Fleet Hospital

This story takes you into that world and gives you an authentic glimpse of military life.

Meet Lori Sepanik—aka Jo Marche—one of the most memorable characters in recent romance fiction. Join her as she discovers what Fleet Hospital is all about. And meet Captain Michael McLowery, the man in command….

They’re both people with secrets. They’re both stubborn and individual and self-possessed. They’re both working—sometimes at cross-purposes—to solve a murder.

When they fall in love, sit back and watch the excitement!

“Anne Marie Duquette’s romantic thrillers are truly

thrilling, full of exciting action and suspense.”

—Tess Gerritsen, bestselling author of

Harvest, Life Support and The Surgeon

I would like to dedicate this book to all those who offered

medical aid after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I also dedicate it to our best friend, Hospital Corpsman

Second Class (USN Retired) Thomas Anthony Tindall.

Hugs from all of us at Camp Pendleton and Balboa Naval

Hospital who were touched by your life and mourn

your death. You made the world a better place.

We miss you, Tonyota. Love from Ogre and Row-ger.

Fleet Hospital

Anne Marie Duquette

Dear Reader,

The tragedy of the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City has led many media commentators to claim that the U.S. just “wasn’t prepared.” Regarding the deaths, injuries and destruction, this is certainly true. However, our country was prepared in one way—in the readiness and heroism of our rescue personnel.

The U.S. Navy maintains hospital ships and containerized field hospitals that can be deployed at a moment’s notice. The unfortunate wounded are fortunate in one sense. These ships have the most state-of-the-art medical technology available and some of the best-trained medical personnel in the world. Two of our country’s leading medical institutions, Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland and San Diego Naval Hospital in California, along with their support units, train the finest medical caregivers in the military.

Those who watched the news about 9-11 might remember the U.S. Naval Hospital ship, The Comfort, based out of Maryland, ministering to the New York City wounded. The Navy also maintains The Hope, berthed on the West Coast.

Another facet of field training for the U.S. Navy Medical Department is the Fleet Hospital, located at Camp Pendleton military base in California. Not only is this the largest military base, in actual land area, in the world, but San Diego County, where it’s located, holds the highest concentration of military and support bases. San Diego is an important place when it comes to the training of our military and medical heroes.

My own husband, a retired U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman, spent his last five years in the military at Fleet Hospital. While the story, the characters and the murder mystery in this book are entirely fictitious, Camp Pendleton itself and the training of students to the very highest level of medical preparedness are not.

Mobile hospitals with skilled staff are a strong tool in the fight against terrorism. Many injured who might have become fatalities owe their lives to the real medical heroes with their caring, compassion and intense training. They save lives under the most harrowing of conditions. I hope you enjoy my portrayal of them.

Best,

Anne Marie Duquette

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER ONE

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Early October 1967, afternoon

TEN-YEAR-OLD MICHAEL James McLowery yawned, squirmed and scratched at the neckerchief of his Cub Scout uniform. Sweat trickled through his crewcut and down his face, dropping onto the cafeteria table. Where he sat was hot. Hot outside. Hot inside. Hot everywhere. He wished he was at the officers’ pool with his father and baby sister, instead of at school. When they came to pick him up—thank goodness that would be soon—they’d be nice and cool. Not like Michael. Hawaii sure was roasting….

Not like Boston, Dad’s last duty station. Once more Michael checked his black “Glows in the dark!” Seiko watch, a smaller version of his father’s, and groaned. Half of Saturday was already gone, and where was he? At Navy housing’s elementary school, working on his first-aid merit badge. If that wasn’t bad enough, his mother, in her starched white nurse’s uniform, was teaching the badge class. Dutiful boys filled in the blanks on mimeographed handout sheets.

His mother was even more boring than his history teacher. He couldn’t believe it. This day was one big gyp. He’d never wanted to be a Scout. He wanted to go out for Little League and become the next Carl Yastrzemski, but Dad said it was too much driving for a family with only one car. Stupid Navy only shipped one car to Hawaii, instead of their two from Boston. No sense buying another, Dad told him. The same rules worked when leaving Hawaii. Stupid Navy.

