Official Privilege

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Covering up a traffic accident? But why? And what was her reaction to the news that we might have found her son?”

  “Sort of a suspicions-confirmed thing. Some nasty talk about how long we, the Navy, have been covering this thing up, that sort of thing.

  She’s very angry and very distrustful.”

  “You have my sympathy, Lieutenant. Being a CACO is tough enough without this kind of stuff.”

  “The manual says that the bereaved react in different ways, and this is one of them, I suppose. What do you want me to do, Commander? I’d like to move this little assignment right along, if you know what I’m saying.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re at the point where we really need a positive ID. Let me talk to my, uh, people up here. I’ll get back to you shortly.”

  Dan hung up and looked over at Grace. He had almost said “partner,” but then, realizing she was listening, changed his mind at the last second.

  When she walked back over to his cubicle, he told her that the Philadelphia ME’s office was faxing out a prelim on the cause of death but that without the dental records, they could not make a positive identification.

  “Which is why you’re proposing the mother come up here?”

  “Yes. But you heard the CACO—that’s apparently going to be even more awkward than it would normally be. I’m a little worried about the press angle—some news ghoul finds out she’s here to make the ID, and

  then she gets on the air with all sorts of wild accusations about a Navy cover-up, you know?”

  Grace nodded. “But what the investigation needs is a positive ID. The Navy has a whole press corps to deal with the other problem.”

  Dan shook his head. “Mcgonagle’s gonna really hate us now. Okay, I’ll set it up. I’ll call the master chief at Bupers and the CACO back; how about you getting back to the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office and tell them what we’re planning, and see how one does this sort of thing.

  It’s early; maybe we can get this thing in motion today.”

  An hour later, the secretary brought Dan the fax of the forensics report. He asked her to tell Miss. Snow that it was in, and then he scanned the report.

  Preliminary report only; full anatomical and toxicological studies to follow. Black male, early to mid-twenties. Time of death not capable of estimation, but the victim had been dead for more than a year. Body desiccated but reasonably well preserved. Cause of death attributed to suffocation, preceded by a blow to the back of the head.

  Some signs of ligatures on arms and legs. The head injury was adjudged to have been capable of causing unconsciousness but not death.

  Dan frowned when he read that the fingers on both hands were remarkable in that they were severely abraded, with broken nails and badly torn skin. Elbows and knees showed signs of contusions before death. The degree of desiccation was not entirely consistent with immersion in a nitrogen atmosphere. In the opinion of the pathologist, the body was emaciated as well as desiccated.

  He put the fax down and thought about it, then sat bolt upright when he realized what that final comment implied. Emaciated? He had starved to death?

  “Jesus H. Christ!” he exclaimed.

  “What?” asked Grace as she stepped into his cubicle.

  “You read this. But I think the pathologist is saying that Hardin was alive when he was shut up in that steam drum.”

  “Alive? Oh my God,” Grace said, her face going white as she sank down into a chair. Dan handed her the report and picked up the telephone. He called the shipyard operator and asked for the shipyard Production office. A civilian secretary answered the phone.

  Dan identified himself and then posed his question.

  “Can someone there tell me when the Wisconsin was actually deactivated?”

  “Hold on.”

  After a minute’s wait, an older man’s voice came on the line.

  “This is George Warren, Commander. I work for the Production superintendent. You have a question about the Wisconsin deactivation?”

  “Yes, Mr. Warren. Can you tell me precisely when she was deactivated?”

  “Sure—it was September of 1991. I remember it because Wisconsin had been the last one of the battlewagons to be reactivated, and yet it was the first one to go back into mothballs after Desert Storm. Everybody thought it was pretty dumb.”

  “I’m a surface-ship guy, Mr. Warren. You won’t get an argument from me about that,” Dan said. “But what I really need to know is when the ship filled with nitrogen?

  Did that happen when she was deactivated?”

  “Oh, no, sir, not hardly. Deactivation takes awhile.

  They do the ceremony and all that, but that’s nothing.

  We have to empty, clean, and then gas-free all the tanks and voids in the ship, and there’s several hundred of those on a sixty-thousand-ton ship. And then we have to seal the systems up all throughout the engineering spaces and in the sixteen-inch and five-inch gun turrets.

  Then we have to install all the space alarms and string some temporary lighting throughout the ship, and we’re talking about a mile’s worth of cables and lights in all those passageways. You must remember, she’s nearly three football fields long an dover thirty yards wide, okay? Then we button up all the compartments, one by one. Close and seal the hatches. The whole deal takes nearly six months to actually put her to sleep. The nitrogen backfill comes last, and that takes about two weeks to do the atmosphere exchange below the main deck.”

  “I get the picture, Mr. Warren,” Dan said.

  “Say, is this about that body they found?”

  “Yes. I’m the investigating officer. And I guess what I really need are the precise dates for the start and completion of the nitrogen backfill.

  Will your records show that?”

  “Sure, but I’ll have to access some archives. What’s your number?”

  Dan gave him the NIS office number and hung up.

  He looked at Grace. “Well?” he asked.

  “I think you’re right. We’ve been assuming that he was put in the ship after the atmosphere had been removed.

