Finally, she nodded and stretched out her right hand as if to touch the image, but then she dropped it.
“Yes. That’s my son, Wesley Hardin. God rest his soul.”
The investigator thanked her and turned off the television, nodded at the woman from Grief Assistance Program, and left the room. They then retired to the Grief Assistance Program’s counseling office next door, where Mrs. Hardin was asked if she wanted anything, some coffee, or whatever. She shook her head and sat down carefully on a couch. Grace sat down on the couch next to her, and Dan sat in one of the chairs.
Lieutenant Shea remained standing in the middle of the room, staring at the floor. Dan described the general circumstances of the body’s discovery and then his own tasking with regards to the investigation.
Mrs. Hardin sat silently, and Dan could not tell if she was taking it in or was still in shock from seeing her son.
“Mrs. Hardin,” he finished, “we’re all very sorry for what you’ve had to go through today. I can’t promise you that we’re going to be able to find out what happened, but I can promise you that we’re going to try very hard to find out.”
Mrs. Hardin finally looked over at him, and then she began shaking her head slowly, as if to deny what he had just said.
“No, sir,” she said quietly. Then louder: “No, sir. You were doing all right until you said that. I know. I know that isn’t true. It wasn’t true when Elizabeth died, and it won’t be true now; this I know. My “Lizbeth, she was a lieutenant in the Navy, too. Did you know that?”
“Yes, ma’am. We just found that out today. I guess your family hasn’t had much luck with the Navy.” Even as he said it, he realized how famous he must sound.
“Mrs. Hardin snorted and tossed her head. She fished around in her purse for a handkerchief, which she used to dab at her eyes. When Dan saw that she was crying, he looked over at Grace as if to say, Now what?
“Mrs. Hardin,” Grace said, “we are sorry for your loss, for both your losses. We’re new to this case. We know very little at this point. But Commander Collins here has been appointed by the most senior officers in the Navy to find out what happened here. And if something happened to your daughter that hasn’t been explained, and if it’s related to this case, we will broaden our investigation if we have to.”
Dan was alarmed at Grace’s promise to broaden the investigation. The daughter had died in a traffic accident.
If the D.C. cops hadn’t been able to solve that, there was no way in hell they could do it. But Grace was continuing.
“Mrs. Hardin, your son’s body has been in that ship for nearly two years. We are going to have to reconstruct the last days of his life here in the shipyard to see if we can find out why he was murdered.”
Mrs. Hardin sat up. “Murdered? You say murdered?”
Grace looked up as Dan flushed. He thought someone would have told her.
We just did, dummy.
“Yes, ma’am,” Grace said, her voice steady. “The medical examiner’s report indicates he was hit over the head. We’re surmising that he was then put down in the ship so that his body would never be found. But, yes, someone killed your son. That is why we are not just going to file this case away as another unexplained disappearance.”
Mrs. Hardin stared across the room, her eyes unfocused, her upper body rocking ever so slightly back and forth. It was obvious to Dan that it had never occurred to her that her son had been murdered. He leaned forward in his chair.
“This isn’t the time or place for us to ask you questions, Mrs. Hardin.
Lieutenant Shea here will help you make arrangements to take your son’s body home. But later, after you’ve had some time, we will need to come see you.”
But Mrs. Hardin was shaking her head again. “No,” she said. “No. Lord God knows I’ve had enough of the Navy. Look what it’s done to my children. Done to me.
No. You want to go play detective, you go do it. But you leave me alone.
I’ve had enough pain with the Navy.”
Grace gave Dan a “let’s leave it right there” look, then got up.
“Mrs. Hardin,” she said, “we are very sorry for your loss. Lieutenant Shea and this office will help you with the paperwork. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.”
Mrs. Hardin would not look at them. Dan rose from his chair and followed Grace out of the room, pulling the door to close behind him. Lieutenant Shea, the CACO, came out a moment later.
“What do I do about the reporters, Commander?” she asked.
“Duck ‘em if you can. Maybe see if there’s another exit you can take.
Have the cab meet you in back or something … I don’t know. Commander Mcgonagle is up there now. You might contact the receptionist, see if she can tell you what’s going on. Do whatever Command Mcgonagle recommends. We’re going to find a back door.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Shea said, giving him a less-than-respectful look before going back inside.
The investigator was coming back down the hall, bearing a folder.
“If you have a moment, Commander?” he said.
“Yes, what is it?”
“Normally, we have to have two people to make a formal identification. I understand that this lady is the young man’s mother, but is there anyone else?”
“She flew up from Washington for this,” Dan said. “I don’t think there’s anyone else, certainly not here in Philadelphia, anyway.”
“Can you offer any identification, Commander?”
“Only that he matches the description of an officer who disappeared in the shipyard two years ago, and the name and rank stenciled into his uniform matches Wesley Hardin. We’ll have medical and dental records coming up from the federal archives pretty soon. Can you use those?”
“Yes indeed. We’d appreciate it if you’d make sure we get those. But I think we have enough to release. I’ll go tell Grief Assistance and Mrs.
Hardin’s escort.
Thanks.”