The boy sitting next to him, older and looking just as bored, was doodling on his first-aid sheet. Maybe Dennis Klemko was good for a game of hangman or ticktacktoe. Michael, ready to latch on to anything to pass the last ten minutes of the class, leaned over for a quick peek. His breath caught.

On the handout was a surprisingly lifelike sketch of his mother, complete with big pointy titties, rounded thighs—and no clothes but her nurse’s cap, Navy gold-braid rank bands across the brim.

Michael promptly delivered a hard sharp elbow to the artist’s ribs and grabbed the paper with its disgusting picture. The other boy grunted and rubbed his side.

The Scoutmaster’s voice from the front of the room made Michael and Dennis jump. “What’s going on there?”

Neither boy answered. The Scoutmaster waved at the sheet of paper in Michael’s hands.

“Do you have something to share with the rest of the troop, young man?”

Michael’s face burned. “No, sir!” He crumpled the paper into a tiny ball and held both hands behind his back while everyone stopped filling in blanks and stared at him.

“He’s drawing dirty pictures,” Dennis Klemko said. “I caught him doing it, but he wouldn’t give me the paper.”

“You turd! Mom, he’s lying! He’s the one who drew it!”

The older boy’s taunting grin infuriated him even more. Michael searched for and found the worst insult his parents could deliver to family, friend or foe. “You’re a disgrace to your uniform!”

His mother and the Scoutmaster exchanged long-suffering looks, then marched his way, hands outstretched. The matching expressions on their faces promised trouble. They actually believed he could do such a terrible thing? Michael bit his lip. He could defy the Scoutmaster, even kick him in the shins if he had to, but he couldn’t do that to his mom. Nor could he let Mom see that picture—or worse yet, let the Scoutmaster see it. Michael had only one choice.

Retreat!

He bounded from his seat and alternately ran and leapfrogged on and across the other tables until he got close to the door and big exit sign. He jumped; his red sneakers made a loud smack, and he dashed outside. No one could catch him now!

“Stop him, boys,” the Scoutmaster yelled. “Get that paper!” The boys, as bored as Michael and as eager to escape, poured out the door after him.

Michael ran full tilt, looking for a trash can. He had to get rid of the crumpled drawing in his fist. He couldn’t litter—littering was a Bad Thing, a disgrace to the uniform. If the Cubs caught up, they could easily take the paper from him—or from any trash can he’d thrown it in. He had nowhere to hide. This school was the pack’s territory, as well as his own; every boy knew all the good hiding places. And most of them were older, with longer legs. They were catching up.

Michael made the sidewalk. He was off school property now. His legs and arms pumped, his heart pumping even faster in the tropical heat. The boys closed in. It was no longer a game to them. The honor of their pack was at stake. Already Michael’s side was aching.

“Daddy!” he screamed in desperation…and was rewarded. Moving along the opposite side of the street was his father’s car, a 1964 steel-blue Plymouth Deuce, headed toward the school to pick him and his mother up.

Jaywalking was a Bad Thing, too, but his father would understand. Dad said that sometimes a sailor had to break the rules. Dad flew jets where he wasn’t supposed to, drove cars faster than he was supposed to and drank harder than he was supposed to. Dad said it kept lives and sanity intact. He learned that in Vietnam. This was Michael’s day to break the rules. Dennis Klemko, that rat fink who’d started the disaster, was almost upon him—and across the street was a storm drain with bars.

Michael raced toward it to rid himself of the drawing. Arms flailing, he waved his father down. “Daddy, help! Stop the car!”

Lt. Commander Patrick Andrew McLowery took in the scene before him in a fraction of a second. He hadn’t survived two tours of bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail without damn good reflexes. He slammed on the car’s brakes and whipped the steering wheel to the right. The car fishtailed in the gravel. Its front end missed his son by six inches; the back end missed his son’s pursuer by a whisper and skidded away.

Michael hurled the balled paper at the storm drain even as he avoided the moving car. With reflexes almost as sharp as his father’s, he saw that his aim was true but had no time for a moment’s relief. At the same instant the drawing flew from his hand, his two-year-old sister flew out the open passenger window of his dad’s car.