  This thing suggests he was alive when they sealed him up in there.” She shivered at the thought.

  “Well, we’ll know shortly. If Production’s records show that the nitrogen backfill happened after Hardin was declared missing …”

  “How awful. Buried alive!” She shivered again, apparently unable to dislodge the image of the lieutenant regaining consciousness in the steely blackness of a boiler steam drum, three decks down in the armored bowels of a deserted battleship.

  Dan spent the rest of the morning bringing his report up to date, while Grace chased down the details of USS Luce’s overhaul to nail down dates and circumstances around the time of the alleged murder. The CACO called back at noon to report that she would have Mrs. Hardin in Philadelphia late that afternoon. They went to lunch at the club, then conferred with Santini’s investigators to transcribe their crime-scene findings into the investigation report.

  by five o’clock, Grace and Dan were waiting in the reception area of the Philadelphia County Medical Examiner’s Office on University Avenue, which was across the Schuylkill river from downtown Philadelphia.

  Because Mrs. Hardin was coming, Dan was dressed in service dress blues, and Grace was looking almost formal in a dark three-piece suit with a straight skirt, a four button vest, and a hip-length jacket. The CACO, Lieutenant Shea, had called in from the airport that they were on their way, but the receptionist on duty at the desk had suggested that they not hold their breath, the traffic around the airport being a bear in the late afternoon.

  The receptionist had reviewed the morgue viewing procedure with both of them, notified the duty examiner that a viewing was in the works, and then went back to her desk. There was a television set in the corner of the reception room, and Dan was watching the early-evening news while Grace reread the ME’s report.

  Warren at Production had confirmed that the nitrogen backfill ha
d begun seven days after Hardin’s disappearance.

  Dan sighed as he thought about that again.

  Christ. The poor bastard. And the sleazoid press would have a field day if this got out. But so far, there had been only a sixty-second spot on the body in the battleship on the early news. Lieutenant Commander Mcgonagle arrived a few minutes later, looking worried.

  “Somehow, they’ve found out the mother’s coming in,” she announced without preamble—”they” obviously meaning the media. “There’s a Channel Ten press van setting up shop outside, as we speak.”

  “Wonderful. Somebody here, probably,” grunted Dan, eyeing the receptionist. “I had to tell them all earlier that she was coming, because it was going to be near closing time.”

  Mcgonagle nodded, getting out her notebook. “I’ll try to give her a briefing, accompany her through the door when it’s time. Maybe keep it down to a discreet mob scene. If we’re lucky, there’ll be only the one station.”

  Dan stood up and went over to mute the television.

  “I don’t know about that,” he said. “Apparently, she is not too friendly toward things Navy. She may want to go out there and throw some gasoline on the fire. And we’ve got some unsettling feedback from the ME’s office.”

  Mcgonagle looked at his expression and then opened her notebook expectantly. Dan could see that the receptionist at the front desk was trying hard to eavesdrop, so he lowered his voice and back-briefed Mcgonagle on his conversations with the CACO, then concluded with the disturbing implications of the ME’s report. Mcgonagle swore softly when she heard the part about the lieutenant being entombed alive. Grace intervened as he finished up.

  “We’re not going to tell her that, are we? His mother?”

  “No,” Dan said.

  “I’d like to keep that under wraps for as long as we can. Maybe we can use the ploy that it’s inside information—only the killers would have known that, so please don’t release it.”

  “Nice try,” said Mcgonagle. “But there’ll be a Freedom of Information Act request coming the moment you try to sequester that report. I have to call CHINFO with this. Right now.” Grace said, “Dan, we need to remember that this is a mother coming to see the remains of her son. I know we all have to worry about the media angle, but I suggest Commander Mcgonagle handle that while you and I concentrate on breaking down whatever barriers she has erected against the Navy. Her cooperation may be crucial to our investigation.”

  Dan nodded even as Mcgonagle scowled. But Grace was right—again. Focus on the investigation.

  Mcgonagle went to the window in the reception room and then turned around hurriedly.

  “I suggest you two find an office to hide out in; the lady vampire from Channel Ten is headed in.”

  The receptionist reluctantly found them an empty office two doors down the hall and then went back to call her supervisor in the medical examiner’s office about the press interest. Dan sat on the edge of a desk; Grace took the chair while they waited. They had argued earlier about whether or not to introduce themselves to Mrs. Hardin as investigators right away or to let the CACO take her through the viewing first. Dan had been against trying to talk to her.

  “She’s already mad at us, or the Navy, anyway. She’s going to be in shock at seeing her son, assuming this is her son. I think it would be a lousy time for us to start with the questions,” he had argued.

  Grace had disagreed. “All of that is true, but I think we must at least identify ourselves as the Navy’s investigation team. I think the right tack is simply to introduce ourselves and tell her we are trying to find out what happened. If I understand it, she’s mad at the Navy because she thinks no one cares about what happened—to both of her children.”

  “Don’t you think we’ll just poison the well?”

  “No. If it’s just the CACO with her, she’s going to feel like she’s being shepherded but that no one cares.

  And because we’re in the city morgue, it’s even worse— in the morgue, no one really does care. This is just another body.”