“Is there a way out of the building that avoids the front reception area? There are reporters up there we don’t want to talk to.”
“Yes, sir—go that way, down that hall to the end, then turn right out the door marked fire exit. But call the receptionist up front first so she doesn’t get an alarm on the door. Just dial three-three on any phone.”
They followed his instructions and found themselves in the parking lot behind the medical examiner’s building.
Dan let out a loud exhalation after they were outside.
“Gosh, that was just wonderful,” he said.
Grace looked at the ground. “Thank God they have that Grief Assistance Program; that woman told me Philadelphia is the only city that has one.”
“I feel like a rat, running out like that,” Dan said.
“But I really wanted out of there.”
“That poor woman,” Grace said. “I’m not sure I can blame her.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Both of her children, for Christ’s sake.”
“Do you suppose there’s a connection?”
“Grace, c’mon.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she said with a sigh. The high-rise buildings of downtown Philadelphia were barely visible in the smog haze across the river. “If we’re through here, I think I need a drink.”
on friday morning, Dan called a meeting with Grace, Santini, and Lieutenant Commanders Mcgonagle and Vansladen in the NIS field office conference room.
“Time to recapitulate, I think,” he said. “We now have a reasonably positive ID on the body in the battleship.
We have a preliminary medical examiner’s report that indicates a homicide, with evidence that the victim was hit on the head and otherwise beaten up prior to being taken to the boiler room on the battleship. We also have a forensic opinion that suggests the victim was alive when bolted into that steam drum. The shipyard records indicate that the cold nitrogen atmosphere that actually killed him was injected around seven days after he went
missing.”
“Jesus Christ,” Vansladen said. He had obviously not known about the time lag.
“Yeah,” Dan continued. “We are assuming that the incident happened around two years ago, when the victim was first reported UA. We know that the victim was assigned as the disbursing officer in USS Luce.
There is local press interest, and the potential for national media interest. What we do not have is a motive, or any suspects.”
“And a very cold trail,” offered Santini.
“Very cold indeed,” Dan agreed. “But, to paraphrase John Paul Jones, we’ve just begun to look. Miss. Mcgonagle, what’s the state of play in the press?”
“We’ve had two nights of local news coverage, but no national coverage—yet. So far, they’ve played it pretty straight: facts about the discovery, and today an ID on the body now that next of kin has been notified. No mention of homicide, and no speculation on the fact that a Washington Navy headquarters officer is conducting the investigation.
But it’s only a matter of time.”
Dan nodded and turned to Grace Snow.
“Miss. Snow, I request that you initiate tasking via NIS headquarters to have the Philadelphia NIS field office explore the issue of access to the battleship. I want everyone in Shop Seventy-two who could have had access to that ship interviewed. I want to find out specifically if anyone still working here in the shipyard also had access in 1992 when we think this incident took place. In these interviews, I specifically want their opinions as to how hard it would be for unauthorized personnel to gain access. Mr. Santini, you’re familiar with the facts-versus-opinion methodology of a JAGMAN investigation?”
“Yes,”
Santini said. He did not appear to be overjoyed to hear that tasking was inbound, but Dan was pleased to see that he was taking notes.
“I want you to interview all current riggers, and if you develop leads to former riggers who reasonably can be reached, I want them interviewed, as well. I’m not optimistic we’ll dig up anything, but these are the guys who should have had access to the ship. Some of them were either involved or made it possible for others to put that man in there. The fact that it might have happened before the nitrogen blanket went on actually widens the possible suspect list—no breathing apparatus would have been needed.”
“Current and former employees?” protested Santini.
“That could go on forever.”
“Why don’t we limit it to the time frame of the incident, then,” Grace suggested. Dan assented and then continued.
“And I need the written procedures and requirements for the sounding-and-security watches for the inactive ships—what they are supposed to do and how often. The written procedures will be facts. I also want opinions as to how the system really works—whether or not they do the job, or if they just gun-deck the logs and screw off for a few hours rather than actually go into those ships.”
Santini nodded. “That I can predict—they gun-deck the hell out of it if they’re anything like the rest of the yardbirds here.”
“Yeah, but we would like to have some hard evidence of that,” Dan said.
“That’s a different story,” Santini said. “These guys don’t believe in ratting out.”
“I understand. What I’m hoping for is that a pattern will emerge after you’ve talked to enough of them. For example, it took two years before anyone noticed that a boiler steam drum was buttoned up when it should have been opened. But I don’t want to direct your inquiries into any given right answer.”
“Got it. Miss. Snow, what’s the priority on this tasking visa-vis the rest of the things we’re working up here?”
Grace hesitated. She had no idea of how much backing she would really get from NIS headquarters. “Make it your first priority, Mr. Santini.
I’ll confirm that with Mr. Ames back in Washington.”
“What are your near-term intentions for the investigation, Commander?”
Vansladen asked. “The admiral asked me to find out.”
” ‘Near-term,’ Mr. Vansladen? The investigation is moving to Washington.”
Dan began to relax as he finally exited the construction zones around the airport and pushed the big Suburban southeast along Interstate 95.
