“You looked like you were lost in Neverland there,” Jonesy said, grinning.
“Sorry,” Doug said, his cheeks flushing hot. “I was thinking through a difficult problem.”
“I checked in at our office a little bit ago, heard you were looking for me. Just can’t get enough of me, can you?” Jonesy said with a wink.
Doug really hated it when Jonesy said and did things like that. How could Lucy not understand?
“I think you might be able to get some information for me.” Casting a glance at Bao standing a few feet behind Jonesy, Doug leaned forward and added more quietly, “For a homicide investigation I’m leading for the Navy.”
“I see.” Jonesy nodded and rubbed his chin. The look on his face was unreadable. “Murder seems to follow you around, Douglas. How many is that since you came to Shanghai—three in two years?”
“A little more than two years. And one of those was only an attempted murder,” Doug replied, defensive.
Jonesy chuckled. “I stand corrected. Now, what do you need to know?”
Doug took a breath. When he’d stopped at his office forty minutes before to change back into his civilian suit, there was no message waiting for him from Detective Inspector Wallace. He could wait...or he could just ask Jonesy for a damned favor.
“I need the names of all of the Italian seamen who were arrested at the Majestic Café on the night of July third.” D.I. Wallace would almost certainly be able to provide much more information about them—if he cooperated. For now, the names would have to do.
“Yeah, I can get that for you,” Jonesy said. “The Times would have printed them on the fourth, and I know someone there who can dig them up for me. But it’s going to have to wait a bit; Bao and I are on a mission to find Charlie. He’s been missing since yesterday.”
The serious look in Jonesy’s green eyes told Doug what he feared. His heart sank.
“Was he at work yesterday afternoon?” Doug asked Bao; the Chinese theater where Charlie worked was only yards from the Great World Amusement Center, where the second bomb exploded.
“I don’t know. Last time I talk to him was Friday.” Bao explained to Doug what had happened with the evacuation from Hongkou, and how they were separated.
“I’ll help you,” Doug said, putting his hand on Bao’s shoulder to reassure him. Then his stomach tied in a knot as he realized he’d overcommitted—Lucy was waiting for him. He’d already been longer than he’d told her he would be. “I have somewhere I need to be right now, but I can help you tomorrow. Where have you two looked already?”
“His theater, for starters,” Jonesy said. “No luck. No one was there. The building took some serious damage from yesterday’s blast, though. We were just leaving it when I saw you wandering around over here.”
Doug cringed. That meant that anyone inside the theater might have been injured. Or worse.
“Our next stop is the General Hospital,” Jonesy said. The gravity in his voice said that he didn’t hold out much hope.
The image of Charlie lying in a coffin flashed across Doug’s mind. He pushed it away. “I wish I could go with you. I have things to do. Will you let me know if you find him, though?”
“We will, Mr. Bainbridge,” Bao said.
“Where can we reach you?” Jonesy asked. “I know you’re not staying at your apartment, not after the evacuation of westerners from Hongkou.”
“You can try Kenny and Abbie’s place for now,” he said. “It’s listed under Kenneth Traywick.”
“I remember.” Jonesy put a cigar in his mouth. “I’ll be in touch soon, Doug—about both matters.”
**
“You were gone longer than I anticipated,” Lucy said when Doug sat beside her in the lobby of the Park Hotel on Bubbling Well Road. He didn’t think she sounded irritated.
“I apologize, my task took longer than I expected,” he said, kissing her cheek.
“It was productive, I hope?” She arched one eyebrow as she gazed at him.
“I don’t know. Possibly.”
She watched him for a second. “Anything you can tell me?”
He hesitated. “Not really. I mean, I suppose I can give you the thirty-second shorthand version.” He told her about his conversations in the vaguest of generalities, not revealing any names or ranks.
“I can’t say I really understood any of that,” Lucy said when he’d finished. “But it does seem that you’re collecting more suspects than you’re eliminating.”
“That’s true.”
“So what’s next?”
