Burden of Proof

by John G. Hemry

  Kilgary followed Paul's gaze. "Probably just a loose screw dislodged by the vibration of us walking past. Contractors tend to leave screws lying around."

  "Yeah. Probably." But he was grateful when they'd left the compartment behind. There are too many ghosts on this ship for my comfort.

  And there it sat. A week later, Paul was still trying to put the pieces together. Who can I talk to about this? Sharpe and I have gone over it time and again and can't find anything else. Jen'd be great, but she won't be back for another two months. And I can't just blab about this to any of the other junior officers. Who's that leave?

  Put that way, the answer was easy.

  "Commander Sykes, sir? Can I talk to you in confidence?"

  Sykes raised his eyebrows in apparent surprise. "Not just 'Suppo,' eh? I'm 'Commander Sykes.' This must be quite serious."

  "I can't talk to you unless you promise to keep it confidential, sir."

  "My dear boy, I'd be happy to so promise, but you understand if the talk involves issues of criminal acts I won't necessarily feel bound by such a promise."

  "I understand." Paul sat close to Sykes. "Sir, here's the problem." He outlined events as concisely as he could. "And that's where it sits. Somebody wiped the logs on purpose. Chief Asher could've been working on the power transfer junction, but only if he'd gone against grain and shut off the interlocks, and there's no indication anything was wrong with the power transfer junction to begin with."

  "Hmmm." Sykes sat silent for a few minutes. "This is an ill matter, Mr. Sinclair. Are you thinking someone may have killed Chief Asher deliberately?"

  "No, sir. Petty Officer Sharpe says the investigators would've been certain to have found any trace of a bomb. They didn't find pieces of anything that didn't belong in Forward Engineering."

  "Then apparently he was working on that power whatsit."

  "It wasn't broken, Suppo."

  Sykes smiled sadly. "Ah, youth. It wasn't officially broken. But was it actually broken? There's a difference."

  Paul let that thought sink in. "Maybe the power transfer junction had gone on the blink and nobody'd been told?"

  "It happens, lad. Equipment casualty reports are regarded by some officers as signs of shame, or more often they hope to get the equipment repaired so quickly they feel no need to file the necessary reports. The result is the same. Officially, it's fine. In practice, it's not."

  "But if there had been a problem with that piece of equipment, surely Chief Asher wouldn't be the only one who'd have known."

  Sykes gave another sad smile. "That is certainly correct."

  "Meaning some of the other engineers aren't talking. But why wouldn't they?"

  "Group silence is usually a form of protection."

  "Who'd they be protecting, Suppo?"

  "Perhaps themselves. Perhaps the dead."

  Paul stared at Sykes, mentally upbraiding himself. Of course. If Chief Asher had done all that stuff, he'd be guilty of criminal misconduct. I don't know if or how that'd affect Navy death benefits for him and his family, and I bet the rest of the engineers don't know either. "Thanks."

  "One more thing, Paul." Sykes rubbed his chin, his brow furrowed in thought. "Something is missing."

  "What's that?"

  "If our Chief was repairing that equipment, where is the replacement part? And where did he get it? And, for that matter, how? My own departmental records would've shown if it'd been drawn from our stocks."

  "And they don't?"

  "Not to my imperfect knowledge." Sykes sat quiet for a while. "I would recommend, Mr. Sinclair, that you enlist the aid of Mike Bristol in this."

  "Sir, Mike's a friend of mine, but he's not nearly as experienced as you are."

  "That's precisely the point, Paul. I want Mike to gain such experience, and the only way to do so is to give him opportunities like this one. You can count on him to keep your investigation secret."

  "Yes, sir. I'll do that. Thanks for the advice, sir."

  "Not at all. Visit my figurative mountaintop whenever you are in need of wisdom."

  Paul smiled and left. I'll find Mike Bristol and - Commander Garcia came down the passageway, his eyes on Paul, his ill-humor readily apparent. Oh, gawd. What'd I do or not do?

  "Sinclair." Commander Garcia used one finger to almost pin Paul to the bulkhead. "What's this I hear about you asking questions about the fire, Sinclair?"

