Astride a Pink Horse (18 page)

By the time Freddy, who was standing behind her in a half crouch, had finished his spiel about the aircraft and Cozy had brought both of them up to speed on his visit with Grant Rivers, Bernadette’s hands were moist with a strange, lost-opportunity kind of anticipation. Gazing wistfully out the cockpit window, she found herself eager to take
Sugar
for a ride.

“So what do you think of my
Sugar
?” Freddy asked Bernadette as Cozy, tired of crouching, headed for the main cabin.

Bernadette turned and realized that Cozy had stopped to stare at a motorcycle that was secured to the cabin’s rear bulkhead by four leather straps. She said, “I like. But the motorcycle’s a little bit on the overkill side of speed, don’t you think?”

“I like to enjoy speed wherever I am.”

Bernadette watched Cozy continue to stare at the motorcycle as if it were something venomous. “I’m not sure Cozy feels the same,” she said, watching a look of guilt spread across Freddy’s face. She knew she’d touched a nerve when Freddy stood, nearly bumping his head on the ceiling, and said, “I think it’s time we get to the business at hand.”

Moments later, as they sat around a small, marble-topped table in the main cabin, Freddy, still looking uncomfortable, said, “So here we are. Three peas in a pod. Who wants to start?”

“I think we should thank Bernadette for meeting with us first,” Cozy said. “She’s taking a heck of a risk, especially since she’s been ordered not to talk to us.”

“By some pinhead?” Freddy shot back.

“Can we stay away from any name-calling, Mr. Dames?” Bernadette said, looking to Cozy for support.

“Ease up, damn it, Freddy, okay?” Cozy’s authoritative response to his boss surprised Bernadette. Thinking,
Secure brother
, she tried not to smile.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry, and like I told you earlier, Major, I prefer Freddy. Why don’t we start with what I dug up on Howard Colbain since Cozy’s already given us a thumbnail on the right-leaning Mr. Rivers.”

“So, how did Colbain strike you?” Cozy asked.

“Much like Rivers, he’s angry. Turns out Sergeant Giles destroyed his marriage and, in his eyes, at least, drove his former wife to commit suicide.”

Bernadette looked startled. “Suicide?”

“Yep. Shot herself in the head with a .38 a couple of years after ending her affair with Giles.”

“So Colbain had a reason for wanting to kill the good sergeant,” said Cozy.

“Absolutely. And I’d say Colbain’s got enough resentment and pent-up anger trapped inside him to have done it. Not quite the same level of anger as Grant Rivers’s, though. I’d say Colbain is a high simmer, and Rivers is more of a full boil. Even so, I don’t think either of them could’ve muscled Giles into that missile-access tube on their own. Colbain has a big blockhead of a yardman who could have helped out.”

“And Rivers could have had help from that tractor-driving son of his that Cozy mentioned,” said Bernadette.

“And both men know their way around heavy equipment,” Freddy added. “They probably have the mechanical and explosives know-how to blow an access-tube hatch cover.” He looked at Bernadette for confirmation.

“True on all counts,” Bernadette said. “But like those tricky old college exam questions we’ve all sweated through like to ask, is what we’ve dug up on the two of them, although perhaps true, unrelated to the Giles murder?”

“Good point,” said Cozy. “Why drop Giles’s body off at Tango-11 after you’ve stabbed him to death somewhere else if you’re Colbain or Rivers? You’d only risk incriminating yourself, it seems to me.”

“Maybe Rivers was simply out to thumb his nose at the air force one last time. And maybe Colbain’s one of those catch-me-if-you-can types,” said Freddy. “I can tell you this about Colbain: he’s a bulldog. He had a PI tracking Giles for sixteen years, and that’s one hell of a long time to stew. Right now I’d put him at the top of my list of suspects.”

“What about you?” Bernadette asked Cozy.

“No reason to scratch either man off.”

Suddenly sounding almost competitive, Freddy said, “Here’s another Colbain nugget. Turns out that all those years he had Giles tailed paid some dividends in the end. His PI found out just before Colbain cut the money spigot off that Giles was leaving Seattle and a job he’d had for years for one in Canada. Do either of you have any information about that?”

“No,” Cozy said, looking at Bernadette.

When she hesitated, Cozy said, “You’re in up to your eyeballs now, Bernadette. Might as well lay everything you’ve found on the table.”

“I could get court-martialed.”

“And the pope could renounce his religion. Come on, Major, we’re dealing with a murder here,” said Freddy.

