One Less - Part 18
by joykatleen
O'Sullivan glanced up at Gibbs as he entered, then went immediately back to his writing. Gibbs pulled out his own chair, set down the files he was carrying and considered the kid. Even hunched over to write, O'Sullivan was head and shoulders above Gibbs. His short hair was jet black, yet his skin was pink and freckled. Black Irish was the term for it, if Gibbs remembered right. He heard a small whispering sound and realized O'Sullivan was talking to himself as he wrote, almost but not quite silently. Gibbs let him continue what he was doing, watching as he spilled out line after line on the yellow pad. His handwriting – printing, actually – was neat and easily readable even from Gibbs' upside down perspective. Gibbs leaned back in his chair just a little to bring the words into his focus and read as O'Sullivan wrote.
It was a story of some kind, Gibbs realized fairly quickly, with descriptive narrative and spoken dialogue. Two people with odd names that had to be traditional Irish like O'Sullivan's own, were involved in some kind of sneak attack on someone. He read down a few lines and realized they were… hunting elves?
"What're you writing?" Gibbs asked when it became clear that O'Sullivan wasn't going to stop. When the bigger man didn't react, Gibbs reached across the table for the stack of filled pages. Quicker than Gibbs could react, O'Sullivan moved his cuffed hands sideways and trapped Gibb's wrist under the chain holding the bracelets together. There was no threat, no force, just an effective stop to Gibbs' movement.
"Please don't touch those, sir," O'Sullivan said. His voice was low, but firm, with a lilting Irish accent obvious even in those few words. Gibbs pulled his hand back and O'Sullivan lifted his wrists to release him. O'Sullivan – having never looked up from the paper – went back to his writing. Gibbs was frankly impressed, both with the speed and the control of the big man. O'Sullivan had moved faster than Gibbs could react, yet Gibbs hadn't even for a second felt he was being threatened. The message was delivered, with clarity and speed, and nothing more. Gibbs wondered how much of this control the kid had learned in the last eight months. Because if he'd had it before then, he probably wouldn't have ended up in the brig. Of course, Acosta had said the kid was harmless when he wasn't drinking. Like a lot of young men, it was the alcohol that fueled the rage.
"I'm going to need your attention for this," Gibbs said after another minute had passed. He matched his tone and volume to O'Sullivan's. The younger man nodded once, put a period at end of the sentence he was writing, then carefully set his pen down and turned the pad over. He put the accumulated pages writing side down on top of the pad, then folded his hands together on top of the stack. He sat up straight and raised his eyes to settle on middle distance straight ahead: Somewhere above Gibbs' head.
"What are you writing?" Gibbs asked again. It didn't matter, but Gibbs wanted to establish the tone for this meeting: Casual, non-threatening.
"It's personal, sir," O'Sullivan replied, not lowering his gaze.
"You don't have to sir me, Private O'Sullivan. My name is Special Agent Gibbs. Do you know why you're here?"
"No, Special Agent Gibbs. Staff Sergeant Acosta came to get me at breakfast, said I was needed at NCIS."
"And you don't know why?"
"No, Special Agent Gibbs." Still, O'Sullivan didn't lower his gaze.
"And you don't want to tell me what you're writing?" Gibbs said.
"It's nothing that is any concern of NCIS," O'Sullivan stated.
"How do you know?" Gibbs asked.
"Sir?" O'Sullivan asked, as if he didn't quite understand the question.
"How do you know what's my concern if you don't know why you're here?" Gibbs asked.
Finally, O'Sullivan brought his eyes down and looked directly at Gibbs. He blinked several times.
"It's how I pass the time, Special Agent Gibbs. I write. I'd go crazy with the boredom otherwise."
"They don't keep you busy at Quantico?"
"Lots of busy work. Not much to keep the mind occupied."
Gibbs understood: The work they provided for military personnel in confinement was no longer of the break-up rocks variety, but it was close.
"So you write. Stories?"