  "Sir, I -"

  "Drop it, Sinclair. It's over."

  "Sir - "

  "Look, I understand you feel like you've been screwed. We've all been there, Sinclair. I've been screwed by the Navy so many times I feel like a cheap hooker in a port town. Trying to stir up things isn't going to make it better. It's just going to keep attracting attention to you. Bad attention. That's no good for you and it sure as hell isn't good for me. Drop it."

  Paul nodded to buy himself time to get a word in. "I understand, sir. Sir, I have orders."

  "Yeah, and I gave 'em to you."

  "No, sir. The captain."

  Garcia's eyes narrowed. "He told you to keep looking into this."

  "Yes, sir. He said you should talk to him, sir."

  "What's up, Sinclair? What the hell are you doing?"

  How do I answer that in a way that won't tell Garcia more than Hayes might want and also keep Garcia from ripping my throat out? "Following orders, sir."

  Garcia's face reddened. Paul could almost see the internal struggle going on. On the one hand, Garcia didn't like having secrets kept from him by his subordinates, especially secrets that might cause him trouble. On the other, if Paul had been told by the captain not to discuss his orders, then any attempt by Garcia to browbeat Paul into talking anyway could get Garcia into big trouble with the captain.

  Commander Garcia took a half-step back, his finger still pointed at Paul. "You'd better be telling the truth, Sinclair. Because I'm going to see the captain."

  "Yes, sir." Another searching gaze, then Garcia shook his head with a grimace and stalked off in the direction of the captain's cabin. Paul watched him leave. I'll give Garcia credit. He really tried to give me the best advice he could. Paul started to move on, then stopped and frowned. Who told Garcia I was asking questions? It was probably Sam Yarrow up to his usual tricks, but what if it was somebody else?

  Mike Bristol reacted to Paul's story with a dropped jaw. "Are you serious?"

  "Yeah. How can you help me run down this question of whether or not that power transfer junction was busted?"

  "Paul, if Commander Sykes finds out -"

  "He's the one who sent me to you."

  "Really?" Bristol chuckled. "That old schemer. I guess he wants me to learn the tools of the trade. As he practices it, anyway. Okay, the simplest thing to do is check our own supply records. We'll see if any parts for that equipment got pulled just before the accident." He faced his terminal and typed rapidly. "I can do all that from here." More typing, Paul catching sideways glimpses of data screens flashing by. "Oh. That's interesting."

  "What?" Paul craned his head to see, but couldn't interpret the columns of codes.

  "This here. That's labeled as a critical part for the power transfer junctions. But we don't carry it onboard usually because the failure rate's so low."

  "That's crazy, Mike. What happens if it fails anyway while we're out in the middle of nowhere?"

  "Ask the snipes. Is that the only power transfer gizmo on the ship?"

  Paul thought for a moment. "No. There's one in After Engineering, too."

  "That's probably it, then. The ship can probably operate on one of those things. If something's extra expensive or in extra-short supply we often don't carry it onboard as long as the safety margin's okay. That kind of decision is way above my paygrade, of course. Anyway, here's the interesting bit." Mike Bristol's finger pointed to one code element. "This says that Friday, the day before the accident, was the last time someone queried the system about the availability of that part."

  "That is interesting."


  "But, like I said, we don't carry it, so the system told them they'd have to requisition it from the station spare part stocks."

  "Did they?"

  "No."

  Paul peered at the lines of supply system codes as if that would help him understand them. "Why not?"

  "Let's see. Ah, estimated delivery date from the station would've been sometime the next week."

  "We were due to get underway for drills on that Monday."

  "We were, weren't we?"

  "Yeah. Having Forward Engineering gutted by the fire made sure that didn't happen. But that means they wouldn't have gotten that part before we got underway, and I'm willing to bet that even though the Merry Mike can run on one power transfer junction that there's limits on what we can do. That means they would've had to have told someone the thing was broken. And until we had the part, we probably couldn't have gotten underway."

  Mike Bristol looked alarmed. "That's very bad. People get really upset when that happens."

