Abandoned: MIA in Vietnam (6 page)

CHAPTER 8

“I hated the guy,” Sluggo Maxwell said over the telephone. Chief Noble had called Maxwell and given him Wolfe’s cell phone number after Wolfe’s visit. No less irritating than he had been as a sailor, Maxwell managed to annoy Wolfe by calling him at 10:00 p.m. He woke Wolfe from a sound sleep. In Maxwell’s defense, he lived on the West Coast where it was only 7:00 p.m.

“Why was that?” Wolfe asked, sitting in bed with his cell phone and the pad of paper and pen he kept next to the bed. He frequently awoke in the middle of the night with a brainstorm, chore, or list of things to buy. Rather than allow the thoughts to keep him awake, he jotted them down and returned to sleep. His worst problem was trying to interpret his handwriting after he got up in the morning. Writing in the dark, to keep from waking his wife, did not improve his penmanship.

“I thought he was arrogant,” Maxwell said. “For instance, he never went out for a beer with the crew. I never saw him blasted, except that one time you and he went over in Sasebo. He drank with you.”

“Not exactly,” Wolfe said.

“And he didn’t pitch in with a donation when we ordered that sex book,” Maxwell continued without listening to Wolfe. “We each contributed five bucks. Farrell ordered the book from some publisher in Australia.”

“I heard about that,” Wolfe said. “Was that the photographic Kamasutra book, supposed to have color photos of at least fifty different sex positions?”

“That’s right.”

“I think I remember Byrnes laughing at you guys. He said most of the V-3 Division had spent a lot of money and the publisher had ripped you off. Can’t remember what the con was, though,” Wolfe said, trying to retrieve the memory.

“The people in the photographs were dressed,” Maxwell said, voice angry. “A hundred bucks worth of false advertising. We were bummed.”

Wolfe chuckled. Byrnes and he had laughed belly laughs when Byrnes had related the yarn about the previous cruise.
Dumbass squids
, Byrnes had called his comrades at the time.

“Some of the guys thought he couldn’t cross his legs because he had such big balls, but I thought he was egotistical,” Maxwell said. “A real friend would have hung out with his crew and buddies. He was always doing stuff no one else did, like jogging on the flight deck. Who the hell runs three miles, half of it against a thirty knot wind, while at sea? He had to be some kind of health nut. Or just plain nuts.”

“I remember him doing pull-ups on the ladder rungs welded to the sponson near the forward elevator while waiting for the flight deck to drop recovered birds,” Wolfe admitted. “Never before knew a guy who could do twenty-five pull-ups. I remember he did a hundred push-ups one night, too.”

“See what I mean,” Maxwell said. “An arrogant, asshole show-off.”

“So what did you do after getting out of the navy, Sluggo?”

“I don’t answer to Sluggo any more,” Maxwell said. “I went to law school. My clients call me Marlow Millard Maxwell, Esquire.”

“That’s a mouthful,” Wolfe said. “What do your friends call you now?”

“I said I went to law school, Boot. I don’t have friends,” Maxwell said, laughing. “Actually, most of my friends call me Max.”

“That is better than Sluggo,” Wolfe said. “And you can call me Doctor Boot from now on. Do you ever get to the East Coast?”

“On occasion I have participated in class action suits and have had to spend time in Chicago or New York,” Maxwell said. “But my primary practice is in personal injury law and it’s busy. I don’t leave California often.”

“Still using your boxing skills?” Wolfe asked. Maxwell had earned his nickname. He had been the last man standing during a shipboard
Smoker
. Thirty sailors duked it out in a boxing ring on the hangar deck while on the way to port after an extensive line period. The rest of the ship’s company watched, and made bets. Each participant had one hand tied behind his back and a blindfold over his eyes. If a sailor fell down, that eliminated him from winning the prize – two free nights in a hotel, all expenses paid, in Japan. Maxwell earned the title
Sluggo
and the prize when he accidentally hit the second-to-last man with an elbow while winding up to punch him. He had had no idea the other sailor stood directly behind him. Maxwell’s elbow caught the man in the back and pushed him forward so fast he tripped and fell to the canvas.

“Don’t do martial arts any more,” Maxwell said. “I have an ex-cop on payroll for the heavy work. You did some boxing, too, if I remember.”

Wolfe thought for a minute. “Yeah. I suspect it was right after I joined the ship. You guys were practicing and I went a round or two with Saulson.”

“Gave him a black eye, too,” Maxwell said.

“That was an accident,” Wolfe said. “He didn’t block an easy jab. My being left-handed gave him fits.”

“Didn’t you have a fight with Grender, too?”

