Official Privilege

by P. T. Deutermann

  Dan felt a warm flush rising on his neck. There had been an investigation at the time of Hardin’s disappearance, and the NTS knew about it? Hell, they’d conducted it! Santini had never mentioned this.

  He was doubly embarrassed, because, as a prior executive officer himself, he should have known that there would have been an investigation done. Hell’s bells.

  “We’ve talked to the MS,” Dan said. “But they failed to mention that Luce had done a JAG investigation. Do you remember the NIS guy in Philly who participated?”

  “Yes, sir, a guy named Santini. He was the number two guy at the NISRA, the field office. I don’t remember who the head guy was then.”

  Santini. Wonderful. “But to your knowledge, there was no obvious, substantive reason for Hardin to have just disappeared like that.”

  There was a pause on the other end. “I didn’t actually say that, Commander. Not then, not now. But your question kinda touches a sensitive nerve.”

  “This have to do with race?”

  “Yes, sir.” Another pause. “What the hell, I said this before, so I’ll say it again, although the CO and the XO won’t back this up, in all probability. But it goes to the heart of the problems I had with Hardin.

  He did his job, he was a competent disbursing officer—the admin discrepancies they found after he disappeared consisted of pretty standard little shit. But as an officer, he did as much harm as good, because I think he had a real problem dealing with white people. Plain and simple, I think he was more than a little racist.”

  “That’s usually not a plain and simple attribute, Mr. Baler.” Baler sighed. “Yes, sir. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s the truth. Not that a white guy can say anything like that out loud or in a fitrep.

  Especially today. But I figured at the time that Hardin skipped out because he’d had it up to here with conforming to Mr. Charley’s

  Navy rules. Look, I have two black officers in my department here at SIMA, and there’s none of that shit.

  They’re both very damn good at their jobs and in how they get along.

  Everybody respects them as officers, and also as mature, black men. But Hardin had an attitude and he made no effort to keep it a secret.”

  Dan reflected while he jotted down some notes.

  “Did this attitude color everything he did? I mean, was his racial animosity visible enough that he would have done or said something that in turn could have gotten him killed?”

  “Wow. You really want me to speculate here, Commander.”

  “Yeah, well, this is an informal JAGMAN. We’re not doing rules of evidence, and you’re not a suspect or a prospective party to the investigation or anything like that. I’m trying to dig out facts and opinions, and you were not only somebody who knew this guy professionally but you’re apparently willing to talk about it.”

  “Then the answer to your question, in my opinion, is no. He was smart.

  Angry, but smart. But he certainly knew the limits to the racial angle.

  He was from the inner city of Washington, D. C., so presumably he knew the code of the streets, in the sense that he knew where not to go and what not to say. So if he got himself killed, I doubt very seriously it was over a black-white racial issue.”

  “What, then? Was he a big-time womanizer? A gambler?”

  “Not that I ever saw, and we kind of watch our disbursing officers for those traits. Philly’s an expensive town for junior officers to go on liberty in, so most of the bachelors, including Wes, hung around the base— the O-club, the base pool, wardroom parties, that sort of thing.”

  “What, then?” Dan could not tell if Baler was avoiding the question, or sincerely did not know anything.

  “Commander, I think, and this is without knowing what’s going on here … I think … well, shit, I don’t know what to think. I guess I’d have to say that whatever it was, it probably arose from something in

  Washington. Either something in his past, when he was a kid, or something that he did or said to someone in D.C. that pissed them off enough to come get him. He used to go down there a lot on weekends. He had a sister down there—she was killed in a car crash or something, as I recall. Right before he disappeared, now that I think about it. Like I said, Wes was street smart, but from what I read, sometimes you can trip a disrespect mine without even knowing you’ve done it, you know what I mean?”

  “But bottom line, there was nothing he did or said professionally or personally in the wardroom social setting that would indicate to you that he might have had a serious problem in Philadelphia.”