  "That's putting it mildly. Could Chief Asher have been trying to repair the busted part?"

  "Not according to these records. They say the part is a sealed black box. Fixing something broken inside is beyond anything this ship can do."

  Paul leaned back and pressed his hands against his temples. "Then what was Chief Asher doing?"

  "Well . . ."

  "Tell me, Mike."

  "Uh, well, you see, there's official requisitions, and then there's, uh, unofficial requisitions."

  "What's that mean?"

  "It means somebody might've gotten that part from station stocks. On Friday. They're not open Saturday or Sunday, unless the station authorities authorize an emergency parts draw. And believe me, we'd know if that'd happened."

  Paul nodded, trying not to get his hopes too high. "Can we find out? About Friday?"

  "We can try." Mike Bristol stood. "Want to take a walk?"

  Reaching the station supply office was inconvenient, naturally, and there was a long line of personnel waiting for parts, also naturally. Paul and Mike Bristol waited as the line inched forward and each successive petitioner begged and pleaded with various degrees of success for the part they absolutely, positively had to have at that very moment.

  The office was about to close when Mike and Paul finally reached the front of the line. "Hi. Lieutenant Mike Bristol, from the Michaelson."

  The supply corps lieutenant and petty officer crewing the desk eyed him warily, their gazes finally resting on Bristol's own supply corps insignia before the lieutenant nodded. "Office hours are about over."

  "Yeah, I know. I really appreciate you looking into this." Bristol leaned close, speaking in a low voice. "We had a line officer mess up. I'm trying to clean up the mess. You know?" Both Supply types nodded sympathetically and gave Paul looks which meant they thought he was the line officer in question. "I just need to know if a part was drawn from here for the ship. Otherwise my CCAB and HGF will be rejected by the CFSS, and you know what kind of a pain that is." Another pair of nods. Mike proffered the part number. "Just a quick check?"

  "Okay. We can do that." The lieutenant ran the number quickly, then nodded. "Yeah. That part got drawn by an officer from the USS Michaelson on, uh, 18 September."

  Paul felt like his heart had stopped. "Do you have the officer's name?"

  The supply lieutenant gave Paul an annoyed look. "As if I could forget the guy. Showed up just before closing with a real sob story. I still don't know how he talked me into providing that part." She pointed to her terminal. "The guy's name was Silver. Lieutenant."

  Mike Bristol walked silently alongside Paul most of the way back to the Michaelson, finally blurting out a question when they were not far from the ship. "What're you going to do?"

  "See what I've got."

  "It looks like you've got plenty."

  "No. It's all circumstantial evidence."

  "I've heard that term. What exactly does it mean?"

  Paul shrugged, feeling irritated, but knowing he felt that way not because of Mike's questions but because of the obstacles he still faced. "Basically, it means somebody could have done something, but doesn't prove they did do it. Like if a house gets robbed, and I prove you were seen standing outside the house, and that you were wearing shoes that would've left the same footprints in the mud outside the window where the break-in occurred. But I don't have any fingerprints of yours from inside the house and I haven't found any of the stolen stuff on you."

  "Oh." Bristol thought for a moment. "Then everything you have so far just says Silver might have been responsible for what happened, but none of it proves he was responsible?"

  "Bingo."

  "Which makes it what?"

  "A judgment call."

  "What'll it take to make up your mind on it? To make you sure enough to tell the captain one way or the other?"

  Paul stopped walking just short of the Michaelson's brow. "Maybe just one more thing."

  Bristol hastened off to check on his own duties, while Paul went up to Combat to make sure no crisis had suddenly erupted there, then headed back to his stateroom. Partway there, he encountered Commander Garcia again.

  Garcia stared at Paul, then shook his head. "You're an idiot. You know that, Sinclair? You should've let it rest."

  Not knowing how to reply, Paul stood silently.

  Garcia turned away. "Just don't make me look bad. Understand?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Paul got back to his stateroom, paged Sharpe, and filled him in on the part. "I need you to get to those snipes who worked for Chief Asher. They must have known something about the problem with the power transfer junction. Now that we have something specific to ask about, maybe one of them will spill their guts. And make sure you tell anyone you talk to about something that I checked on. There are no determinations of misconduct made when a servicemember dies in the line of duty."

