The Charlemagne Murders

by Douglass, Carl;

  “Dutch treat,” I presume.

  “It’ll have to be. The feds and the army won’t be willing to fund a junket until we have something substantial to go on.”

  “Alaska won’t be all that willing to part with money either; so, I think we have our work cut out for us from the get-go.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Fort Sam Houston, Camp Bullis Army Base Military Police Office, Bexar County, Texas, Northwest of San Antonio, August 20, 1962

  As soon as he said good-bye to Major Higgins at the Alaska State Trooper MCU, SAC Tucker Nicholsen had his staff sergeant find a number for retired major Rick Saunders in Dallas. He was not satisfied that the state troopers had mined Saunders for all of the pertinent information he had, whether he was purposely withholding anything or not.

  “Hello,” a man answered brusquely.

  “Is this Richard Saunders? I am Staff Sergeant Randy Turnblom calling from the 83rd Military Police CID.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “I am calling for Special Agent in Charge Tucker Nicholsen. He would like to speak to you, sir.”

  “Alaska, you say?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I already answered every imaginable question put to me by the state troopers regarding the death of Gen. Gabler. I am very busy at the present time and will not be able to talk to anyone else on the matter. Try me again in a couple of weeks.”

  SS Turnblom gave SAC Nicholsen a negative look and shook his head.

  Tucker took the phone from Randy.

  “This is the special agent in charge, Criminal Investigation Division, US Army Alaska Defense Command, Major. I have important police business to discuss with you, and I need to do it now.”

  “I’m retired and am not subject to your authority. Good day, Mr. Nichols.”

  He started to hang up, but Tucker caught him before he could.

  “It’s SAC Nicholsen, and yes you are subject to my law enforcement authority even though you are retired. Check the Army regs, Major. We can do this the easy way and have a chat on the phone now, or we can do it the hard way.”

  “You can’t threaten me, whatever your name is. The only way for you to get me under your thumb is if I was on active duty. I’m not,” Saunders said and hung up.

  “Hmmh,” Tucker said.

  He was mad, and Randy could tell. The SAC never raised his voice, swore at people, or made threats. You could tell he was mad because he became very quiet, very calm, and had a look in his eyes that could laser-cut marble.

  “We’ll see about that,” he said after a few moments to get back into full control and to decide if he needed to do what he was thinking.

  He did.

  “Randy, I need the Provost Marshal General in DC. Not his aide, the general himself.”

  As the Army expanded following World War II; so, too did the crime rate. Criminal investigations failed to keep abreast of the expanding crime rate. Commanders did not have the personnel or the funds to conduct adequate investigations. In December 1943, the Provost Marshal General was charged with providing staff supervision over all criminal investigations. The Criminal Investigation Division of the Provost Marshal General’s Office was established in January 1944. The Provost Marshal General rendered staff supervision over criminal investigation activities, coordinated investigations between commands, dictated plans and policies, and set standards for investigators. Originally in the interest of efficiency, the Army CID was centralized at the theater Army level. Practicality determined that control of criminal investigation personnel be decentralized to area commands during the 1950s and then down to the installation level during the early 1960s. In the case of Alaska, it was in the headquarters of the Alaska command. While the Provost Marshal General still had overall supervision of criminal investigation activities, the operations were conducted at the local level. The Provost Marshal General still had overall supervision of criminal investigation activities, but the operations were conducted at the local level.

  There were exceptions to be made when a serious investigation crossed jurisdictional lines, and this was one of those times. The motto of the Army CID, and one which Tucker believed in completely was: “Do what has to be done.” The importance of the Provost Marshal General who Tucker insisted on speaking to was underscored by the fact that the general answered only to the Chief of Staff of the Army and the Secretary of the Army, and he could get done what had to be done.

  Randy raised an eyebrow, but it was obviously not a time to have a discussion. He had the office of the general on the line in two minutes;and after a short description of the local problem, Lt. Gen. Drake Foster came on the line.

  “Give me the short version,” Gen. Foster said.