  “Sir, that’s correct. But it’s also purely speculative: Nobody really got that close to Wes in that wardroom.”

  “No white officers, you mean. Was he the only black officer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dan thought for a moment. He couldn’t think of anything else to ask at the moment. He looked at Grace’s questionnaire, but Baler had covered the ground pretty well.

  “Okay, Mr. Baler. Thanks for the input, and double thanks for your candor. I’m going to write this up as a statement and send it down for you to sign. I’ll use, uh … discretion in how I write this; I understand that even talking about race issues these days can get you in trouble. And triple thanks for telling me about the first investigation.”

  “Yes, sir. And I’m sorry to hear about Wes. He could have … well …”

  He paused. “Well, I don’t know if that’s true. I didn’t have any answers for a Wes Hardin then and I don’t have any now.”

  Dan thanked him again and hung up. He popped the tape, called in Yeoman Jackson, and asked him to transcribe it. “But keep the tape intact; I have to save all the tapes until my witnesses sign their interview sheets.

  And do it in rough draft—I’ll want to edit that interview.”

  Jackson grumbled about having to do JAG stuff in addition to his regular duties, but he left with the tape.

  Dan checked to see if his call to Norfolk had produced a reply, but there was nothing. He wanted to call Santini in Philadelphia and raise hell about that prior investigation, but he decided to wait until Grace came back and let her beat up on NIS.

  He reflected on what the supply officer had said. As an executive officer in a ship, Dan had some experience with racial attitudes of both complexions, as well as the problems they produced in the close confines of warships.

  The frictions generated were very real and often made people acutely sensitive. But had that kind of thing led to murder? He walked over to the case board.

  Grace had keyed on the two deaths, brother and sister, so close together in time. If only statistically, that had to be significant. Baler had said that whatever it was, it wasn’t in Philly, it was in Washington. He got out a dry erase marker, went to the names board, and wrote Hardin’s name at the top, under which he synthesized Baler’s comments about Hardin’s attitude problem and a possible Washington connection to his death. He put the marker down. He knew what was bothering him: Now they would have to go back to see Mrs. Hardin. He was sitting there looking at the board when Grace walked back in just before noon.

  “How’d it go with the D.C. cops?” he asked as she shucked her coat and purse and sat down.

  “Nothing on the hit-and-run,” she replied. “The case file is still open and they have nothing in the way of suspects, vehicle ID, or witnesses.

  I was all ready to believe that it was what it looked like: a hit-and-run accident where the driver got clean away.”

  “Was?”

  “Yes. While I was there, a police captain, ex-chief of the Homicide Division, heard I was there and sought me out.” Dan suggested they go down to the corner snack bar and get a sandwich while she filled him in on the conversation with Captain Vann and on the undercurrents of that conversation, including the bit about Elizabeth Hardin being pregnant.

  Dan whistled at that news, he was intrigued, but then felt compelled to ask the pertinent question.

  “How much of this can go on
the fact board?”

  Grace acknowledged his question with a frown. “Just the police incident report itself,” she said. “But the fact that she was pregnant tells me we are going to have to go back to Mrs. Hardin.”

  Dan nodded and told her he had come to the same conclusion. They took their sandwiches back to 614 and he reviewed for her his conversation with Lieutenant Baler, including the news about the prior joint NIS-USS Luce investigation in which, by the way, one Mr. Carl Santini had been involved. Grace’s face tightened in anger.

  “Damn that man Santini. He walked me through what he said were his files, but he never mentioned a prior investigation.”

  “He’d probably counter that you asked about prior NIS investigations but never asked him for a ship’s investigation.”

  “Robby was right,” she said softly.

  “It’s partly my fault,” he said. Her anger seemed genuine, so Dan elected to ameliorate the issue. “I should have asked the JAG guys upstairs if there had been a prior investigation,” he said. “An officer disappears, there usually is. Santini told us about the disbursing audit, but not an actual investigation. I should have thought of that.

