Official Privilege

by P. T. Deutermann

  Dan was getting a little tired of all the fanging. He could just imagine the smug look on the Navbase EA’s face about now.

  “Well, sir, as Oh-six explained it, the Vice CNO wants it done that way.

  I guess all I can suggest at this juncture is that you call—”

  “Don’t be impertinent, Commander. You know damn well I’m not going to call a four-star and ask him anything of the sort. But if you want to succeed in this investigation, I suggest you don’t come in here like some Washington hotshot and start throwing your weight around. I can make life very difficult for you, young man.”

  “Yes, sir. Aye, aye, sir,” Dan intoned dutifully.

  “That’s better. That’s the first correct thing I’ve heard you say. Now, I want you at that press conference this afternoon.”

  “Admiral, I can’t do that.”

  There was a moment of silence, then he heard Mcgonagle’s voice in the background ask why not.

  “Because I’ve been ordered not to by …” He hesitated for a split second. Here was an admiral who wanted him at the press conference, but it was only a captain, the EA, who had told him not to go. But he’d used that royal we—did the EA speak for 06? 06B?

  And if Comnavbase pulled the string, would the EA back him up? “The DCNO, OP-Oh-six. Vice Admiral Layman,” he finished.

  There was silence on the other line, which he rushed to fill.

  “Apparently under the theory that if I’m identified but not actually there, the PAO can’t tell them any more than the bare facts.”

  He thought he heard Mcgonagle say, “Thanks a heap, Commander” before the speakerphone was muted on the other end. Dan waited. Finally, the admiral came back on, his voice a little less angry.

  “Okay. I think I’m beginning to get the picture here, and I guess I do need to make some calls. What’s the EA’s name in Oh-six?”

  “Captain Manning, Admiral.”

  “All right. I want you to check in with my office at the end of each day that you’re here. No more surprises.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Dan said, and the connection was broken. Goddamned EAs, he thought. That little lieutenant commander had gone in there and told his mommy about the not-nice commander up from Opnav. He wondered if he ought to call Manning and tell him what he’d said about Admiral Layman ordering him away from the media. Screw it—he’d see what Manning did with it. Grace came back in.

  “Any luck?” he asked.

  “Only sort of. The medical examiner’s office was underwhelmed with all my federal-case talk. They say that they work each homicide case in the order they come in, which probably means they’ll get to it when they get to it. But they also said that the autopsies with a homicide tag are usually done within a day of receipt, so it won’t be that long. The forensic investigator I talked to said that they had looked at the body and concluded that it will keep. I think that was a joke, by the way.”

  “Right, morgue humor. Okay, well, I just got my ass chewed by Comnavbase himself for operating on his turf without making the appropriate obesiances. Hopefully, the Oh-six EA will run top cover for me.”

  Grace pushed the door shut. “My headquarters may have had a hand in that. Robby Booker said something yesterday that didn’t compute until just now, something about NIS Washington calling the base commander. If Roscoe Ames did that, your investigation would not have been presented in the best of lights.”

  ~Vk - S:’p>

  “Wow. You mean they already knew? Turf uber alles, hunh? Do you get the feeling that the brass doesn’t give a shit about who murdered this guy?”

  Grace shrugged. “From what I’ve seen, the Washington right answer to that question is that there will always be murders to solve, but when an organization’s power, authority, or budget is threatened, that takes first precedence. Always.”

  Dan leaned back in his chair. She was probably absolutely correct. There was a knock on the door, and Santini stuck his head in.

  “Commander, there’s some guy from Channel Six news on the horn. Wants to talk about you know what.”

  “How in the hell did he get this number?”

  “He says Comnavbase public affairs office gave it to him.” Santini was trying hard not to smile.

  “Tell him that the Navy will have a statement to make at fifteen hundred today and that he should contact the base PAO for details. I’m not talking to any press weenies, period.”

  “You got it,” Santini said, not bothering to hide his amusement now. He backed out and closed the door.

  “Those sons a bitches,” Dan began.

