Murder at the Pentagon

by Margaret Truman

  “You don’t think he did?” Buffolino asked.

  “No, I do not.”

  “That raises the usual interesting question,” Buffolino said.

  “What’s that?”

  “If this guy didn’t kill the scientist, somebody else did. Am I right?” he asked the room.

  “That’s a reasonable conclusion,” Smith said.

  Alicia Buffolino added, “Sometimes people like that can get nasty and do things when they’re mad.”

  “What do you mean?” Margit asked.

  “Well, you know, men like that get into a fight with other men like that and sometimes it gets violent. At least that’s what I hear. I really don’t know any—of them. I did in San Francisco but …”

  “No different from domestic violence in a heterosexual relationship,” Smith said.

  “That’s right,” Buffolino put in. “There’s good ones and bad ones, like everything else.”

  “He wasn’t,” Margit said.

  “He wasn’t?” Buffolino said.

  “Captain Cobol did not have a relationship with Richard Joycelen. Joycelen was not a homosexual.”

  “He was married a couple a times. Right?” Buffolino said.

  “Right,” Smith said, standing. “Well, now that the cream puffs are gone, I guess Tony will have lost all interest in us, and you two will be getting home.” Annabel looked away from her husband to shield a smile.

  The Buffolinos stood and extended their hands to Margit. “It was a real pleasure meeting you,” said Margit.

  “Likewise,” Alicia said. “The pleasure’s all mine.”

  “Good luck with everything, Major,” Buffolino said. “Thanks for the snack, Mac. Talk to you soon.” Margit and Annabel heard Buffolino say to Smith when they’d reached the front door, “I almost forgot. Here. The present I got you. Alicia and me went to the shore just to get away, right? We go through this flea market, and I see this. What do I think? I right away think this is perfect for Mac Smith. Didn’t I say that, Alicia?” She agreed. “So I bought it for you.” Smith thanked him, and the front door opened and closed.

  Smith returned to the living room carrying a package. “What is it?” Annabel asked. Smith unwrapped it and held up a framed print from a turn-of-the-century magazine. An elephant dressed in a British judge’s white wig and black robes sat behind the bench. Before him were smaller animals—rabbits, birds, cats, and dogs. The caption read, “Guilty because I say so! Any objections?”

  “Is he making a point?” Annabel asked, laughing.

  “No,” Smith said. “It was thoughtful of him. We’ll hang it over the bed.”

  “Over Rufus’s bed,” Annabel said.

  “Which is our bed,” Smith said.

  “We must buy him a convertible sofa,” Annabel said.

  Rufus, who was asleep on the floor, raised his head at the mention of his name, yawned, and plopped his huge head down with a thud. He’d been sleeping since he discovered that lamb stew was not to be on his menu that night.

  “Interesting couple,” Margit said.

  “Putting it mildly,” said Smith. “Tony met Alicia in San Francisco after I’d made the mistake of getting involved in the murder of that young woman at the Kennedy Center. Remember that case?”

  “Sure,” Margit said. “It was in all the papers.”

  “Alicia was a cocktail waitress at the Top of the Mark. Tony fell madly in love the first night we had a drink up there, and that was it. After he came back to Washington, he opened what he called a Las Vegas-type nightclub. It bombed. Gambling might have helped. He’s been doing P.I. work since then. He comes off scruffy and dumb, but he’s no dummy. He’s got the best natural instincts of any investigator I’ve ever known.”

  “I suppose he disarms people with his style.”

  “Often.”

  Margit announced she was about to leave.

  “Where’s Jeff?” Smith asked.

  “I called him from the office after I spoke with you,” she said. “I suppose I should have gone to him, but I really needed to speak with you, Mac. Jeff understood. You’re both very dear friends. I can’t thank you enough for letting me vent my soul and spleen tonight.”

