by David Poyer
“I mean … like not much is gonna make an impression on her. That she’s tougher than the average bear.”
“We had our eyes on a suspect,” Staurulakis said. “He kept trying to get her alone. A castaway we picked up. Claimed to be a religious refugee. Colón didn’t think it was him, but he was on our short list.”
“Where is he now?”
“We offloaded him in Singapore.”
“Before the rape?”
“Correct.”
“So he’s off the board for that, but still a possibility for number two.”
Toan said, “One more thing. Both guys turned off the lights. I mean, in all three incidents.”
Aisha waited. “And?”
“The lights in the helo hangar passageway, in the supply storeroom, and in the radar equipment space.”
“You’re saying that’s an MO? I’m afraid it doesn’t give us much.”
Toan said, “Actually, it might. See, there’s no topside access from the interior passageway on the Supply Department level. So there’s no darken-ship switch there. Somebody had to know how to turn them off back at the lighting panel.”
Staurulakis nodded. “We thought, possibly an electrician. Or a compartment petty officer. The darken-ship switch up on the hangar-deck level was interfered with too. When the Terror was first groped.”
“I see.” Aisha filed this away. “Could we see the corpsman next? Again, except for operational needs, please keep this space locked.”
“All right.” Staurulakis hesitated. “What else can we do? To facilitate your investigation.”
“I’ll need a private space.”
“I’ve set that up. Unit commander’s stateroom. Main deck, starboard side, midships.”
“And an assistant. Someone who knows his way around the ship.”
The exec traded glances with the master-at-arms. “May take a little more doing. We’re stretched pretty thin right now. Let us get back to you on that.”
* * *
SAVO’S sick bay was well aft, a brightly lit, immaculate space that seemed almost new, in contrast with the rest of the ship, which looked worn at the edges. The deck shook, and the thrum of the screws imposed a constant, loud backdrop of ambient noise. The lead corpsman was named Grissett. “Hudson, Hud … most folks just call me Doc.”
Aisha shook hands, looking around. Chairs, desk, examining table; a sink, a stool, white plastic jugs of saline and other compounds in racks. The containers shifted as the space rolled around them. Through a curtained door lay a dimly lit bunking area, apparently untenanted at the moment. The cool air was welcome after the stifling, close heat in the passageways.
Grissett introduced a petite strawberry blonde as Hospitalman Seaman Ryan. He said, “Grab a chair, ma’am. How can we help?”
“Well, so far I’ve spoken with the CMC, the CMAA, and the XO. I’d like your take on the Terranova rape.”
Grissett pulled a file and took a seat. “Okay, where do you want to start?”
“Injuries.”
“She wasn’t significantly hurt. We took photos of some bruises.”
“Under UV?”
“Actually, yes. I can provide JPEGs over the command LAN if you’ll give me your shipboard address.”
“I’m not plugged in yet, but should be shortly. Who conducted the examination?”
“Dr. Schell, assisted by myself and Duncanna here.”
“Did you follow the protocol?”
“She was fragile. I kept the forensic examination short.”
Aisha understood. Sexual assault forensics were intrusive and often humiliating for the victim. Yet they yielded the best evidence. “Are you SAP certified, Chief?”
Grissett made a wry face. “Unfortunately, no.”
“Was the physician? This Dr. Schell.”
“Not to my knowledge. We tried to contact squadron medical, get talked through it. But we’re in River City.”
“I’ve heard that expression, but what does it mean?”
“No Net. No e-mail. We looked up the requirements. Fortunately, we had fresh kits.”
“So you took swabs, at least. Mouth, vagina, rectal?”
“Not mouth or rectal. She told us they weren’t necessary. I took vaginal samples. Bagged, refrigerated, and sent ’em off on the helo. Scrapings from fingernails. The usual.”
“Combed her pubic hair?”
Grissett nodded at the assistant. “Ryan here did the pubic inspection. And took all the photos.”
“And you sent this all to Stuttgart.”
“In the mailbag.”
“So most likely, they went down with the tanker … which means, no forensic DNA.”