  Sharpe looked happier than Paul had seen him in weeks. "Will do, sir."

  "One other thing. Have you found anybody yet who saw Lieutenant Silver around the time the engineering logs were hacked?"

  "No, sir. Not any enlisted, anyway. Maybe an officer . . ."

  "Do you think anything known to the officers onboard remains unknown in chief's quarters? Get on those snipes, Sheriff. I want to know what answers they'll give this time."

  Paul dodged out of dinner as quickly as he could, wondering if he was just imagining the funny looks he was getting from the other junior officers. Garcia knew I was doing something. How many other people heard? I know why Mike Bristol's acting a little weird, but the others . . .

  Sheriff Ivan Sharpe awaited him outside of his stateroom, a nasty smile on his face. "I just had a long talk with Petty Officer Third Class Valyati."

  "I take it he's a snipe in Lieutenant Silver's division?"

  "Yep. And guess what?"

  "At this point I don't dare guess."

  "It seems the day after the accident, Lieutenant Silver had a talk with the sailors in his division. Mr. Silver told them he was really worried about what might happen to Chief Asher's family if anybody thought the Chief'd done anything wrong that might've caused the explosion."

  Paul held his breath. "That's interesting."

  "Isn't it? As best Valyati remembers, Mr. Silver never told them not to speak freely to the investigators, but he really laid it on about how that could hurt Chief Asher's family. Would you care to guess what the sailors concluded?"

  "Not to talk about what really happened. Did they know there was something wrong with the power transfer junction in Forward Engineering?"

  Sharpe's smile widened, not in humor but like a wolf baring its teeth. "Yes, sir. Valyati said he'd heard Chief Asher had wanted to report it with a casualty equipment report, but Mr. Silver wouldn't let him."

  "That's hearsay, Sheriff. Somebody saying they heard someone said something isn't admissible as evidence."

  "I know that, sir. But Valyati knows from first-hand knowledge that the ju
nction had been going bad for a while. They were expecting it to fail."

  "So it should've already been replaced. But the casualty reporting system never got notified that a spare was needed. Instead, Lieutenant Silver pays a frantic visit to the station supply depot late Friday afternoon and begs a replacement from them. Saturday, Chief Asher's really unhappy. A few hours later, the power transfer junction blows up, killing Chief Asher. Soon after that, engineering's logs are messed up, during a time period when nobody can locate Lieutenant Silver's whereabouts. The next day, Silver convinces his troops not to talk to the investigators."

  "That sums it up, sir."

  Paul slammed his fist onto his desktop. "Damn! It's all circumstantial, Sheriff. We don't have one piece of evidence that directly ties Lieutenant Silver to what happened."

  "Sir, will all due respect, this is plenty to go on. We can nail this guy."

  "No, Sheriff. Look, I know, you're a cop. To you this is open and shut. But we don't need to convince a bunch of cops this is good enough."

  "Sir, guilty is guilty. When you know a dirtball's done something, you hammer him. Or her. You don't let them get away because you're worried the evidence might not be good enough."

  Paul gazed back at Sharpe. Now, this is hard. I respect Sharpe as a petty officer and I respect his knowledge as a master-at-arms. And he's been working in law enforcement since I was in high school. But I have to tell him he's wrong. "Look, Sheriff, you're a damn good master-at-arms, but I've already figured out the attitude that comes with that. If the guy wasn't guilty in the first place, why is he a suspect? Cops tend to identify someone as a suspect and then go after that guy hard. Right? Don't look all offended. You and I both know you're a great cop. But this isn't about what you believe, or what I believe. We need to convince the captain, and then a military judge and maybe a panel of officer members of a court-martial, that the son of Admiral Silver is such a rotten officer he caused the death of one his sailors, then covered it up. I know you know that. Getting Lieutenant Silver charged might sound real great, but it won't mean a thing if the charges get tossed out. We have to be sure we're doing this right. So we can get a conviction."