Chapter 16

Sergeant De Vinsone proved to be of a much different temperament than Kimo Wu. Where Kimo had seemed warm and friendly, De Vinsone seemed cold and sullen. His intense black eyes had the thousand-yard stare Fay had expected. She felt intimidated.

Sergeant De Vinsone greeted her with a very rigid military salute. Like Simon, it took him some time to relax, even slightly. Her impression of De Vinsone fit the sinister operator she had expected to meet. The new term she had recently learned from Andrew Lawrence, “sweeper,” came to mind—the long hair, the goatee, and the earring gave De Vinsone the air of a buccaneer.

“Sergeant De Vinsone,” Fay began, “I’m investigating the death of a sailor named Paul Charma. Would you mind answering a few questions for me? Off the record.”

A slight grin came to De Vinsone’s lips. “Of course, Lieutenant Commander Green.” De Vinsone spoke with a distinct Jamaican Creole accent.

“If I ask a question you wish not to answer, tell me so. Understood?”

“Understood, ma’am.”

“Sergeant Linn told me he met you and Sergeant Wu at Jillian’s on the night of Paul Charma’s death.”

“That is correct, ma’am. But Simon Linn isn’t about killin’ someone. Not even a phoque.”

De Vinsone’s dark eyes refocused to meet hers. They were intense and piercing—Fay felt goosebumps on her arms and hoped he did not notice. “I hope you meant phoque, the French word for seal, Mr. De Vinsone?” Fay queried.

De Vinsone nodded. “How you feelin’ about this, ma’am?” he said, without emotion or expression.

“I agree with you.” She felt an urge to look away from his eyes. They were unnerving, an experience she was unaccustomed to, but she did not look away.

Sergeant De Vinsone stroked his goatee. “What is it you’d like to be knowin’, Lieutenant Commander?”

“How long have you known Sergeant Linn?”

“Almost three years, ma’am.”

“Sergeant, I have a…” She paused, then said, “Please call me Fay.”

He nodded.

“On the night of Paul Charma’s death, did you see Sergeant Linn talking to a man in the club?”

“I did.”

“Were they arguing?”

“I didn’t notice. Simon has a lively personality. He always seems excited about somethin’.” De Vinsone smiled. “In a good way. You understand.”

“What were you doing at the time?”

“I was a-playin’ pool with Sergeant Wu and two other gentlemen.”

“Who were the two other men?”

“I don’t know. The men said their names, but I don’t recall what they were.”

“What time did you and Sergeant Wu leave the club?”

“Twenty-three hundred hours, Fay.”

“You seem definite about the time.”

“We had a twenty-three-thirty ferry to catch. So, we were watchin’ the time,” De Vinsone responded.

“Sergeant, what is your present duty assignment?” Fay knew what his answer would be.

“That’s classified.”

“Training status then?” Of course.

Sergeant De Vinsone nodded.

Fay was done with Mr. Freeze. She sensed getting any information out of this pirate would be more challenging than prying an oyster out of its shell using only her fingernails. Nothing more would be learned from him. She glanced at her fingernails, then looked at De Vinsone and asked, “Sergeant, will you call me if you think of anything else?”

“Certainly,” he said.

The expression sounded odd. Usually thrown out by people with enthusiasm, De Vinsone said it with determination—half promise, half threat. As she handed her business card to him, Fay said, “I have one more question, Sergeant.” She tried her best to convey a warm smile. “Do you know a Major W. Irving?”

“I know W. Irving,” he said with a chuckle.

Shocked would have best described how Fay felt at the moment. Finally! “You do?” 

“He would be Washington Irving.”

“The headless horseman guy?” Fay asked.

“Yeah…Ichabod Crane. I understand government operators,” he explained, “find it convenient to use an alias from time to time. You might recall prisoners of war occasionally used that name when their captors forced them to sign confessions. That would be the same W. Irving you seek.”

“Government operators find it convenient…” says the biggest operator of them all, Fay thought. She chuckled to herself, and then said, as she sank down into her chair, “Don’t I feel like a fool. Of course, I do recall now.”

De Vinsone’s smile broadened. “W. Irving be him. To use a worn-out cliche, ma’am, he does not exist.”

Fay thanked Sergeant De Vinsone again. As he left the room, she sank further down into her chair. She did not like the man, no doubt about it, perhaps because she thought she could tell a lot about a person based on the amount of warmth they exuded. Sergeant De Vinsone radiated as much warmth as a frozen Thanksgiving turkey.