Grissett said, “Not necessarily.” He nodded to Ryan, who opened a small fridge bolted to the deck. Amid chilling soda cans and bottles of liquid medications slumped a small Baggie. When she held it up Aisha could make out the swab within, the carefully handprinted label. Ryan replaced it and sealed the door as Grissett said, “Sometimes official mail goes astray. Or takes too long to get there, and DNA degrades with heat. As you no doubt know. So I kept one sample.”
Aisha nodded. “Good work, Doc. The question will be where to send it. Even in peacetime it takes six, eight weeks to get results back from the lab.”
“Yeah, we’re sort of hanging out here at the end of the pole.” Grissett pointed to a ventilator fixture, which was buzzing in sympathetic vibration. “That thing only does that when we hit thirty knots plus. We’re barreling the hell along to somewhere. Usually the CO comes up on the 1MC, gives us the rundown, but he’s stopped doing that last couple days. You talked to the exec? She drop any hints where we’re heading?”
“We didn’t get into that. Just discussed the investigation.” Aisha held out her hand for the folder. “May I?”
Grissett twisted in his chair. “You need a copy. Ryan, how about going over to ship’s office. Clear the area around the copier. No one else looks at it.”
When the girl left and the door was closed again Aisha said, “I’m told this was the third incident of sexual assault so far this cruise.”
“That’s right, but not the only incidence of sexual harassment.”
“Really?”
“The XO had a man up for verbal harassment, too. Had him up to mast, I mean.”
“Who was that?”
“A machinist’s mate. He was accused under Article 134, indecent language. He called his female senior petty officer a ‘hucking skunt.’ The disciplinary review board kicked it up to the XO, who approved him for nonjudicial punishment.”
“The CO punished him?”
“I don’t remember exactly what he got, I wasn’t there. Rumor has it, he got chewed out, then cracked down on pretty hard.”
“Who was his petty officer?”
“An MM3 … Scharner. Patty, I think. No, Sherri Scharner.”
“I’ll want to talk to her.”
“You can’t.” Grissett turned to pull another file out of the cabinet. “She’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Natural causes. She was on the sick list. Malaise. Muscle aches. Dry, unproductive cough. Temperature, a hundred and one. Maybe a hundred and two. I issued ibuprofen, prescribed fluids and bed rest. The next morning, couple of her friends came down to check on her, take her to chow. But she was gone.”
“Wait a minute. Leo Schell, right? He said something about legionellosis.”
“Where did you see him?”
“On the tanker. For maybe two or three minutes, while we were hot decking.”
“Uh-huh … well, that’s what we had. Legionnaires’ disease. Maybe a third of the crew either got it, or had just gotten over it. That’s why you’ll see so many folks looking dragged out, like they haven’t gotten any sleep. A lot haven’t, but it’s also the aftereffects of the Crud.” Grissett held up a finger as she started to speak. “I wanted to pull us off the line, send us home. But the CO said we were on a national-security mission, we had to deal. Dr. Sc
hell localized it to the forward hot-water heaters. We took all the freshwater systems down, tore the ship apart, and did a steam sterilization.
“I’ve been watching, and I haven’t seen a case since. But it hasn’t been that long. If you start feeling like you’ve got the flu, sore throat, see me at once. Most recover, but we had two who didn’t. Scharner was one.”
“You’re absolutely certain it was simply the disease?”
“That’s Dr. Schell’s sign-off there, on the cause of death. Want a copy of that, too?”
Aisha handed the folder back. “I don’t think so. Let’s go back to the sexual assaults before the rape. From what the CMAA told me, you’re not going to be holding any DNA from those.”
“No. The first case was just a groping in the dark—”
“Petty Officer Terranova, back in the helo hangar—”
“Actually above it, the catwalk area. Coming down from what we call the Iron Beach. No injury, except a slight abrasion to the neck. From a knife, we assume. No penetration, and no DNA recovery, though she did say he jerked off. But apparently into something he took with him.