“Actually, we could be dealing with issues that are far more serious than that. I found out that after Sergeant Giles left the air force, he went to work for a weapons guidance system firm in Seattle and from there, like Colbain’s PI confirmed, Giles moved to Canada to work for a company that makes radiation therapy equipment.”

“And the connection between what he did in the air force and what he did for those companies in Seattle and Canada is?” asked Freddy.

“The connection, I’m afraid, is nuclear.”

“Any chance Giles could have gotten himself involved in selling nuclear secrets?” Cozy asked.

“Perhaps,” Bernadette said, nodding. “He had immense practical and technical knowledge about nuclear warheads and their maintenance. And there’s no question that after the air force stuck him out in the California desert, effectively ending his career, his ego was bruised. I’ve read through his personnel file.”

“More like crushed, according to Colbain,” Freddy said.

“What better way to exact a little revenge on the people who did the crushing than to peddle a little inside dope about the workings of the American nuclear-missile arsenal to someone out there who might be interested?” said Bernadette.

“What could he have told them?” Freddy asked.

“Lots,” Cozy said quickly. “Like how the pieces of a nuclear warhead fit together, maybe, or insight on how the things are wired. Maybe he could even have told somebody how to trigger one.”

Bernadette shook her head. “All of those would be a stretch.”

“Okay,” said Cozy. “So, back to my earlier question. Why kill Giles, move his body to an abandoned missile site, since according to Sheriff Bosack he clearly wasn’t killed at Tango-11, and string him up naked for the world to eventually see if you’re involved in secretly buying U.S. military secrets?”

“I don’t know, frankly,” said Bernadette. “Maybe we should ask a psychologist.”

“Or somebody like Howard Colbain or Grant Rivers,” said Freddy.

“Which means we’ve come full circle, and we’ll need to dig a
whole lot deeper to figure out what the real murder motive was,” said Bernadette.

“So, we’ll do that,” said Freddy. “For the time being, why don’t we move on to the Takatas; Sarah Goldbeck; and sweet, lovable ol’ Buford Kane. How do you think the four of them fit into all this?”

“I’m not sure,” said Bernadette. “Other than we know for sure that Goldbeck and Kimiko Takata spent years trying to put the brakes on all things nuclear.”

“So maybe by killing Giles in the manner they did, they get their antinuclear message resurrected,” said Freddy.

“Maybe. But just like Rivers, Goldbeck, Kane, and the Takatas claim they’ve never heard of Giles.”

Freddy shook his head in disbelief. “Strange that nobody who’s a suspect, except Colbain, has ever heard of the murdered man. Damnedest thing.”

“Well, somebody out there knew him,” said Cozy. “You talked to Rikia Takata, Bernadette. What’s your take on him?”

“Calling the man ‘excitable’ would be an understatement, and like Colbain and Rivers, he’s angry.”

“About what?” asked Freddy.

“About the internment of Japanese Americans here in Wyoming during World War II, for one thing, and about not getting his scientific due, for another.”

Cozy looked puzzled. “But it was his cousin Kimiko who was interned, not him, right?”

“Right. And who knows, she may be even angrier than he is. We’ll just have to find out.”

“I like your use of the word
we
, Major,” Freddy said, smiling. “It’s almost as if you’ve been recruited to the dark side.”

Bernadette’s unsmiling silence caused Freddy to quickly ask, “Is there anybody else who might have known or interacted with Giles that we’re leaving out?”

“There’s that preacher here in Cheyenne, Wilson Jackson, but thankfully, he’s Colonel DeWitt’s cross to bear, not mine. He could have known Giles. DeWitt’s been avoiding him like the plague, by the way.”

“Well, knock me over with a feather,” said Freddy. “Someone who might have actually known the murdered man. Why’s DeWitt dodging the good reverend?”

“Because he doesn’t want what at this stage is a simple break-in and security-breach investigation to turn into a hate-crime investigation. If it does, there’ll be lawyers and FBI types crawling all over Warren, looking in every sock drawer. That’s never a good spot for anyone who’s looking to make general to be in.”

“I warned you earlier that we’d likely need to talk to Reverend Jackson,” Freddy said to Cozy. “You up for staying in Cheyenne another night and talking to him tomorrow morning? I would, but I’ve gotta be back in Denver for a seven a.m. meeting.”

Shrugging, Cozy said, “Yeah.”

“Great. I’ll have what we’ve discussed here tonight knitted into a story by first thing in the morning. How about ‘Nobody Knows Thurmond’ as the header?” Freddy said, chuckling.

