There Will Be Killing (26 page)

“But he's the one who called us, Sherlock.”

“Precisely!” Izzy, several steps ahead of Jamison. “Major Peck is the one who shot the elephants. He has a suspected troubled history with the victim. He has a troubled history with a lot of people, in fact, including Doctor Kelly, myself, and Major Mikel. As a fellow officer, he has access to our quarters here—he even has a room, he just never uses it. I believe you have been too easily misled to interrogate the wrong parties.”

Sometimes, Gregg thought, Izzy could be too smart for his own good. Jamison looked like he was grinding nails with his teeth and wanted to crucify them both.

“For your information, I did interview Dr. Peck and he even volunteered to show me his own boots, which had no blood stains, unlike your own. He also—”

“I said HALT right there!” shouted a loud voice just outside the villa's entry. “I am drawing my weapon—get your hands up and get out of the jeep and get down on your knees.”

The MP moved to the window, gestured Jamison over to have a look.

“Okay, here he is, and here comes Saigon,” Jamison announced. “How nice they all arrived at the same time. Sometimes shit does work out.”

The door burst open and in came two MPs holding J.D. between them while another MP with a drawn pistol cocked it at the back of J.D.'s head, and behind that MP stood the big boss of them all, Colonel Johnson.

“Good morning, sir,” Jamison greeted him with a sharp salute. “I'm ready to bring these two in for more questioning with the Major you have there. I think we're dealing with some crazy sexual escapade that got out of control—”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” gasped the Colonel. “The retards I get stuck with. Sit down, Captain Jamison, and please shut up and take a deep breath through the asshole you must breathe through and tell me what this is all about. Good morning Doctors Kelly and Moskowitz. Mikel, what the hell is going on?”

“I'm not completely certain myself,” J.D. responded evenly. “But I'm sure the detective—Captain Jamison, I believe—will be happy to fill us in.”

“Very well, then. Jamison, proceed.”

“Sir, yes sir. The victim, Nikki Dalton was discovered by her room-mate, Captain Marjorie Kennedy, who then called her unit, and Major Donald Peck came to help her at the crime scene. He called us on her behalf and reported they had also found boot tracks leading out of the premises. His suspicions were raised since there also appeared to be the same sort of red dirt that could be attributed to some recent travel to the Highlands by his fellow officers here, who also knew the victim. Of course I notified Saigon then immediately went right over to the victim's residence where the scene was undisturbed. The woman was dead, with her neck broken and a large wound to the head. As reported there were boot tracks through the blood and out the door. Although the trail was not visible from there to here, it does pick up on the stairs we now have taped off—” Jamison pointed significantly to his handiwork, “and the tracks lead to Major Mikel's room where we did find the boots with blood and red Highlands dirt. The two doctors here have similar blood and dirt on their boots, which makes them also suspect.”

Johnson looked at J.D., raising a brow and waiting for his reaction.

J.D. just nodded.

“Wow. Sounds like a pretty open and shut case,” said Colonel Johnson. “Looks like we have an arrest right here, Jamison.”

“Are you kidding me?” Izzy exclaimed. “The boots are in the closet. The bloody tracks are going up the stairs. This is like a junior high drama class set up! None of you can possibly believe this.”

“Be quiet, Izzy,” muttered J.D. Then to Gregg, “Tell Rick I'm sorry. And get Kate off the reservation for a few days, would you? Please?”

“Okay, cuff him,” Johnson ordered, “And we'll take him back to Saigon. Put him in my jeep until we get to the LZ. Looks like we have a lynch mob out there. Jamison? Your work here is done for now. Unless you are otherwise notified, leave Doctors Kelly and Moskowitz alone.”

Outside the villa stood a line of MPs and what looked like half the hospital staff that continued to gather as news had no doubt been generously and swiftly spread by Peck, standing in their midst.

As J.D. was escorted out, Peck raised his voice. “Look, there he is! I suspected him the first day he arrived here. She was a wonderful woman. I loved her. She was going to be my wife.”

Gregg flipped him off. He did not know what J.D. had up his sleeve, but he was certain of two things:

One, J.D. was capable of just about anything but he had not killed Nikki; and,

Two, if Peck had anything to do with her death, Rick Galt would see to it that he dearly paid.