The brand-new “latest, safest model” child seat, its plastic and aluminum ends hooked over the top of the Plymouth’s front bench seat, had been no match for the car’s centrifugal force. Baby Anna Mary McLowery’s head was no match for the road. Her blood spread over the scorching black asphalt like lava from a volcano.

On that hot summer day, despite the presence of a whole troop of Scouts trained in first aid, the troop’s nurse instructor and the nurse’s husband, Michael James McLowery watched his sister die.

ANNA’S OPEN-CASKET funeral Mass was held in the Navy chapel. On such short notice, none of the relatives from Boston had made it to see Anna for the last time, wearing her new white gown and lacy bonnet. In full dress uniform, Lt. Commander McLowery and his wife, Lieutenant Junior Grade McLowery, sat alone with their son in the front pew. Michael was too scared to look at his sister’s body, although he pretended he wasn’t. He just refused to look. He also refused to pray out loud. A bunch of mumbo-jumbo prayers weren’t going to bring back his dead sister, but Mom said he couldn’t stay home. He was mad at Mom, mad at Dad, mad at Anna, mad at the whole world.

His fury built, but Michael managed to keep it in check—barely—until his entire Scout troop arrived, dressed in formal uniform, just like him. Right behind the Scoutmaster, leading the line of silent boys, was Dennis Klemko, who’d dared—actually dared—to show up.

Michael’s fury exploded. Flying out of the pew, he barreled headlong into the dirty traitor, knocking him over. Michael pinned him to the aisle carpet.

“You killed her! It’s your fault!” Michael screamed again and again, his fists pounding at Klemko before the horrified faces of the chaplain, his parents, the Scoutmaster, even his father’s and mother’s Commanding Officers and Executive Officers.

It took three strong enlisted men to pull Michael off Klemko. Two female Nurse Corps officers supported his mother while Michael screamed, “He drew you naked, Mom! He drew you and said I did it! Ask him! Ask him! Tell everyone what you did, you fink!”

Michael again lunged for Klemko. The enlisted men’s hands tightened on his arms, but Michael scored with a hard kick at Klemko’s face. Nose broken, Klemko screamed and collapsed into a wailing lump of agony.

“He drew it, Mom! Not me! He was going to let the whole troop see you naked! I grabbed the paper so he couldn’t! That’s why I ran away! That’s why Anna got killed! It’s all his fault!”

His mom took a step, went limp and dropped out of Michael’s sight below her pew. More Nurse Corps officers swarmed around her. Others swarmed around Klemko and worked on his bloody nose and cut eyebrow. The CO and XO rallied to his dad’s side.

The Navy chaplain came straight to Michael and said, “Let the boy go.” The enlisted men released him. “Come on, son, let’s talk this over.”

“I’m not your son!” Michael shook off the chaplain’s hand and looked for his mother. “Mom! You believe me, right, Mom? Where are you?”

She rose from behind the pew. Her arms were wide open and shaking. Michael felt dizzy with relief. His mom wanted to hug him! She believed him! He tried to reach her, tried to push aside all the people in the aisle to get to her, but couldn’t. Mom left her pew and staggered toward Anna’s open casket. She lifted the stiff rouged corpse, hugged it tightly to her chest.

Michael froze in place. “Mommy?”

The chaplain left Michael and tried to take Anna from his mother. Mrs. McLowery screamed, whirled away from everyone and ran up onto the altar, the only place where there were no people. Michael broke free and ran for his mother. Anna was so tiny. Surely there was room for him, too, in his mother’s arms.

Up the steps he ran, one, two, three, in between the Stars and Stripes, Navy and Hawaiian flags on the left and the two flags with the Cross of Christ and the Star of David on the right. His mother hunched protectively over Anna, accidentally catching Michael with her hip. Michael fell backward down the steps, three, two, one. Some woman he didn’t recognize caught him.

She took him outside, away from the pandemonium. He’d stopped yelling by then, but Mom and some of the Scouts hadn’t. The lady who’d caught him smelled pleasantly of mint, instead of stinky perfume. She sat down on the curb and pulled his trembling body onto her lap.

