| Subject: ...For Meritorious Service, Chapter 9 |
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TxJAG_b
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Date Posted: 11:20:38 06/29/11 Wed
In reply to:
TxJAG_b
's message, "...For Meritorious Service, Chapter 1" on 10:48:20 04/12/11 Tue
Chapter 9
“Are you absolutely certain, Corporal?” Lance Corporal Seth Grearson had been another AMTRAC survivor. Bud was told to interview this man who was with the
Corpsman and saw the shooting.
“Yes Sir.” Answered Grearson in a no-nonsense manner.
“I’m having a little trouble believing no one else could have accidentally shot the Lieutenant or that the gunfire could not have come from the enemy.”
“Look Sir, at least a dozen men witnessed Lieutenant Lukens and Chief Warrant Officer Buell firing not once at Dodge, Sir; but three times.”
(He’s sure convinced that Lukens and Buell did this.) Bud thought as he wrote down the man’s statement. (Could he be right?)
* ~*
“How close were you Sergeant?” Sergeant Paul Colwell had been another one of the few surviving squad members from the destroyed AMTRACs.
“At the most, 15 yards away, Sir.” He paused for a moment. “I know he did it, Sir.”
Sturgis Turner looked at Sergeant Colwell for a long moment, trying to gauge whether or not the man was lying. It was tough, just as it had been with all the others today. The conviction was there and the usual tale-tell signs of not telling the truth were not. If he and the others were lying, it was well rehearsed. (But then they’ve had since March to get this down right…) the Chaplin’s son thought grimly.
“How well do you know Lieutenant Lukens and Chief Warrant Officer Buell?”
“Very well Commander – we’ve been in this outfit together since Kosovo. Lukens is kind of hot headed--”
“Hot headed?” The Bubblehead repeated. As he did, the former sub officer underlined the word before looking up at Colwell’s face.
Colwell though, wasn’t flustered by this JAG’s sudden attention to him. In fact, he had planned it this way. “Yes Sir; flies off the handle too easily sometimes.”
*~*
“I see, and how well did he know Lieutenant Dodge?” Mac found Corporal Jack Keller to be more open than most people about Dodge and Lukens. In fact some would say he was quite animated about it.
“Very well Ma’am; they had bumped heads more than once.”
“By bumping heads you mean--”
--like the old nature documentaries showing two big rams running toward each other then ‘ka-whaam’ they collide head on – uh, that kind of bumping heads, Ma’am.”
*~*
“Did it ever degenerate into fist fights?” Sturgis Turner made a note that Corporal Stan Lovett worked in the MEU mess and had witnessed several of Dodge and Lukens’s altercations.
“Almost Sir; a couple of times, some vicious name calling – but it always stopped before it got to that level.”
“Who stopped it?”
“His Weapons Officer a couple of times and Lieutenant Hawkins and Captain Lewis each did at least once.”
*~*
“Any punishment?” Harm was facing Major Barnett’s aide and the MEU Staff Judge Advocate, Captain Floyd Johnson. Johnson had been fairly helpful since they arrived, but getting this first hand interview might reveal something that hadn’t been in the paper reports. He wasn’t disappointed.
“They each took a couple of hits on their fitness reports and Lukens got Office Hours after one fight.”
“When was their last fight?”
“About twenty four hours before Lieutenant Dodge’s death.”
“What were these fights about?”
“Dodge had married and divorced Lukens’s younger sister and there was bad blood between the two men because of it.”
(Married and divorced?) That certainly hadn’t been in any of the reports up to this point. Something else that had come out of these interviews was that Dodge had recently converted to Islam which probably didn’t sit well with some of the men in the unit. Harm knew he had to follow up on this since very few if any Muslims ‘marry and divorce’.
*~*
Mac entered the tent of Captain Jac Lewis. He was seated at a cardboard table signing off on after action reports.
The Captain looked up at her and stood at attention. Mac nodded and motioned for him to sit back down. The man did.
“Colonel MacKenzie, how is the investigation going?”
“As well as can be expected at this point, Captain.” She sat down in front of him and opened her pad. “I need to ask you a few questions…”
He smiled disarmingly. “Fire away.”
She got right to the point. “How long had Lukens and Dodge been fighting?”
“Too long really.” Her eyebrows shot up at this comment.
“About six months,” he clarified. She nodded and wrote that down on her pad along with a couple of other notes about the Captain.