Fay returned to her office. On seeing her, Pearce said, “Ma’am, I have a message for you. Captain Towsley would like to meet with you regardin’ Sergeant Linn.”

Fay looked at her watch. “Towsley wants to be briefed on the investigation. See if eight hundred hours tomorrow works for him.” That would give her time to collect her thoughts and prepare a report. “Then come into my office. I’d like to bounce my thoughts off you.”

“Aye, ma’am,” Pearce chirped. “Be there in a second.” She quickly picked up the phone. Shortly after, she entered Fay’s office and sat down. “Eight hundred is fine with the Captain, ma’am,” she reported.

Fay surveyed her assemblage of notes. “Help me collect my thoughts.” Soon, she looked up and smiled. “I find it interesting a significant number of operators have congregated all in one place.”

“Kinda like a black ops convention,” Pearce quipped.

“Exactly. Except something’s missing.”

“A keynote speaker?”

Fay chuckled. “Precisely. Something Andrew Lawrence told me. He said he was a member of a team of six men. I presume Simon Linn knows Andrew Lawrence because, to Andrew, Paul Charma was a friend, and Simon spoke with Charma the night he died. I don’t think Charma just happened to be at Jillian’s on the same night as Simon Linn, Philip De Vinsone, and Peter Wu. It’s too coincidental. My hunch is—”

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

“—that Linn, De Vinsone, and Wu knew—” Fay continued.

“Ma’am…. hey,” Pearce said, accompanied with a short, low whistle.

Fay looked up from her notes. “Did you say something?”

“Yes, ma’am. Will ya hold your horses there for a second?”

“What’s that?”

“Will ya repeat those names?”

“You mean, Linn, Wu, Charma—”

Pearce interrupted, “Ma’am. The names with the first names.”

“What are you driving at, JP?”

“Humor me.” Pearce thought for a moment and then said, “Y’all remember ‘The Saint?’ Remember, ma’am, how he came up with his various aliases?”

“He used the names of the various saints. And—”

“Say the names.”

Fay looked at her notes and read, “Simon, Philip, Peter, Paul, Andrew.”

“Is it a coincidence, ma’am?”

“Could be? These are common male names.” Fay thought for a moment, then rewrote the names on her notepad. “Could be saints? I’m lost. What are you driving at, JP?”

“Andrew Lawrence told you his platoon numbered twelve and he was a member of a team of six men.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Those names are five of Jesus’s twelve disciples, if I remember correctly.”

“It certainly fits. An astute observation, sailor. I am very impressed.”

Pearce nodded and smiled. “I know you are, ma’am.”

“If you are right, it would mean the five men are indeed linked. But more importantly, it means we do not even know their real names.”

“Like stage names. Like actors use.”

“Precisely, JP. And it means we have zilch.”

“Bogus men, ma’am, with bogus service records. Are we back to square one?”

“Almost, but not entirely,” Fay answered. “To finish my original thought, my hunch is Simon, Peter, and Philip must have known Paul Charma would expose a secret. They were at Jillian’s that night to talk him out of it. We do not know if they were successful or not. Again, as we have discussed, someone else who did not want the secret told silenced Paul Charma.”

Pearce nodded. “That’s kind of what I thought. If there was someone named Judas somewhere in the mix, that’s where I’d point my finger. If I count correctly, ma’am, there are only five men: Linn, De Vinsone, Wu, Lawrence, and Charma. We’re still one can short of a six-pack.”

Fay snickered.

“That’s my point. Every team has a leader. In this case, an officer,” Pearce explained.

“Like Major Irving?” Fay replied thoughtfully.

“Irving, or whatever his name is. Irving could have been the other man in the alley.”

“The killer? But consider this,” Fay said. “Paul was a valuable piece of Navy property. A million-dollar investment, when you stop to consider all of the training those SEALs go through.”

“I see what ya mean, ma’am. It would be expensive to replace him. To kill him would be costly.”

“There would have to be a very compelling reason for someone to want to execute him,” Fay said. “An argument between Paul and Simon is not a compelling reason, given the circumstances. Otherwise, Simon would be in big trouble with whomever he reports to. And yet he doesn’t seem to be.”

“Yet, Sergeant Linn has a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card,” Pearce said.

“Yes. The Navy knows why and how Paul died.”

“Sanctioned?”

“More than likely.”

“But why, ma’am, was Paul killed in such a demonstrative way? I mean, you’d think someone would just tag him and bag him and throw him in the trunk of a car. Take him to a wreckin’ yard and then turn him and the car into scrap metal. Kind of like they did to Jimmy Hoffa.”