“Want a Certs?” she asked. Michael didn’t answer, but she peeled off a “Two! Two! Two Mints in One!” and held it in front of his mouth. “Open up, little bird.”

He opened.

“Close,” she said.

He already had. The candy tasted good. The woman popped a Certs into her own mouth and hummed and rocked him while they both sucked on their bits of sweetness. After a while she asked, “Want another?”

Michael realized he’d broken his communion fast. He shouldn’t have eaten anything. Now he couldn’t offer his communion grace for his sister’s soul. Not that it mattered, since he and Klemko had killed her. According to catechism classes, he was damned, anyway. One more Bad Thing wouldn’t make any difference. He wiped at the tears on his face, then held out his still-trembling hand.

“Here, sweetheart. Take the whole roll.”

When his father came to get him, Michael cried some more, and after the first surreptitious mint, ate the rest of the Certs in the front pew in full view of God and country. He sat between his parents, and they didn’t seem to notice.

Michael saw that Anna’s little coffin was now closed and latched. “Is Anna back in there?” he whispered to his father.

Dad nodded.

“Are you sure Mom didn’t hide her somewhere?”

Dad nodded again.

“Positive? Can I see?”

His wet-cheeked father murmured, “Trust me,” and took his hand. Michael’s dry-eyed mother, watchful nurses on the other side of her, didn’t touch him, didn’t even look at him. Michael swiveled around to check out the pews and saw Klemko was gone. So was the Scoutmaster. Good riddance. They didn’t deserve to be in the same room with Mom and his poor baby sister. He wished he could see Anna one more time. He should’ve looked at her earlier when the coffin was open. Now it was too late. He’d never see her again. It wasn’t fair. Nothing was fair. He started crying again and ate another Certs.

The service didn’t last long. The Navy chaplain rattled off that funeral faster than Michael’s father drove on a Friday-night payday.

THE HEAT CONTINUED the next day and the next and the next. The sun beat down with a fierceness Michael hated. Only one thing made it bearable—he was allowed to sweat at home, instead of in school. His parents were on compassionate leave and home from work. It felt strange. He felt strange.

His mom insisted on going back to the hospital three days after Anna’s funeral. Michael clung to his father when she announced her decision. He didn’t want her to leave. The house was too quiet with Anna gone. His parents were too quiet with Anna gone. It frightened him, especially at night.

He was glad his father said, “Honey, don’t go.”

“You two can finish watching the baseball playoffs on television.”

“But, Mom—”

“Michael, don’t talk back. If I don’t do something, I’ll go crazy,” she said. She wore her white nurse’s uniform with her Navy officer’s cap.

“The last place you need to be is in surgery,” Patrick argued. “You’re in no better shape to be working the OR than I am to be flying.”

Mrs. McLowery shook her head and the Red Sox game continued to play on the television. “I already talked to my CO. She’ll let me have morgue duty. I can’t do any damage there. It’s all paperwork.”

“You hate morgue duty!” Patrick McLowery said. “Every time you work it, you have nightmares about getting trapped in the freezer.”

Michael shivered. He hated nightmares, and he’d been having a lot of them lately.

“You won’t even go near the morgue without a corpsman on the outside and one on the inside.”

“I don’t care!” she shrieked.

Michael winced at the nails-on-chalkboard sound of her voice.

“This heat is killing me! I have to get out of the house!”

“Fine. We’ll take a drive to the Ala Moana Mall for ice cream. We can walk around there and cool off.”

“No. I’m going to work.”

“The hell you are!” Michael’s father rose to his feet, almost tipping over the box fan whirring on the floor. “The last thing you need to be around is a bunch of you-know-whats!”

Bodies. Dead bodies. Like Anna’s.

“I need some quiet, Patrick,” she said. “I made dinner for you and Michael. There’s a chicken potpie in the oven. Listen for the timer. I mixed up some cherry Jell-O and bananas for dessert. It’s on the second shelf in the refrigerator.”

“For God’s sake, sweetheart—”

“I already ate. It’s time for me to leave or I’ll be late.”

“At least let me drive you in!”

