The General's Daughter by Nelson DeMille Page A

consenting partner. Certainly, she didn’t consent to being strangled to death.”
    “There are many possibilities,” I mused, “and it’s a good idea not to get married to any of them.”
    “We need forensic, we need the autopsy, and we need to question people.”
    We?
I looked out at the landscape as we drove in silence. I tried to recall what I knew about Cynthia. She was originally from
     rural Iowa, a graduate of the state university, with a master’s in criminology, which she received at some civilian university
     through the Army’s Technological Enhancement Program. Like a lot of women, as well as minorities that I’ve known in the Army,
     the military offered more money, education, prestige, and career possibilities than they would have hoped for back on the
     farm, in the ghetto, or whatever disadvantaged background they came from. Cynthia, I seemed to recall, expressed positive
     views toward the Army—travel, excitement, security, recognition, and so on. Not bad for a farm girl. I said to her, “I’ve
     thought about
    you.”
    No reply.
    “How are your parents?” I inquired, though I never met them.
    “Fine. Yours?”
    “Fine. Still waiting for me to get out, grow up, get hitched, and make them grandparents.”
    “Work on growing up first.”
    “Good advice.” Cynthia can be sarcastic at times, but it’s just a defense mechanism when she’s nervous. People who’ve had
     a prior sexual relationship, if they’re at all sensitive and human, respect the relationship that existed, and perhaps even
     feel some tenderness toward the ex-partner. But there’s also that awkwardness, sitting side by side as we were, and neither
     of us, I think, knew the words or the tone of voice we should adopt. I said again, “I’ve thought about you. I want you to
     respond to that.”
    She responded, “I’ve thought about you, too,” and we fell into a long silence as she drove, head and eyes straight ahead.
    A word about Paul Brenner in the passenger seat. South Boston, Irish Catholic, still don’t recognize a cow when I see one,
     high school graduate, working-class family. I didn’t join the Army to get out of South Boston; the Army came looking for me
     because they’d gotten involved in a large ground war in Asia, and someone told them that the sons of working-class stiffs
     made good infantrymen.
    Well, I must have been a good infantryman, because I survived a year over there. Since that time, I’ve taken college courses,
     compliments of the Army, as well as criminology courses and career courses. I’m sufficiently transformed so that I don’t feel
     comfortable back in South Boston any longer, but neither do I feel comfortable at the colonel’s house, watching how much I
     drink and making small talk with officers’ wives who are either too ugly to talk to or too good-looking to stick to small
     talk.
    So there we were, Cynthia Sunhill and Paul Brenner, from opposite ends of the North American continent, different worlds,
     lovers in Brussels, reuniting in the Deep South, having just had the common experience of looking at the naked body of a general’s
     daughter. Can love and friendship flourish under those circumstances? I wasn’t putting money on it.
    She said, “I was sort of startled to see you last night. I’m sorry if I was rude.”
    “No ifs about it.”
    “Well, then, I apologize unequivocally. But I still don’t like you.”
    I smiled. “But you’d like to have this case.”
    “Yes, so I’ll be nice to you.”
    “You’ll he nice to me because I’m your superior officer. If you’re not nice, I’ll send you packing.”
    “Cut the posturing, Paul. You’re not sending me anywhere, and I’m not going anywhere.” She added, “We’ve got a case to solve,
     and a personal relationship to straighten out.”
    “In that order.”
    “Yes, in that order.”

CHAPTER
FOUR
    V ictory Drive, formerly Pine Hollow Road, had been renamed during World War II in a frenzy of