O'Sullivan looked carefully at Gibbs, holding his eye as he said: "Fairy Tales. For my daughter."
Gibbs had noted that O'Sullivan had one child, a little girl, just turned six. He didn't blink.
"She must miss you," Gibbs said.
"She does," O'Sullivan admitted.
"She live with her mother?" Gibbs asked. O'Sullivan's file said he'd been married when he entered the Marine Corps five years before, but was currently single. Gibbs figured they were legally separated at the least, probably divorced. Being a military wife was hard. It would have become even more difficult after O'Sullivan was convicted of a crime.
"With her grandparents. My parents. My wife isn't with us anymore."
"She divorce you?" Gibbs asked. O'Sullivan hesitated.
"Yes," he answered, and Gibbs felt the lie. He decided to let it go. For now.
"I have a few questions about an accident you had in 2005."
O'Sullivan's broad face showed confusion. "What accident, sir?"
"You were aboard the Roosevelt, delivering troops."
"Yes," O'Sullivan said. "Through most of that year."
"And you had an accident," Gibbs said.
"No I didn't," O'Sullivan said. Gibbs could see he was searching his memory and gave him a few more details.
"You went to the infirmary in the middle of the day, claimed you'd slipped getting into your rack the night before and were feeling dizzy and nauseous."
O'Sullivan's eyes widened and he made a move as if to reach for the side of his head. The cuff around his leading wrist jerked hard against the other hand, stopping him.
"Let me get that for you," Gibbs said. He pulled his key ring out of his pants pocket, picked out a handcuff key, and reached across the table. O'Sullivan, still looking confused at the topic of discussion, held his hands out. Gibbs deftly unlocked the cuffs and folded them into the pocket of his sport coat. With both Acosta and the recording tech watching them through the one-way glass, Gibbs figured he could hold his own against any attack O'Sullivan might launch long enough for help to arrive. But he wasn't really worried. Acosta had said he was harmless, and the prisoner was Acosta's responsibility: If O'Sullivan screwed up, it was Acosta who would have to answer for it, so the Staff Sergeant would know plenty about what he was likely to do.
"Thank you," O'Sullivan said as he rubbed at his wrists.
"You remember the accident now?" Gibbs asked.
"Yes."
"So what really happened?" Gibbs asked.
"Just what I said. I hit my head on my rack. Not a big deal. It used to happen about once a week every time I was aboard ship. Racks aren't made for guys my size."
"The ship's physician who examined you said you got evasive when he asked for more details," Gibbs quoted from the report.
"I don't remember that. I told him what happened."
"I don't believe you," Gibbs said.
"I don't care. Sir," he added. "Why does it matter now?"
Gibbs pulled an eight by ten copy of Demmings' enlistment photo out of his file and turned it around for O'Sullivan to see. O'Sullivan glanced down at it, then back up at Gibbs.
"Who's that?" he asked.
"Culinary Specialist Second Class Leroy Demmings, formerly of the Big Stick," Gibbs supplied, watching O'Sullivan carefully. There was no recognition, of the photo or the name.
"Who's he?" O'Sullivan asked.
"He was assaulted, the night you claim you hit your head on your rack."
"So you think I did it?" O'Sullivan asked.
"Did you?"
"No," O'Sullivan said. There wasn't any affront there. Just a flat denial.
"He was attacked on shore leave. You were on leave that night, weren't you?" Gibbs asked.
"Probably," O'Sullivan said. "It was Spain, right?"
"Italy."
"Naples?" Gibbs nodded.
"Yeah, I was out. I was drinking. That's why I slipped. Rang my bell pretty good."
"And why didn't you tell the doctor that? There's nothing unusual about a Marine having too much to drink on liberty."
"I was afraid I'd get written up. I remember now. Doc was a bit of an arse."
"What happened while you were ashore that night?"
"I don't know," O'Sullivan shrugged. "It was a long time ago."
"But you remember you were drinking," Gibbs pushed a little.