“We should take Margie to the mission,” Izzy suggested. “She's close to having a nervous breakdown if she isn't having one already. Colonel Kohn will approve us getting her out of here, won't he?”

“I'm sure he will.” Gregg glared at Peck. “And while we're there I'll have to break the news to Rick. Now I wish I hadn't even introduced them. I hope he won't be the next one to go off the deep end.”

Izzy stood at the door of the private room the missionaries had given Rick, prudently placed at the building furthest away from where Professor Nguyen was still recovering. The beauty of the missionaries was that they turned no one away, but they knew that even if this was their sanctuary and red, yellow, black, or white, they were all precious in His sight, someone like Rick would see it differently.

Izzy didn't want to be here right now. He had left Margie on the veranda where he had almost kissed her that magical day before Hertz was killed. Even with her face stitched up she was achingly beautiful to him and he wanted to kiss her like mad. But she was too vulnerable and he couldn't desert Gregg, not while he was consoling Rick.

“She was so sweet. I asked her to be my girl just yesterday. Even before we had a real date, I knew she was the one for me.” Rick accepted the tissue Gregg offered, pinched it between his eyes. “Who would ever want to hurt Nikki?”

“I have my suspicions, Rick, but I can tell you it wasn't J.D. You know we're not exactly best buds, so if I would swear he didn't do it, you know it's the truth. I don't know why he didn't speak up for himself.”

“Whoever did this better pray they get locked up instead and quick.” Rick crumbled the tissue in a fist that looked as lethal as his vow. “Because if I get my hands on the motherfucker first, there won't be anything left to put behind bars.”

“Yeah, that would be justice.” Gregg nodded sympathetically. “It wouldn't bring Nikki back but it would sure make me feel a helluva lot better.”

Me too,
Izzy silently agreed, and he had to wonder when two decent guys like him and Gregg had crossed the line from wanting to save humanity from itself, to this kind of disposable mentality where death was an acceptable means of eliminating the undesirables of the world. Now, he almost understood how Rick could repeatedly kill and take pride in what he felt was doing a good job. As for J.D., he just seemed indifferent to carnage and death. Even this morning he hadn't flinched when he heard about Nikki, just utilized the situation as a means to be whisked away to who knew where to better plot who knew what. Things like that made Izzy wonder if J.D. really was a sociopath who didn't have the capacity to care for Kate, or anyone else, the way Rick obviously cared for Nikki.

He was gazing at a wallet size photograph she must have given him, repeating, “I'm so sorry, kitten,” and tenderly tracing her image with his fingertips when they left.

“Man, that sucked,” Gregg breathed once they were outside and moving in the direction of the jeep. “How many more days, Izzy? How many days?”

“337 and a wake up. But who's counting, right? Just ask J.D.”

“Yeah, how weird was that this morning? I can't believe he wanted to get arrested just to save our asses, so he must know something we don't.”

“He always knows something we don't, Gregg. That's why he's the secret agent man and we're his grunts. Or we were. Not any more since—” Izzy groaned.

“What?”

“You don't think he's going to use us for something else now, do you?”

“God, I hope not. If he goes off on some tangent with this murder he was so happy to get arrested for, let's just hope like hell he'd rather work alone or break in some new guys that won't tamper with a crime scene.”

Izzy hesitated before asking, “Are you afraid of him?”

“Of course not,” Gregg said a little too fast.

“Not even a little?” Izzy persisted. “I mean, he could get rid of us both and make it look like an accident if he was worried we might spill something about the cover-up the military was doing on the psyops operation, even before Rick's whole troop was taken out. Besides, you know they have to be putting a spin on that.”

“Sure they are,” Gregg agreed as they approached the jeep. “But if J.D. really wanted to get rid of us, he had the perfect opportunity already.”

“I don't think he's done with us.” There it was; the suspicion that felt like a hot breath on the back of Izzy's neck. “Did you see that little wink J.D. gave us while the MPs hustled him into Colonel Johnson's car?”

“No, I was too busy watching Peck make an ass out of himself.” Gregg got in the jeep and banged his head against the wheel. “Shit. . .shit. . .shit.”

“My sentiments exactly. In fact, I'll bet you anything J.D. shows up in the next day, two max, and tries to pull us into his next scheme, maybe even play on our feelings for Nikki to get us on board.”

