Sergeant Jarvis was a smart kid, and no doubt deduced this had something to do with the Berkowitz murder. He sounded almost breathless when he said, “Be right there. Only take ten minutes.”
In a matter of only a few hours we now had a motive, and we had the makings of a very good circumstantial case. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when you know who the killer is and only have to fill in the blanks from there. Especially on an Army base.
What we didn’t have was tangible proof. And what I didn’t have was more time to build a better case.
We could prove Berkowitz was here trying to break a story on white supremacists. We could prove, with the outfit’s wiretaps, that Williams was associated with a backwoods band of bigots. We could prove Berkowitz made contact with Williams. We could prove Williams had the right shoe size to fit a mold from the murder scene. All this was great. Arithmetically speaking.
What we couldn’t prove was that Williams murdered him. No small inconvenience that last point.
It was nearly noon. I turned to Martie. “I need you to provide me a wire, and I need you to call your judge and get me permission to tape a conversation with Williams. You’ve got proximate cause.”
He called the judge and it took about ten minutes before the judge wrote out an order.
The note I had earlier sent to Williams asked him to meet me at 1230 hours at my office. I’d also told Imelda to make sure everyone was gone and that the building was empty.
I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything to directly confront Sergeant Major Williams. It wasn’t like he could escape. Tuzla Air Base was heavily guarded and, even if Williams could get out into the surrounding countryside, he wasn’t going to get far without a passport. It wasn’t like he could blend into the population. He didn’t even speak Serbo-Croatian.
I asked Wolky to position a few of his best ass-kicking MPs in the nearby vicinity, without their identifying brassards, just in case our man got violent. Williams was about six foot three, and weighed about 230. I’m about five foot ten and weigh only 170. I was always pretty good with my fists, but the laws of physics are what they are.
I then returned to my office to meet the man I was sure murdered Jeremy Berkowitz. Imelda had done her job, and the building was empty. She’d also brewed me a fresh pot of coffee. I love that woman. I got a cup and went into my office.
Sergeant Major Williams swaggered in two minutes late. I went out to meet him, offered him some coffee, he nodded, and I went over and poured him a cup. I owed him a cup anyway, so now we were even. Well, not exactly even, since there was the matter of nearly two dozen excessive ass-kickings I still owed him. He followed me back into the office and sat in a chair across from my desk.
“So what you doin’?” he asked, grinning. He had a cocky manner anyway, but in my case, since he’d once spent two weeks pounding me like Silly Putty, he felt a bit superior.
I said, “I’m leaving tomorrow. My investigation’s complete so I gave the rest of my staff the day off, and I’m left with a little time to kill. Us being old comrades and all, I just thought you and I should get together.”
He looked at me curiously and took a sip of coffee.
I took a sip, too, then said, “Ever get to thinking about the outfit days?”
“Sure do. Great fucking days. We did some wild-assed stuff.”
“Sure did, didn’t we? If it wasn’t for getting accepted to law school, I’d probably still… well…” I let that thought taper off. “So, why exactly did you leave?”
“Ah, y’know, you get burned out. Can’t live on a high wire like that forever.”
I said, “That’s funny. I heard different. I heard you got in some kinda trouble back there.”
He became noticeably tighter. “Yeah? Where’d you hear that?”
“Here and there. Something about you working with a bunch of bigots down in North Carolina.”
I had his undivided attention. He was staring at me hard and trying to figure out what was going down here. “You must be listenin’ to the wrong people,” he said. “Ain’t no such thing happened.”
I said, “Did you know the outfit tapped all of our phones? Probably not. Hell, I didn’t know it myself till a few days ago.”
He leaned back in his chair and drew in a heavy breath. “That legal?” he inquired.
Give the man credit; his mind was racing quickly. He was trying to get a little free legal advice. He wanted to know how the wiretaps would stand up in court if he ever got apprehended for Berkowitz’s murder.
“I’d guess the outfit has some kinda court order that allows it,” I answered. “Kinda like the CIA is allowed to impose lie detector tests on its employees. Unique privileges for unique organizations.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Well, that was a long time ago.”
“Yep, it was,” I agreed. “And you probably stopped whatever you were doing when you left.”
“I probably did,” he said.
I took another sip from my coffee, and he took another sip from his coffee. He knew now this was no friendly, idle chat.
“Hey,” I said, “ever meet that reporter who got murdered? What’s his name? Berkowitz, right? Jeremy Berkowitz.”
His eyes were now very narrow and guarded. “Nope, can’t say I ever did.”
“That’s odd. I met with him the day he got killed. In the morning. He told me he was gonna see you around lunchtime,” I lied.
“No shit?” he said.
“That’s what he said.”
“Well, he never told me, ’cause I never heard of him till he was dead.”
“Well, that’s the other thing. There’s this sergeant who works for the information officer. Guy named Jarvis. I talked to him just this morning. Real pleasant guy. He says he helped line up a meeting between you two.”
“He must be lying,” Williams growled.
“Actually, he’s got an official log to prove it. Seems every time a reporter asks him to contact a member of the command, he’s required to log it.”
“That right?” he said a little too nonchalantly. He was working hard at repressing his hotheaded nature.
“Yep, that’s right. Oh, and another thing.”
“What’s that?”
I said, “You know, CID stops by here now and again to compare notes. Till now, everybody’s been convinced the killing was somehow connected to my investigation. Hell, CID still thinks that. Anyhow, they lifted the footprints of the asshole who killed Berkowitz. He wore running shoes so he could sneak up behind him. You know, we’re talking about a real gutless pussy. Never gave Berkowitz a fair chance. Same kind of low-life scum who’d burn a church.”
He shrugged, but I knew what he was thinking and feeling. He was once my torturer. Anyone who has ever been tortured for an extended period will tell you that it becomes a strangely intimate experience. You get closer than lovers. The interrogator is trying to measure your physical and mental breaking points, while you’re desperately trying to climb inside his head and figure out how to get him to stop hurting you. It’s very visceral. You study his every gesture, a shift in his muscles, a change of tone in his voice, a look in his eyes, anything to prepare yourself for the next blow. You learn how to please him, and in my case, how to infuriate him. In an obscene kind of way, I guessed I knew Sergeant Major Luther Williams better than any man I’d ever met.
I added, “Killer used a garrote, too. Back in the outfit, we always figured that was a real sicko’s weapon. You know, like something maybe an angry fag might use. Or maybe one of them sexual deviants. I mean, what kind of guy you figure would kill a man that way?”
“I never thought about it,” he said. His knuckles were very white.
“Another thing. From the footprints, turned out the murderer was some big, goofy bastard with splayed feet.”
“That right?” he asked.
“Size thirteen, double E. You’ve got big, wide feet. I didn’t mention it to CID yet, but I remember staring at ’em all the time while you were beating the crap out of me. What size you figure you wear?”