  “Any time,” Smith said. He frowned and looked Margit directly in the eye. “Don’t do anything impetuous,” he said. “Another reporter calls, stick to your ‘No comment’ answer. You said some things on the phone to that Post reporter that you might regret. And if you decide to go on with this, call me and tell no one.”

  “I know, Mac. I promise to think first and shoot later. Thanks again.”

  20

  “Good morning, Major,” Colonel Bellis said as Margit entered his office early Monday morning. “Close the door.” When she was seated, he overtly scrutinized her. “You look beat,” he said.

  “I didn’t get much sleep this weekend. What happened to Captain Cobol has been very upsetting.”

  “As well it should be. You have time coming to you. Take some and get away from here.”

  Bellis wasn’t suggesting anything she hadn’t thought of herself. Yesterday, over coffee with Jeff Foxboro, she’d mused about taking some leave. He’d surprised her again.

  She’d told him how upset she was over what had happened with Cobol; that she had trouble buying it; that she felt compelled to seek answers to the questions that nagged at her. She assumed Jeff would be at his pragmatic best, advising her to forget the whole thing and to get on with her life and career. Instead, he was sympathetic and understanding. He actually urged her to follow her instincts and to be true to herself.

  Foxboro had left to attend an afternoon meeting with Senator Wishengrad, leaving Margit to lounge in her Bolling BOQ and to ponder what to do next. Leave was appealing; she could hitch a ride on a military aircraft to a pleasant place, relax on a deserted beach, let sun and water bake and wash away her thoughts and feelings. She wished she had family to whom to turn. This would be a perfect time to go home. But there wasn’t a home anymore, at least not where family waited with open, comforting arms. The air force was her home, Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., her habitat—at least for now.

  “I may do that, sir,” she told Bellis. “Take a few days’ leave. You mentioned that I would return to my previous assignment on Project Safekeep.”

  “If that’s what you’d like to do. I can arrange other assignments.”

  “Here at the Pentagon?”

  “Or someplace else. The kind of shock you’ve just experienced can taint an officer. I’m well aware of that, and I wasn’t kidding when I told you I’d developed a sort of fatherly attitude toward you. You’re the kind of officer, Major, who makes the United States military the best in the world. I wouldn’t want to see you compromise your future.”

  His words were nice; what was behind them was troubling. Her response was to say that she’d be happy to stay in place for the moment, and to thank him for his concern.

  Bellis said, “I came in here this morning committed to putting Joycelen and Cobol behind us. As unfortunate as the whole incident has been, it seems to have resolved itself, maybe not the way we’d all like to have seen it conclude, but resolved nonetheless. Colonel Detienne and General Paley are planning a press conference tomorrow. That will hopefully put it to rest with the press and the public. At least, I hope so.”

  “Am I expected to attend the press conference?” Margit asked.

  Bellis laughed. “No, no need for you to be there. Your role in this is finished.” He picked up that morning’s copy of the Early Bird. “Read this yet?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  He directed it across the desk to her. “Read the Post this morning?”

  “No, sir.” Ouch! She knew what was coming without having to read anything. Her imprudent comments to the Post’s Louise Harrison … She picked up Early Bird and flipped through its crudely assembled pages until coming to the Harrison piece. She read it, recognized that Harrison had accurately quoted her, and placed the new
sletter back on Bellis’s desk.

  “I was surprised when I read this,” he said.

  “I suppose you were,” Margit said, sighing. “The reporter took me by surprise. I was tracked down at Mackensie Smith’s house. I wasn’t very discreet. I talked before thinking.”

  Bellis waved it away. “No matter. I can understand your feelings. I do suggest, however, that you commit to putting this behind you. We’re in the business of defending a nation. That’s what we’re paid to do.” He picked up an official handout that went to the thousands of citizens who took the conducted tour of the Pentagon each week, opened it to the first page, and placed it in front of her. It was the stated mission of the Pentagon:

  To preserve peace, with freedom for ourselves and our descendants. To deter conflict by maintaining Armed Forces that are capable and ready.

