P Deutermann - Darkside

“Where was your roommate yesterday?”

“She’s on an authorized weekend. So the room was empty for most of the day.”

“You weren’t there?”

“I was…away.”

Away, he thought. As in, That’s my business. “All right,” he said. “So let’s hit this from another angle: Who might want Dell dead?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean, the whole notion of a midshipman wanting to kill another mid-it’s outrageous! We don’t have people like that at the Naval Academy!”

“Well, there’s a notion that might now be in doubt. I mean, there was that case a few years back, where those two cadets killed another kid. As I remember, one of them was Air Force Academy, the other was Naval Academy?”

“But that was different. That was some warped boyfriend-girlfriend thing.”

“Like that never happens here? Two guys getting into it over the same girl? All of them midshipmen?”

“Well, yes, I suppose, but not to the extent where they go get guns or anything.”

“If Dell was killed, and of course we still don’t know that, it wasn’t with a gun, Julie. But he was wearing your underwear when he hit the pavement. So there was something pretty weird going on there that didn’t come out of the Academy reg book. Now look: Dell was on the swim team. You were on the swim team. Was there someone on the swim team who might have hated you both?”

Julie sat there, shaking her head from side to side. “I don’t know about Dell,” she said slowly. “I mean, he was just a manager. But no, I can’t think of anyone. We’re a team first, individual winners second. No superstars, no goats. That’s the whole point.”

But there was something in her voice that got his attention. Not evasion exactly, but just a whiff of artful casualness. If he’d been talking to just another midshipman, he would not have detected it. But this was his daughter, Julie, who used to tell some barefaced whoppers in precisely that offhand tone of voice when she was a kid. Back then, he would have braced her up about it. But now, with graduation, commissioning, adulthood visible on the horizon, he just couldn’t do it. This was Julie, but she was also Midshipman Markham, almost Ensign Markham, USNR. She was already mad at him for seeing Liz. He realized what he was really afraid of: saying something that would pull down a real iron curtain between them.

“Well, think about it, Julie,” he said. “When that report chit gets into the system, those NCIS people are going to be all over it. They’re going to sound like a broken record: Why was Dell wearing your underwear? Why does a room inspection come up with some of Dell’s clothes in your room? What connects you to Dell? And if not you, who’s doing this shit? And why?”

Julie nodded but didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she said, “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

He hesitated, terribly aware of all the possible permutations. But then he thought, Hell with it: She wants to be a grown-up. “Yeah, but you started it,” he replied.

“What I said about Liz DeWinter?”

“Yes. As if I’m somehow being unfaithful to your mother. Your mother is dead, Julie. Living alone in that house is beginning to wear me down. All of my friends, the close ones anyway, are forever telling me to get back into the world. The first time I do, my own daughter goes off on me?”

She opened her mouth to reply but then shut it. He thought about softening what he’d just said, then decided to hold fast. Finally, she nodded, got up, said, “Okay, Dad,” and walked out of his office, closing the door gently behind her.

He threw a pen across the room. Well done, Professor, he thought. Now who’s she going to talk to? Then he had an idea. Turn this to advantage. He’d call Liz, tell her what had happened, get Liz to call Julie. He had a feeling that Julie might need Liz more rather than less come Monday, when that report chit lighted some fuses. He put in a call to Liz’s office, then remembered it was Sunday. He called her home number, and she picked up.

“Good morning, Professor,” she said brightly.

“Good morning to you, counselor,” he answered. “You’re sounding chipper this morning.”

“Well, so I am. What’s up?”

He told her Julie’s news about the room inspection.

“This has to be a setup,” she said immediately.

“Yeah, that’s what I think. Even if Julie had been involved with that plebe, she sure as hell would not have left some of his stuff out in plain sight, and certainly not after coming under the gun this past week. Somebody’s fucking around.”

“To say the least,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Office.”

“Ah. Sunday morning.”

“You’ve been down this road.”

“I have indeed. Look-I have a boat. Sunday afternoons, I usually go out for a couple of hours. Care to join me? We can talk about this.”

“Love to,” he said immediately. Anything to get out of the Yard just now. Plus, he wanted to see her. No matter what his daughter thought about it.

“Okay. It’s a stinkpot, so you won’t have to crew or anything. I’ll stop by the Greek place, get some lunch stuff. You bring the beer. I like anything dark. Slip forty-seven, AYC. Bring a bathing suit-it gets hot out there.”

“Roger that. See you in forty minutes or so.”

He hung up the phone and sat back in his chair. Annapolis Yacht Club. Sometimes he forgot she was a successful lawyer with her own firm. Julie, he reminded himself. This is all about Julie. But he had to admit that talk of bathing suits had perked him right up.

Jim was giving the Chantal a freshwater wash-down when he spotted Branner coming down the pier. He had brought Jupiter up on his shoulder for some sunlight R and R. It was fairly safe; the parrot had tried a short flight just once, when he’d first moved aboard. Even with his primaries clipped, he had managed to flap over the side and then down into the harbor. Jim had had to fish him out with a swab. Ever since then, Jupiter had hung on with his version of a Vulcan death grip whenever Jim brought him up on deck.

Branner let herself through the visitors’ gate and came down his dock. She was wearing wraparound shades, jeans, flat white tennis shoes, and a sleeveless white blouse. He paused to watch her progress, and she gave him a crooked smile when she saw him watching. The guy on the Hatteras across the pier walked into a deck chair while doing his own surveillance. Special Agent B for Branner, on the strut, Jim thought.

“What’s that you’re wearing?” she asked as she came up the gangway. “Is that a bird bib?”

“Exactly; Jupiter’s medium housebroken when I carry him around down below, but up here, he acts like any damn seagull. What’s the word on Bagger?”

She plopped herself down on the edge of the hatch leading down into the main salon and shrugged. “He’s holding his own, but barely. In and out of consciousness. His ex-wife is with him.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Not sure. The theory is that seeing her will scare him into full consciousness. Otherwise, the docs are babbling the usual oatmeal.”

“Want some coffee?” he asked, indicating the percolator perched on the binnacle.

“Yes, please,” she said. “Black and sweet.”

He went below, grabbed a relatively clean mug and the box of Domino Dots, came back up topside, and got her coffee. To his amazement, she popped one of the cubes between her front teeth and started sipping the coffee through the cube.

“I can get you a glass,” he said. “Which one of your parents was Russian?”

“M’mother,” she mumbled around the cube. Jupiter wanted a cube, so Jim gave him one. He promptly began reducing it to powdery bits.