  “The press?”

  “No, the Navbase. They’re mad at me for being here, so they sic the media on me.”

  “So, turn it around.”

  “Hunh?”

  “Call the Navbase EA and tell him to knock it off or you will talk to the press and make Navbase look like a bunch of anally oriented individuals. Say you’ll tell the next reporter who calls in the reason you’re here is that Navbase is so screwed up, Washington had to send somebody in to unscrew it.”

  Dan looked at her with fresh admiration. “I like the way you think,” he said. “But getting embroiled in turf fights won’t do anything for the investigation—much as I’d love to do that.”

  “Okay.” She sighed. “It was just a thought. So what do we do now?”

  “We wait. Santini is supposedly developing back ground data on the kid’s disappearance, if there is any.

  Bupers will have a CACO in motion pretty soon and is trying to dynamite the guy’s records out of the St. Louis depository. The corpse rangers downtown will get to the autopsy when they get to it, apparently. The base PAO has a press conference set up for fifteen hundred.

  I need to sit down and write up what’s gone on so far, but if you can think of something we ought to be doing —”

  “Well, the only thing that’s nagging at my mind is the battleship. Who would have access to the interior of that ship? I mean, not just anybody can go in there, right? They need access, breathing rigs, somebody who’s aware that they’re down inside that thing in a lethal atmosphere, in case they don’t come back on time.”

  Dan was nodding his head. “Which would indicate that whoever planted the body knew how to do all that.”

  “Perhaps. Or a least they had some help from the people who do that on a regular basis.”

  “That’s the shipyard. I guess we can go talk to someone in the yard, see how all that works. It’ll get us out of here, at any rate.”

  “Maybe that ship’s superintendent, Lieutenant Gravely, can help us out.”

  It took them an hour and a half to locate the ship’s superintendent for USS Wisconsin. The production shop’s administrative staff had informed them that the lieutenant was ship’s supe on three current overhauls in addition to his duties of supervising the caretaking of the battleship.

  They tracked him down finally aboard a wooden-hulled minesweeper in Dry Dock Four that was being prepared for decommissioning and layup. The ship’s supe was not terribly informative. He told them that Shop 72, the riggers, had responsibility for monitoring the mothballed ships, especially the bigger ships on deep-nitrogen layup. Shop 72 had responsibility for pier-to-hull connections and for providing all rigging services within the yard—rigging meaning physical lifting, palletizing, crane service, forklifts, and gas-free engineering. It was the latter responsibility that was pertinent, in that Shop 72 maintained the breathing rigs for sounding-and-security personnel going inside the ships where there was no breathable atmosphere.

  “So if you want to know about getting into Wisconsin, it would have to be the riggers, and I have to tell you, that’s a pretty closed gang.

  They’re like roustabouts or stevedores: They have a tough, physical, generally low skilled job to do, so the kinds of guys they get tend to match that description. And you’re talking about something that probably happened a couple of years ago.

  Most of the rigger crews have turned over a couple
of times in that long a time.”

  Dan thanked him but decided to go talk to the Shop 72 foremen, anyway.

  If nothing else, he could put in his report that he had followed the lead as far as it went.

  They walked through the industrial area to the offices of Shop 72. When they arrived, it became obvious that someone had made a call, because the Shop 72 group superintendent, the boss of bosses, had nothing of substance to say to them. According to him, the security practices with respect to the mothballed ships were entirely adequate and there was no way somebody could just get aboard one of those ships, much less inside.

  “But somebody did,” Dan pointed out.

  “I don’t know anything about that, and I’m sure no one here does, either. It had to be somebody from the outside; my riggers wouldn’t do that kind of thing.

  That’s all I can tell you, Commander. And if you talk to any of the riggers, that’s all they can tell you, too.”

  “In other words,” Dan said to Grace as they left the office, “Don’t go talking to my people, because I’ve told my people not to talk to you.”

  “That was a pretty good armadillo act,” Grace agreed.