"I was always drinking, back then," O'Sullivan said.
"You remember it was Naples, but don't remember what you did there?"
"We were in port a couple days. I had day watch. I went ashore most nights. I'm sorry I can't remember what I did one particular night of shore leave more three years ago." His voice held a tinge of sarcasm. Not much, just enough to notice.
"Tell me everything you remember, from the beginning," Gibbs said. O'Sullivan shook his head and sighed.
"I went out, I drank too much, I came back to the ship, I slipped getting into my rack, I fell into bed. The next morning, I was dizzy and nauseous, thought it was a hangover. When it hadn't cleared up by lunch, I figured I'd better get checked out. They kept me under observation for 24 hours…" O'Sullivan paused, his eyes narrowed, and a light went on.
"He was there, in the infirmary, the next day." O'Sullivan pointed at the picture. "He had… a broken arm?"
Gibbs nodded and let him remember.
"That's right. He was in a lot of pain, moaning and carrying on. He couldn't take morphine for some reason and I remember wishing they'd just shut him up, my head hurt so much. They airlifted him out the next morning, before I was cleared to return to duty. Scuttlebutt said he was beaten by a couple sailors, because he was…"
O'Sullivan looked up suddenly, and Gibbs saw the moment the young Marine put it together.
"That's what this is about?" he asked.
"Yes," Gibbs agreed. He wondered how many of the Roosevelt's sailors and Marines knew what had happened to Demmings and why, and had said nothing. For that matter, he wondered how many knew about the whole damn thing.
"I wasn't involved," O'Sullivan said.
"You know who was?" Gibbs asked. O'Sullivan fell silent.
"Who was it, Private?" Gibbs asked sharply.
"Why should I tell you?" O'Sullivan replied, his own voice rising a bit.
"Because it's the right thing to do," Gibbs said. That got him a huffing sound from O'Sullivan, who leaned back in his chair and crossed his thick arms over his chest.
"The right thing for who? There's nothing in it for me. And he's long gone."
Gibbs paused, collecting his thoughts. The kid was right. There was nothing in it for him. He had four months left on his sentence, then he'd reenter civilian life with the equivalent of a felony conviction, and no marketable skills.
"Why'd you join the Marines?" Gibbs asked. O'Sullivan frowned at the change of subject.
"To serve my country," O'Sullivan said.
"You could have done that in the Air Force. Why the Marine Corps?"
O'Sullivan shrugged. "It was the hardest," he said. "I wanted the challenge."
"And now?" Gibbs asked.
"Now what?"
"What do you want now?" he asked.
"I want to go home," O'Sullivan said. His voice held a note of pleading so faint Gibbs was certain O'Sullivan hadn't intended it to be heard.
"So you're done serving your country?" Gibbs asked, for the moment setting aside O'Sullivan's subconscious plea.
O'Sullivan huffed again. "I'm not serving my country anymore. I'm just marking time."
"Why?"
"You know why. Aggravated assault."
"What did you do?" Gibbs demanded.
"You know that, too. You've got my file." He gestured toward the closed folder on the table between them.
"The file says you tried to kill your bunkmate," Gibbs goaded him.
"I did not," O'Sullivan said firmly.
"Attempted murder of a fellow Marine. What did he do, sleep with your wife?"
O'Sullivan stood suddenly, his chair falling backwards with a crash. He planted his hands in the middle of the table and got in Gibbs' face, looming over him. Gibbs squared his feet underneath himself, ready to move if he had to, but didn't otherwise react.
"I did not try to kill Jack," he said fiercely.
Gibbs looked up at O'Sullivan and with a tone of command in his voice said "Sit down, Marine."
O'Sullivan glared at him from a foot away. Gibbs held his stare, eyes never wavering, precisely aware of the other man's body language. He was watching for any sign O'Sullivan was about to make another move. He silently counted. Five, seven…
At ten count, he spoke again, his voice no louder. "I said: Sit. Down."
