But McWilliams was the scion of a high society family. Barracks rumors claimed that his mother had wanted him to live out her own thwarted ambitions, to become a great and famous botanist. Either that, or enter the priesthood. Or both, like old Gregor Mendel. Instead, Old Man McWilliams was delighted when Junior opted for the United States Military Academy. All it took was a couple of phone calls and a generous campaign contribution to a United States Senator, and young McWilliams was in. And he’d done his daddy proud. Cadet Captain, top 10 percent in his class, starting quarterback on the Army football team until a knee injury sidelined him for his senior season. And that might have been a blessing in disguise. The team had played badly and wound up the season losing the Army-Navy game for the third year in a row. At least Phillips McWilliams wouldn’t be tarred with that loss. And the 1942 football season hadn’t been much better, ending with another loss to Navy, a disgraceful fourteen – nothing shellacking.
But now Phillips McWilliams was a First Lieutenant in the United States Army, executive officer of a training company at the Infantry School with a glittering future before him and only a careworn middle-aged Captain to climb over – at least for the moment. As an officer his duties weren’t too rigorous. Train knew that. The ordinary GIs knew more about the lives of officers than the other way around. The people on the bottom always knew more about the people on top. That was one of life’s constants. The trainees knew that Lieutenant McWilliams drove a shiny new Packard convertible, one of the last to roll off the line before the factory switched to war production, and he used it to cruise down broad Lumpkin Boulevard to Columbus or across the Chattahoochie River into Phenix City, Alabama, for a night of drinking and gambling and whoring pretty much whenever he felt like it.
McWilliams’s Packard was just one car that all the trainees recognized. All the officers and NCOs in the permanent party had cars: Captain Coughlin’s gray Plymouth, Sergeant Dillard’s battered Ford station wagon, Corporal Miller’s little green Nash. They all bore Fort Benning tags, blue for the officers, red for the NCOs, all carefully logged in or out every time they passed through the post gatehouse.
Captain Coughlin was talking again. Train snapped back to the moment. To the – he grinned inwardly-crime scene. “The First Sergeant called me this morning,” he said. “Told me that he couldn’t get a rise out of Miller. Corporal had spent the night in the safe room, same as every month the night before payday.”
The Captain paused. The room was silent. A platoon of officer candidates passed by outside. Train could hear their boots crashing on the frozen Georgia soil, hear them singing the unofficial Fort Benning Infantry School song.
High above the Chattahoochie
Near the Upatois
Stands our dear old alma mater
Benning’s School for Boys.
They were past the company office now, their voices growing fainter. But Train knew the song, as well.
Forward ever, backward never
Follow me and die
To the ports of embarkation
Kiss your ass good-bye!
“Safe room door is secured with a hasp and padlock inside and out,” Captain Coughlin resumed. “Not exactly Fort Knox, is it, but it’s the best Uncle gives us to work with. Miller locked his side, I personally locked the outside. Sergeant Dillard, Lieutenant McWilliams and I all have keys to the outside lock, but that wouldn’t get us in if Miller didn’t open his. You see?”
Train grunted, then remembered himself and replied, “Yes, sir.”
“That’s why we had to use the fire-axe.” Lieutenant McWilliams sounded as if he disapproved of the whole proceeding.
Train knew the type. It was all beneath him. All beneath Mister Phillips Anderson McWilliams of the Newport and Palm Beach McWilliamses.
Captain Coughlin grasped Train’s bicep. The touch came as a shock. Officers didn’t touch enlisted men. They might become contaminated. Coughlin’s grasp was remarkably powerful. His fingertips dug into Train’s arm.
“What are you doing in this outfit anyway, Train?” He released Train’s arm, stood eye-to-eye with him. Train was taller by four inches easily but he felt no advantage in facing this older man. “Why are you here? Why didn’t you apply for a commission? You ought to be in CID.”
“Criminal Investigation Division? Me, Captain?”
“I said that, didn’t I?”
“Yes, sir. I – I just have to get through Basic first, don’t I?”
“Course you do. All right. Look, I’m calling on your skills, soldier. You know how to deal with a crime scene. You know how to conduct an investigation.”
“Sir.” Lieutenant McWilliams interrupted. “Sir, you’re risking big trouble, sir. This is against regulations. Don’t you want me to call the Provost Marshal? I really think that would be best, sir.”
Captain Coughlin said, “Train, I want you to get to work on this. I’m relieving you of your other duties. You don’t need the training anyway, you know everything a soldier needs to know.”
After another silence Coughlin asked, “What do you need, Train?”
“I don’t suppose you could get me an evidence kit, sir?”
“I’d have to get it from the Provost Marshal. The jig would be up.”
Train pursed his lips. He crossed the room, stood near one wall. He touched his fingers gingerly to the thin structure, then examined them. Fresh whitewash. He laid his rifle carefully on the floor, bolt lever upward. He went back to the doorway and examined the splintered wood.
“Who did this?” he asked.
“Sergeant Dillard.”
“Did you see him do it?”
“McWilliams and I were both witnesses.”
“What time was that?”
“McWilliams and I had breakfast together at the mess hall. Sergeant Dillard came pounding in there to get us.” He looked at Lieutenant McWilliams.
The younger officer said, “We ate at 0530 hours, Train. We were finishing our meal at approximately 0555 hours when Sergeant Dillard arrived. He was out of breath, seemed upset.”
Captain Coughlin grunted. “Go on, McWilliams.”
The Lieutenant looked annoyed. For a moment Train was puzzled as to the reason, then he realized that Captain Coughlin had called him McWilliams, not Lieutenant McWilliams. Train held back a smile.
“We came through the day room, saw the lock was open from the outside. We tried to raise Miller but we couldn’t. So the Captain had Sergeant Dillard use the fire axe.”
“And this room-?” Train inquired.
“What about this room?”
“Did you touch anything? Move anything? Sir?”
McWilliam said, “Nothing.”
Train stationed himself just inside the doorway, studying the damaged wood and the area around it. The walls themselves were made of thin plasterboard. They had been recently whitewashed. Train bent closer to the door-jamb. He studied the wood and the adjacent plasterboard. He didn’t say anything.
Behind him, Lieutenant McWilliams said, “Aren’t you even going to look at the corpse, Private?”
Train turned back, made what might have been an almost imperceptible bow to McWilliams, then addressed Captain Coughlin. “I’d like to be alone at the crime scene, sir. If that’s possible, please. I know, well, normally in police work there are a lot of professionals present. Photographers, fingerprint men, coroner’s people, detectives. I’m not a detective myself, sir, but I’ve been at a lot of crime scenes and I was hoping for a promotion to detective. But we don’t have those professionals here, so if I might, sir, I’d like to be alone in this room.”