The Officers' Club - Hardcover

Ralph Peters is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former enlisted man, a controversial strategist and veteran of the intelligence world; a bestselling, prize-winning novelist; a journalist who has covered multiple conflicts and appears frequently in the broadcast media; and a lifelong traveler with experience in over seventy countries on six continents. A widely read columnist, Ralph Peters' journalism has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines and web-zines, including The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Harpers, and Armchair General Magazine. His books include The War After Armageddon, Endless War, and Red Army. Peters grew up in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and studied writing at Pennsylvania State University. He lives and writes in the Washington, D.C. area.

1
 
The guy flashing the badge at my door that morning looked like a Mormon missionary. His double-knit sport coat was a sweat machine, his cheap tie a noose. He glanced at the can of Tecate in my hand: wanton violation of the Sabbath.
We were off to a bad start.
“Special Agent Tompkins. CID. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Sure.” I pushed open the screen door. He had the look of an NCO eager to be mistaken for an officer. “Want a beer?”
I couldn’t help teasing him. I was screwed, anyway. A fitting end to the affair. Now that Nikki was gone, after reducing my heart to shit, somebody must have gone running to the chain of command, whining about a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: adultery, a cold word for a conflagration. Probably her husband, whining from afar.
“Have a seat.”
Tompkins sat on the couch, ignoring the stains. He glanced around, in search of evidence. Nikki was everywhere. But nowhere he could see.
His eyes settled on the unread Sunday paper. An Abscam conviction shared headline space with the Fed’s 14 percent interest rate.
I leaned against the wall. Varnished knotty pine met bare flesh. The air conditioner grumped at the desert heat.
“Would you mind turning off the music?”
I flipped up the tonearm and stopped the record. Steve Winwood. Arc of a Diver. Not my life’s usual soundtrack. One of Nikki’s favorites. My self-flagellation.
“Did you just take a shower?” Tompkins asked. It wasn’t great sleuthing: My hair was wet, and I wore nothing but a pair of cut-off jeans.
“Dropped the towel when you rang the bell.”
“Why did you take a shower just now?”
I made a what the fuck? face. I’d been on a long suicidal run out in the proving grounds. Me against the Arizona sun. Stupidity, vanity and heartbreak, calves, thighs and lungs. I liked to jump the wire and run forbidden trails, just me and the rattlesnakes. The adjudicating authority could add that to the score.
“I stank.”
“From what?”
“I was out running.”
“How long were you gone?”
I shrugged. “About an hour. What’s this all about?”
“Where were you were last night? Start at six in the evening and talk me forward.”
I didn’t see what my lonesome Saturday night had to do with Nikki and a conduct-unbecoming charge. Although it had everything to do with Nikki.
“I was here. All evening. All night.”
“Alone?”
“Yes. Alone.”
“That doesn’t sound like you. The way people describe you.” Then he added, “Lieutenant.”
“Look, would you tell me what this is about?” I was no longer so sure that I knew. “And aren’t you supposed to read me my rights or something?”
“Do you want me to read you your rights? Are you guilty of something?”
“You tell me.”
“Do you consider yourself a suspect?”
“A suspect for what?”
“Where were you last night, Lieutenant Banks? Let’s narrow it down. Where were you between midnight and six A.M.?”
“Here. I told you. I was in bed by midnight.”
“Asleep?”
“I don’t know when I fell asleep. But I was in bed.”
“Were you alone?”
“I told you that, too.” Alone. And sick at heart. Unable to read. Unable to bear any music I had played when we were together. Unable to jerk off without feeling puking sick at the thought of her gone.
“But you have no witnesses?”
“How could I have witnesses? I was alone.”
He canted his head toward the wall behind him. Cinder block, painted white, on that side of the room. My apartment sat in the middle of a building that looked like a one-story motel bypassed by a new highway. Junk decorated the yards across the street; an abandoned Airstream lurked behind the back fence. Huachuca City, USA, model desert slum.
“Neighbors?”
“They might’ve heard me. I don’t know. I didn’t have the stereo on very long.”
“So … you have no proof that you were where you say you were between midnight and six A.M.? Are you sure you didn’t have any visitors? A female? Are you protecting someone’s reputation? As a gentleman?”
I hadn’t felt very gentlemanly of late. I didn’t answer, didn’t need to.
“What about your civilian friend from Bisbee, the homosexual?”
He spoke the last word as if fearing infection.
“He wasn’t here. No female, either. For Christ’s sake. Can’t you tell me what this is all about?”
It couldn’t be about Nikki. Even though everything in my life was about her now. Casual sex exploded into a wrecking passion. I fell in love with a slut as worthless as I was. Then watched, helplessly, as she walked away.
“Describe your relationship with First Lieutenant Jessica Lamoureaux.”
The penny dropped. Partway. Jessie Lamoureaux was born for trouble. This was all about her. Nikki was just plain gone. Not even the CID was going to bring her back to me.
“I don’t know what to call it, exactly. Not really friendship. Acquaintances? We’ve been on the outs.”
“Did you ever have sexual relations with Lieutenant Lamoureaux?”
“No.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“I’d remember.”
Was she the one facing charges? There was plenty of sleep-around, emotional bloodshed to raise a stink about. And the jealous wives to do it. Then there was the darker stuff. Much darker.
“Could you pass a polygraph on that? Swearing that you never had sexual relations with First Lieutenant Jessica Lamoureaux?”
“If the polygraph works. Yeah.”
“Did you ever attempt to have sexual relations with her?”
“Jessie isn’t my type.”
He looked at me skeptically. To the average male observer, Jessie was everybody’s type. “She never rebuffed you?”
I couldn’t help smirking. I remembered Jessie naked, wet and cold, a gorgeous serpent, coiling around me. Waist-deep in the Sea of Cortez at two A.M. In one of the few wise actions of my life, I had broken her grip and waded back to the beach. That had been the beginning, not the end, of our relationship.
“She never ‘rebuffed’ me.”
“Would you describe Lieutenant Lamoureaux as promiscuous?”
I killed the smile. “I’d describe her as socially energetic.”
Then he slipped. An NCO, not an officer. “She was a very attractive woman, wouldn’t you say?”
The chill hit me. It had nothing to do with the struggling air conditioner. “Has something happened to her?”
“Why do you say that?”
“You just used the past tense. You said she was an attractive woman.”
That miffed him. He recalibrated his deadpan expression.
“Lieutenant Lamoureaux was murdered. Early this morning.”
I sat down. On the floor. Right where I had been standing. I parked the empty beer can so clumsily that it fell on its side and rolled.
“Did you kill her?” Tompkins asked me.
I shook my head. Then I raised my hand: Wait a minute, give me a minute.
Dinwiddie? Had she driven the poor bastard crazy? Crazy enough to kill her? Or Jerry? He had the skills. And, in his mind, the reason. Gene? Earnest, silly Pete? The Kraut? Another broken lover, or his spouse? Jessie left plenty of casualties in her wake. Or had it been one of her...