Official Privilege

by P. T. Deutermann

  “I know, Mr. Freeman. I’ve got the statistics, remember?

  But thank you for your time and information. I’ll pull the string with the police in about a week and see what they’ve got.”

  “Have a ball.”

  Malachi hung up and went back into the kitchen. So one phone call, assuming there had been more than one, may have been to mother dearest.

  He wondered if the girl’s mother had known anything about her daughter’s romantic entanglement with the great man—mothers often knew a lot more than their children ever gave them credit for, even their adult children. But the reporter could also be sandbagging him, or, more likely, he was just ignorant. Freeman had sounded like a kid.

  But one thing was clear: If the mother had told the cops that the daughter had called about being threatened the night before she was run down, the cops would have buried that little factoid deep indeed and opened a homicide file. He would have to find out what the mother actually knew, and if the cops were really working it.

  malachi waited two days before setting out to probe what the cops were doing with the case. He made one call to the police department, posing as a reporter, and, predictably, got nowhere. He then reset the synthesizer, called into Navy CHINFO, posing as a friend named Henry Bronson, and asked when and where the memorial service for Lieutenant Hardin would be. The young female petty officer who answered told him that it was a

  Baptist church up in District Heights—tomorrow afternoon.

  He thanked her and was about to hang up when he sensed she had something else to say. He probed. At first, she hesitated for a moment, and then she asked him if he was a white man. Momentarily taken aback, Malachi said yes.

  “Well, Mr. Bronson, here’s the thing: The CHINFO himself—that’s Admiral Kenney—wanted to set up a memorial service over at Arlington—like at that chapel they got over there? She being active duty and all. So he had the deputy call Mrs. Hardin—that’s Lieutenant Hardin’s mother.”

  “Yes?”

  “And, well, Mrs. Hardin, she got really, kind of, like, hostile about it. Told the deputy that she’s had enough grief in her life from her daughter’s involvement with the white man’s Navy—her words, Mr.

  Bronson—and that there would be a black memorial service at their church for the black people who knew her daughter, that the service would be for her black family. Made it kind of clear that white people, and especially white Navy people, would not be welcome there. When the word got out in CHINFO, Admiral Kenney got us all together and said that people handle grief in different ways and that we should all kind of just, like, cool it. So I’m not sure just what to tell you …”

  “Right. I thank you for the heads-up. The last thing I’d want to do is crash a funeral, Petty Officer Berger.

  Appreciate the info, okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Malachi had briefly considered going up there, maybe sit outside the church and see what he could see, but he immediately thought better of it. He had never been to District Heights, but Southeast metropolitan D.C. was a no-go area. A white guy sitting in a car outside a black church, spying on a crowd of emotionally upset black people. Right. He would be as inconspicuous as a bunny in the tiger cage, with about the same prospects. Even if he made it look like he was in a cop car, the results would be the same. Maybe worse.

  But what did the mother know? He wanted to probe the captain, but he had an inflexible rule in place there: The captain initiated any and all contact between them, never the other way around. In all probability, the captain and the great man had filed the whole thing away by now as a serendipitous happenstance—shame about the girl, but … The mother had already told off the Navy. Maybe if he just called her, acted as if he was another military guy trying to be nice, he might find out something, see whether her hate-on for Mr. Charley’s Navy was personally specific or just general hostility.

  The funeral was tomorrow afternoon. He looked at his watch. No time like show time, he thought, and went to find his phone book.

  There were seven Hardins in the directory, but only one with an address in District Heights. He gave it a shot, conjuring up an identity as one Major Carr, U.S. Army chaplains corps, Fort Myer. Using yet another voice program, he identified himself to the young female voice that answered the phone and was told to wait a minute. He logged the new name and the synthesizer channel. A much stronger woman’s voice came on the line.

  “I thought I told you people to leave us alone,” she said.

  “Is this Mrs. Hardin? This is Major Carr calling, from the Fort Myer’s chaplain’s office.”

  “The who?”

  “The chaplain’s office at Fort Myer. We provide the military ministry facilities for interments in the Arlington National Cemetery. We—”

  “I told you people. I told that Navy man, that Chimpo or whatever, that we’re all done with the Navy.

  My little girl got all the way through school, through George Washington University, got her computer degree, got her a commission in the ROTC, and what it’d get her? You tell me—what’d it get her! Dead on. the streets, just like every other black child in this city.

  That’s what—”

  There was a moment of silence and then a young man’s voice came on the line.

  “Who is this, please?”

  Vv>”

  M’fc?/

  “This is Major Carr, from the Fort Myer chaplain’s office, Mr.—”

  “This is It. (jg) Wesley Hardin, Major. I’m ‘Lizbeth’s brother.”

  “Ah, yes, Lieutenant. I’m an Army chaplain. I was calling in to offer condolences and to see if the family needed anything in the way of assistance with services, that sort of thing. I spoke to Admiral Kenney’s office, where I understand Eli—Lieutenant Hardin was stationed.