  They stopped off at one of the shop canteens before going back to the NIS office. The canteen was squeezed into a questionably clean corner room of a warehouse.

  It had fly-specked screened windows, a single counter, a noisy, grease-covered exhaust fan, a respectable population of flies and bees patrolling two overflowing trash cans, and an extremely obese counterman decked out in catsup-stained whites. It was almost 2:30 p. m., and Dan was not anxious to return to the office, lest there be another summons from Navbase to attend the press conference. Figuring that if it came out of boiling water, it ought not to make them too sick, they both ordered a hot dog.

  They went outside to eat their hot dogs, batting away the swarming yellow jackets. As they were searching for napkins, a long-haired, pimply-faced young man sidled up to the canteen door. He was wearing the yellow hard hat of the rigger force, with a large X-72 stenciled on the front. He looked Grace over and then went inside and bought a hot dog with everything and a Coke. He came back out and stood next to an overflowing trash basket while he stuffed his face, giving Grace another once-over in the process. She was, as usual, wearing relatively shapeless clothing: loose wool slacks, a sweater, with a blouse underneath, and comfortable shoes. Dan had shifted from dress blues to working blues: black trousers and a long-sleeved black shirt with a black tie and his commander’s silver oak leaves on the collar points.

  They both wore white plastic hard hats because they were in the industrial area.

  When the rigger was finished, he crumpled up the debris into the trash basket and, after looking both ways, said something to Dan.

  “What’s that?” Dan asked, shaking a mustard-covered bee off his hand.

  “I said, ‘Yo.’ You the guys wanna know something’ ‘bout the stiff in the Wo-Wo?”

  Wo-Wo, Dan thought. Ah, Wisconsin. “That’s right.

  I’m Commander Collins.”

  The boy sidled over to them, again staring at Grace as if trying to decide whether or not she was a woman who merited further attention. He looked around again, as if to see who might be watching, then turned back to Collins, ignoring Grace now.

  “You guys need to talk to old Brannie Gutowski. He useta be a head rigger here, coupla years back. Hangs out over at Mcgurn’s gin mill, over there on Fifteenth
  V”>.p>

  and Porter, near the Diablo Club. He’s retired, on ac counta his drinkin’, but he’s a guy. Anybody knows what went down with that dead guy got dug up in the We-We , Ski’s your guy; check it out, man.”

  “I will. Thanks for the tip.” Dan wanted to ask the boy some questions, but the boy again looked around one more time and then sauntered off.

  “Feel like an adventure?” Dan asked. Grace grimaced but then nodded.

  they came our of the industrial area right at 3:00 p.m. and walked up toward the main gate along the extension of Philadelphia’s Broad Street on the naval station.

  Grace pointed out not. one but two television vans parked in front of the administration building as they passed by, and they both quickened their step. Dan thought fleetingly about how Mcgonagle was doing in there. They found a cab out by the main gate and told the driver the destination. The driver turned around and looked at both of them, shook his head, and pulled away from the curb. Dan wondered what they were getting into but did not share his apprehensions with Grace. After a ten-block ride, they turned left onto Porter Street for three blocks, then did a midblock U-turn that elicited a small gasp from Grace. The cab pulled up in front of a seedy-looking place with a dirty neon sign proclaiming it as Mcgurn’s Bar and Grill. The front window was tinted black and was so dirty, it did not even reflect the weak red neon sign above it. Dan paid the cabbie and they got out went into the bar.

  The interior was about what Dan expected: one long, narrow room with a bar and stools on the right and some dilapidated booths on the left.

  There was a row of low-wattage yellow light fixtures running down above the booths, and a single fan in the overhead stirring the stink of old beer and cigarette smoke. The floor appeared to be some kind of very old linoleum. Behind the bar were glass shelves containing the heavenly host of assorted rotguts stacked up against a large mirror.

  Mercifully, the place was empty, except for a surly-looking bartender and a solitary white man sitting on the last stool, closest to a television that was playing soundlessly above their heads.

  “Almost heaven,” muttered Grace.