He wasn’t really sure. “I think I need to take some time to collect my thoughts, and let all of this settle. It seems too chaotic right now. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and it’ll make sense.”
The amused twinkle in her blue eyes said she didn’t think so, but she said, “I think that’s a good idea. We won’t talk about it anymore today—unless you decide to run things by me, and then you know I’ll be available.”
He had to smile. “Yes, I know you will. And I appreciate it.” He paused for a moment before adding, “I ran into Jonesy and Bao on my way here. Charlie has been missing since Friday. He was at work the last Bao knew, but the theater is next-door to the Great World, and it took some damage.”
“Oh, no!” Lucy said, her hand coming to her mouth.
“They’re going to the General Hospital now, to see if he’s there. I asked them to call us tonight at Kenny and Abbie’s, and let us know if they find him.”
“Poor Bao,” Lucy said. “Hopefully, Charlie’s not at the hospital.”
“Better there than at the morgue,” Doug muttered.
Lucy fell silent, but her eyes clouded.
Doug gave her a reassuring smile and put her arm through his. “I’m sure he’s fine. Now let’s go, Kenny and Abbie are waiting for us.”
17
Monday, August 16
The intercom on Doug’s desk buzzed that morning shortly after ten o’clock.
“A Mr. Arthur Jones to see you, Commander,” the front desk lieutenant’s voice said. “He says you’re expecting him, but he’s not on the list.”
Doug could hear the faint note of reproach through the pops and hisses of the intercom. “I wasn’t sure when to expect him. I’ll be out in a moment.”
He found Jonesy standing in the atrium, cheeks flushed, fanning himself with his bowler hat.
“Nice digs you have here, Douglas. Excuse me, Commander Bainbridge.” Jonesy’s green eyes twinkled at that. Then he looked around again. “Much nicer than your old place.”
“You haven’t seen my actual office,” Doug deadpanned. He motioned toward the door. “Let’s take a stroll.”
After the door of the naval office closed behind them, Jonesy said, “Before we get to business, I thought you might like to hear what Bao and I found out about Charlie.” Then he opened the door to the building’s stairwell.
Doug stopped, a few steps closer to the elevator than Jonesy had been, and followed him down the stairs. “Did you find him alive?” His heart rose into his throat.
“He’s alive,” Jonesy said, and stopped on the landing between the third floor and the second. “He’s in the intensive care ward at the General Hospital. That was all the charge nurse would tell us, since neither of us are members of his family.”
There was a bite in Jonesy’s voice when he said that last part, and Doug swung from happy surprise that Charlie was alive, to sympathy. “Poor Bao.”
“Fortunately, I know an orderly at the General Hospital; intimately, you might say,” Jonesy added, a certain devilish gleam coming back to his eyes.
Doug’s lips tightened, but he resisted the urge to scowl.
“He told me Charlie was unconscious when he arrived Saturday afternoon. A wall fell on him, and his legs were mangled, beyond repair. They had to amputate both of them mid-thigh. He didn’t wake up until almost noon the next day—not long before Bao and I got there. My friend said Charlie was on morphine for the pain, an
d had gone back to sleep. He’d lost a lot of blood, but they think he’ll probably live. Of course, they wouldn’t let Bao in to see him, no matter what we said. Family only, you know.”
“Could your...friend sneak Bao in?” Doug asked.
Jonesy shook his head. “I asked. He said it was too risky. They’d get caught too easily, and he can’t afford to lose his job. He’s got a wife and kids to support.”
Doug closed his eyes momentarily, and willed himself to ignore that detail. “What did you learn about our other inquiry?”
“I got the list of names out of the Times’ archive,” Jonesy said, slipping a hand inside his jacket and removing a folded paper that he handed to Doug. “And I did a little leg work, asked a few questions of the dollar girls at the Majestic last night. I circled your man’s name.”
Doug was already scanning the list, past the names of his own crew members. Circled in blue ink near the bottom of the list was the name “Enzo Iannucci, Seaman, Royal Italian Navy.”