  They told me that the family had, uh, rebuffed the Navy’s offer of a memorial service. They asked that we give it a try, since everything Navy seems to be on the family’s, uh—”

  “Shit list, Major?”

  “Well, yes. If the military’s done something wrong, we’d sure as heck like to rectify it.”

  He heard the young man sigh. There was considerable noise in the background—people talking, furniture being arranged, from the sounds of it.

  “Well, Major, I’m down here on emergency leave from my ship, which is in the yards in Philadelphia. I’m the supply officer there. Hang on a minute.” There was a sound of a door closing, and then Lieutenant Hardin was back on the line, the background noise much diminished.

  “I’m not quite sure what to tell you, Major,” he continued.

  “My mother doesn’t want anything from the Navy or anyone else in the military. She’s very upset.

  We all are. Elizabeth was something of a star hereabouts, and stars are kind of rare in our neighborhood —you know what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, there’s kind of a reaction going on here, okay?

  I’m the second of two kids, and right now I gotta tell you, I’m not going around reminding people that I’m in the Navy. But I’ll tell you what, there’s more to it than just that. My sister called me the night before she was— before she died. When this funeral’s done, there’re some things, some personal things, I plan to check out.

  I really don’t want to say any more than that, and you don’t, I believe, want to know any more than that. You follow me?”

  “I’m not sure I do, Lieutenant, but I’ll respect your wishes. Just be assured that if you or your mother change your mind—you need or want anything from us, just call the chaplain’s office here at Fort Myer.

  Sometimes, after a few days go by, things pile up, you know?

  We can help a lot. That’s what we’re here for, okay?

  Can I give you the number?”

  “We’ll find it if we need it. Thank you, Major.”

  “And I’m sorry for your loss, Lieutenant.”

  Malachi hung up and reflected. Some personal things to check o
ut. Maybe she hadn’t told her mother after all. Maybe she had told her brother instead.

  three days after his discussion with Lieutenant (jg) Hardin, Malachi’s machine recorded a summons from the captain. The designated meeting place was the Arlington County central public library. Late that afternoon, Malachi caught the Metro to the Ballston station in Virginia, walked over to Quincy Street, giving the Randolph Towers a passing mental salute as he walked by, and entered the library. He found the captain, in full uniform, reading The Wall Street Journal in the magazine section up on the second floor. He sat down in an adjacent chair and waited for the captain to look up from his paper. The captain was in his early fifties and looked to Malachi like a middlingly prosperous banker, except for the blues and the stripes.

  “Ah, you’re here,” the captain said, looking over the top of the paper.

  “Indeed I am,” Malachi responded, looking around.

  There was no one sitting very near.

  “We have another problem with the Hardin case.”

  “The great man get over his loss, did he?”

  The captain put the paper down on the floor next to his chair. “Yes, I think so. I wish you wouldn’t call him that.”

  “You’d rather I use his name?”

  “Well—”

  “So what’s the new problem? Something about her accident?”

  “I don’t think he’s made any connections between your operations and the tragic, uh, incident on Twenty third Street. At least he’s made no mention of it.”

  “I thought you said that he didn’t know anything about me,” Malachi said.

  “He knows that I engage contractors from time to time to take care of … special problems. He doesn’t know who you are, specifically.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “It’s just normal procedure, Malachi. Air gaps are important when you want things sanitized—especially if they comprehend an accident like this.”

  Malachi nodded. He loved the way these guys talked —”air gaps …

  comprehend.”

  “Well,” he replied. “There was no connection between my visit and the accident, except that she may have been preoccupied that morning.”

  “That’s very good to hear. But this new problem is related, unfortunately. The young lady has a brother.”

  Malachi sat back in his chair, his fingers tented over the lower part of his face. He would reveal nothing to the captain about his own inquiries.

  “So?” he said.

  The captain leaned forward and lowered his voice.

  “This brother—who also happens to be in the Navy, by the way—has requested an appointment with my principal.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yes. My principal demurred for the time being— heavy schedule, senior officials do not normally entertain calls from lieutenants junior grade, all that.”

  “But he persisted, didn’t he? Maybe even got a little pushy.”

  “He bordered on being obstreperous, yes.”

  “And?”

  “I’m not entirely sure what’s going to happen. The principal, of course, wants him just to go away, which would usually be your province. But if he’s coming in swinging, then any intervention on your part might be extremely provocative.”

  Malachi thought for a moment. An old man came over and asked the captain if he was done with the Journal. The captain picked the paper off the floor and handed it to him without a word.

  “I think you’re going to have to let the brother come in,” Malachi said.

  “But maybe do it somewhere outside the great man’s office. That way, if it develops into a scene of some kind, it’s a private scene.”

  “Yes, that’s what I’d thought—especially about the locus for the meeting. The girl must have said something to her brother, or there would be no reason for him to be calling my principal.”

  Malachi snorted. “Well, obviously,” he said. “The question is whether or not the brother suspects there’s a connection between her dustup with the great man and her flying lesson on Twenty-third Street.”

  The captain gave Malachi a pointed look. “And is there?” he said.