Again, Wolfe had to pause and search his memory. He chuckled when he remembered the brief altercation. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Grender was mouthing off on the sponson while we were in port. He was supposed to be working. I told him to shut up. He swung at me and missed. I hit him in the jaw with a left and he went down to the deck. From there he kicked at me like a baby while he screamed in pain. Byrnes told him to get up and go sweep the hangar deck. But he never mouthed off at me again.”

“I remember,” Maxwell said.

“Can you tell me anything else about Jimmy that took place before I joined
Oriskany
in P.I., Max?” Wolfe almost called his ex-shipmate Sluggo.

“To be honest, Boot, er, Doc, I never think about the man. After he committed suicide, I spent a long time asking myself if the friction between us had contributed to his state of mind. Still can’t say. The memories are painful, so I avoid them. Didn’t like him, but he obviously had some deep psychological problems. No one should commit suicide, not even an asshole like him.”

CHAPTER 9

“Doc! Doc!” Wolfe heard the high-pitched squeal of a little girl’s voice behind him. Turning his head, he spotted a tiny tow-headed kindergartener racing down the frozen food aisle toward him, arms open wide. When she reached him, she wrapped her arms around his leg. Barely as tall as the middle of his thigh she shrieked again, “Doc!”

“Lillian, Lillian!” an older woman spouted, as she chased after the child. “Sorry,” she said when she reached Wolfe. “I don’t know what got into my granddaughter. Say you’re sorry to the man, Lillian. We have shopping to do.”

Mournful eyes locked on Wolfe’s, pleading. Lillian resisted the pull of her grandmother. “But, Doc,” the child said.

Wolfe laughed and patted the girl on her head. He said, “It’s okay. I’m one of the reading tutors at Ketterlinus Elementary.” Unwrapping Lillian’s arms from his leg, he knelt and placed his right arm all the way around the child. She smelled of a fresh bath and shampoo. “Are you practicing your reading this summer? You want to be ready for first grade in the fall, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” Lillian replied. “Grandma and I read the funnies in the paper every day after Mom drops me off at her house. And she takes me to the library every week.”

“Oh,” the older woman said, hand to her mouth, “You’re
that
Doc. She talks about you all the time.” A crooked smile spread across her face and her chest puffed out with pride. “Lillian is reading third grade books from the library now, aren’t you Lillian? Why do the kids call you Doc?”

“Well, I’m a retired physician,” Wolfe explained. “I didn’t want them to have to call me Dr. Wolfe. And the teachers didn’t want them to call me Addison. It was a compromise, I guess.” He stood. “High five,” he said to the child.

She wound up as if she threw pitches for the Atlanta Braves and slapped Wolfe’s hand with a loud smack. Then she giggled when he said, “Ow! You’ve been practicing that, too.”

Her grandmother took her by the hand and dragged her down the aisle. “Say goodbye, dear. Nice to meet you, Doc.” The child waved at Wolfe until she disappeared around the end of the aisle.

“Nice to meet you, too, ma’am,” Wolfe said.

“Cute little girl,” another customer said. “What’s her last name?”

“I wish I could remember,” Wolfe said, turning to his shopping cart. He pulled out his cell phone and scanned a list of the groceries he needed to buy. At the same time the telephone rang. Wolfe puzzled over how to answer the phone without erasing the list, and then finally remembered. “Wolfe,” he said.

“Dr. Wolfe, this is Amit Gadhavi,” the resident said. “How are you today?”

Wolfe smiled. “Except for being reminded about how bad my memory is, Dr. Gadhavi, it’s been a pretty good day. How about you?”

“Oh, fine,” the resident said. “You got back to Flagler Hospital without incident then?”

“Well, no. I went directly home from the medical conference. Took an Uber,” Wolfe said. “Speaking of the conference, you guys sure rely on technology a lot. Do you ever talk to patients or touch them? One of my neighbors had groin pain. I told him it was probably a hernia. He saw four physicians and had normal x-rays, CT scan, blood work, and urine tests before anyone made him turn his head and cough. He did have a hernia when checked, but modern medicine turned the diagnosis into a $3000 odyssey. Surgery for the hernia is next week.”

“You must have noticed that the older attendings said the same thing in the meeting summary,” Gadhavi said.

Wolfe nodded to himself while holding the cell phone to his ear. “You’re right. Sorry. I got off on a tangent. What’s up?”

“Did you see the obituary in the
St. Augustine Record
this morning?” Gadhavi asked.

“I did. Was the retired chief petty officer in the obituaries the man who died the other day?”

“Yes. His family, wife and daughter actually, are coming in this afternoon to pick up his personal belongings. They have been released by the sheriff. Shall I ask them to stay and talk with you?”

Wolfe nodded, and then answered. “That would be terrific. I have to take some frozen food home from Publix, but I can be there in an hour an a half. Would that fit their schedule?”

“Yes. That works well. They said they would be here in about two hours,” Gadhavi said. “I’ll have his chart out for them to see, also. You may want to see that, if they’ll give you permission.”

