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Just about everyone at Boulevard Estates worked on the base and lived in what is known as basic allowance housing. BAH is based on rank and pay grade, the size and quality of the residence improving dramatically with rank. Most of the places we saw were small ranch houses. Several of them looked to need serious maintenance work. I had read somewhere that over 60 percent of the current army was married and had children. It seemed that statistic was about right.
Sampson and I walked up to one of the brick ranch houses, and I knocked on the battered and bent aluminum front door. A woman in a black silk kimono appeared. She was heavyset, attractive. I already knew that her name was Tori Sanders. I could see four small children behind her, checking out who was at the door.
“Yes? What is it?” she asked. “We’re busy. It’s feeding time at the zoo.”
“I’m Detective Cross and this is Detective Sampson,” I told her. “Captain Jacobs told us you’re a friend of Ellis Cooper’s.”
She didn’t respond. Didn’t even blink.
“Mrs. Sanders, you called me at my hotel two days ago. I figured your house had to be within walking distance of the base if Sergeant Cooper stopped here on the night of the murder. I did a little checking. Found out he was here that night. Can we come in? You don’t want us standing out here where all your neighbors can see.”
Tori Sanders decided to let us in. She opened the door for Sampson and me and ushered us into a small dining area. Then she shooed her kids away.
“I don’t know why you’re here, or what you’re talking about,” she said. Her arms were crossed tightly in front of her body. She was probably in her late thirties.
“We have other options. I’ll tell you what we can do, Mrs. Sanders,” Sampson spoke up. “We can go out and ask around the neighborhood about you and Sergeant Cooper. We can also involve CID. Or you can answer our questions here in the privacy of your home. You do understand that Cooper is going to be executed in a few days?”
“God damn you. Both of you!” she said, suddenly raising her voice. “You got this all wrong. As usual, the police have it wrong.”
“Why don’t you straighten us out, then,” Sampson said, softening his tone some. “We’re here to listen. That’s the truth, Mrs. Sanders.”
“You want to be straightened out, well then here it is. You want it real? I did call you, Detective Cross. That was me.
“Now here’s what I didn’t say on the phone. I wasn’t cheating on my husband with Sergeant Cooper. My husband asked me to make the call. He’s a friend of Ellis’s. He happens to believe the man is innocent. So do I. But we have no proof, no evidence that he didn’t commit those murders. Ellis was here that night. But it was before he went drinking, and he came to see my husband, not me.”
I took in what she said, and I believed her. It was hard not to. “Did Sergeant Cooper know you were going to call me?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea. You’ll have to ask Ellis about that. We were just trying to do the right thing for him. You should do the same. The man is on death row, and he’s innocent as you or I. He’s innocent. Now let me feed my babies.”
Chapter 25
WE WERE GETTING nowhere fast, and it was frustrating as hell for both of us, but especially for Sampson. The clock for Ellis Cooper was ticking so loud, I could hear it just about every minute of the day.
About nine that night, John and I had dinner at a popular local spot called the Misfits Pub, out in the Strickland Bridge Shopping Center. Supposedly, a lot of noncom personnel from Fort Bragg stopped in there. We were still nosing around for any information we could get.
“The more we know, the less we seem to know.” Sampson shook his head and sipped his drink. “Something’s definitely not right, here at Bragg. And I know what you’re going to say, Alex. Maybe Cooper is the heart of the problem. Especially if he put the Sanderses up to calling you.”
I nursed my drink and looked around the pub. A bar dominated the room, which was crowded, loud, and smoky. The music alternated between country and soul. “Doesn’t prove he’s guilty. Just that he’s desperate. It’s hard to blame Cooper for trying anything he can,” I finally said. “He’s on death row.”
“He’s not stupid, Alex. He’s capable of stirring the pot to get our attention. Or somebody else’s.”
“But he’s not capable of murder?”
Sampson stared into my eyes. I could tell he was getting angry. “No, he’s not a murderer. I know him, Alex. Just like I know you.”
“Did Cooper kill in combat?” I asked.
Sampson shook his head. “That was war. A lot of our people got killed too. You know what it’s like. You’ve killed men,” he said. “Doesn’t make you a murderer, does it?”
“I don’t know. Does it?”
I couldn’t help overhearing a man and woman who were sitting next to us at the bar. “Police found poor Vanessa in the woods near I-95. Only disappeared two nights ago. Now she’s dead, she’s gone. Some freaks killed her. Probably army trash,” the woman was saying. She had a thick southern accent and sounded angry, but also frightened.
I turned and saw a florid-faced, redheaded woman in a bright blue halter top and white slacks. “Sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing. What happened?” I asked. “Somebody was murdered outside of town?”
“Girl who comes in here sometimes. Vanessa. Somebody shot her,” the redhead said, and shook her head back and forth. The man she was with wore a black silk shirt, cowboy hat, and looked like a failed country-and-western singer. He didn’t like it that the woman was talking to me.
“My name is Cross. I’m a homicide detective from Washington. My partner and I are working a case down here.”