  I’m going to go upstairs and request an archive copy. But right now, I’m waiting for a call back from the ex-CO. You need to transcribe your findings at the police department while it’s still fresh in your mind.

  Did you bring back a copy of the Traffic Division report?”

  “Oh damn! No, I did not. What was I thinking about!”

  “Okay, call ‘em up and see if you can have a copy of that Hardin file.

  When I get back from Navy JAG, I’m going to call the ex-CO again. Navy meetings don’t go on that long.”

  While Grace made her calls, Dan went upstairs to the JAG corridor and filled out an archive request for the ship’s initial investigation into It. (jg) Wesley Hardin.

  Then he returned to 614 and tried the captain in Nor- .

  folk again. The same yeoman said the same thing about j a meeting.

  “Same meeting there, yeoman?”

  There was a slight hesitation. “Uh, yes, sir, I guess so.

  I took him your message earlier, but I think he said he was gonna be in meetings most of the day, sir.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Dan said, and hung up. He went to see Summerfield and explained his problem.

  “Sounds like a captain who isn’t too interested in returning a commander’s call,” Dan complained.

  “Especially on this subject, I suspect,” replied Summerfield.

  “Let me go whisper in the EA’s ear.”

  Thirty minutes later, Grace reported that yes, she could have a copy of the police report, but only if she went over and signed for it in person.

  “So it looks like I’m getting back on the Metro,” she said.

  “Won’t they fax it?”

  “They probably would, but Robby sent in a copy request, so that means someone has to go get it. We haff our rules, you see.”

  Dan grinned and then Yeoman Jackson reported a Captain Fletcher on the line for Commander Collins.

  Dan was tempted to have Jackson take a message, but then remembered what the call was about and who had started the telephone tag. He indicated that Grace should listen in and switched on the recorder before picking up.

  “Captain Fletcher?” he ‘said. “Thank you for returning my call, sir.”

  “Don’t be a wiseass, Commander,” a gruff voice said.

  “You got somebody to call the Cinclantfleet EA, who ‘encouraged’ me to return your call. What do you want?”

  “I’m investigating—”

  “The deserter, Hardin. I know that. And I assume we’re on tape. What do you want?”

  “I wanted to ask you if there was anything you could tell me about Lieutenant Hardin’s performance of duty or personal situation that might shed some light on why he was murdered in the shipyard.”

  “Murdered? Did you say murdered? He went UA.”

  “No, actually, he didn’t, Captain,” Dan said. “You’ll probably be seeing it shortly on the evening news. Now, is there anything you can recall about him personally or professionally that would lead to murder?

  “No, I can’t. Anything else?”

  Startled, Dan tried again. “Do you have any opinions as to why such a thing might happen?”

  “Nope.”

  “Was Lieutenant Hardin one of your better officers, Captain?”

  “No comment.” Dan couldn’t believe it. No comment?

  “Excuse me, Captain, but I’m not the press here. I have read your two fitness reports on Mr. Hardin, and they seem to me to say very little of substance. He did his job; he should be promoted to full lieutenant.

  Full stop.”

  There was a moment of silence. “You a surface guy, Commander?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Had your command yet?”

  “No, sir. Going from here.”

  “Well, I haven’t done my major command yet, so maybe I’ll see you in the fleet one day. But before you get to command, you’ll hopefully learn a couple of things about fitness reports.”

  “What’s that mean, sir?”

  “Fundamentally, it means that if you’ve read my fitness reports on Hardin, you shouldn’t have to ask any dumb questions, like, Was he one of my better officers?

  What I have to say about him is on the record. Hardin was the perfect product of his environment. And that’s all I’m going to say about Mr.

  Hardin. You’re doing an informal JAGMAN, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then we’re done. End of interview. I’ll do a Freedom of Information Act down here; you send me a transcript of this conversation and I’ll sign it. But I have nothing more to say about Mr. Hardin. Goodbye.”