“And there was a re-assignment being made?”
“For Dodge, yeah. I had to get him out of this unit – Dodge’s constant bickering with Lukens, in-law or no in-law, was driving down unit morale. Lieutenant Dodge was otherwise a good officer and Lukens in any other MEU besides ours would probably go far. I wanted to give him that opportunity and then the war broke out--”
Mac finished his thought for him. “…And when the war broke out and they settled into an uneasy truce at your insistence.”
“Yes Colonel, and it worked…for a while. You see, Lukens always had a problem with Dodge’s popularity especially with the women and junior officers. He always said the man was full of hot air, pompous--”
“Egotistical , self-centered.” Mac finished for him again.
“Uh, Yeah,” the Captain added a little taken aback. “Remind you of someone you know, Ma’am?”
“A couple of people spring to mind, Captain” she said clinically, not looking up from her notes. “Please continue.”
He recovered, and moved on. “Anyway Colonel, this popularity was especially grating on Lukens where it concerned women.”
She stopped and looked up for a moment. “Go on.”
“Well, he was always able to strike up a friendly relationship with personnel wherever he went.”
“I see.” Mac looked at her notes for a moment while holding the end of her pen in her mouth. “What about the last fight; and what was it about?”
“Lukens came into the Officer’s mess area and accused Dodge of fooling around on his sister while they were still married.”
Mac stopped writing again and looked at the Captain. “Who had Dodge supposedly been fooling around with?”
“His current wife Ma’am, an Afghan refugee.”
The Colonel tried not to show her surprise. No one else up to this point had mentioned that Dodge had married an Afghan refugee. “Was he?”
“Lieutenant Dodge didn’t admit it, but he didn’t deny it either. Dodge told him it was none of his business – Lukens went ballistic.”
Mac’s smirk made the Captain respond. “Look Ma’am, Dodge was always able to strike up a friendly relationship with female personnel wherever he went.”
(Hmm, defensive. Let’s see if there is anything here.) “Any sexual misconduct?”
“No Ma’am.” (Okay, dead end there….)
“Fraternization?”
“None. Colonel, he was a real boy scout--some in the unit didn’t buy it, though. Especially Lukens – I guess.”
Mac didn’t like his answer. “You guess, Captain? Come on, surely there’s more to this than you’re telling me.”
Jac Lewis wiped his brow obviously feeling the heat. “You, um, read about the threat?”
“Yes I did, tell me; do you think Lieutenant Lukens killed Lieutenant Dodge?”
“He lunged at Dodge, but Buell caught him and dragged him back. Very few other men had such a motive and opportunity – there were some, though.”
(He’s been coy up to this point, now he seems eager to point the finger at Lukens. I wonder why?) “Could you get me their names please?”
“Sure Colonel – as I was saying, few had such a good motive and opportunity. Lukens was very protective of his sister.”
(He’s really pushing that point. Let’s see how married he is to it.) “You didn’t answer my earlier question: Do you think he did it?”
Captain Lewis looked at the Marine Lieutenant Colonel for a long moment. The silence was deafening.
“No Ma’am. Lukens is a hot-head, but he’s not a killer.”
(Okay, so he backed off when pressed for an answer. The question is why? Let’s see if I can lure him out.) “Even though the initial investigating team found the 9mm bullets matched his gun….”
“Those could have been planted or anyone could have dropped those casings. Lukens didn’t do this – I suggest you go interrogate our Al-Qaeda and Iraqi guests. I’d sooner believe they did it before any of our own men, Colonel.”
(Wow that was a switch! One moment he’s practically insinuating that Lukens did the deed and when I lean that way he does everything he can to sway me from it. Okay Captain, I’m keeping my eyes on you….) “Thank you Captain, I will.”
Captain Jac Lewis dropped his defensive stance and smiled as he shook the Colonel’s hand. “Good luck Colonel – and keep in mind the area where Dodge was killed was unsecured for at least two hours.”
Mac smiled right back at him. “I will Captain but I will also keep in mind at least a dozen men saw the shooting and the bullets taken from Dodge’s body match Lukens’s gun.” (Let’s see what he thinks about that comment.)
Lewis’ eyes narrowed. “I trust the men of this unit, Colonel. Will that be all?”
(I am definitely keeping my eye on you, Captain.)
