P Deutermann - Darkside

“Okay,” he said. “I have to ask: What’s your first name? Bagger wouldn’t tell me.”

“Special Agent?” she said, popping the sugar cube out into the mug. “And Bagger wouldn’t tell you because he doesn’t know.”

A huge motor yacht sounded its horn imperiously as it got under way from the Annapolis Yacht Club across the way. A dozen swirling seagulls screamed back at it. Jupiter joined in, momentarily deafening Jim. He reached up and flicked Jupiter’s beak with the tip of his finger. Jupiter dropped a bomb down the back of the bib and made to bite Jim’s ear.

“Nice birdie,” she said. “What’s deep-fried parrot taste like?”

Jupiter, hearing something hostile in her tone of voice, went into range-finder mode, swinging his head back and forth and glaring at her.

“If that thing flies over at me, I’ll smack it clean across the harbor,” she said pleasantly. “Nothing personal, you understand.”

Jim laughed, swiped Jupiter off his shoulder with his right hand, and began scratching the back of his neck. The parrot, mollified, closed his eyes, although he peeked occasionally at Branner as if to say, I’m watching you.

“Your Goth slag still in the pokey?” he asked.

“They let her out this morning. Some ponytailed faculty adviser of uncertain gender assumed responsibility for her. Made lots of noise about jackboots and storm troopers. The town cops were way impressed. They’ll bring her back in for a hearing when and if I make formal charges. Her first name, by the way, is Hermione. Hermione Natter.”

Jim leaned back against the life rails, enjoying a sudden bloom of sunlight. “‘Hermione’? I think I’d become a Goth, too. What were her parents thinking?”

Branner shook her head. “Mom must have been getting even for a tough labor. Anyway, she wouldn’t give up the other runner, so we’re nowhere with that little problem.”

“You have enough for charges?”

“Nah. The laundry list of heinous crimes and misdemeanors either works right away or it doesn’t. Then lawyers set in. It was worth a try.”

“You going to let the downtown cops work on her for the muggings?”

“I’ve talked to the case detective, but there’s no probable cause to connect this girl with those incidents. You know, all Goths look alike: uniformly grotesque. So tomorrow, I’m going to get back on the Dell case. I need to find some leverage on Markham. Get her to talk to me.”

The wake from the big motor cruiser rocked the Chantal gently. “I still can’t feature midshipmen offing other midshipmen,” Jim said. “I mean, those bruises could have come from a hand-to-gland class the day before he died. Or a boxing class, or a wrestling class. They put the plebes through the whole gamut in their first year.”

“I know; I’m one of the coaches for the Academy judo sports club.”

“I didn’t know that. You coach just the girls?”

She grunted. “I coach them all, the long, the short, and the tall. When I get a guy whose attitude exceeds his ability, I hum that airline commercial song, ‘Come Fly with Me.’…You ought to try it sometime.”

“Sorry, there, Special Agent. When I clinch with the ladies, it’s for purposes other than throwing them across the room.”

“Or getting thrown, maybe?”

“Guess I’m a lover, not a fighter,” he said.

“Sometimes love’s a fight,” she shot back. “Think about it. Back to Dell: Who would have his class schedule?”

“Any prof in the academic department could call it up on the faculty intranet,” Jim said. “And I suppose the officers in the Exec Department could, too. You get into Dell’s computer?”

“Not yet; we have the box, but that was Bagger’s specialty. Dude was a total whiz with those damn things. Now we’ll have to import a lab rat from Washington. It’ll be low priority as long as it’s a suicide case.”

“And that’s where you are with Dell? Suicide?” Jim asked as he went to get himself some more coffee. He refilled her mug.

“That or DBM. Homicide’s looking shaky just now. The data well dried up.”

“I think I’d talk to Dell’s roommate,” he said. “Plebe year roommates have no secrets. They’re under attack from the upperclassmen as a room, if you will. You know, room inspections, uniform races, one guy’s gear adrift bilges the entire room. Like that.”

“We questioned him briefly, of course,” she said. “But he says he was asleep when the thing went down. He only realized who was dead when Dell didn’t show up at morning formation, and then we called him in.”

“Yeah, but this time, pull the string on Dell’s life as a plebe. Who his friends were. What he did on weekends. Whether he had a girlfriend. If he got mail, and from whom. And aren’t there suicide profiles? Questions you ask to establish a predisposition?”

Branner gave him a look. “You want a job?” she asked.

“Got a job.”

“Oh, right.” She sniffed, looking across the harbor.

He sat down on the deck, his back against the rails. Jupiter squawked at almost getting squished. “Okay, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that-well, security officer at a military academy? I would expect some fifty-year-old retired officer to be doing that, not a young Studly-Dudley like yourself. I mean, most guys your age I know are hot and heavy into their careers. This job seems like a side pass. What’d you do before this-weren’t you a Marine officer?”

“Yeah. CO of the MarDet here at the academy. Packed it in when my obligated service was over.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “How come? Seems to me that CO of the Academy marine detachment would be a pretty high-vis posting. Good for the old career.”

“My career was over before it began. Little operational problem in Bosnia.” He gave her the same version he’d given the dant.

“And you had to take the rap for that? I thought the Marines were straight shooters.”

“Most of the time. Unless it involves embarrassing the Corps. Then they have other rules. It wasn’t personal, just the system. I didn’t go away mad, just went away.”

“I’d say you got screwed.”

He wanted to tell her there was more to it, but let it go. “Yup,” he said. “Shit happens, going west. But then life goes on. And, hey?” He paused, gesturing at the beautiful harbor, the fine morning, even the good coffee. “Life ain’t so bad, is it?”

Across the harbor, two guys in full yachting costume were trying to be seriously traditional by sailing their fancy yawl out of the city harbor without using the engine. With both of them wrestling the sails, no one was watching the navigation, and Jim saw that they were headed straight for a mudflat. The sunlight reflecting off the water was almost bright enough to hurt his eyes.

“So you’re parked? Is that good enough for you?”

“I think I’m not career material,” he said.

“A career isn’t necessarily a life sentence, not if you’re doing something you enjoy.”

“You enjoy being a government cop?”

The two guys on the yawl achieved a sudden, spectacular mast-bending stop on the mudflat. One pitched over the side and popped up, squawking for help until his buddy told him just to stand up. Older salts along the city dock were grinning at the spectacle.

Branner shrugged. “Yeah, most of the time. I’ve got my own shop, small as it is, at an early age. The NCIS has plenty of opportunities for women.”

“Well, there you are. Sounds like you’re all set up.”

She laughed, putting up her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, I withdraw the comment. Obviously, you’re not hurting for money, so maybe this all makes sense.”

Stung, Jim wanted to defend himself, but then he forced himself to relax. He suspected that Branner went through life provoking other people. It must be the red hair, he thought.