“The second incident, Celestina Colón. That was in the aft passageway, next level down from here. The lights go out. Somebody grabs her from behind and shoves her into a fan room. He undresses and finger-fucks her, probably doing himself with the other hand. I took a rape kit, to be able to say we did, but no joy. He was rougher with her. She got bruised up some.”
“Escalation.” Aisha nodded.
“If it’s the same guy, could be. They say they tend to go further each time—”
“It’s in the literature. And borne out by my experience.”
“I defer to you, Special Agent, on that.”
Someone knocked. “It’s open,” Grissett called.
Ryan came in carrying two folders. She handed one to Aisha, who heaved herself reluctantly to her feet. “Thanks for the information, Chief Corpsman. Doc. I’ll be back, I’m sure, as things develop.”
A bulkhead phone buzzed. “Hold on,” Grissett said. He listened with an abstracted air. “We got Seaman Ryan. Duncanna Ryan. She do?… Okay then. Yes ma’am, will do.” He hung up. “XO wants to know if we had anyone you could keep in your hip pocket. Help you out. Dunkie, can you take that? What’re you doing right now?”
“Dusting the light fixtures, cleaning the head, back there. Then Beastie wanted me to inventory the dental tools—”
“Drop that, go with the special agent. Only come back here if we have a casualty drill or something. I’ll tell Beaster. He’s her petty officer,” Grissett told Aisha.
“Shall we go? And maybe just stop topside for a couple of minutes, get some air—”
“Can’t,” Ryan said. “Not right now. They’re running some kind of loading drill. Want everybody to stand clear.”
“Then can you take me to the unit commander’s stateroom? Petty Officer Ryan? I believe that’s what the exec said.”
“Seaman, ma’am. Yes ma’am—”
Aisha rearranged her cover-up, and reached for her purse. “It’s time to meet Petty Officer Terranova.”
* * *
FOR the first victim interview, it was important to pick somewhere neutral. If she’d been attacked in a work space, you didn’t meet in a work space. If an officer was involved, you avoided the wardroom. In most cases, that boiled down to either Aisha’s own cabin, or some semiprivate location like the library.
When Ryan tried the knob of the unit commander’s suite it was unlocked. Inside they found a large office space with a built-in desk, a blank computer screen, a coffee table, a settee, and two chairs. An open doorway showed the foot of a bunk next door. She had just time enough to use the little attached head before someone tapped at the door.
The chubby young white woman’s brown-sugar hair was twisted back into a ponytail. She wore dark blue coveralls and heavy black steel-toe boots, and carried an issue of Sea Technology under her arm. Aisha estimated her at about five three, maybe 130, 140 pounds at the outside. Her exopthalmic, watery blue eyes blinked rapidly, gaze darting around the space. This was the woman they called the Terror?
“Beth?”
“Yes ma’am.” Terranova came to attention.
“Please stand easy. I don’t have a military rank, and you don’t have to call me ma’am.”
Ryan cleared her throat. “Um, do you want me to stay, Aisha?” She nodded to the girl. “Hi, Beth.”
“Hi, Duncanna.”
Of course they knew each other, in a complement as small as this. “Outside, please, um, Seaman. In the passageway. Don’t let anyone in. Beth, is it all right if I lock this door?”
“Sure. I’d rather you did.”
Her accent made it something like “Shueh, I’d rada you did.” Not to make fun, but she’d heard Joisey-speak from earliest childhood, from bus drivers, newsstand vendors, taxi drivers, cops roving the streets of the most polyglot city on earth. Working-class whites, most of whose gazes had slid past a little black girl in a modest dress.
“Beth—it is Beth? Yes, I see it is. From your file. Please sit. I’m Special Agent Aisha Ar-Rahim, Naval Criminal Investigative Service. I’m here to investigate the attack against you. Is it all right if I record this interview?”
Terranova nodded silently. Aisha set up the case cracker laptop and adjusted the camera so they were both within its field of view. “How are you doing? Holding up?”
