“How young was the woman?”
“A freshman in college.”
“So the Army cut him loose to go stalking and beating up other boyfriends?”
“They didn’t want the headache. You know how that works.”
“So Mister Angry and Perverted comes back here to become police chief. Great. How’d he get the Purple?”
“He was shot in the ass. Seems to have been friendly fire. It was just a graze. He was in and out of the hospital in a day or two.”
“And he wears it for everyone to see, the son of a bitch. Anything else?”
“Yes, and it might be the most important. While an E6, he successfully completed the Army Sniper School course.”
“How the hell did a guy with his record and temperament qualify for Sniper School?”
“Apparently the dings on his record came after his acceptance there. And there’s something else.”
“What?” said Devine sharply.
“I found a recommendation letter in his file from a VIP. It might have helped carry the day on his acceptance into Sniper School.”
“Who from?” asked Devine, even though he had a pretty good idea.
“Then congressman and military hero Curtis Silkwell.”
“Okay,” said Devine.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to dinner.”
“Dinner?” said a surprised Campbell. “Where? And with whom?”
“With Françoise Guillaume. At the Bing mansion. At Françoise’s invitation.”
“Devine, you might be walking into a trap.”
“I’m sort of counting on it.”
Chapter 73
Devine pulled off the road and sat there for a while in Earl Palmer’s truck with the engine running and the rain falling. He had a lot to think about, and this was as good a place as any to do so. The raindrops pitter-pattered on the roof in synchronicity with his cascading thoughts.
He knew that the Army Sniper School was a seven-week course at Fort Moore, formerly Fort Benning, where infantry and armor trained together at the Maneuver Center of Excellence. In going through the course Bing would have learned a number of critical skills, including fieldcraft application, concealed movement, target detection, sniper tactics, and, of course, advanced marksmanship. He’d had colleagues who had gone through it, and Devine had been impressed at the far better soldier that had come out the other end of the process. He had to take that into account when sizing up Bing as an opponent.
He also wondered if Bing was still in the area, if Devine was reading this whole thing right, that is. Despite all the “evidence” he had compiled, it was mostly circumstantial in nature, with a bit of conjecture and speculation thrown into the mix.
He texted Campbell to check on airline, train, and bus reservations to see if Bing had used one of those ways to get up here. He could have driven from Florida, but that was one long ride, pretty much the whole eastern seaboard.
However, a few things puzzled Devine, knowing what he now knew about Bing and his past training. Maybe events to come would shed light on them.
He drove to the inn and took a shower while the rain continued to pour down outside. Then he dressed in his last set of clean clothes and hurried out to the truck. As he got in, a car pulled up next to him. It was Chief Harper in a police cruiser.
Harper rolled down his window, and Devine leaned over and hand-rolled the passenger’s side window down.
“What’s up, Chief? You decide about Dak?”
“I’ve been up to talk to him at the hospital. I think we’ve worked things out.”
“I don’t think I want to ask how.”
“Thing is, it doesn’t seem fair how these elver fishing permits are handed out. They say by lottery, but who the hell really knows?”
“I can see that Dak’s argument won you over.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but I do know that this town needs all the help it can get. But I want to know if you’re going to get involved in this because it might make me think differently if the federals will be looking over my shoulder.”
“Not my job. You can have Dak and the eels all to yourself.”
“Thank you for that. Now, where you heading out tonight?”
“I’ve been invited to dinner at the Bings.”
“Well, aren’t you lucky? I hear Françoise is really good in the kitchen. But did she give a reason for wanting to have you over?”
“Just said she wanted to talk.”
“You still up in arms about Chief Bing?”
“I haven’t ruled anyone out.”
“He’s in Florida.”
Devine decided not to volunteer the information about Bing being AWOL. “For all I know he’ll show up at dinner.”
“Well, if he does, tell him I said hello.”
“I will, unless he tries to kill me.”
Harper waved this off. “But I do think you’re right about something.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, everything you said. Hell, I even went over there myself and tried it. Well, to the extent I could. Not as easy as it looks. And I don’t have the physical problems he did. And then there were the knots you talked about and all.” Harper sighed. “I don’t see how Earl could’ve hung himself. I think you’re right.”
“Yeah, Annie Palmer agreed with me, too, after I laid out the evidence. Only Guillaume concluded that it was suicide despite all the contradictory evidence.”
“Well, sometimes the ME is wrong. I’ve seen that before.”
Wrong or just covering up, thought Devine. He said, “How about Earl not actually finding Jenny’s body? You ready to agree with me on that, too?”
“I’m not there but I’m still thinking. Now that I know someone killed him, it does give a motive. So, how’s Alex?”
“Hanging in there. I took her to see Dak. It went okay. She’s tougher than she knows.”
“If she could just remember who attacked her, it would save us a lot of trouble.”
“It’s not that simple, Chief.”
“I know, I know. Wishful thinking. Any luck on tracing the Norma rounds?”
“We know the manufacturer. We just don’t know how those rounds came to be up here.”
“Has to be the same person. Even with the NATO round shot at you. I mean, it’s all sniper stuff, right?”
Devine was about to agree, but then what he had thought about before came back to him.
But they weren’t all the same sniper stuff, were they? Am I wrong about it being Benjamin Bing? Or I am wrong thinking he’s the only one? If my theory is correct on how Earl was murdered, a second person is probably involved.
He came out of these musings and said, “After I convinced her that her grandfather was murdered, Annie Palmer gave me permission to search Earl’s cottage.”
Harper perked up at this. “Find anything?”
Devine told him about the video of Wilbur Kingman’s funeral service.
“Ben Bing was sitting right next to Earl. And he was talking to him about something. And Earl did not seem pleased.”
“He wasn’t pleased about anything that day,” retorted Harper. “The man he’d worked with every day for decades was dead! And—”
Devine cut in. “Did you know Bing was in the Army?”
“Sure, he didn’t hide his light under a bushel.”
“But did you also know he trained as a sniper in the Army?”
Harper flinched. “No, I didn’t know that.”