Fay wondered where Pearce came up with some of her facts. She felt tempted to ask but decided it would be better to just let it go for the time being. “I wondered about that too,” she continued. “Unless someone wanted to draw a certain amount of attention to his death. To set an example for others to see.”

“Like leavin’ a trail?”

“Accountants call it an audit trail. Paul was a man who lived his life in the shadows, a ‘shadow warrior,’ Towsley called him. But the way he died placed him center stage and in the spotlight.”

“I see what ya mean.”

“I do know my meeting with Andrew Lawrence the other night at the Pollywog was not an accident,” Fay said. “And I would have never interviewed Wu and De Vinsone unless someone allowed it to happen.”

“Admiral May?”

Fay nodded. “I did some checking on Admiral Brandon May, by the way.”

“And?”

“Nada. There are several Admirals named May. When I tried to access their records, all were classified. And no one was named Brandon May.”

“No surprise.” Pearce pondered for a moment and then said, “Interestin’.”

“Even more interesting, I did locate a V. B. May. A flag assigned to the Pentagon. His present assignment is classified, but his biography says he was, at one time, a Terminator.”

“NCIS!?” Pearce’s eyes widened in surprise. “You gotta be kiddin’!”

“His stint with the NCIS coincides with none other than our own Vern Towsley. I find it both interesting and coincidental,” Fay remarked.

“Ya suppose Towsley knows May?” Pearce asked.

“I would imagine he does. Two officers serving in the same department at the same time.”

“Towsley’s the one who assigned y’all to this investigation. Do ya think it was at Admiral May’s direction?”

“I do.”

“But, ma’am, if they know what’s goin’ on, why don’t they just tell you rather than put you through all of this cat-and-mouse, cloak-and-dagger bull crap? This is startin’ to drive me nuts!”

“Look at me, JP. Anyone would be better qualified to investigate this homicide than me. Don’t you see? THEY DON’T WANT THIS ONE SOLVED. It’s supposed to disappear—like Paul Charma’s corpse did,” Fay emphasized.

“I suppose with human nature bein’ what it is, if someone came out and told you outright what happened, handed it to y’all on a silver platter, so to speak, y’all would tend not to believe it. Or at least you’d be suspicious of it. But if you were led to the same information by little clues planted here and there and you discovered what happened on your own, then y’all would tend to believe it.” Pearce sat back, apparently to mentally review what she had just said. She gave herself a confirming nod and said, “Yeah. That sounds right to me.” She looked squarely at Fay and said, “Geez. Whadda ya gonna do, ma’am?”

“I’ll tell ya what I’m gonna do,” Fay said playfully. “I am gonna do my job—the very best way I know. No one ordered me not to investigate. As far as I know, I am supposed to investigate and then submit my recommendation to either continue the investigation or to terminate the investigation.” She lowered her voice. “There’s one more thing.”

Pearce inched closer to Fay’s desk to better hear the confidential message and whispered, “What’s that?”

“The U.S.S. Nalon Vet,” Fay whispered.

“Now there’s a ship that’s made a serious dent in someone’s black budget.”

“Was it a coincidence the Vet showed up just in time for your so-called black ops convention? I think not. I noticed Nalon Vet left port no more than twenty-four hours after she arrived.”

“A quick turn around,” Pearce observed.

“Too quick. And the ship sailed without its captain.”

“Yes. Egan Fletcher is still here.”

“I found it curious, so I checked with the harbormaster for other sailings on the same day. As you know, Navy ships normally travel with support ships or battle groups. A supply ship, or an oiler, or ships in escort of a carrier.”

“Were there any other ships, ma’am?”

“Not a ship. The U.S.S. Jimmy Carter.”

“Mercy,” Pearce gasped. “The spy sub? Another huge dent in the black budget. So, the spy sub and the spy ship are off to ports unknown at flank speed,” she said thoughtfully. “Yeowzer.”

“Yeowzer is right. Two of the most insidious vessels in the world headed for destinations unknown.”

“Two pretty serious weapons, I’d say.” Pearce wrinkled her brow. “Used to be, when I was small, a water balloon was considered to be a serious weapon.” She shook her head. “The world sure has changed. What does it all mean, ma’am?”

Fay smiled. “You got me there.” Her voice changed back to a normal speaking voice. “And I have a feeling I am going to be up half the night working on my recommendations. Why don’t we squeeze in a workout this afternoon? Say, five-thirtyish?”

“Okay, but hold up, ma’am,” Pearce whispered. “I got one more for y’all. James Rayzon.”

“What?”