P Deutermann - Darkside

“Macallan, rocks,” she said to the waitress, who’d already brought Ev his glass of wine. Ev was suddenly conscious of the covert stares from a faculty couple at a nearby table. They’d known Joanne. “What’d you find out?” she asked.

He recapped his conversation with the coach. Liz frowned. “Okay,” she said. “So it would have been nice if Julie’d been in the pool with the entire swim team at the precise time of Dell’s death, but this doesn’t prove she was anywhere but in her room, asleep.”

“That’s what I hoped,” he said.

“Problem is, she’s the only tie they have right now. Which means they’ll call her in again and again and keep probing to see if they can make a connection. In her present mood, she might screw that up.”

“So now what?”

Liz looked around and lowered her voice. “My next step is to find out what’s in that ME’s report that has everyone’s nose up.”

“Can you do that?”

“I’m working my web. Cross your fingers. But basically, until they lay charges against somebody, we’re in the dark,” she said. “Maybe the best thing is to just let the NCIS people do their thing.”

“And let Julie take her chances?”

“I didn’t mean that, although she seems willing to do that anyway.”

Ev nodded and drank some wine. The room was filling up, with even some midshipmen coming in now. Firsties were allowed to patronize the Officers Club on Saturdays, and a few had brought along their dates, who appeared to be nervous. The waitress tried her best to put them at ease as she took orders and discreetly checked ID cards. Liz was glancing at her watch.

“Big date tonight?” he asked.

She finished her scotch and looked at him with an amused expression. He flushed and apologized for intruding. She leaned forward and put her fingers over his. “Are you ever going to relax around me?” she asked.

Acutely aware that the faculty couple across the way was watching, he withdrew his hand and ran it through his hair. “I feel like a teenager,” he said. “When you came into the bar all dressed up, I wondered where you were going and with whom, and then I kicked myself mentally. Like it was any of my business.”

She smiled openly then. “You’re right, it’s none of your business. But I’m edified that you care. I like you. I think you’re a nice guy who’s been kicked in the teeth by what happened to your wife and now you don’t know what the hell to do. You know those people over there?”

Surprised, he almost glanced over at them. He said, “Yes, they knew Joanne.”

“I thought I detected some vibes of disapproval,” she said. “I’ve got to run. I’ll call you when I hear something. And you call me if Julie squawks.”

“I will,” he said, suddenly reluctant to see her go.

“Or just call me,” she said quietly as she stood up to leave. He smiled up at her. She then walked over to where the faculty couple was sitting, leaned down, and said something to the woman, then left the lounge with an exaggerated stride that had every man in the room watching her go. Ev saw the woman’s face turn very red, and he wondered what Liz had said. Don’t ask, he thought, and then found himself grinning despite himself.

Just call me. Okay, counselor-excuse me, Liz-I will definitely do that. Liz was the only ray of light in his life right now.

Jim listened to a movie themes CD while he waited for Agent Branner in his truck. He was parked in the small lot in front of Alumni Hall. It was just after 10:30 Saturday night, and there was barely any traffic around the Yard. A partial moon shone through fleeting clouds. There was a dance over in Dahlgren Hall, so most of the traffic was down at the other end of the Yard.

He’d caught up with the commandant late that afternoon and given him a quick debrief on what he’d learned about the Dell case, which, of course, wasn’t very much. He did not tell the commandant anything about the tunnel runner incident, nor did Robbins seem to know about the fire alarm of the night before. He’d told Jim to keep plugging and then hurried away. If he was pleased with what Jim had told him, he gave no sign. Probably just expected his orders to be carried out, with hardly a thought to the possibility that they wouldn’t be. The confidence of command. Or maybe the arrogance.

Branner knocked on the driver’s side window, startling him. He hadn’t heard or seen her vehicle approach, but there it was, parked right next to his. He rolled the window down and shut off the CD.

“Ready?” she asked. She was dressed as he’d recommended: dark slacks, a sweatshirt, black gloves, a ball cap with NCIS emblazoned across the front, and a dark-colored NCIS windbreaker. She had a utility belt with flashlight, her weapon, extra rounds, cuffs, and some odds and ends in Velcro pouches.

Jim nodded, swung out of the truck, and locked it up. He was dressed as he had been for his previous excursions, with a different windbreaker to replace the one trashed by the spray paint. He carried a small tool bag with the motion detectors, and he was also wearing a utility belt.

“The grate’s over there, behind Mahan Hall,” he said. “You okay with being underground? Not claustrophobic?”

“Not thrilled with confined spaces, but I’m not anything-phobic,” she said. “Mood I’m in, I hope your bat bird does show up tonight.”

“How’s Bagger?” he asked as they walked over toward the grate. A fine mist of steam was wafting up through the steel grating.

“Hanging in there,” she said, looking hard at the shadows around the underground entrance, unconsciously touching her sidearm. “They’ve got the swelling problem controlled. Now they’re waiting for him to surface.”

“Getting whacked in the head-it’s not like the movies, is it?” Jim said as he lifted the grate. Branner didn’t answer as she inspected the steel stairs leading down into the concrete pit. Jim asked her to pull the grate closed behind her as he led the way down.

She asked few questions as he gave her the grand tour for the next hour. He took her all the way out to the St. John’s grate and then back under the utility tunnels serving Bancroft Hall. He showed her where the rocket had left char marks on the concrete, the territorial graffiti, which remained unchanged from the previous night, and where he’d been surprised by the paint-spraying vampire. He noticed that, despite her statement to the contrary, she did seem to be uncomfortable being down in the tunnels. The tunnels weren’t exactly claustrophobic, in his opinion, what with the lights and ample room to walk around without bending over, even for someone of his height. Nor was it particularly spooky. Just a collection of pipes, cables, conduits, equipment cabinets, and steel doors leading to vaults along the sides. The air was close and warm; maybe that was doing it.

He set up the first motion detector in the main tunnel, pointing back toward Bancroft Hall. He set it high so as to not detect any rodents that might be operating down here. Branner made a face when he mentioned rodents, but she helped him string the tiny transmitter wire through the overhead conduit brackets back to the T junction with the Mahan Hall grating access. The second one went into the tunnel aimed at the Annapolis utility tunnel access, a few blocks from the St. John’s campus, with its transmitter wire coming back to the same point as the first one. He took the steam-tight globes off the two lights illuminating the junction and unscrewed the bulbs. Then they moved into the short tunnel leading back to the Mahan Hall grating, set up the receiver-indicator box, ran the box through its self-test, and sat down on some equipment cabinets to wait. The only sounds came from the steam pipes, with the additional rumble of a vehicle out on the street in front of Mahan Hall.