  Margit resented having been asked to read those familiar words in the presence of a superior—a schoolgirl being reminded of a basic tenet of responsible behavior.

  Bellis continued. “I always remember a line from Emerson. ‘Not gold, but only man can make a people great and strong.’ I may not have it exactly right, but it’s close enough.”

  “Sir, why are you telling me this? I’m well aware of my duties and responsibilities as a commissioned officer.” She wished she didn’t sound quite so angry.

  “Don’t take offense, Major. Sometimes we all have to be reminded—or remind ourselves—of what’s important and what isn’t. Joycelen’s murder and Cobol’s self-inflicted death have ended an unfortunate episode, but hardly one that should rank high on our priority list as career soldiers. It’s done. See it that way.”

  Margit’s anger now threatened to boil over. She forced herself to look at him.

  Bellis came around the desk. “Take a couple of days off, Major. Don’t worry about your office. I’ll have it moved. Relax, take in a good movie, go out to dinner with your boyfriend.”

  She went to the door, turned, and said, “Thank you, sir. I may take your advice. By the way, I was wondering whether you know of a designation, HP-5, used on personnel records.”

  She couldn’t be sure, but her question seemed to prick him. He said, “No. Never heard of it. Why do you ask?”

  “It was noted on Cobol’s records. Handwritten.”

  “Means nothing to me. Thank you for the excellent job you were doing in preparing Captain Cobol’s defense. You were everything I thought you would be when I chose you.”

  She went across the hall where Silbert and Woosky were preparing to leave. “Thanks for your help, guys,” she told them.

  “Our pleasure, Major,” Silbert said, a rash of file folders under his arm.

  “Those are case files on Cobol,” Margit said.

  “Yes, ma’am. Colonel Bellis wants everything put into a central archive at Trial Defense Service.”

  Margit looked to the open safe. It was empty. Everything was gone, including Cobol’s personnel file. She wanted to protest but knew it was fruitless. She thanked them again, walked briskly down the hall, went downstairs, and started for the building exit. But she stopped, got her bearings, and went in another direction that took her to the Military Women’s Corridor, where outstanding military women of history—and the not-so-distant past—were honored.

  She stood in front of a photograph of Civil War heroine Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only female recipient of the Medal of Honor. Dr. Walker wasn’t supposed to be in the army—any army—and she’d had to disguise herself as a man in order to reach the front lines, where she’d nursed the seriously wounded while under intense enemy fire. Her medal had been taken away from her in 1917, but President Jimmy Carter had reinstated the citation that restored it to her.

  Margit moved on, pausing at a picture of Lieutenant Colonel Jacqueline Cochran, the first woman aviator to break the sound barrier, and the holder of more official flight records than any other person, male or female.

  Before leaving the corridor, she read a plaque devoted to Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, who’d stayed on active duty until she was seventy-nine years old.

  I’m proud of you, she thought. I wish I were half as good.

  She spent the rest of the morning in her BOQ drinking coffee and reading that day’s Washington Post cover to cover. The story of Cobol’s suicide was boxed on the lower right-hand portion of the front page. There was other news on page 1, of course. The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations had called for an emergency session of the Security Council to discuss the imminent threat of nuclear attack upon his country by the Arab nation that now possessed nuclear weapons, stressing that the one that had been tested was not the only one in the Arab leader’s inventory. He said it with all the authority of Israeli Intelligence, which went unmentioned.

  President David Beardsley’s National Security Council adviser had announced that the administration was considering deploying troops to the Middle East, just as a previous administration had done when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, and had been poised on the Saudi Arabian border.

  She read news of lesser importance on the inside pages, features on neighborhoods, local political jockeying, cooking advice, fashion, gossip, “style,” the stuff of which newspapers are made, and forced herself to speed up. She stopped skimming in the business section and read more carefully.