*~*
“What happened then?” Going up the chain of command, Captain Adrian Sebastian, Commander of the Wildcats – HMLA-975, the 36th ACE’s Helicopter, Light Attack Unit, was the next logical choice for Sturgis to interview, especially since he conducted Lukens’s Office Hours.
The nurse had given the Commander twenty minutes to conduct his interview and then he had to get out. She would not have him making her patient worse. Sturgis picked a few select questions which no one else seemed to be able to give a satisfactory answer to – at least in his mind.
“Dodge told him to cool down – that just infuriated Lukens more – he told Dodge that he had ‘plugged his last cutie’ and that he would make him pay. Excuse me, Sir--”
The Captain, still recovering from pneumonia, lapsed into a fit of violent, hoarse coughing. Sturgis grabbed some tissues and gave them to the man, who cleared his throat into them.
“Uh, thanks,” the man said weakly. The former Bubblehead nodded. He knew he had little time left. The nurse told him no more than thirty minutes at most. The questions he had asked of this man did shed some light on this murky case, but nothing earth shattering. He had to make his last question count.
“‘Plugged his last cutie’ Those were his exact words? Did he say how?”
Captain Sebastian seemed to summon all of his strength for this answer. “No Sir; not directly. The look in his eyes though, it was enough to chill anybody’s blood.”
(A look to chill anybody’s blood, huh? Lukens may be guilty after all.)
*~*
Harm was furiously taking notes. “Tell me more about the Gunny’s run in with Lieutenant Dodge.”
“Well Sir, it was after our last tour, just before Iraqi Freedom started,” continued the Lance Corporal, “The Gunny’s wife is a real looker.”
Harm smiled at the comment. “Pretty, Corporal?”
The man knew he was with a buddy. He winked. “Very, Sir – anyway she came to our disembarking in a very revealing dress.”
Harm stopped writing to make the man divulge more. “How revealing?”
“More skin than cloth Sir, we’d been on deployment for long time. I don’t think there was a man in the unit that wasn’t staring at her.”
“Like everybody that could see her?”
“Yes Sir.”
“Go on.”
“Anyway, she comes up to Lieutenant Dodge and makes a big deal about how he helped her change a flat tire before leaving for overseas duty.”
“And how did the Gunny react?”
“He broke from the ranks and threatened to beat the Lieutenant to death.”
(Looks like we have another suspect….) “And how long ago was this Lance Corporal?”
“Last October, Sir,”
“Do you think he meant it?”
“The Gunny was plenty mad, Sir. Only when Captain Lewis stepped in did the Gunny back down.”
“Do you think he could have killed Lieutenant Dodge?”
“If it had taken place that day? Yes Sir, without a doubt.”
“And how about on 23 March?”
“I’m not sure Sir, the Gunny and his wife made up, but he and Lieutenant Dodge gave each other a wide berth for months Sir.”
“Thanks for your help, Lance Corporal.”
“Aye, aye Sir.”
1642 Local
VOQ, Camp Chesty Puller
Near Mirbullah, Iraq
Sturgis and Bud sat on their bunks were discussing what they had found out so far.
“Read to me again what they said Bud.” Sturgis asked.
Bud looked through his notes. “Uh,‘You have to understand their relationship, it was never amicable. There was always an undercurrent of tension between these two – they were like…gasoline and dynamite.’”
Sturgis shook his head. “‘Gasoline and dynamite’ that’s a pretty potent combination….”
“Yes Sir. Bud found the place in his notes he had been searching for. It says Lukens requested a transfer to another Marine aviation unit….”
“But that it was too late and then combat operations against Iraq broke out.”
Sturgis looked thoughtfully at Bud. “I think we should proceed as separate teams after today. How do you feel about this, Bud?”
Bud shrugged. “Well Sir, I’ve been trying to keep myself neutral--”
“If that is a problem Lieutenant,” Rumbled the former submarine officer, “Maybe you should request--”
Bud quickly cut him off. “No Sir; that is not a problem. If you decide to prosecute, I will work with you, Sir.”
The preacher’s son crossed his arms and looked pointedly at the Lieutenant. “Do you really think you can do this? Given your feelings concerning the firearm and your theory about who it might belong to?”
Bud was adamant. “It not a matter of whether I can or not; I will Sir. It’s important for the government to have a strong case and three against one isn’t fair.”
Sturgis Turner smiled his first genuine smile in a long while. “Thank you, Bud.”
Bud cautiously returned the smile. “You’re welcome, Sir.”
---TBC…
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