“No, Patrick, I’m fine. Really I am. Keep the car. I’ll take the bus.” She bent to grab her purse. She didn’t even kiss Michael or Patrick goodbye. “I may work an extra half shift, so don’t wait up.”

Michael didn’t see his mother again that night.

He didn’t see her in the morning, either. Dad said he could stay home from school once more. Michael was on his hands and knees out front, driving his red Tonka truck full of green plastic Army men through the grass, patiently waiting for the base bus Mom took home. It always stopped at the corner, three houses down.

An official military car, gray with blue lettering on the side and government plates, drove up and stopped at his house. Two men in uniform climbed out. Automatically Michael checked the men’s collar insignias. One of them wore a cross.

Right then he knew. Every military kid knew what it meant when two uniforms came to your house and one of them was a chaplain. Dad was home from Vietnam—safe inside the house. He’d just seen him. Anna was in the ground. That meant…

“Dad!” he screamed. One of the men started toward him. Michael backed away. “Daddy!” Michael screamed even louder.

He dropped the toy truck and the Army men, ran into the house and hid under the kitchen sink, his spine jammed against the hard metal J-pipe. His father called him. He heard the front screen door slam, heard nothing for a while, heard the door again, then his father calling him over and over.

Michael didn’t answer. He couldn’t talk. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. All he could do was shiver amidst the slightly rancid fumes of sacked potatoes and onions, the antiseptic smell of cleanser and dish soap, the commissary grocery bags stored in his hiding place.

His father opened the cupboard doors, found him and pulled him out. He told Michael what he already knew.

“Your mother’s dead, son. The night crew found her.”

“At the hospital?”

“Yes. The chaplain said she was…she got trapped in the refrigeration unit at the morgue.”

“Dad, they’re lying! She’d never get locked in there!”

Michael fought to escape from his father’s arms, his father’s words. He couldn’t escape either.

“Listen to me, Michael! The next shift found her inside. They tried to revive her, but…” His voice cracked.

“Where was everybody? Where was the corpsman?”

“Gone home, I guess. She had her car keys and purse with her.”

“Why was she in there?” Michael sobbed. “She hated that place!”

“She wasn’t in her right mind.”

“It’s because of Anna, right? She didn’t want to come home.”

“Everyone says it was an accident,” his father said.

“It wasn’t an accident, was it?” Michael forced himself to ask.

His father looked away. “At least she had the decency to take off her uniform before she went in. She didn’t disgrace it,” he choked out. Tears rolled down Patrick’s cheeks.

Michael had his answer. Mom was really dead. She’d killed herself. He started to cry, his sobs harsh and violent. Patrick picked him up and, on the kitchen floor amidst potatoes and cleanser, rocked him the way Mom used to rock Anna.

THE SAME CHAPLAIN they’d had for Anna’s funeral droned on and on during his mother’s closed-casket service. With two deaths in the family, Michael thought he’d blab less. Then again, maybe the chaplain wanted to make up for Anna’s short sermon. Whatever the reason, his mother’s took forever.

Michael’s whole Scout pack—minus rat fink Dennis Klemko—wore their uniforms to the second funeral. Michael flatly refused. He hated Scouts. He hated everyone who’d ever been a Scout.

Without a uniform, he had nothing formal to wear. His father said he wasn’t up to taking him shopping and didn’t even know Michael’s new size. Michael had outgrown his old church suit ages ago, and the Scoutmaster’s wife couldn’t get off work to take him shopping, either. So the Certs lady—his Scoutmaster’s single sister-in-law with the silly name of Sunshine Mellow and sillier plastic go-go boots—guessed his size and showed up at the last minute with a new black suit and white shirt from the Navy Exchange. Apparently it was paid for by the Scout troop, which made Michael almost want to reject it.

When the Certs lady dropped off the suit bag, Michael asked her if she’d sit with him at his mother’s funeral. Michael knew Sunshine didn’t meet his father’s standards. She wasn’t Irish, she wasn’t even Catholic and she had a “hippie” name, but Michael liked her, anyway. She said he had to ask his father; she’d wait in the car while he did. Michael ran back inside.