“It’s pretty much accurate,” said Cozy.

“More accurate than your first two stories,” Bernadette said, frowning. “No more hammering the air force, Freddy, okay?

Because if you do, I’ll become very uncooperative. I’ll also make sure someone hammers back.”

“Message received, Major.”

“And I’d be real careful with my finger-pointing in the future if I were you,” said Bernadette. “The FBI doesn’t care whose sock drawers they ransack.”

“I’ve had FBI types on my doorstep before. CIA types, too,” Freddy said. “Handled ’em both.”

“And us OSI types? Have you dealt with us before?”

“No, I haven’t, but I’ll be sure to give you a heads-up on the experience after I’ve worked with one for a while,” Freddy said with a wink. “For now, is there any other serious digging we need to do?”

“We should probably look a little more closely at those Seattle and Canadian leads that have turned up,” said Cozy.

“And I’ll keep trying to connect with an army friend of Giles’s,” said Freddy. “A guy named Otis Breen who Giles played interservice league basketball with. Howard Colbain gave me his name. I haven’t been able to catch up with him by phone yet.”

“Guess at this stage, any lead’s worth working,” said Bernadette. “Why don’t you give Cozy and me this guy Breen’s contact info, too?” Sounding exhausted, she asked Freddy, “Mind if I take another look at the cockpit?”

“Be my guest.” As she rose and headed for the cockpit, Freddy whispered to Cozy, “Guess it’s hard to take the hunt out of the dog.”

“Guess so,” Cozy said, watching Bernadette disappear into the cockpit.

A couple of minutes later, Cozy stepped into the cockpit to find
Bernadette staring out into the darkness. Handing her Otis Breen’s phone number, he said, “Ready to run you home.”

When she turned to face him, he couldn’t help but notice a look on her face that he knew all too well. It was the hurt-child look of someone who’s lost an opportunity to fulfill a dream.

“She just left with that same reporter who was at Hawk Springs,” Carlos Alvarez announced as he sat in the dark in his Jeep just outside a Cheyenne airport security fence, night-vision goggles in hand, talking nervously on his cell phone to Colonel DeWitt.

“And the other man with them? What happened to him?” Colonel DeWitt asked.

“He’s still in the plane.”

“Has to be Dames, Coseia’s boss,” said DeWitt. “He’s a pilot. I’ve checked. How long were they inside?”

“From the time Major Cameron and Coseia arrived until a couple of minutes ago. Forty minutes or thereabouts.”

“Well, well, well. The flypaper gets stickier. Stay with Coseia and Cameron.”

“Yes, sir. They’re getting into Coseia’s truck. My guess is, he’s taking her home.”

“Question is, to whose home? His or hers?”

Sounding and looking deflated, Alvarez said, “Good question.”

“I’m going to need a lot of help on this one, Captain. Especially if things start to go south and I have to lean on Major Cameron. Her father’s a retired one-star, you know. And not without influence. He’s the son of a Tuskegee airman, no less. Gotta watch how hard you lean when you’re dealing with that kind of history.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Good that you do. Thanks to Major Cameron, this whole Tango-11 fiasco is likely to end up with the two of us sitting at some murder trial in a civilian courtroom. Think you can handle the pressure if it comes to that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good again. Call back and debrief me when you’re done with your surveillance for the night.”

“Yes, sir.” Alvarez closed his cell phone and laid it on the seat beside him. He’d had the sense from the way Bernadette had avoided him at work that she might have spotted him as he’d trailed her from Hawk Springs. He’d make certain this time, however, to stay far enough behind the reporter’s dually to remain undetected. Disappointed, he thought that if Colonel DeWitt did pull Bernadette off the Tango-11 investigation and he ended up as her replacement, he’d lose any chance of bagging the woman whom nearly everyone in the missile detachment called “Brown Sugar” behind her back. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but his ambition, like Colonel DeWitt’s, trumped a roll in the hay any day.

For Silas Breen, it had been one dog of a day. After he’d left South Bend on an emotional high, things had gone downhill fast. First, he’d had trouble with his truck—minor trouble, but trouble nonetheless. The time required to repair another blown tire and replace an uncooperative radiator thermostat had put him further behind, and, combined with the hours he’d spent at Notre Dame, he now found himself close to twelve hours behind his delivery schedule. Add in the extra mileage he’d have to log traveling to Lubbock
instead of Amarillo, and he expected to arrive fourteen to fifteen hours late.