Agent Christie had a slow, growling delivery and only occasionally looked over his shoulder; mostly his eyes quartered the immediate surroundings of the car and studied other vehicles on the road. He made a short story last a long time.
It seemed that Admiral Braithwaite and his wife were the victims of a ‘professional hit’. The killing had the unmistakable signature of a gangland, mafia-type organised crime assassination. The Admiral’s normal driver had been in the sick bay at the Naval Air Station at the time of the killing, struck down overnight with mystery bout of food poisoning. The man who had driven the commander of SUBRON Fifteen to his early afternoon luncheon appointment with his wife at the Sequoyah Country Club had been added to the car pool roster at Alameda only on the morning of the ‘incident’. Mrs Braithwaite had spent the morning playing a round of golf with girlfriends and met her husband in the clubhouse restaurant shortly after one o’clock. The Admiral’s driver had killed time with the other drivers while the Braithwaites enjoyed their lunch. Then, at around two-twenty, the couple had left the clubhouse. Although the Braithwaites often lunched at the club, Mrs Braithwaite usually drove separately to the club but it so happened that her Dodge was off the road with a carburetor problem. It was likely that Admiral Braithwaite planned to drop his wife off in Oakland where she intended to meet a friend for coffee that afternoon.
But that was not to be.
Agent Christie was excoriating when he got to what he thought of the Oakland Police Department’s handling of the case in the critical twenty four hours after the killing. Basically, a troop of chimpanzees wearing blindfolds could not have done a worse job preserving the crime scene, and could not have possibly been any more ham-fisted in their treatment of the only witness to the crime. In fact, a troop of blind chimpanzees would probably have been more effective keeping passersby and pressmen from trampling over, around, and peering into the said crime scene.
Miranda Sullivan eventually felt moved to intervene.
“The Oakland PD did not know what they were dealing with initially,” she explained with a weary sigh that indicated that she had had to deal with both the Oakland PD and the FBI in the last few days. “The only witness was hysterical and a large number of members of the public and other drivers had stopped to attempt to be of assistance to the victims before the first Oakland PD cruiser got to the scene. The first ambulance arrived soon afterwards. People around here aren’t used to this sort of gruesome gangland style killing. While Agent Christie and his colleagues have, no doubt, much greater experience of these things the Governor and the Mayor of Oakland categorically reject the unfair characterization of the response of the Oakland PD which you have just heard. That said the Mayor of Oakland has expressed his regret that the Oakland PD was not more forthcoming in their dealings with the US Navy in the first forty-eight hours after the death of Admiral Braithwaite.”
Walter Brenckmann was diplomacy personified.
“The Navy completely understands the difficulties of the civilian authorities in situations such as these, Miss Sullivan. My only interest in the conduct of the investigation into the murders is to be able to accurately report back to my superiors as to the current progress of the investigation, and to do whatever needs to be done to finalize the arrangements for the funeral of my former commanding officer and his wife with all appropriate dignity, military honours and ceremony.”
Walter decided to make no comment on the involvement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If he had known the FBI were running the show earlier that day he would have backed off, handed matters over to the US Navy’s own Special Investigations Branch.
Too late for that now!
Darlene Lefebure was being accommodated in a house in Berkeley within ten minutes walk of the main University campus. The young woman was in an upstairs room and was brought down, under armed escort, after a delay of some ten minutes while Walter Brenckmann and Miranda Sullivan kicked their heels in the back lobby of the building. Two Agents patrolled the grounds of the house, which was set back about twenty yards from the main thoroughfare.
Walter Brenckmann became aware that Miranda Sullivan was giving him an uneasy, very thoughtful look.
“Forgive me, Lieutenant. Brenckmann isn’t a common name. I was acquainted with a Sam Brenckmann once and I recollect he mentioned that he had a brother in the Navy?” The woman half-asked, half-stated without warning. There was a nervous anxiety in her tone which the naval officer, still a little lost in his own ruminations at that moment missed.
Walter grinned ruefully.
“Yes.” Since he was not at liberty to confide in Miranda Sullivan that he had just returned from a patrol on a Polaris boat, what he said next was hedged around with small, relatively harmless white lies. “Sam was somewhere down in LA the last we heard. He wrote a letter to Ma, that was a couple of months back. Sam being Sam he could be anywhere now.”
Miranda stared at the dapper, neatly turned out young officer like he had said something unbelievable crass. Upon learning that her Navy contact at Alameda was a Lieutenant Brenckmann she had thought; ‘no, that can’t be?’ Sure, ‘Brenckmann’ was not exactly a commonplace name but even so, that was too much of a surreal coincidence. This guy could not be Sam’s big brother. Then, on first sight she had breathed a huge sigh of relief because in appearance he had not looked remotely like Sam. Sam was a bigger, rangier man; this guy was of barely average height, the uniform suited him, and he was, well, so completely unlike Sam that she had almost but not quite convinced herself that he was not the man she had known in her heart that he had to be.
“But I thought…”
Miranda had thought Sam was dead. The Limonville Brothers Strummers Band was playing Chilliwack the night of the war. Everybody for miles around had been killed…
“You know Sam?” Walter asked, making polite conversation.
“Yes, sort of,” Miranda began to explain, her face flushing pinkly. “Well, vaguely, we lost touch before the war. I knew he was up around Seattle way the night of the war and…”
“Bellingham,” Walter supplied amiably.
“Bellingham?”
“Yes, it is a heck of a story. Sam fell out with the other musicians he was working with and ended up in Bellingham that night of the war. From what my Ma said the last time she wrote that’s where Sam met his,” the man frowned, it was not at all clear what the status of Sam’s latest girlfriend was, “girlfriend,” he said eventually.
“Girlfriend?” Miranda echoed stupidly because her mind was temporarily a deafening cacophony of yelling voices.
“Jodie, Janie, no, Judy, I think her name was. Yes, definitely Judy. Ma told me Sam had written to her to tell Ma and Pa he was still alive sometime back in the summer. Oh, and more recently to let them know he’d got his girlfriend pregnant and they were going to be grandparents…”
Miranda knew she was staring at the naval officer with her lower jaw virtually resting on her perfectly formed breasts. However, even though she knew she was gawping at him like a fish out of water she could not help herself.
Miranda would have completely gone to pieces right then had not there been movement at the door and a red-eyed, blotchy-faced Darlene Lefebure been led sniffling into the room. Having honestly believed that things could not conceivably get any worse, within the space of a few utterly disorientating seconds she now realised her mistake. Even when she had been on drugs she had not realised that God had such a cruel sense of humour!
Miranda stopped gawping like an idiot at Walter Brenckmann and stared disbelievingly at the young woman flanked by the two G-men.