“I’m doin’ okay.” But her tucked elbows, arms crossed over her chest, and hunched posture said otherwise. As did the dry white flecks around her lips, and the dull eyes.
“Are you still under sedation, Beth?”
“No.”
“Sleeping okay?”
“No one’s sleeping. We been goin’ six on and six off, general quarters for missile defense.”
“I understand you occupy a key position in the Weapons Department.”
“Operations, not Weapons. I’m the lead Aegis petty officer. I run the SPY-1s. The radars. The big panels on the sides of the bridge.”
“I see. That does sound important.”
“It means that if we get attacked, we don’t get sunk.”
“I see.” Aisha took a breath. “Well, Beth, most people in your situation experience mixed emotions. Generally, anger and shame. I understand, and I sympathize. But my job’s to investigate a crime, and pass what I develop to the naval justice system. If everything works right, we catch the guy who raped you, and put him where he can’t hurt you again, or anyone else.
“With that in mind, I need to take you step by step through what happened. Starting even before that—with anyone who expressed interest, asked for a date, said he wanted to hook up on liberty. Don’t worry how trivial it seems. Just tell me who occurs to you first.”
Terranova sat stoically silent for a while, then told her about the castaway. Aisha didn’t object, or say he’d already left the ship before the rape; just noted it. “Good. Who else?”
A shrug. “Nobody.”
“Really? You’re an attractive girl. On a ship with three hundred guys. Nobody’s hit on you? Not in the four months since the ship left home port?”
“I’m not that pretty.” Terranova sounded sullen, head lowered. “The other girls, guys like them better.”
All right … “How about your work center? Anyone you’re close to there?”
“I work with the new chief … Chief Wenck. With Ginnie Redmond. And the other guys in the Aegis team.”
“No close friendships? No enemies?”
A sigh, another shrug. “I’m the lead PO. It’s like, an official relationship.”
“All right, let’s go on to the incident. Tell me what happened.”
“I was down in female berthing. I got a shower. Then I remembered I left something in the Equipment Room. While we were looking at replacing one of the cards.”
“What did you leave?”
“My, um, birth control pills.”
Aisha carefully did no
t look surprised. “What were you doing with birth control pills in the Equipment Room?”
“I took them out of my pocket because I just had too much shit in there. The pockets on these coveralls are crap. Things fall out. If we lose those, the corpsmen give us a rough time. Like they cost the Navy all this money, or they have to account for each pill, or something … and some of the guys, they … like, think it’s a joke, if they steal them and hide them. Then we have to go nuts and raise a stink, until they give them back. And they say things like—”
“Like, ‘What do you need these for, you’re not putting out for me,’” Aisha supplied. Nothing she hadn’t heard aboard the carrier. “I realize this is personal, Beth, and it will be off the record in any written report. But are you in a current relationship?”
“No,” the petty officer murmured at last.
“Coming off one, maybe? With someone here?” Terranova shook her head again. “So, the samples the doctor took, those will tell us exactly who the rapist was? Once we can get them tested?”
“… I guess so.”
“Beth, it’s very important we nail this down now so there are no gray areas later. Did you, or did you not, have sex in any form with anyone else, in the week before the crime?”
“No. I did not.”
Aisha noted and underlined it. “All right. Thanks. So, you were taking the pills in case…?”
“Yeah. In case. Anyhow, it’s not good to stop them, start them, stop ’em again. The girls all say you can’t depend on them to work if you start doing that.”
“I’ve heard that.”
Terranova murmured, “I was dating a guy for a while, back in Norfolk.”
“From the ship?”
“No, he worked at a truck place in Virginia Beach. But I guess he didn’t … wasn’t … that interested after all. That was the last time I did it.”
Aisha waited, but that seemed to be it. Too bad; the ex-boyfriend was always the number one suspect. Terranova added, “Then I heard somebody outside, in the passageway. I went out, but I didn’t see anybody there.
“But when I went out again, the overhead lights outside were off. Somebody grabbed me from behind and stuck a knife in my neck. Then he pushed me back into the Equipment Room, made me take my coveralls off, and raped me.”