“And according to the gals at the Majestic,” Jonesy continued with a gleam in his eye, “this ain’t the first fight he’s started, though they took the other ones outside. Seems he don’t like Americans too much.” He took a cigar from inside his jacket, put it in his mouth, and struck a match.
Doug took a second to let that sink in. “But that doesn’t mean he’s capable of premeditated murder,” he said, mostly to himself.
“You know better than to make assumptions like that, Douglas,” Jonesy said, puffing smoke and shaking his head. “Hot heads can still plan revenge. And are you really sure it was premeditated?”
Doug frowned. Not one hundred percent sure, maybe, but sure enough. “If this Enzo Iannucci did it, it would have been premeditated,” he said, not succeeding in keeping the defensiveness from his tone. “It’s a little too incredible that he would happen to run into Nick Bonadio out of the blue. Especially near the battle zone. Even if the body was moved there, it couldn’t have been moved too far without someone seeing.”
“Excellent point, but don’t rule him out just yet. He could have spotted Bonadio at a club, and followed him. That’s not so incredible, is it?”
Doug sighed. Of course Jonesy was right. Damn it. “I’ve got to get back to work. Thanks, Jonesy. I owe you one.”
“Tease,” Jonesy said, a devilish gleam in his eye.
Momentarily speechless, Doug could only watch Jonesy wink as he turned away and left. Five seconds too late, he finally thought of the retort he should have said. “A professional favor, Jonesy,” he muttered to himself.
**
Doug spent more time than he cared to drafting and rewriting the cable he needed to send to the law office at Asiatic Fleet Headquarters in Manila. He read through his latest draft for the third time, sighed, and then bolted from his chair before he was tempted to change anything again.
He went to the squadron office’s little wireless telegraph room—not much bigger than a closet, really—and found Petty Officer Justin Hahn at the controls.
“Good morning, sir,” Hahn said. “Where to?”
“HQ in Manila. But I need to send this one myself.”
It wasn’t unusual for him to have to send a message himself, given the nature of his role, but he’d never done that from the squadron’s office in Shanghai. He felt the need to explain, and added, “It’s classified.” Not exactly true, but it got the message across.
“Understood, sir,” Hahn said, set the machine to transmit, and dialed in the frequency for Headquarters. He removed the headset and stepped out. “I’ll be right outside, sir.”
Doug put on the headset, and adjusted the dial from the main frequency for Headquarters, to the unpublished frequency of the law office there. Then he tapped out a greeting and waited.
It was more than a full minute before someone replied with the all-clear to proceed. There were only two lawyers attached to the Asiatic Fleet, and Doug had no idea how many staff they had at their office in Manila. He began transmitting:
TO: LAW BUREAU, ASIATIC FLEET HQ
FROM: D BAINBRIDGE, CMDR
CONFIDENTIAL
REQUEST CONSULT RE ALLEGATION OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT ABOARD SHIP
PART OF HOMICIDE INVESTIGATION IN SHANGHAI
PLEASE CALL SHANGHAI OFFICE
SPEAK ONLY TO ME
CONFIRM RECEIPT
Doug was not a fast telegrapher. He’d learned Morse Code five years ago, when he entered ONI, and he’d sent several messages that way over the years. But he’d never had much practice, so he still kept a chart in front of him whenever he had to. It was for confidence as much as anything, since he rarely had to consult it.
By the time he finished transmitting and switched the wireless back to “Receive,” the other end tapped out their acknowledgment within two seconds. No doubt his tapping had been so slow, they’d finished the words before he’d tapped out the last letter.
He removed the headset, reset the frequency dial, and opened the door. He found Petty Officer Hahn standing at the coffee pot behind the front desk lieutenant. “All yours, Hahn,” he said with his usual friendly tone, rather than the crisply martial manner that everyone else in this office used.
He’d only been back at his desk a few minutes when the front desk lieutenant knocked on his open door. “A cable just arrived for you, Commander. From fleet HQ.” He handed Doug a perforated slip of paper.