  The Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Wisconsin senator Henry Wishengrad, had announced it planned hearings into what it termed “the appearance of illegal activity by people involved with the development of Project Safekeep and its California contractor, Starpath, Inc.” No names were mentioned, but Margit immediately thought of Starpath’s lobbyist, Sam Caldwell, and of Joe Maize, the Pentagon’s lead auditor for the controversial weapons system. Were they among unnamed persons about to come under the scrutiny of Wishengrad’s committee? Jeff hadn’t mentioned anything about such a hearing, although that made sense. Ideally, everyone involved in a planned hearing kept his mouth shut until the official announcement was made. Of course, Washington seldom functions on an ideal footing. Margit admired Jeff’s discretion. At the same time she felt somewhat cheated that he hadn’t shared it with her. She certainly was sharing everything with him these days. Well, that made him a better person, she decided. “Think first and shoot later” was what she’d promised Mac Smith. She’d better start living that pledge.

  After a few false starts she called Cobol’s mother on Long Island. She let the phone ring a dozen times. As she was about to hang up, Flo Cobol answered. “This is Margit Falk. I’m so sorry about Robert.”

  Flo began to weep. Margit waited, then said, “Mrs. Cobol, is there anything I can do for you?”

  Flo said, “He’s being buried tomorrow.”

  “In New York?”

  “Yes, in a family plot with his father and my mother.”

  “What time?”

  “Eleven. From our local parish.”

  “I’d like to be there.”

  Flo regained her composure. “That would be very nice,” she said. “I mean, I would be honored to have you.”

  Margit received instructions on how to get to the church. She asked, “Who told you about his death?”

  “I received a call from his immediate supervisor at the CIA. He’s a colonel. His name is Kale. I think it’s spelled with a K. Maybe it’s C.”

  Margit talked with her, comforted her with words of belief in Robert, and then said good-bye. She went for a noontime run. It was a lovely day, sunny but crisp, perfect jogging weather. She ran longer and farther than usual, more than ten miles by her estimate as she followed a route along the Anacostia Freeway to the Anacostia River, traced the river to Anacostia Park, ran its length, then doubled back along local streets through Southeast Washington, Fort Stanton Park, and home.

  At first she didn’t see the envelope that had been slid beneath her door. She’d walked right over it. It was after she’d quenched her thirst some with bottled water, and had sat in a living-room chair to remove her running sh
oes and socks, that she saw it. A small white envelope. Printed on it in black letters was MAJ. FALK.

  Margit picked it up, returned to the chair, and opened it. Inside was a single sheet of white paper with blue lines. The first thing that struck her was that the writing on the paper was not the same as that on the envelope. She started to read:

  Friday night

  Maj. Falk—I hope this gets to you. My friend said it would. He called and left a message, but I guess you didn’t get it. He said he’d deliver this note to you. I know you’re trying to help me, but it’s no use. I had my friend call because I needed to talk to somebody. I wish I could talk to my mother, but she would only get upset. She got upset when she visited me, and I don’t like to do that to her.

  They sent a medic to me yesterday. He gave me a shot, and I guess I slept until tonight (it’s Friday night). I know they don’t want me around to tell anyone what they did. I’m scared. I’m not ashamed to admit that.

  If anything happens to me, please let my mother know how much I’ve always loved her and how much I appreciate her support.

  They set me up. I never believed they would do that to me, but they did. I thought I’d wait a few days until they helped me, but now I see they won’t. That’s why I needed to talk to you. They won’t like what I have to say, but I don’t like what’s happened to me. Maybe if we were civilians, it would be easier.

  He had signed it: Robert D. Cobol, Capt., United States Army.

  Margit dropped the note to her lap and looked around the room as though in search of some tangible answer that might be there, a tablet hanging from the ceiling upon which all truth and wisdom was engraved. There was no such thing, of course, and she left the chair without the slightest idea of what her reaction to the note really was.

  She showered, then took a drive—no destination, no purpose—simply fulfilling the need to be in motion. She didn’t know how long she’d driven, but she eventually pulled up in front of the Sign of the Whale. It was five-thirty.