to each other on the phone.
We sat and stared at the tabletop for a while. How would Berkowitz have learned where Sergeant Major Williams worked, I wondered. I mean, assume his source gave him Williams’s name and told him he was now with Tenth Group at Tuzla Air Base. Berkowitz still would’ve needed to track him down. Maybe he did what Janice Warner tried with Harry Hufnagel.
I went to the phone and called the information office. That same friendly little sergeant named Jarvis answered again.
I said, “Hey, Sergeant Jarvis, Major Sean Drummond here.”
“Good morning, sir. How can I help you?”
“Just answer a few questions. Who handles press inquiries in your office?”
“They come to me first. I sort through them and parcel ’em out.”
“So if a reporter calls or sends a paper request, you would see it?”
“That’s right. But I only handle the easy stuff. If it’s a complicated request, it goes to the information officer, Major Lord. Usually he tasks it out to whoever in Tenth Group has the right expertise to answer the question. Then it comes back to us, and we send the response back to the journalist.”
“Okay,” I said. “Suppose a reporter wanted to track down somebody in Tenth Group. Who would handle that?”
“Me. I mean, it’s no toughie. I just access the group’s manning roster and get the answer.”
“Do you remember if Jeremy Berkowitz asked you to track anyone down?”
“Sure. He asked me to find you, for instance.”
“Good. That’s right. Anyone else?”
“Just a second, sir. I keep a record of every request. It’s SOP here.”
I heard his fingers tapping his computer keys, accessing some file. Then, “Yeah, I’ve got the list here.”
“Could you read it to me, please?”
“Sure. Uh, let’s see… Colonel Thomas Weathers… Major Sean Drummond… Captain Dean Walters… Sergeant Major Luther Williams-”
“Stop there,” I said. “Did you tell him how to get hold of Williams?”
“I did. But he asked me to get hold of him and have Williams call him back.”
“And did you?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. I’ve got it all logged right here. Let’s see… I called the sergeant major at 1030 hours at the ops center on the morning of the second.”
“Very good. Now, I’d like you to put a copy of that file you’re reading on a disk and bring it down to the MP station. Don’t mention anything to anybody, just do it. Ask for Captain Wolkowitz when you get here.”