Like a Charm by Karin Slaughter (.ed)

me in to see the CO, a genial enough colonel from Wyoming called Frank Johnson, who agreed to let me talk to Lieutenant Jubb, making it clear that he was doing me a big favour. He specified that army personnel must be present and that, should things be taken any further, the matter was under American jurisdiction, not that of the British. I was well aware of the thorny legal problems that the American 'occupation', as some called it, gave rise to, and had discovered in the past that there was little or nothing I could do about it. The fact of the matter was that on the 4th of August, 1942, after a great deal of angry debate, the Cabinet had put a revolutionary special Bill before Parliament which exempted US soldiers over here from being prosecuted in our courts, under our laws.
    The colonel was being both courteous and cautious in allowing me access to Cornelius. The special USA Visiting Forces Act was still a controversial topic, and nobody wanted an outcry in the press, or on the streets. There was a good chance, Colonel Johnson no doubt reasoned, that early collaboration could head that sort of thing off at the pass. It certainly did no harm to placate the local constabulary. I will say, though, that they stopped short of stuffing my pockets with Lucky Strikes and Hershey Bars.
    I agreed to the colonel's terms and accompanied him to an empty office, bare except for a wooden desk and four uncomfortable hard-backed chairs. After I had waited the length of a cigarette, the colonel came back with Cornelius and another man, whom he introduced as Lieutenant Clawson, a military lawyer. I must confess that I didn't much like the look of Clawson; he had an arrogant twist to his lips and a cold, merciless look in his eye.
    Cornelius seemed surprised to see me, but he also seemed sheepish and did his best to avoid looking me directly in the eye. Maybe this was because of the scratch on his cheek, though I took his discomfort more as a reflection of his surroundings and hoped to hell it wasn't an indication of his guilt. After all, we were on his home turf now, where the coloured men had separate barracks from the whites and ate in different canteens. Already I could sense the gulf and the unspoken resentment between Cornelius and the two white Americans. It felt very different from Obediah Clough's childish attempts at bullying; it ran much deeper and more dangerous.
    'Tell me what you did last night, Cornelius,' I said, the words out of my mouth before I realized what a mistake I had made calling him by his first name. The colonel frowned and Lieutenant Clawson smiled in a particularly nasty way. 'Lieutenant Jubb, that is,' I corrected myself, too late.
    'You know what I did,' said Cornelius.
    The others looked at me, curious. 'Humour me,' I said, feeling my mouth become dry.
    'We were celebrating the victory in Sicily,' Cornelius said. 'We drank some beer in the Nag's Head and then we went back to your house and drank some whisky.'
    The colonel looked surprised to hear Cornelius talk, and I guessed he hadn't heard him before. Where you were expecting some sort of barely comprehensible rural Louisiana patois, what you got in fact was the more articulate and refined speech of the New Englander, a result of the time Cornelius had spent in the north.
    'Were you drunk?' I asked.
    'Maybe. A little. But not so much that I couldn't find my way home.'
    'Which way did you go?'
    'The usual way.'
    'Through Brimley Park?'
    Cornelius hesitated and caught my eye. 'Yes,' he said. 'It's a good shortcut.'
    'Did you notice anything there? Anyone?'
    'No,' he said.
    I got that sinking feeling. If I could tell that Cornelius was lying, what would the others think? He certainly wasn't a natural liar. And why was he lying? I pressed on, and never had my duty felt so much of a burden to me before.
    'Did you hear anything?'
    'No,' said Cornelius.
    'Do you know a girl by the name of Evelyn Fowler?'
    'Can't say as I do.'
    'About five foot three, good-looking