  “We have a murder up here, sir. We have good reason to believe that it was not a local matter; and it is possible that a retired army major knows more than he is willing to tell; or maybe he is even involved somehow.”

  “Is the victim anybody I should know about, SAC Nicholsen?”

  “Yes, sir. General Glen Gabler, USA retired.”

  “I heard about it.”

  “Who’s the reluctant SOB?”

  “Name’s Richard or Rick Saunders, Major USA, ret. He was a longtime aide to the general. He refuses to answer any questions over the phone and says that I have no jurisdiction over him because he is retired.”

  “Wishful thinking on his part. I guess you know that, SAC Nicholsen. Mind if I call you Tucker?”

  “I’d prefer it, sir. And yes, I know he’s off base. More importantly, I think he’s hiding something, and it is probably important.”

  “Well, Tucker, we could fight it through the JAG office, but that would take months. Our work in the CID can’t muddle around while the bureaucrats worry their pointy heads about niceties. If the man were to be ordered back to active duty, all of that would become moot. Right?”

  “As rain. And, sir, I truly believe we can’t let any more time be wasted while he takes measures to hide his involvement or prepares a scenario to protect someone who did kill Gen. Gabler.”

  “I answer only to the Army Chief of Staff and the secretary of the Navy. I am owed some favors, and it just so happens that I have a golf date with the two of them in an hour. This is a timely call, and I am itching to get the CID back into the game in a righteous way. I’ll give you a ring about fourteen-thirty your time. That should be enough time to get the brass who can make it happen, want to make it happen. I am guessing that should be around eighteen-thirty or maybe nineteen-hundred DC time.”

  The call came at fourteen-hundred, ideal for Tucker. It meant that the wheels of the DOD could whir at maximum speed, and Major Saunders would be receiving a visitor that very evening.

  Rick and Patricia Saunders were sitting watching the tube holding long neck bottles of East Side beer. It was Sunday night; Elvis the Pelvis was on the Ed Sullivan Show; and Rick laughed uproariously as the clown belted out Jail House Rock. Patty was offended. If she had her way, she would be down there with the thirteen-year-olds when Elvis left the theater the back way and ran into the horde of screaming and fainting girls.

  They were both annoyed when a firm knock came on the door.

  “Who could that be at this hour, Rick?” Patty asked.

  He grumbled but got up to see.

  Standing at the door was a stiffly proper lieutenant jg. He stood at attention and saluted—a salute as crisp and well-checked-out as his uniform. His face was flat and expressionless.

  He said, “Major Richard Avery Saunders?”

  “Retired, son. A long time ago.”

  “I have the duty to inform you that you have been called back to active duty. I have a set of orders from BuPers. You are to accompany me and Sergeant McCord here tonight. We will see you to your destination.”

  “What???!” Saunders asked incredulously;—this could not be happening.

  He took a quick look at the orders; and, to his dismay, they appeared to be perfectly genuine.
<
br />   “Lieutenant, who are you? What is this about? Look at me. It’s been almost ten years since I wore the uniform. I can’t even fit into it.”

  He knew he was dithering, but it was about all he was able to stammer out. He finally got enough control of himself to stop spouting nonsense.

  “Listen, Son. I am completely in the dark. Did world war three start and I wasn’t watching the news?”

  “Not that I know of, sir. I do not know why you have been called up. But, like me, we will both just follow orders. My name is Martin Grant Fowler, lieutenant jg, USA/AD.”

  “It’ll take me a few to get my things together. Wait here.”

  “No, sir. My orders are to escort you forthwith. Everything you need will be provided at your destination. You are permitted to inform your wife that you have been recalled to duty, and you are required to leave without delay.”

  “Where are we going? At least tell me that.”

  “Sorry, sir. I have not been informed. I assume that we will both know when we get there. I have sealed orders in our unit out front.”

  The unit was a jeep.

  Rick was about to launch into a tirade but thought better of it when he looked into the unfeeling face of the sergeant major accompanying the lieutenant. This was a nightmare. Was he asleep, drunk, or hallucinating?

