On Edge

by Albert Ashforth

I nodded, recalling him saying his ex-wife was definitely not a football fan. Since Corley seemed so well informed where Greer’s private life was concerned, I continued to ask. “Girlfriend? Boyfriend?”

  “His one female friend that I know of was Wanda.”

  “Wanda?” I repeated.

  “Wanda Hansen.”

  “I was aware they knew each other. I didn’t know they were friends.”

  “In Kabul I ran into them one evening quite by accident. You know the Caravan restaurant?” When I nodded, Corley said, “Then you know what a dark place it is. They were carrying on an intense conversation at a rear table with nothing between them but a candle.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “They were even holding hands.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I recalled Wanda once saying she hardly knew Greer.

  Why lie?

  I also recalled Captain Page commenting on Pete being despondent because he and Wanda were headed for a breakup. Yet when I asked Wanda about that, she denied there was ever any thought of divorce. In fact, she said she’d picked out a new apartment in Alexandria.

  These facts didn’t fit together.

  “Are you absolutely sure it was Wanda with Doug Greer in that restaurant?”

  “A hundred percent.” Corley stared directly at me. We both understood what the connection might signify. Pete, Wanda’s husband, was tracking down the perpetrators of the bank fraud. As things now stood, it seemed one perpetrator might have been Greer.

  That fact, of course, would have made Wanda wary of admitting to me she had any kind of connection to Greer.

  “Doug wasn’t the only gentleman who cared about the lady.”

  I knew what was coming.

  “You used to squire her all over Kabul. Did you think people didn’t notice? Lunch, sightseeing, hotels.” Before I could answer, she said, “I admit I’m curious about your relationship with Colonel Hansen.”

  “There is no relationship. I’m not carrying on a romance with Pete’s widow.”

  “You’ve known her for years. You don’t deny that.”

  Unsure of what to say, I was silent for a long moment. “You’re reading all sorts of things into . . .”

  “Into an innocent friendship?” Corley smiled maliciously. “Your girlfriend wasn’t shy about telling everyone about you and her—Stan, me, Doug, anyone who’d listen. And then she moved into the Serena. How many times did you visit her over there?”

  “Is that important?” After a pause, I said, “A couple of times. I tried to cheer her up.” After a long moment, I said, “I’m in a relationship.” Or at least I had been.

  “And your fiancée is where?” She shook her head. “My impression was, Wanda Hansen had you eating out of her hand.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Corley had done a good job of putting me on the defensive. I decided not to say any more.

  “Okay.” Clearly, she didn’t believe me.

  Although I know arguing with a woman is a losing proposition, I foolishly persisted. “Wanda was visiting Kabul for the first time. She’d recently lost her husband.”

  “You were helping her over a rough time. Thoughtful of you.”

  “Actually, you have it backwards. Admittedly, a long time ago, before she married Pete, we were interested in each other. When she turned up in Kabul, she kept trying to get me into bed.”

  “Oh, come on. And you kept saying no. She’s a beautiful woman. You can’t expect me to believe that.”

  “Believe it or not. One evening she even served me a Mickey Finn. Do you know what a Mickey Finn is?”

  “Yes. Of course I know.”

  “This really happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “What happened was, I was lucky. I took only a small swallow. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was lie down . . .”

  “Then what?”

  “I knew I had to get out of the room. I had just enough strength to stagger down to the lobby. We were in the Serena.”

  “In her room in the Serena, no doubt. And you’re saying she did this because she wanted to get you into bed. And you expect me to believe that?”

  “Why not?”

  “Men are all egotists, but you’re worse than most.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve got one-track minds. That’s what I mean. Maybe she had another reason for wanting to put you under.”

  “Maybe but—” The funny thing was, that incident had struck me as strange as well, somehow as not characteristic of Wanda. Would Wanda have had another reason for wanting to drug me?

  “Think it over, why don’t you?” When I didn’t respond, she said, “You were investigating her husband’s death, right?”