TO: D BAINBRIDGE, CMDR
FROM: LAW BUREAU ASIATIC FLEET HQ
CONFIDENTIAL
WILL CALL 1300 FOR CONSULT
Doug checked the clock. Manila was an hour ahead of Shanghai, so they would call him at noon—less than a half-hour from now. Why so fast?
He spent the next twenty minutes rehearsing what he wanted to say.
**
His intercom buzzed at precisely one o’clock. “Call from fleet HQ for you, Commander Bainbridge,” the front desk lieutenant’s voice crackled. Doug told him to put it through, and his phone rang a few seconds later.
“Bainbridge here.” The line cracked and hissed even more than the office intercom, from the shortwave connection between the Philippine Islands and China.
“Bainbridge, I’m Commander Vincent Manning, from Asiatic Fleet HQ. I’m one of the attorneys attached to the fleet, and I’ll be the one prosecuting any murder charge arising from your investigation into the death of Seaman Bonadio.” He paused a second, and his voice, which had been formal and polite before, now became gruff. “What’s this about allegation of sexual misconduct aboard a ship, and why is it important to this homicide?”
Doug took a breath, and launched into the little speech he’d prepared. “During my investigation, it came to light that one of the officers on the Valparaiso was allegedly discovered by an enlisted man having inappropriate sexual contact with other enlisted men on the ship. The—”
“Stop right there,” Manning interrupted, his tone more than a little brusque. “I know you’re new to shipboard work, Bainbridge, so let me explain something. We don’t want to get involved in this kind of allegation, unless it becomes a disruption to the ship’s operations. It’s almost impossible to prove, and all too easy for baseless claims to be made against someone because of assumption. There’s a reason the Navy took out all references to sodomy from the Articles for Government.”
Doug had a passing familiarity with the Articles for the Government of the United States Navy, having been present twice for their monthly reading since being attached to the Valparaiso. While it was true that the code said nothing about sodomy, fornication, or sexual conduct specifically, there were still references to “immoral practices” and “scandalous conduct” being prohibited. And punishable.
He took a breath and ignored Manning’s interruption. “The one who made the discovery, and raised the allegation to the ship’s commanding officer, was Seaman Second Class Nicholas Bonadio, the one who was killed.” He paused to let that sink in.
“Christ,” Doug thought he heard Manning
mutter on the other end of the line, but quiet enough that the hiss of the shortwave connection obscured it. Good thing, since profanity was also prohibited by the Articles.
“I have no other reason to suspect this officer in the death of Seaman Bonadio,” Doug continued. “Which is why I need to know what penalty this officer might face if the allegations had been made public.”
A heavy sigh from Manning came over loud and clear. “Well, as I said, this sort of thing is difficult to prove. Unless there are multiple witnesses, or a superior officer catches the offenders red-handed, it’s usually one person’s word against another’s—and we wouldn’t even bother requesting a general court-martial for that. If it were only a pair of enlisted men, then the ship’s commanding officer might decide to call a summary court-martial aboard ship to hear statements—but I don’t have to tell you that if an officer is involved in the misconduct, summary court-martial’s not an option for him.”
Doug was a little surprised to find himself relieved to hear this. If Ensign Farnsworth had little to fear from Bonadio, then he had no motive to kill him. Still, Doug needed more before he could cross him off the list of suspects.
“But if enough evidence were found to request a general court-martial, and the charge went to trial—what penalty would the officer face if convicted?”
The line was silent for several seconds, save for the continual hiss and pops. Finally, Manning said, “Assuming multiple witnesses came forward with credible testimony, including witnessing the accused officer in the act of...oral or anal intercourse...” Manning cleared his throat loudly. “...then the officer might be sentenced to prison time, and dismissal from naval service. And in the instance of an officer engaging in such behavior with an enlisted man, the court would consider possible coercion as a factor in its decision.”
Doug’s heart felt heavy. “If the initial investigation by the ship’s commanding officer turned up no other evidence, and then the accuser was killed—would you agree this would be a credible motive for murder by the accused officer?”
“That would be possible to bring before a court-martial as motive, yes.”
No Accidental Death Page 17