  Major Saunders, Lieutenant Fowler, and Sergeant Major Harvey Birtsnell drove to Love Field military hangars and boarded an old OV-1A Mohawk fixed-wing CAS [Close Air Support] for the short flight to Fort Sam Houston. One and a half hours later they touched down in Bexar County just outside San Antonio on a small landing strip on the northeast corner of Fort Sam Houston. They were met by a troop bus and driven to Camp Bullis Army Base, a 28,000-acre former training camp, then POW camp, which presently served as a testing ground for tires fuels, tanks, and medical training—an unlikely combination. It took Major Saunders a few minutes to adjust to what he was seeing. During the post-World War II period, Camp Bullis Army Base was outfitted to accommodate two hundred prisoners; but it became a tent city for many more. Rick then realized that he had been stationed here for a few months in the mid-fifties aiding Gen. Gabler in the transfer of German POWs who were being unwillingly sent back to French-occupied Germany to be interned in an Allied slave labor camp at the request of the French authorities. The orders had come from SCHAEF, Gen. Eisenhower, and with the blessing of President Truman.

  The bus driver drove the three men to one of the older buildings on the camp property, a blocky cinder brick construction edifice devoid of any esthetic features which might offset its somber appearance.

  There was a sign over the lintel of the main entrance: MILITARY POLICE, CAMP BULLIS.

  They were led to a section of the building where a group of Spartan rooms sat adjacent to a series of four holding cages. The rooms had a cot, a toilet, a washbasin, and a set of wall pegs for hanging clothing. There were no decorations of any kind. Small windows looked out into a packed sand exercise yard surrounded by a high concertina wire fence. The yard was illuminated by unforgiving klieg lights which resulted in the impression that it was a patch of the earth bathed in eternal scorching desert sunshine. At each corner of the yard were manned guard towers. It was a most forbidding place.

  Saunders was led into his assigned room, handed a set of scrub suit pants and shirt, and skivvies, all marked “Brooke Army Medical Center,” a kit containing a toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, comb, two rolls of recycled brown toilet paper, a bar of rough lye soap, a hospital issue washcloth, and a towel. He was allowed to keep his shoes, but the laces were removed. The bus driver took all of the clothing Saunders was wearing when he arrived and had the major sign a detailed sheet listing the articles. When that bit of bureaucratic housekeeping was completed, the driver walked out of the door and locked it from the outside. As keyed up as he was, Saunders was able to sleep off and on for a couple of hours before it was lights on. He never saw his escorts from Dallas again.

  Army CID SAC Nicholsen and Alaska state trooper Major Higgins arrived at the Fort Sam Houston airstrip by a Bell UH-1 Iroquois [unofficially Huey] helicopter from Dallas Love Field about the time that Major Saunders was settling in for a lonely, disconcerting, and hungry night in a box of a room about the size of three bathtubs wide. It was starting to rain as the two lawmen were escorted to the base BOQ for the night. They were in time to get a good prime rib and baked potato dinner.

  Major Higgins asked, “Hey, Tucker, do you want to get the interrogation started tonight?”

  “Nope. I’d like him to sweat a little and feel the pinch of hunger first—throw him off his game.”

  “And, besides, we can have another coffee, a piece of pie, and a cognac,” laughed Darrin.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Fort Sam Houston, Camp Bullis Army Base Military Police Office, Bexar County, Texas, Northwest of San Antonio, August 24, 1962, midmorning

  Breakfast was good: bacon, over easy eggs, wheat toast, corned beef hash, milk, and a jelly Danish. Both law officers enjoyed Uncle Sam’s largesse, and felt fortified for the day of interrogation lying ahead of them. Rick Saunders—on the other hand—did not particularly enjoy his watery scrambled eggs–with no salt, pepper, or Tabasco sauce–fried corn meal mush, graveyard stew, and the quintessential favorite of US military people since the Revolutionary War which can only be served on a shingle. His already foul mood worsened when two burly Bexar County Sheriffs Office Jail guards rousted him from his cell with the creamed chipped beef only half-eaten and escorted him rudely to a small conference room on the south end of the police building. He was handcuffed to a heavy steel ring welded to the tabletop and to another on the floor.