  Dan sat there with the dial tone humming in his ear for a few seconds before replacing the phone. He became aware that Grace was watching him.

  He switched off the tape.

  “Was that normal?” she asked.

  “Stone wall, more like it. That was Hardin’s ex-CO.

  And as you heard, he had nothing to say. Fully stands behind the investigation—way behind it. He actually said, ‘No comment.’ “

  “But is that what you would call a normal reaction of a ship’s captain to the news that one of his officers had been murdered?”

  “No way,” Dan said, standing up. “No way.”

  Grace got up and walked over to the case board that listed names. She wrote

  “Luce captain” on the board, then looked back at Dan.

  “Fletcher,” he said. “Capt. Martin Fletcher.”

  She wrote the name down and then put

  “No comment”

  below his name. Then she listed the executive officer’s and the supply officer’s names, leaving the XO’s line blank while annotating the supply officer’s line with Dan’s notes. She then erased what Dan had written.

  “You list the names you have talked to and what they say, not the victim’s name. You never talked to Har || din.”

  |i

  “Got it. How about that detective?”

  Grace wrote his name down on the board and then hesitated. Then she wrote

  “Knows something” below Vann’s name as an opinion. She closed the door to their room and sat down again.

  “See a pattern?” she asked.

  “The supply officer saying bad things, and the politically more astute CO being careful to say nothing at all?”

  “Yes. By saying nothing, the CO unwittingly is confirming what the supply officer said. I’m ready to write an opinion about Hardin.”

  They discussed it for a while before agreeing to list “4&

  some short descriptors under Hardin’s name on the opinion board: “competent, a loner in the wardroom, had a racial chip on his shoulder, visited Washington often.”

  “It will be interesting to see what the executive officer has to say—or not say,” Grace mused.

&
nbsp; “If we get him—they’re at sea for the next couple of weeks. I’m seeing another pattern,” Dan said. “The supply officer thinks that whatever was going on in Hardin’s life wasn’t happening in Philly, but in Washington.

  And the captain’s comment—’Hardin was the perfect product of his environment’—again referring to Washington, D. C.”

  Grace studied the board. “That’s a stone wall, all right. We’ll have to go see his mother.”

  “How do we do that? The last time we saw her, she made it pretty clear that she wanted nothing to do with us.”

  Grace thought for a moment. “I’ve still got to go over to the District police headquarters. I think I’ll call Captain Vann. He told me he knows Mrs. Hardin, knew her son and daughter. Let’s see if he can get us on at least neutral ground with that lady.”

  After Grace left the office to go back into town, Dan began bringing his notes up to date, filling out some of the checklists provided by the JAG office. Captain Sum merfield wandered in after an hour or so.

  “Where’s your ace partner?” he asked.

  “She had to go back into D.C. to get a copy of the police report on Elizabeth Hardin,” Dan replied. “She read the thing but then didn’t bring back a copy.”

  “You two seem to be operating as a team,” Summer field observed, sucking on the cold pipe again. “You still think she’s playing it straight?”

  “She is, yes, sir.” He told Summerfield about the previous investigation that the ship had conducted and what she had turned up at the Municipal Center. “On the prior investigation, I really think she was sandbagged, too—that NIS guy, up in Philly, Santini, acted polite, but I think he might be taking his marching orders from someone else. Grace has a buddy in NIS headquarters who kind of confirms that. Anyway, I’ve asked Navy JAG for a copy.”

  Summerfield stood in the doorway, leaning against one side, while he thought about that.

  “Sometime when she’s not here,” he said at length, “you might want to pull the string on all that. Tell her to get you a copy of that first investigation from the NIS archives. See how long it takes. And then you call this Captain Vann and see what kind of a reading you get from him as to what he knows or doesn’t know. Make sure he understands who’s running this investigation.