Free Private Sector by Brian Haig

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    I thought of Lisa’s face, yet for some reason I could not recall her as I always knew her, as I wanted to remember her: happy, smiling, lively, and self-assured. Her death mask was inside my head, and I could not drive it out. The eyes, they say, are the windows into the soul. I believe this to be true, and, in fact, the feature that had struck me most profoundly the first time we met were her eyes, a very deep, nearly unnatural green. They were striking eyes, and I had observed on many occasions the powerful effect they had on men, women, and often, to my chagrin, on juries.
    I had an odd and sickening suspicion that her killer had posed her body after her last breath. As I mentioned earlier, her body appeared to have simply collapsed, yet the killer may have twisted her neck afterward, wrenched it a few more degrees so that observers of her corpse could not miss her eyes—eyes no longer filled with life and tenderness but with shock and betrayal.
    The shock I understood. Her death was probably sudden but not pointless, and that was registered in her expression. It was the look of betrayal that haunted me to my soul.

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
    A VERY LONG AND CHILLY HOUR PASSED BEFORE SPINELLI GOT BACK TO ME. He approached with a nasty smirk, withdrew a small notebook from his pocket, flipped it open, and yet, I noticed, there was no pen or pencil poised in his other hand.
    He asked, “How’d you say you knew the victim?”
    “I told you . . . we worked together. I was meeting her here to discuss a new assignment.”
    He smiled. “Yeah, shit . . . you did tell me that.” He saluted. “Well, you can go.”
    If I had had an ice pick in my pocket, I would’ve buried it in his forehead. But I had to settle for pouncing over to my car, climbing in, and peeling out of the parking lot with an angry squeal of rubber.
    I went straight to the phone when I got to my apartment, called the Pentagon switch, and asked the operator to connect me to General Clapper’s quarters at Fort McNair, a tiny base along the
    D. C. side of the Potomac that hosts the National Defense University and a number of quarters for general officers.
    Clapper picked up on the third ring and I said, “General, it’s Drummond.”
    Long pause. “This better be important, Drummond.”
    “It is. Lisa Morrow was murdered tonight.”
    He did not respond to this startling news.
    “I just left the crime scene,” I informed him.
    Still he did not respond.
    “The murder occurred around 9:00 P.M. ,” I continued. “Somebody broke her neck. Her body was found in North Parking, beside her car. Her purse was missing.”
    After a pause, when he finally did respond, it was a technical question. He asked, “Who’s investigating?”
    I did not perceive this as coldness on his part. I knew Clapper regarded Lisa very highly, that he had been cultivating her for a very bright future, and this news was a bitter shock. But in the Army, business comes before both pleasure and grief.
    “The Alexandria police responded, then CID arrived and took over.”
    “Where’s her body?”
    “I don’t know where they took her.” I allowed him a moment to assimilate this news, before I said, “I’d like to ask a favor.”
    “What?”
    “I want to notify her family. Also, I’d like you to assign me as their survival assistance officer.”
    “All right.” Although he and I both knew this was hardly a favor.
    As you might expect, few organizations match the Army on the issue of death. Practice makes perfect, and the Army has had several centuries and millions of opportunities to work through the kinks. The notification officer is the guy who shows up on the doorstep to notify parents and spouses that their loved one has just been shifted on Army rolls from “present for duty” to “deceased.” The survival assistance officer comes along afterward to help arrange a proper military burial, to settle matters of the estate, insurance, death benefits, and so on.
    These