  It was 0900. Tucker entered the well-secured conference room accompanied by four jail guards who stationed themselves in the four corners of the room. Their stances and facial expressions conveyed a silent but completely apparent attitude of vigil, indefatiguability, and intense purpose. None of them blinked if he received a side glance from Saunders. It was unnerving.

  SAC Nicholsen entered the room as the first of the two law officers who would tag-team the questioning that day.

  “Hello, Major Saunders. I am the senior agent in charge of the Alaska CID. We spoke on the phone yesterday morning.”

  “What is the meaning of this? Have I committed some sort of crime? Why handcuffs? I guess you made your point about being able to question me whether I agreed or not.”

  “I ask, you answer. That’s how this works. As for the situation, you will remember that I offered you the option of a courteous phone call which you refused. Rudely, I might add. You are here and will tell me everything I need to know because what I need to know is important. We Army people do not take kindly to our generals being murdered, and it is my mission to find out why and by whom.”

  Appropriately whipped and chastened, Rick waited morosely for the first question.

  “Did you kill Gen. Gabler?”

  It was a shock and was meant to be.

  “I most certainly did not.”

  “Who did?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “How do you profit from the general’s death?”

  “I don’t … well, I think there is some small amount set aside by his will for me.”

  “How small?”

  “I don’t know the details. He was a stingy and ungracious old curmudgeon; so, it is altogether possible that he left me nothing for twenty-five years of service to him.”

  He saw the look on the SAC’s face and instantly regretted having opened himself up to questions about his personal relationship with Gen. Gabler.

  “Hmmh,” Tucker hummed, “it would seem that there was something short of brotherly love between the two of you, Rick. All right if I call you Rick?”

  “No. You got me back on active duty. You can refer to me as Major Saunders or sir, whichever suits you.”

  Once again he regretted his rude pomposity. He knew he should be cultivating whatever goodwill he could
with this hard-nosed cop. He resolved to school his tongue in the future.

  “Of course, sir. You and the general had a long and varied career together. I want you to tell me in detail about how he treated you, how he treated other people; and I especially want to know specifics about his aptitude for disciplinary action and his methods. I want to know about whose feathers he ruffled in the Army, who he disliked, and who disliked him. Then, I want you to give me a very detailed account of your postwar service in Europe. As you might have surmised, I already know quite a bit; so, lying by commission or omission will be futile. Do you want me to repeat my outline of the interrogation?”

  “No, I have it. He was Lt. Col. Gabler when we first met as World War Two was beginning to look like the US would be involved. He was in charge of training boots for the Seventh Infantry Division at Fort Ord in California, and I was his exec. I was a lieutenant jg back then. We were a good team, I guess. It was obvious that he was on the joint chiefs’ short list for promotion; and his star would rise; and I would not get anywhere on my own; so, I stuck with him. We shipped out for North Africa to fight the Nazis with the first units to land there. Our first battles—Operation Torch—were with the Vichy French army assigned by Hitler to prevent an Allied amphibious landing at Casablanca or the establishment of a beachhead. From there, we led men into almost every major campaign in the European theater. Both of us were wounded, and both of us were decorated during the rapid advance towards Germany after D Day. We were caught in what came to be called the Void, because the tanks and other armor so far outdistanced the infantry. After the liberation of Germany, we ended up in Alaska—on Chichagof Island—for a few months where a rudimentary POW camp was set up to hold the Germans captured in the battles on the Aleutians.

  “Gabler made a name for himself as a POW camp commander; so, we were sent to Texas—right here at Fort Sam Houston to oversee the POWs who were being prepared for shipment to France. The Frenchies wanted forced laborers and were strongly of the opinion that they should get such unwilling workers as reparations from the jerries. They also felt that the jerries deserved every punishment that could be meted out to them. Ike and his SHAEF commanders and the brass all the way to the top agreed to send something like a million of our Germans back. In fact, we sent something like 750 to 760,000 of them back. Gen. Gabler with me as his assistant were in charge of that transfer which was a monumental task.