  “That wouldn’t be a reason . . . to get rid of me. I think . . . you’re going off in the wrong direction.” But even as I said that, I was beginning to ask myself some questions. I recalled driving into the Serena Hotel parking area the next day, where Abdul Sakhi and Fiona had been waiting, observing my car. Could they have been there the previous evening, waiting to carry me away? To turn me into a corpse?

  It would have been the perfect way to dispose of me. Wanda could have testified that I was fine when I left the hotel. Then, on the way back to Camp Eggers, I disappeared. People would assume the Taliban had grabbed me. In reality, I would have met the same fate as Sergeant Nolda. Fish food.

  “Face the facts. There were a number of attempts on your life. It seems there were people who wanted you out of the way. Have you figured out yet who these people were?”

  “I figure Greer.”

  “Okay, did you ever figure Greer might have had help?”

  When I said I hadn’t, she said in a disgusted tone, “Maybe you should try.”

  Those were Corley’s final words. She got to her feet and headed for the door. I had long ago sensed the intensity of the dislike that existed between Wanda Hansen and Leslie Corley. I thought the reason was their involvement with Pete. But I now began to wonder if Corley didn’t have an additional reason. Corley suspected that Wanda was involved in the Kabul Bank fraud.

  And I’d made the suggestion that it might have been Greer’s partner in the fraud who murdered him.

  And Wanda would have feared Corley because she was investigating Pete’s murder and suspected it was not a green-on-blue killing.

  My glass was empty. I reached for Corley’s untouched glass of scotch and finished it with one quick gulp.

  CHAPTER 36

  MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2013

  THE MORE I thought about it, the more I kept coming back to the same unsettling conclusion. A conclusion I fought and one I didn’t want to face. A conclusion that had to be wrong.

  The truth remained that Wanda hadn’t been honest regarding her and Pete’s marriage. As Captain Page had indicated, Pete was despondent because Wanda had wanted a divorce.

  Nor had she been honest in telling me she hardly knew Douglas Greer. Did she have plans to marry Greer after divorcing Pete?

  Another thought I was unable to shake was the connection that both she and Greer had to the Kabul Bank. Wanda had been married to Pete who was investigating the fraud, and as things now stood, Greer was implicated in the scheme to defraud the bank. Although she always maintained she knew next to nothing about Pete’s work investigating the bank, that had never seemed logical. Now I wondered whether Wanda hadn’t known a great deal about the bank situation and the bank’s vulnerability to fraud. If this were the case, it’s more than likely that it was Wanda who floated the possibility of stealing the money to Greer—and not vice versa.

  And as Corley said, I could have been all wrong about why Wanda wanted to drug me. I’d assumed she only wanted to drag me into bed, but now I realized it could have been a different reason entirely. It was possible that she’d arranged for Abdul Sakhi and Fiona to be waiting in the Serena parking lot to carry off my body.

  And finally, Wanda knew of my Saturday evening meeting with Greer because I’d told her
about it on the phone.

  Could Wanda have murdered Greer because she feared what he might tell me?

  Greer tended to drink too much when he was nervous or worried. Wanda would have known that—and might have worried that I’d pressure him into revealing his involvement with the bank fraud.

  I kept thinking about everything that happened, and as I pieced the details together, I kept coming to the same conclusion.

  The truth is, I met Wanda Hansen a long time ago, nearly sixteen years. Pete and I had been running a special ops training class at Fort Bragg when Wanda arrived. I recalled taking her for a tour of the installation on her first duty day. She was Wanda Nyland then, Captain Wanda Nyland, a newly minted O-3 and very proud of the two silver bars on her shoulders.

  She was also a very good-looking O-3, and I wanted to get to know her better.

  At the time I was dating Katherine Ross, an Army nurse. But after Pete began dating her, I never thought of Wanda in any way except as a friend. For the next seven or eight months the four of us spent a lot of time together, going to the O Club during the week, having dinner in Fayetteville on the weekends, and from time to time making trips to places like Williamsburg, Richmond, and D.C.