Another five seconds passed before O'Sullivan pushed himself upright and took a step back. The two men's eyes stayed locked for a second longer before O'Sullivan finally gave it up. He broke away, righted his chair and threw himself into it.
"I did not try to kill Jack," O'Sullivan repeated, his voice tight. Gibbs watched as he visibly struggled to get his temper in check.
"Tell me about it," Gibbs said. He intentionally softened his voice and demeanor, leaning forward over the table in a posture of eager listening. The big Marine didn't reply.
"Come on, O'Sullivan. It can't hurt anything. Double jeopardy has attached. It doesn't matter what you say, they can't try you twice."
O'Sullivan took a deep breath, held it for a second, then blew it out hard. "He was my best friend. We joined the Corps together, worked together, used to go drinking together all the time. A buddy, you know? The kind I knew I'd always be able to count on."
"So what happened that night?" Gibbs asked.
"We were just back from Kuwait, on three days' liberty in Norfolk before returning to Lejeune. It was the second night. We'd been drinking hard, for hours. There was this girl Jack had been chatting up. He'd been bragging about how good he was at picking up the girls. He bet me a hundred bucks he could talk any single girl I pointed out into having sex with him. Like in that movie, Top Gun, you know?"
Gibbs gave an encouraging nod. This was the easy part of the story.
"He was doing really good. She'd agreed to go to the motel with him, and I was about to lose the bet. He had to go to the head before they left, so I decided to screw with him a little, try to even the odds. It was stupid." O'Sullivan stopped.
"What'd you do?" Gibbs asked.
"I told the girl he was married, with four kids."
"Was he?"
"Hell no. He was as available as they come. Didn't even have a girl back home. But when he got back, the girl threw her drink in his face and stormed out. I couldn't stop laughing. He got really pissed. It was the booze."
O'Sullivan stopped again, and Gibbs could sense the pain he was feeling. Gibbs had been there himself, reliving his role in tragic events, obsessing over what he might have done different or better that might have changed things. He felt a quick stab of pain in his temple and hoped it wasn't the headache trying to return. O'Sullivan went on.
"We argued. He took a swing at me. We started to fight. I hit him hard and he fell over a bar stool, hit his head on the floor. Hard. It knocked him out, but only for a minute. That was it. He came around, he apologized for starting the fight, we had another beer. He was a little unstable, but we'd been drinking, and I didn't think anything of it. We carried each other back to the motel we were staying in and crashed. The next day, I couldn't wake him up. Doctor said he was bleeding inside his head all night."
O'Sullivan took another deep breath. "He had emergency surgery at Portsmouth that afternoon. It didn't help. He never woke up. His family took him off life support about two weeks later, but he didn't die. His brain stem doesn't know he's dead."
"Sounds like an accident to me," Gibbs said. "Yet you plead to aggravated assault. An intentional act of violence causing great bodily harm."
The young Marine shrugged. "It was my fault. If I hadn't hit him, or if I'd called for help right away, he'd still be alive."
"You couldn't have known that."
"I should have thought of it. He lost consciousness. He needed to be monitored closely, and I knew that, from before. I had the training, I just wasn't thinking. I was too drunk. But being drunk doesn't excuse it. His death was my fault. So I plead guilty."
"If you believed that, why not plead to attempted murder?" Gibbs asked. He wanted to see how real this kid's feeling of responsibility really was. It might help, later. There was a long pause before O'Sullivan finally answered, reluctantly, Gibbs thought.
"Because of my wife."
"What about her?" Gibbs asked.
"She wasn't well. Even before this. I needed to get home as quick as I could. At the time I was four years into a six year hitch, and wasn't planning on reenlisting. If I'd been found guilty of attempted murder, I'd have spent eight to twelve in a civilian prison. I didn't think my wife would last that long. Turns out I was right."
"Where'd she go?" Gibbs asked.
"Why are you asking, Special Agent Gibbs?" O'Sullivan said, suddenly seeming to realize this had nothing to do with why he'd been brought here. Gibbs had been wondering how much further he'd go without asking the obvious.
