P Deutermann - Darkside

“Mr. Battle, sir,” Dolly said. He punched the flashing button on his elderly Navy desk phone.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Worth asked without preamble.

Ev described what had happened that morning, then told him that Julie was now closeted with NCIS agents over in the commandant’s office.

“Right. And nobody will say what put the spotlight on Julie?”

“Nope. I talked to the dant himself. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming. The word in the Yard is that the kid was a jumper, but the official party line is accident until proven otherwise. Supposedly, everyone’s still in the fact-finding mode. There are, apparently, ‘issues.’”

“Did Julie know this kid? As in, Anything going on?”

“Not like that. Yes, she did know him. She was on last year’s summer detail, and she’d had him come around a couple of times during the year. But no to your second question. Worth, she’s a firstie. This kid was a plebe, and, according to her, something of a weak sister. Firsties don’t get emotionally involved with plebes, except when they’re yelling at them.”

“That’s not something you could probably prove, Your Eminence. But, okay, I’ll stipulate. For now. Look, you remember Liz DeWinter? I introduced you two at that dinner party I did on my boat?”

“Of course.” He did indeed. Liz DeWinter, a classy thirty-something who was also a lawyer. And twice divorced, he reminded himself. She had been vague about exactly what kind of law she did-something political, having to do with the fact that Annapolis was the capital of Maryland.

“You ever call her, by the way?” Worth asked.

“Well, no, I didn’t. She was very nice and eminently streetable, Worth, but…”

“Yeah, ‘but.’ Always the ‘but.’ Well, look, she’s a criminal defense lawyer. Under all that linen, legs, and lace, she’s a gunfighter. Does mainly political corruption cases, of which we always seem to have one or two going here in the capital of the great state of Maryland, my Maryland.”

“So I’ve read. I mean about the corruption. Sounds a little high-powered for what’s going on here. I mean-”

“You just stepped off your rock of expertise, Doctor, if I may be so bold,” said Worth, interrupting him. “If you think Julie’s in trouble, high power is what you want right out of the gate. Especially if the Dark Side over there in Bancroft Hall is going shields-up, Mr. Sulu.”

Ev smiled at Worth’s wild blend of metaphors and Hollywood allusions. But then he thought about what Worth was saying, which was precisely what he’d been worried about earlier.

“Look, I’ll call Liz for you,” Worth offered. “You know, a referral. Then she’ll owe me lunch.”

“Can I afford this?” Ev asked.

“Can you afford not to? Yes, Liz is expensive, but you’ve got the money, right?”

Worth was right about the money. Joanne had been killed one rainy night by a drunk driver, an elderly but still practicing surgeon, no less, at the top of the towering Chesapeake Bay Bridge. He’d passed her in a drunken weave on the westbound bridge at high speed and lost control on the wet, steel surface. Caroming off both guardrails, he’d come back at her, head on, and knocked her car completely off the bridge. The state troopers had found her car’s license plate in the road debris. It had taken divers two days to find the car, intact but windowless, so she’d probably survived the bridge impact, but not the drop into the bay from nearly two hundred feet in the air. Or maybe she had, considering the fact that her air bag had been deployed but the shoulder belt unlatched. Joanne wouldn’t start the car without her seat belt. Even worse, her body had never been recovered. While Ev and Julie were still reeling from this news, Worth had stepped right in, threatened the doctor’s insurance company with a $20 million personal injury lawsuit, and obtained a substantial seven-figure settlement in less than a week, plus a public admission by the drunk-driving doctor that he was an alcoholic. So, yes, he had the money. He would have preferred to have his wife.

“Okay, Worth,” Ev said, still thinking about what had happened to Joanne. “And, not for the first time, many thanks.”

“Semper fry,” Worth said, and hung up.

Ev made an almost-perfect landing with his scull alongside the pontoon dock, then nearly tipped himself into the creek extracting himself. He ended up sitting on the hemp mat with skinned knees and elbows, holding on to the slim craft with one heel. He looked around as discreetly as he could to see if any of his rowing neighbors on the creek had been watching, but no one appeared to be about except Mrs. Murphy next door, who waved and smiled. He smiled weakly, waved back, and pulled the scull up onto the dock, secured it on its rack, and went up the path to the house, cooling rapidly as the sweat evaporated from his skin. He’d gone all the way up to the Route 50 bridge in a burst of sustained effort he hadn’t attempted since his days rowing crew for the Academy. He would pay for that run tonight, he realized, but this business with Julie had stressed him out, and heavy-duty exercise was his best cure for that.

He got a shower and checked messages. Nothing from Julie, but there was one from Liz DeWinter. She’d given him her home number. Brother Worth coming through, he thought. Battle had become a big-time legal eagle in the capital, and Ev knew he was lucky to have him as an attorney. He went out to the back porch to start up a charcoal fire, got himself a glass of wine, and then called Liz. Just when he thought he was going to get voice mail, she picked up.

“Hi, Liz, this Ev Markham. Is this a convenient time to talk?”

“It is indeed, Ev. How are you?”

“Worried.”

“Yeah, Worth filled me in. Have you heard any more from your daughter?”

“No, I haven’t, but I expect she’ll call tonight. You know how it is over in Bancroft Hall-they keep those kids running all day and half the night.”

“So I’ve heard. But she hasn’t been accused of anything that you know of, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“What’s her connection to the plebe who died?”

“Don’t know,” he replied. “I’m waiting to find out what that is, assuming she’s found out by now.”

“Okay. Let’s assume I do get into this. She would be the client, right?”

“I think so. She’s legally an adult. I sure as hell know nothing about all this, except for what Julie is telling me, so I can’t imagine I’ll need representation. But I’d feel better if Julie had access to legal counsel, if not outright representation.”

“Understood. Usually government bureaucracies, like the Academy or the state government, which is my area of expertise, act differently if they know there’s a lawyer in the game for the other side.”

He considered that. “The Navy’s pretty conservative,” he said. “If Julie gets a lawyer right away, will it make her look like she’s done something that now needs defending?”

“If you detect that, you simply mention my name and tell them that I’m your attorney and that you’ve told me there’s something going on. That way, you’re just an individual who put a call in to his lawyer. Trust me, the bureaucrats will get the message.”

“And Julie? What does she say?”

“As little as possible. How old is your daughter?”

“She’s twenty-one. Which means that technically, even as her father, I’ve got no standing in this.”

“Which makes you feel just wonderful.”

“Exactly. I just beat my brains out on the Severn in my scull to decompress.”

“I know that feeling: I go to the pool for laps when I get that way.”

He remembered her more clearly now, especially when she mentioned the swimming. She was no more than five two, if that, but sleek, with short dark hair, intense blue eyes, and a full-breasted, voluptuous body that he’d noticed all the way across the lounge before they’d been introduced on Worth’s yacht. “Now I’m trying to decide between drinking or taking some Chinese herbs before I stiffen up in this chair,” he said.