“That’s fine,” Wolfe said. “I’ll be there right after I put this stuff in the freezer.”
And find the newspaper to remind myself of the man’s name,
he thought.

“See you then,” Gadhavi said.

“Good-bye,” Wolfe said. His phone clicked. He went back to looking at his grocery list.

***

Parking on a Sunday at Flagler Hospital proved easier than on the previous Friday. Gadhavi led him to the MICU consultation room, a combination bereavement, informed consent, good news, bad news room. Comfortable seating and subdued lighting, along with the pastel colors and insulated quiet in the room, made family members more comfortable when discussing stressful situations.

Gadhavi introduced Wolfe to the dead man’s wife, an elderly, short, nervous, thin woman, who obviously needed a cigarette, or a beer. Her daughter, about fifty-years-old, gray and slightly overweight, grasped her mother’s hand as the two sat on a couch behind a walnut coffee table. A six-inch thick, paper, medical chart held their attention. It sat closed on the table in front of the women. Beside each woman was a clear plastic bag with a built in handle. Both bags held clothing and personal items, evidently the dead man’s.

“Mrs. Clemons, Mrs. Wright,” the resident physician said, nodding first to the older woman and then her daughter. “This is Dr. Wolfe, the man I talked to you about. If you would like me to stay, I will be happy to. Otherwise, I’ll be in the MICU. The nurse will find me if you need me.”

The older woman waved Gadhavi out of the room. “We’ll be fine, Doctor,” she said. “I doubt Dr. Wolfe bites and I’m sure you have other things you would prefer to do.” Gadhavi backed through the door, closing it tightly behind him.

“Please sit, Dr. Wolfe,” the daughter said. She pointed to a chair across the table from them.

“Thank you for agreeing to chat with me,” Wolfe said as he sat down. “I am sorry for your loss. You have my condolences.”

“Thank you,” the women murmured together.

The older one continued, “Dr. Gadhavi says you may have been in the navy with my Richard?”

“There’s a possibility that’s true,” Wolfe admitted. “I don’t know that I knew your husband, but I did know a man named Jimmy Byrnes.”

“Who was he?” the daughter asked. “And what does he have to do with my father?” She pulled a tissue from her large purse and dabbed her eyes.

“Well,” Wolfe said, “If he is the Jimmy Byrnes I remember, then he served on the USS
Oriskany
with me and maybe your father in 1967. He was a good friend. We worked on the hangar deck together. He made ABH-3, third-class petty officer weeks before I transferred to a different ship.” Turning his head toward the older woman, he added, “I guess the first question is this: Was your husband on
Oriskany
in 1967, Mrs. Clemons?”

Clemons nodded, silent tears fell in her lap. She made no effort to staunch the flow, or to catch them with a tissue. “We lived in Oakland, California. Missy,” she pointed to her daughter, “was barely a year old. We were having financial difficulties. When he left for the cruise, I thought I’d never see him again. We were talking about a divorce. I went home to Chicago to live with my parents. After the overhaul and
Oriskany
came back from another WestPac cruise, Richard was promoted to second-class petty officer. We could then afford an apartment. When Missy was four, we moved back to Oakland to be with him. And he went on another cruise, on a different ship.”

“I’m sure that being a navy wife and raising a family is complicated, when your husband spends so much time at sea,” Wolfe said. “It was much easier for me, being a bachelor.” Clemons nodded. Her daughter stroked her hand.

“He wasn’t a bad man,” Clemons said. “There were a lot of temptations on the cruises. Booze, women, even some drugs. Eventually, he became an alcoholic, got cirrhosis. The corpsmen treated him for multiple venereal diseases, too. We only stayed together for Missy’s sake. I left for a while, but came back when he got so sick.”

“Mom’s been nursing him for twelve years,” Wright said.

“That’s a long time,” Wolfe said. “Don’t know that my wife would do that for me.”

“She would if she loved you,” Clemons said, “even if you are a son of a bitch. Sorry, Doctor. I miss him, but I’m happy he is no longer in pain. And, I guess, I will always be angry with him.”

“Of course,” Wolfe said, nodding.

“Can you find out who this Byrnes is and what he has to do with my father?” Wright asked.

“Now that I am pretty certain he was the man I knew onboard
Oriskany
, I would very much like to find out what he has to do with your father,” Wolfe said. “Would you give me permission to read his medical chart and contact his friends from the Navy? And do you have a list of his friends from his time on active duty?”

Wright pulled a palm-sized black notebook from her purse. “This is Daddy’s little black book,” she said. “I was going to burn it to save Mom the heartache of going though it. If you would do us the favor of contacting everyone in it who is still alive and informing them of my father’s death, I will give you this address book and sign a release so you may have a copy of his medical record.”