Gregg responded with a full body slump against the wheel. A heavy sigh and he gestured to the veranda where Margie was curled up in a protective ball on the rattan couch, her hand vaguely waving them good-bye. “Maybe you should tell Margie you'll write her if she doesn't see you soon.”

“I'll make it quick.”

“Take your time.”

Time was a funny thing Izzy had noticed since arriving in Vietnam. It expanded and contracted like elastic but mostly felt like being underwater while you tried not to give up whatever little oxygen was left or suck in the liquid that could drown you.

All Margie had to do was lift her soulful eyes to his and he felt her accumulated pain like a third person in the atmosphere they occupied, and still he didn't want to come up for air.

“Margie? I'm so sorry for everything I couldn't stop from happening to you.”

“But you didn't do anything.” She reached for his hand with shaking fingertips. “Funny, isn't it? Your hands don't shake anymore. Mine do.”

“They won't always. You'll come out of this. You have to. We're meeting in Switzerland, remember?”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” And as he said it, Izzy remembered another promise he had made to a fatally burned soldier who was more worried about his mother getting the news than he was about being sent home in a casket. Time. Who knew how much any of them had? Time was an illusion and he wasn't wasting a second of it now.

For once Izzy didn't think, he just let it happen. He moved to the couch and pulled Margie to him. He tenderly ran a fingertip over the stitches running from her nose to her upper lip. Ever so lightly he kissed her full on the mouth. She tasted like heaven and honeysuckle. His body responded in a way it never had with Rachel or even with his steamy fantasies where Margie was the star of his one man show.

She whimpered.

Izzy forced his mouth away. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you.”

Margie's chest began to shake and he wanted to bury his face between her breasts, lose himself in the hot naked yearning just the thought of her always provoked.

As for the thoughts he was having now, they were nothing to be proud of, not while she was in such a terrible state.

“I'm such a mess,” she half laughed, half sniffled, “And you weren't hurting me. You were turning me on, you crazy guy, making me forget—”

That's as far as she got.

Izzy kissed her with enough fire to melt Switzerland and half of Norway, too.

*

As it turned out Izzy's prediction was right on the money. J.D. sleuthed his way into the villa about 1900 hours the following evening. Gregg hung up the phone and didn't waste a second on pleasantries that were no more than a thin veil separating the rivalry and distrust between them.

“Where are you going?” J.D. demanded as Gregg headed out the door for the jeep he immediately cranked up, put into gear.

“None of your damn business,” was all Gregg gave up as he peeled out.

And he wasn't about to stop even if J.D. was yelling, “Wait! I need to talk to you!” and waving his arms furiously in the rearview mirror.

No, it sure as hell was not J.D.'s business that Kate had called and asked him—that's right,
him
, Gregg, not J.D.—to come to the mission. Okay, so she had asked Izzy to come too, but he wanted to see Kate alone. Her voice was strained, and the Doctah of Damage Control was In.

As Gregg drove the jeep around the winding turn and then over the bridge to the mission hospital, the thrill of anticipation mingled with the scent of flowers and fresh mown grass on warm tropic air. He could even hear the soft breeze rustling the palms in the way that always sounded to him as if it were raining. He could almost understand why Kate loved being here in a way that he never had. But she didn't belong here either. None of them did. Except, perhaps, J.D. And Rick. He was in his element in the jungle and quite happy to hunt down the enemy he was assigned to kill, which didn't necessarily translate well into hearth and home and a nice little white picket fence in Mayberry.

Once the war was over, if it was ever over, chances were that a guy like Rick would not do well unless he was sent elsewhere to do exactly what he was doing here, or at least be training new men. Otherwise, Gregg could imagine him straggling in to some VA hospital with a bottle of Jack in one hand, a loaded gun in the other.

God, he hated the things he found himself thinking.

Gregg pulled up to the front of the mission, ran a comb through his hair and wished he had splashed on some Canoe. Too late now, he took a deep breath and counted to ten before knocking on the mission's front door.

The lights were on inside, and although he knew that Robert David had come over earlier to visit Margie, it was unusually quiet as the door slightly opened, revealing just a portion of Kate's face, like she was peeking around the side.

