He drew closer. “I can see that. But feel free to elaborate on the point.”
“I just know my marching orders were to tread lightly. And to work with you. And that’s what I intend to do.”
“Nothing more to add?” he asked.
“Not right now. Shall we go see to the visitors’ log?”
The visitors’ records at the DB were housed electronically. Puller and Knox were given access to them at a computer terminal in a cubicle adjacent to the visitors’ room. Puller had decided to go back at least six months and maybe longer if nothing stood out. They sat next to each other, knees occasionally touching because of their long legs and the cubicle’s small space.
After a while Knox said, “You were a pretty regular visitor to see your brother.”
“You have siblings?”
“No.”
“Well then, maybe it’s hard for you to understand.”
“Okay, but I don’t see anyone else who came to visit him, Puller. Again, other than you, that is.”
“Neither do I.”
“So now what? The log shows no calls came in to him, other than from you.”
Puller studied the screen. “But this really doesn’t tell us the whole story.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning computers only regurgitate what someone puts into them.”
He rose.
She looked up at him and said, “Now where?”
“To do some real investigative work.”
“Such as?”
“Such as talking to people.”
It took the better part of the rest of the day and they had to speak to numerous people and look at paper records and then talk to supervisory officers and then go back to people originally interviewed. When they were done it was nine p.m.
“You hungry?” said Puller.
She nodded. “Breakfast was a long time ago.”
“You know Leavenworth?”
“Not that well.”
“Well, I do. Come on.”
They drove in his car to a diner on the main street where everything on the menu was fried in grease that was probably as old as the building, which said “1953” on the wall over the entrance. They both ordered their meals. Puller had a beer, while Knox sipped on an iced tea heavy on the ice.
“What we’re about to eat will mean five extra miles on my morning run,” she said, giving a fake grimace.
“You’ve got some room to spare,” he noted. He took a sip of his cold beer. “Crew or basketball in college?”
“Both.”
“Impressive. Multiple sports in college, tough thing to pull off these days.”
“Well, it was over fifteen years ago and it was a small college. And crew was a club sport at Amherst.”
“Amherst. Great school.”
“Yes, it is.”
“And what brought you to the Army?”
“My mother.”
“She was in the Army?” asked Puller.
“No, my father was. He maxed out as a full colonel. Finished up at Fort Hood.”
“Okay, I’m not getting the reference to your mom, then.”
“She said anything my father could do I could sure as hell do better. They’re divorced,” she added, perhaps unnecessarily.
“I take it you don’t get along with your father?”
“That makes sense,” agreed Knox.
“We need to talk to every guard who was on duty that night.”
“That’s a lot of guards.”
He sat back looking and feeling put off. “You got something else to do with your time?”
“No. So what would we be looking for?”