The Supernumerary

It wasn't until 1st Lieutenant Dan Hagerty was assigned to investigate Captain Calvin Smith's death that he found he was third in line to kill the S. O. B. On one hand, Dan was scheduled to be shipped home from Vietnam in eighteen days. On the other, two people had simultaneously shot Calvin. For Dan that aroused a certain level of interest in the murder. Of course, the military can hold a man over, or bring him back to complete a murder investigation, and they did. More correctly, Major Grace O'Connor of the Provost Marshal's Criminal Investigation Division did. She told Dan it would be good for him. It would make him a man. It came damn close to making him a corpse. Four times that he knew of. Five, if you counted the original incident where Calvin bought it at the barracks fire at Can Tho Army Air Field.