  “Bet that’s our guy,” Dan said, and walked down toward the end of the bar.

  The bartender gave them a quick glance, then turned his back on them, picking up a glass and wiping it deliberately.

  He apparently knew heat when he saw it. Dan was suddenly conscious of his uniform as he focused on the lumpy man at the end of the bar. The man was in his sixties, pendulously fat, with a round red face, a fringe of white hair around an extensive bald spot, a bulbous red nose, and a vacant expression that he had focused somewhere about a half a mile into the mirror behind the bar. Dan concluded that he was indeed one of the fixtures, given his posture on the stool.

  “Excuse me, are you Mr. Brannie Gutowski?” Dan asked.

  The fat man did not acknowledge the question, except to hunch farther down on his bar stool, clutching the almost-empty glass of beer in his hands. When he did not reply, Grace stepped around Dan, flipped open her NIS credentials, and shoved them into the fat man’s face.

  “We’re federal police officers,” she announced. “Are you Brannie Gutowski?”

  The bartender spat dramatically on the floor behind the bar but kept his back turned. The fat man finally acknowledged them.

  “Yeah, so what if I am?”

  Dan stepped in. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about something that happened in the yard a couple years back.”

  “I’m retired, for Chrissakes,” Gutowski complained.

  “I don’t remember shit about the god damned yard, so whyn’t ya jist leave me the hell alone.”

  “We will,” Dan said. “Just as soon as you answer a K.#

  couple of questions for us. This won’t be hard or even complicated. I’ll even buy you a beer, how’s that?”

  There was a glint of interest in the fat man’s eyes.

  “Let’s move over here to a booth; that way, we can keep it all nice and private. Bartender, give this man a refill.”

  The bartender turned around and gave them both a sullen look before taking Gutowski’s glass. He refilled it from one of the taps and banged it down on the bar, slopping some foam. As Gutowski reached for the glass, Dan had an idea.

  “Why don’t you sweeten that brew up a little there, bartender. Looks kind of watery to me.”

  The bartender stared at him for a second and then reached for a bottle of gin and a shot glass. He filled the shot glass to the line
and pushed it over toward Gutowski, who grabbed it greedily and slugged it down.

  “One more for the road,” Dan ordered while Grace picked up the glass of beer and moved it over to a booth. Gutowski slugged down the second hit, belched, looked around for the truant beer, and then unlimbered his sagging body off the stool and squeezed himself onto the bench seat of the nearest booth. Dan dropped a ten spot on the bar and sat down opposite the bleary eyed ex-yardbird. Grace stood over Gutowski’s shoulder, between the man and the bartender, who had moved away toward the other end of the bar. Dan lowered his voice.

  “Okay, Mr. Gutowski. Here’s the deal. We’re conducting an investigation into the disappearance of an officer, a supply corps officer, in the shipyard about two years ago. A guy in the yard suggested we come talk to you.”

  Gutowski stared up at Dan, taking in the Navy uniform for the first time.

  “What the hell are you?” he asked, “I’m Commander Collins, from the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, D.C. Miss. Snow here is from a federal criminal investigation service, the NIS. We’re conducting an investigation into the discovery of a body aboard the battleship Wisconsin in the yard.”

  Dan thought he saw a flicker of recognition in the fat man’s eyes. “This body,” Gutowski said. “This the guy gone missin’? The black boy?”

  “We think so, yes. He was an officer in the Navy.”

  “An’ you guys think I done something’?”

  Dan sat back. “No, we don’t. But we understand that the riggers, the Shop Seventy-two guys, are the only ones who can get into a mothballed ship—because of the nitrogen atmosphere. You were a rigger boss then; we’re wondering if you heard anything about this incident.”

  “Nope.” Gutowski stared at Dan, and then there was a hint of a triumphant grin. “But thanks for the booze.”

  Dan stared back at him. Then Grace spoke up from behind Gutowski.

  “Commander, there’s an easier way.”

  Dan didn’t know where she was going with it, but he followed her lead.