  Malachi returned the look, saying nothing until the captain blinked.

  “All right. I won’t bring it up again,” he said.

  “That’s good to hear. I did not do that. For one thing, you didn’t pay me enough.”

  The captain nodded slowly. “All right, I’ll recommend that the principal meet with the lieutenant.

  Somewhere private.”

  “With both of you?”

  “The usual setup—he’ll meet with the principal; I will listen and record.”

  “Okay, then. What do you need from me?”

  “We think—I want you to be nearby when we meet.

  Not present, but nearby. We want you to see the lieutenant, get a good look at him. We may need you to, uh, speak to him at some point in time.”

  Malachi smiled. “We.” All these guys used the royal we.

  “Where is this guy stationed? In case I have to go see him.”

  “In a ship. USS Luce—that’s a guided-missile destroyer.

  The ship’s in overhaul up in the yards in Philly.”

  Malachi remembered the kid saying something about Philadelphia. “Okay.

  Anything else?”

  The captain gathered himself to leave. “No,” he said.

  “Actually, yes. See if you can find out if there’s any special police investigation going on with respect to Miss. Hardin’s accident. For obvious reasons, we can’t make that call.”

  “I already did. There’s nothing. Traffic Bureau knows an accident when they see one, and they’ve kicked it over to the hit-and-run division.

  They’ll keep it as an open file. But I’ll tell you what, that all might change if your young lieutenant decides to broaden his complaint, whatever it is.”

  The captain paused halfway out of his chair. He pursed his lips. “Right.

  We’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You do that.”

  Malachi remained in the library after the captain had left. He strolled around the reading room right after the captain had disappeared down the circular stairway, then watched out the windows as the captain walked across the parking lot toward his car. No one in the parking lot appeared to be very interested. Satisfied that no one had followed the captain’s car when he drove out onto 10th Street, Malachi busied himself with some magazines for a while.

  There was little question in his mind that suggested this Hardin business wasn’t over yet. She had spent a long time on the phone that night. The mother had turned down funeral service help from the Navy and harbored visible animosity for the service. Why? Had she known or suspected her daughter was having an affair with a senior government official? A married and white senior official? And yet it was the brother who was asking questions. Maybe the girl had confided in her brother, not the mother, and now he planned to brace up the great man, maybe even make some accusations: My sister said that some big guy had come around, sent by you, sir. Threatened her unless she agreed to keep her mouth shut. She had to cut on the bastard to get him to leave. Then she gets run down in the street the next morning. How convenient for you, sir. You have the connections to have goons come around, flashing FBI ID, why don’t I just call the real FBI and tell them what she told me, hunh?

  Malachi thought some more. The lieutenant might confront the great man, but he wondered about the police angle. The kid had sounded like this was something he might want to handle himself in some way. What was the current expression—”getting some get-back”? On the other hand, this guy was a naval officer. Hard to figure. He looked at his watch. Dinnertime.

  The Queen Bee was only six or eight blocks down Wilson Boulevard.

  He could take the Metro to Clarendon, or even walk it. Best North Vietnamese chow in town. He smiled. The North Vietnamese may have won the war, but now, twenty years after their “victory,” the who
le country was still on its ass. The North Vietnamese just never understood about money. But the South Vietnamese, now, they sure as hell understood about money. Hell, they’d even made him semirich back in those days. He went downstairs; he had decided to walk it.

  Two days later, he paid a call on Capitol Hill at the request of the administrative assistant of a prominent Democratic congressman. Malachi had known the AA more than twenty years ago when the AA had been a captain on Westmoreland’s staff in Saigon and Malachi had been a first lieutenant in the military police at Tan Son Nhut air base. For the past eight years, Malachi had done odd jobs for the AA when his boss took one of his not-infrequent walks on the wild side. The latest was typical: The congressman, loaded to the gills, had fallen in lust with one of Washington’s more notorious drag queens at a bar. Given the reluctance of Wash ingtonians in general to tell one of the kings of the Hill that he had no clothes on, or the wrong kind of clothes in this instance, the congressman had gone blissfully back to the Willard Hotel with his prize. Upon discovering the error of his ways, the congressman had staged a colorful scene on the sixth floor of the hotel, the containment of which had required some muscle from the hotel security staff. A certain stringer for the Washington Times had gotten wind of it and had come sniffing around. Malachi had been asked to pay the reporter a call and convince him that the story was not based in fact.

  “Appreciate the help, Mr. Ward,” the AA had said.

  “My principal has asked that we increase your retainer.

  Just to show our continuing appreciation, you understand.”

  Malachi had pocketed the check and thanked him; the AA had been part of the sergeants’ thing back in Saigon and understood how to encourage discretion. It was always a pleasure to do business in this town with people who knew how to act, and Capitol Hill was simply bursting with people who knew precisely how to act.

  He decided to walk back to the duplex.

  Malachi had lived in Washington since his discharge from the Army in 1975. He had built himself a discreetly profitable client list over the years. His old mentor from the Saigon days, M. Sgt. Tommy Monroney, U.S.