  By the time Wanda and Pete married, in the Fort Bragg chapel, I was back overseas, with new problems and other things on my mind.

  When I again saw Wanda in Kabul, it seemed like the old chemistry was still there. With Wanda a widow, I felt a kind of protectiveness, and I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been engaged to Irmie. Who knows what kind of relationship might have developed between us? I shuddered to think of the culpability I would have felt as I came to realize Wanda had been involved in the bank fraud and had murdered her husband who’d been one of my closest friends.

  Truly, Irmie was always in my thoughts, and the way I now saw things, she might have saved me from a disaster that could have destroyed my life.

  Of course there was the possibility that I was completely wrong about this scenario. With all my heart, I hoped I was.

  In either case, I knew that I had to speak with Wanda.

  Immediately after Corley left the apartment, I grabbed my throw-away cell phone and called Wanda at home—and got no answer. Then I remembered her having told me she was planning to take the week off and wanted to spend it away from the Pentagon and away from D.C., in the country place she and Pete owned in Virginia. I assumed she was there now.

  She’d said their home was in one of the remote areas of Loudon County, near a body of water called Jackson Pond. It was now shortly after ten p.m. I fussed around the house, made a sandwich that I hardly touched, watched the news, went to bed.

  But I couldn’t get to sleep. I tossed, I turned. I got up. I went back to bed. I drank a beer. I watched the Leno show. It was no good. I knew I’d never be able to fall asleep. Finally, I decided I’d drive out to Loudon County rather than go back to bed. It also occurred to me that this might be the best moment to speak with Wanda. Letting time go by made no sense at all. Besides, I had to know.

  Although I wasn’t planning to shoot anyone, I considered bringing the M9 I’d found under the floorboards. Finally, I decided there was no harm in sticking it into my ankle holster.

  After getting dressed, I quietly let myself out of the apartment. In the car, I programmed the GPS. Jackson Pond came up immediately. I took 287, which at midnight on a weekday had very little traffic. As I drove, I didn’t bother to ask myself whether I was doing the right thing. Or the smart thing. My curiosity had gotten the better of me.

  When I turned off 287, it was just after two thirty a.m. After a couple of miles, my electronic navigator indicated another turn, and then a sharp turn onto a curving right-of-way that looked like it once might have been used to drag out logs. Tall evergreens lined both sides of the narrow road.

  At a fork there was a wooden sign with a number of names and some arrows. It was hard to see from inside the car and required that I get out and read it with my flashlight. I was beginning to wonder whether this expedition wasn’t an exercise in futility when the name “Hansen” appeared beneath the arrow that pointed toward the right. All I could see in that direction was more dark woods, and I assumed Jackson Pond was somewhere within this densely wooded area. Two hundred yards further on, a sign with “Hansen” painted on it indicated another turn into the woods surrounding the pond.

  I found a wide place in the road to park. I killed the engine, sat unmoving in the car. All I could hear were forest sounds, small creatures announcing their whereabouts to one another and a gentle breeze moving branches. I pushed the car door open, got out, began walking. I used my flashlight, which together with the half-full moon, kept me on a path toward the house, a couple of hundred feet beyond where I parked. The building was situated at the center of a clearing, beyond which was Jackson Pond. In the cleared area at the front I saw a car, which I assumed was Wanda’s. Since there were no lights, I thought she’d be in bed.

  I briefly reconnoitered, saw a small dock with a row boat. When I approached the house and tried the front door, it squeaked open, and I was standing on a screened-in deck. Deck furniture was all over. I decided to knock, loud.

  Again I asked myself whether I was doing the right thing, arriving unannounced and uninvited. That question was immediately answered.

  “Hold it right there, mister! Raise your two hands.” The voice was that of a woman. “Both hands! Don’t move. I’m holding a rifle!” The voice, which clearly meant business, came from out of the darkness behind me. “Don’t mess with me, mister, whoever you are.” I recognized the voice.

  “Can I turn around? Can I say hello?”

  After a second, Wanda said, “Alex! My God! My God, I almost shot you!”