No doubt she was being extra careful. Gregg had hugged her when he gave her the news about Nikki, and he loved the way she had held so tight to him, buried her face against his chest. But he didn't try to get her “off the reservation” for a few days as J.D. had asked because he knew she wouldn't go. And he had asked Izzy to fill her in on J.D.'s arrest because he didn't want Kate to think he was gloating. Not that it mattered now anyway since J.D. had obviously been sprung out of the slammer as quickly as he had put himself in.

Gregg opened his arms and said simply, “I am so glad to see you.”

Kate put a hand up as if to signal him to stop, but he was already inside the door and reaching for her in the foyer when it registered that something was not right.

She was stiff and her eyes were wide open. In them he saw none of her usual fire. What he saw was raw fear.

“What's wrong?” Gregg asked.

The door shut quietly behind him. Turning, Gregg exhaled a huge sigh of relief.

“Rick, hey man, great to see you up and about so soon.”

Rick smiled. “Fit as a fiddle. Thanks to all you fine folks. So, where's Izzy? It's like you're missing the other bookend.”

“Sorry, it's just me.”

“Aw, shucks. Guess we'll have to celebrate without him.” Rick nodded toward the adjoining living room. “Kate? Time to rejoin our friends. After you.”

Kate had yet to utter a word and the whole exchange seemed even weirder when they entered the living room and Rick said brightly, “Great timing, Doc. We were waiting for you to start the party. And here we have the whole gang gathered for a cozy time together.”

Gregg looked around at all their tense and terrified, confused expressions as Rick amiably went on, “You know our hosts here, Gregg. The good Doctor Donnelly and his lovely young bride Shirley, as they say on TV, and of course straight from his Mardi Gras ball is Robert David with the enigmatic Professor Nguyen—or should we say Professor Spymaster Nguyen? And there's nurse Margie looking a little banged up, but she took a lickin' and she's still tickin'! And last but certainly not least, your very own old pal, the ‘stab you in the back and leave you for the handsome J.D.,' our gal Kate.”

Gregg kept blinking, trying to process what his eyes were telling him but his brain refused to register.

“Why is everyone tied up?” Everyone except Kate had their hands and feet tightly bound.

Rick moved behind the bar. “Would you like a drink? For missionaries they have an amazingly well stocked liquor cabinet.”

From behind the same liquor cabinet Rick produced an AK47 and placed it on the bar. He did some swift maneuvering and emerged with a lethal looking blade in one hand, a martini glass in the other. Around his waist were grenades and a claymore mine.

Rick took a sip of whatever contents he had in the glass, then placed it on the bar in exchange for the AK47 he picked back up.

“You look surprised, Gregg. What's wrong? You invited me here, didn't you?”

“What are you doing, Rick?”

“I'm tying up loose ends, Gregg. We've got to put an end to this Boogeyman business once and for all. Speaking of, let's get you and Kate taken care of right now. I'll even tie you up together, now isn't that sweet?”

“Boogeyman,” Gregg repeated. He was still unable to process the bizarre scenario but that didn't stop him from clocking in on automatic pilot. “Come on, Rick. That's over and done with. You already took care of that business, remember? You're a fucking hero, man. Oh, sorry about my language, Dr. Donnelly. Shirley.”

Rick guffawed then fired a single shot from the AK47. The burst of sound exploded the silence of the room. Shirley and Kate screamed. Dr. Donnelly spastically jerked with an anguished cry. Blood spurted from his shoulder.

“Oh, sorry about my little trigger finger there, Dr. Donnelly. Shirley. But not to worry, it is just a flesh wound. Actually, a very difficult shot with this type of weapon. Another quarter of an inch and it would have taken his arm off.”

Gregg moved toward Rick, speaking in his intervention voice.

“Hey, take it easy, man. Everybody loses it here, that's all. You're upset about your guys. About Nikki. But you're with friends now. Give me the gun, okay?”

“Okay, Gregg, will do.”

He extended the weapon, and as Gregg reached for it an exploding sensation cracked across his face.

Gregg felt his knees buckle, hit the ground, felt blood spurting out of his nose and the surrounding area where Rick had smashed him in the face with the butt of the rifle. Kate ran to him, tried to cover him with her own body, screaming at Rick, “Don't touch him again, you monst—”