  “I guess I’m just not eager to get a tongue-lashing from a bereaved parent.”

  “We’re going to need this woman if this is indeed Lieutenant Hardin.

  Let’s just introduce ourselves.

  That’s all—no questions, nothing about—you know, unless it’s unavoidable. No hassle. Just let her see that someone, someone fairly senior-looking in the person of a full commander, USN, is working the case. Later, when we have to ask her questions, at least she will know who we are.”

  He had appreciated the sense of it but was still apprehensive.

  The fact that the lieutenant had been buried alive was still bothering him. Maybe a week, a couple hundred hours before the nitrogen had come seeping in through the boiler tubes to end it. In the end, he had agreed to let Mcgonagle and the CACO escort Mrs. Hardin through the press, which, so far, consisted of one TV news team. The receptionist would then have to keep the hounds at bay, and he and Grace would meet Mrs.

  Hardin, explain who they were, and then accompany her to the identification room. The receptionist was supposed to call them when the CACO arrived. Dan was fidgeting with his uniform buttons when the phone rang.

  “I think they’re here, Commander,” the receptionist said. “A female Navy type and an older woman are getting out of a taxi out front. The other Navy lady is on her way out front.”

  Dan thanked her, straightened out his uniform, and cracked open the office door. A minute later, he and Grace stepped out to intercept Mrs.

  Hardin, escorted by Lieutenant Shea, the duty forensics investigator, and a woman from the Grief Assistance Program in the hallway. The receptionist had closed off the hallway doors to prevent the TV news reporter and her cameraman from filming them. Dan introduced himself and Grace Snow while continuing to walk with her down the hall to the identification room. The forensics investigator from the morgue led the way, his face a professionally blank mask. Lieutenant Shea brought up the rear.

  Mrs. Hardin was a short, trim woman in her mid fifties, with gray hair, an alert round face, mahogany hued skin, and weary, intelligent eyes.

  She appeared to be composed, with no outward signs of nervousness or apprehension. Like she already knows, Dan thought.

  “Mrs. Hardin,” Dan said, “I’m Comdr. Dan Collins from the Department of the Navy, and this is Miss. Grace Snow from the Naval Investigative Service.

  We’ve been assigned by Washington headquarters to investigate the circumstances surrounding the discovery of a body in the mothballed ship USS Wisconsin. We have reason to believe that this might be your son, It.

  (jg) Wesley Hardin. We very much appreciate your coming up here to Philadelphia.”

  Mrs. Hardin looked up at him. When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly husky, hinting perhaps of a lifetime of cigarette smoking.

  “Lieutenant Shea told me you would be here, Commander Collins. Is this my son these people have in here?”

  As the investigator turned a corner, Dan stopped, now that they were out of range of the newspeople.

  “We think so, Mrs. Hardin,” he replied. “But our identification is based only on two distinguishing features: Your son’s name was on the uniform pants and shirt, and that uniform is that of a lieutenant junior grade in the Navy Supply Corps. And second, the person is—was —black.”

  Mrs. Hardin looked at Grace and then back at Dan.

  “If this city is anything like Washington, a body in the morgue being black would hardly be a distinguishing feature,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am, that’s probably true.” Dan tried to think of something intelligent to say while Mrs. Hardin watched him, waiting. He decided to move it along.

  “I think the procedure here is that we go to the identification room, where they will take down some information for the death certificate.”

  “Will I get to see him?” she asked.

  “Not in person, Mrs. Hardin,” the investigator interjected.
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br />   He was a youngish white man dressed in khaki slacks, with a white medical jacket over his white shirt and tie. “The way it works, we have a television monitor in the identification room. We’ll dim the lights and then turn on the monitor, which will give you a facial view of the deceased. We’ll ask for your identification at that time.”

  “I can’t touch him, see him up close?”

  “No, ma’am. We don’t do it that way anymore. If this is your son, your funeral director can help you with that. It’s this way, please, ma’am.”

  The woman from the Grief Assistance Program took Mrs. Hardin’s arm and spoke quietly to her, finally eliciting a nod. “Let’s get it done,” Mrs.

  Hardin said to the investigator, who nodded and walked ahead to the identification room.

  Dan and Grace followed her down the hall, through two turns into different hallways, and then into the viewing room itself. The viewing room was an austere space with four blank white walls, a carpeted floor, and three chairs set in front of a large, darkened television monitor mounted on a TV cart. The forensics investigator motioned for Mrs.

  Hardin to sit in the center chair, then brought over a clipboard and sat down next to her to take down the information for the death certificate.

  When he was finished, he made a phone call. Dan and Grace Snow stood behind the chairs, as did the rest of the group.

  The young man came back over to Mrs. Hardin. “If you’re ready, Mrs.

  Hardin,” he said.

  “All right,” she replied.

  The man reached up behind the monitor and operated a dimmer switch, which brought the lights in the room down to low power. He then reached up to the side of the monitor and turned it on; after a few seconds, an image appeared, showing the head and face of the body in close-up. Mrs.

  Hardin stared for several seconds, sighed, and then seemed to slump in the chair.