"I want to know who assaulted Petty Officer Demmings. You want to go home. We might be able to come to some arrangement, but I need to know who I'm dealing with."
O'Sullivan digested that. "What can you do for me?"
This time it was Gibbs who shrugged. "Don't know yet. I'll have to talk to some people. What happened to your wife?"
"She died," O'Sullivan said. Gibbs had guessed that much, based on his earlier lie about divorce.
"How?" he asked. O'Sullivan looked down at his hands for a moment, then straightened and caught Gibbs' eye again.
"She killed herself with the gun I gave her to protect them while I was away. She tried to take my little girl with her, but Chloe survived."
Gibbs let that sit, his face not showing the surprise or the sudden compassion he felt. This kid had certainly been through plenty.
"Do you know who assaulted Petty Officer Demmings?"
"I know who claims to have done it," O'Sullivan said.
"You have a name?"
"Yes," O'Sullivan said.
"You know details?"
"Some."
"You know why it was done?"
This time, a pause before he spoke. "Yes."
"And you know there were others?"
"I heard rumors."
"You going to tell me?" Gibbs asked.
"If your offer's good," O'Sullivan said. Gibbs considered him for a moment. He could probably make O'Sullivan tell him what he wanted to know without giving him anything in return. But if this kid was really what he seemed to be on the surface, Gibbs wanted to help him out. If he could.
"Did you have anything to do with the attack on Petty Officer Demmings?"
"No, sir," O'Sullivan said emphatically, and Gibbs believed him.
"Nothing to do with any of it?"
"No sir," O'Sullivan repeated.
"Alright. Stand by. I'll see what I can do."
Gibbs stood and picked up the files. He left the room without another word. As he closed the door behind himself, Acosta came out of observation.
"That's not in his file," Acosta said without preamble. "About the wife. We knew she was gone, but there's nothing in there about suicide or attempted murder."
"You think he's lying?" Gibbs asked.
"No," Acosta said without hesitation.
"You any good with computers?" Gibbs asked.
"I can hold my own," Acosta said with a frown. "Why?"
"My computer guy is running down some leads, and I need this checked out. Can you do it?"
"Why does it not surprise me, Gunny, that you and computers don't get along?" Acosta grinned.
"We get along just fine," Gibbs said with a wry smile. "I leave them alone, they leave me alone. Can you help me out, or not?"
"Sure. That door locked?" Acosta asked, indicating the door to interrogation.
"Can't be opened from the inside. Tech locks it automatically when we leave."
"Fair enough. Show me the way."
They went up to the squad room where Gibbs showed Acosta to his desk and entered the password necessary to unlock his computer.
"Find what you can about the wife and daughter, and whatever else there is on his buddy. I want to know what kind of fight I'm going to have if I try to get him home. I'm going for coffee. Want some?"
"Sure," Acosta said. "Black."
"Is there any other way?" Gibbs said. He picked up the remote for the plasma and clicked it on, showing Acosta the view of O'Sullivan in interrogation. The big Marine was staring at the mirrored glass. He had not returned to his writing. After watching him a moment, Gibbs headed out.
By the time Gibbs returned, Acosta was done.
"He wasn't lying," Acosta said as Gibbs handed him a cup of dark roast. Acosta took a sip and smiled. "Good coffee."
"Only the best. What'd you find?" He perched on the edge of DiNozzo's empty desk.
"About three weeks after O'Sullivan's sentencing, his wife, Rachel Marie Sharpton – she never took his name – age 24, shot their four-year-old daughter Chloe in the head before doing the same to herself. They lived in base housing at Camp Lejeune, and the neighbors were wakened by the shots just after 3 a.m. MPs found the wife dead, the daughter wounded but still breathing. The little girl was in her bed, and investigators figured the mother didn't want to wake her. Because of that, the angle was bad and the bullet deflected, ran around the inside of the skull. There was some brain damage." Gibbs shook his head.