  “I’m sorry if I gave you a scare, Wanda. I figured you were sleeping and wanted—”

  “I saw a flashlight. My God, Alex!”

  Shaking her head, Wanda let the rifle drop to her side. A partly buttoned man’s shirt hung loosely over her jeans. Her boots were unlaced. She approached me, stood on her tiptoes, and planted a kiss on my lips. Then she opened the front door, pointed the way inside. Seconds later, the two of us were standing at the center of a cozy living room—comfortable chairs, two lamps, a sideboard, some bookshelves, a thick rug, an animal skin on the hearth in front of a large fireplace.

  “I’m just so surprised to see you.” She laid the rifle on the floor next to a chair. “Why don’t you get the fire going? There’s kindling. Throw on a big log. How does scotch and water sound?” She shook her head. “Then you can tell me what you’re doing up here.”

  So, while Wanda straightened things and made our drinks, I worked to get the fire going.

  Less than ten minutes later we were seated opposite each other with a crackling fire warming the cozy room.

  “Cheers,” Wanda said. “You really are crazy, you know that? I could have shot you. I’m serious.”

  “I had a sudden urge to see you, Wanda. And I remembered—”

  “I’m flattered. But you should have let me know you were coming.”

  I decided to confront the situation head-on. “I guess you heard about Doug.”

  “On the news. I heard it on the local channel. How awful! And to think we were all together in Kabul, not that long ago . . .”

  “Were you already up here when he died?”

  “I left D.C. on Thursday evening, shortly after work. I need this break badly, Alex. It’s been just too much. First, Pete dying the way he did. Then Afghanistan. I never should have gone. On top of that, my job is driving me batty.”

  “That bad?”

  “I’m putting my papers in. I’m going to retire.” She smiled grimly. “Let’s talk about something else.” When I said, “Okay,” Wanda said, “You came up here because you wanted to see me? That’s nice. Do you get these uncontrollable urges often?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Only when you . . . think of me? Can I believe that?” When I hes
itated, Wanda said quickly, “I never know what you’re thinking, Alex. I’d like to believe . . . well, that you and I . . . have some kind of future together.” As I watched, Wanda stood up, took our glasses to the sideboard, and refilled them. “Well, do we?” When I still didn’t answer, she said, “I know I’m being blunt, but heck, we first met a long time ago.”

  “I left my crystal ball home this evening . . .” I noticed that Wanda had unbuttoned all but two of the buttons of her shirt. Only one drink, and we were both feeling reckless. As she handed me the glass, I could see her inviting breasts. I imagined myself ripping open her shirt and kissing her. I could imagine her response as I kissed her breasts, touched my tongue to her nipples, slipped the jeans down from her hips. It was an exciting thought, very near an overpowering one.

  And would it be so awful if I did that? Briefly, I felt myself caught up in this thrilling moment, the two of us setting sail on a wild, unpredictable journey on an uncharted ocean. Did I have to care if she was responsible for Greer’s death? Or that she was an accomplice in Pete’s murder? Or if she’d defrauded the Kabul Bank of millions of dollars?

  We’d spend the money together. And we’d have a great time doing it.

  Suddenly, as though from a distance, from deep in the back of my mind, I heard a voice, Irmie’s voice. It was different from Wanda’s, and so faint I couldn’t understand the words. And I could see Irmie’s face. She wasn’t smiling. I thought I saw a teardrop on her cheek . . .

  I found it impossible to think of Wanda, whom I was finding so desirable, as an accomplice to murder. I just couldn’t.

  Why couldn’t I be like everyone else and call Pete’s death a green-on-blue? But then I saw Irmie’s face again, and she was shaking her head.

  Green-on-blue killings were still going on. There were over sixty last year, hundreds by now. One more or less hardly mattered. Give the blame to Sergeant Nolda. The government wouldn’t care. The American people had other things on their minds.

  Why should I care if no one else cared?

  And then I was overcome by the thought that maybe I was now reading the situation wrong.