To his left, the Delaware River glinted in the midmorning sunlight, the flat surface cut into chevrons of rippling V’s as a big tanker plowed her way down to the sea from the oil refineries upstream.
“That’s better,” he said to Grace. “We’re relatively safe until we get down to the big bridge; then it’s shields-up time again.”
Grace smiled at the Star Trek allusion. “I don’t know why, but I was awfully glad to leave that shipyard,” she said. “It was a pretty depressing place.”
Dan nodded. He knew firsthand the dismay that accompanied taking a ship from the clean ocean to the dismal industrial warrens of South Philadelphia and then having to be a willing accomplice while a bunch of union goons happily tore the ship up under the guise of an overhaul. It was enough to break any sailor’s heart.
Going there to investigate a murder had been even more depressing.
“I can’t stop thinking about Lieutenant Hardin,” she said. “Buried alive inside all that steel.”
“We don’t know that,” Dan said. “That’s still an opinion.”
“Right. One of your famous JAGMAN opinions.”
Dan set the cruise control for sixty-five before replying, conscious that the locals were breezing past him on either side.
“Rightly famous, because it keeps all us boy investigators honest. You can’t go riding your favorite hobbyhorse if the facts aren’t there. And given that there are some fairly serious political games going down on the margins of this investigation, you and I have to be doubly careful to adhere to JAGMAN rules. Triply careful if this thing really hits the media.”
Grace shook her head. “When, not if. And I’m not sure I understand the political issue anymore.”
“Which one—Opnav versus NIS?”
“Yes. Suppose we do untangle this thing, as unlikely as that sounds right now. But suppose we actually find the murderer and can indict: How does that really bear on NIS? Or Opnav? The CNO’s Washington headquarters staff is riot going to go into the business of homicide investigations, is it?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Dan said. “But really senior, permanent civil serpent guys like Ames who run NIS are going to see their independence threatened if outside line officers end up being in charge of high-profile investigations. The civilians in NIS would end up with lofty-sounding titles but no power, and all the rest of the civil serpents would know it. And the line officers wouldn’t have to come from Opnav, you know. In the JAGMAN system, any damn line officer can be put in charge of an investigation. Even me.”
“All right, but how does that bear on what we do?”
“Damn! Look at that idiot. Right when I thought we were safe. Because as we start pulling this onion apart and getting closer to a solution—that is, the Opnav weenie looks like he’s going to pull it off—you might start getting direction from NIS to put diamond dust in the Vaseline.”
Grace was silent for a few minutes. Dan let her think about it. What he hadn’t said was that the same pressures might be laid on him: If they approached success, he was going to be told to ensure that his report made the NIS input look insignificant.
“I won’t do that,” she said finally.
“Do what?”
“Sabotage the investigation. I want to know who did this.”
“Hell, so do I. But sabotage is too strong a word.
They wouldn’t be that overt. They’ll simply start throwing obstacles in the way. Avenues of exploration will be closed off. Field officers like Santini will go armadillo on us. Reports will get lost, or sanitized.
Priorities will change—remember what you told Santini, about top priority? Ames or Englehardt could tell him to forget that. That kind of stuff.”
“I won’t allow it.”
Dan laughed. “Love your spirit,” he said. “But people at our level in government don’t have ‘allow it’ privileges.
If some guy at the ‘assistant secretary of level drops a hint to the organization, be it NIS, the Navy Department, or even Opnav, to stonewall, you can believe that the permanent civil serpents and all the EAs will damn well do it. And be very clever and circumspect about it, too.”
“I’m a OS-fifteen, for Christ’s sake! And stop saying serpent.”
“Sorry about that. Yes, you’re a OS-fifteen—in the career-development business now, as I recall.”
She glared at him for a moment, then turned her head to stare out the window.
“And,” he said more gently, “you’re an ex-political appointee who burrowed in. Grace, the same system that eased you out of SEC and into a late-term political appointment also allowed you to burrow in when everyone else was scrambling to find a job. Somebody did somebody a favor, that’s all. When you turned out not to be brain-dead, the entrenched system quickly got you out of policy and into personnel. In my experience, when the old-timers go to work on you, it’s like getting a sunburn: It feels nice and warm all day, but by sundown you’re dying.”
Grace treated him to ten minutes of silence before finally sighing out loud.
“Shit,” she said.
“Shit, aye,” he agreed.
“And will Opnav indulge in the same kind of games?”
Knew she was smart, he thought. “Absolutely,” he said. “Especially if we start making sense out of this thing. But I’ll tell you what: I’m with you. The thought of that kid being stuffed into a boiler and left to starve to death in the dark is sticking in my craw. I’d like to propose that we stick to our deal back there on Broad Street. You and I play this thing straight—the investigation and what we tell each other—no matter what.”
She nodded. “Yes, no matter what. Although from what you’ve been telling me, I may not appreciate the extent of that ‘what.’ “
“I may not, either.” He sighed. “We’ve got three hours to go. Let’s talk about where to take it from here.”
They reviewed what they knew and what they did not know. Dan thought the next step was obvious: get Har din’s records, see what the fitrep file told them, and then find people who had served with Hardin in Luce— his skipper, his exec, his department head, other officers.
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