"Any warning signs?" he asked.
"In hindsight? Probably. She was on some pretty high-end anti-depressants, prescriptions filled at an off-base pharmacy. She went to weekly sessions with a therapist, again off-base. Frequent domestic calls when O'Sullivan was on base, always alcohol-related, always mutual combat. But she was functioning. Worked part-time in the base library, kept the house in order, the daughter was always on time to school, always properly dressed, no allegations of abuse or neglect. One prior suicide attempt in high school, pills, but it was chalked up to teenage passions."
"How's the girl doing?" Gibbs asked.
"Initially, doctors thought she'd be deaf, blind, and paralyzed. But she started to come around within a few days. She recovered her vision and she's regaining her motor skills. The deafness is likely permanent, and she's going to need long-term rehab services, but her doctor says she's making amazing progress."
"She being treated at the base hospital?"
"No. Children's Hospital Orange County, in Southern California. It's where his parents live. Her treatment is paid through dependents' health care. She'll lose her coverage when O'Sullivan's discharged later this year."
"Has he seen her?" Gibbs asked. He could only imagine the pain O'Sullivan must be dealing with every day, knowing he couldn't be with his little girl when she needed him, and knowing her recovery was going to depend on the whim of welfare medicine because of his screw up. If it were Gibbs, he likely wouldn't be handling it as well. Even now, 18 years later, the pain of his failure to protect his own wife and daughter was sharp and unrelenting.
"No. We didn't know anything about it. He's never made a request for compassionate leave. He uses his weekly phone allowance to call his parents. The only mail he sends out or accepts is to them and his daughter."
"Accepts?" Gibbs asked.
"The wife's family occasionally sends him something. He always returns it to sender, unopened."
"If it happened on base, why didn't you know about it? The report should have been attached to his SRB. We pulled it, and there was nothing."
"Best I can tell, there's been no upload since he was confined. The report was linked to his master SRB, but since we got him, nothing has been added to the copy we have." Acosta made a 'what can you do' gesture. "Once they're with us, we're usually the only people adding things to their files. The only reason we knew the wife was out of the picture was because his DoD primary next of kin information was updated from the wife to the parents. Your guy must have pulled our copy, figuring it would be most recent. And ordinarily, he'd have been right."
"She," Gibbs corrected. "What about O'Sullivan's buddy?"
"Corporal John Whitney. Went by Jack. They joined on the buddy program, shared duty stations and away billets, moved through the ranks together. Couple of reports of physical altercations between them, always after drinking, never anything serious."
"Until that night," Gibbs said.
"Until that night," Acosta agreed. "There was never any indication that O'Sullivan had any motive to injure Whitney. It looks like it was just one of those stupid things that happens sometimes."
"What about Whitney's family? What do they say?" Gibbs asked.
"His parents and an older sister. He wasn't married. They were naturally angry at first, but they came around. They chose not to speak at the sentencing, didn't file a victim impact statement. Mrs. Whitney sent O'Sullivan two letters early on. He accepted them, but never responded."
Gibbs nodded, and the two men fell silent.
"What do you think you can do for him, Gunny?" Acosta asked. "He was properly convicted of a crime that requires a discharge other than honorable. Anything other than him staying in the Corps – or an honorable discharge – means his daughter loses her benefits. It sucks, but there's really nothing to be done."
"There might be. I have to make some calls." He turned and glanced at the plasma, which showed that O'Sullivan was staring at the paper in front of himself, pen in hand, but not writing.
"You ever read anything he writes?" Gibbs asked.
"Every couple of days," Acosta said. "His mail is censored both ways. Stupid rule, but what can you do?"
"Is he any good?"
"Very. Don't tell anyone, but I occasionally read one of his stories over the phone to my youngest boy. He's seven, hyper as a chipmunk on speed, and he sits still to hear the whole thing, every time. He loves it."
Gibbs considered that. Maybe there was something there.
to be continued...
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