Darkside (2002), page 20
“I wish we could have alerted the gates,” Jim said, drawing off a cup of coffee before the percolator finished hiccuping. The coffee was amber instead of black and filled with tiny coffee grounds. He lifted the lid and poured it back in.
“You think he beat it into town and then circled back?”
“If he’s a mid, right,” Jim said. “While we were in the sauna. You know, I don’t think he just thought that steam move up on the fly, either. He’s getting into this shit.”
“Our boy’s a planner and a plotter.”
“Our boy’s a badass. That touchdown rocket. Live steam. A can of spray paint in the face. He gets chased, he reacts.”
“And it works, too,” she said. “I thought I was going to be smothered down there when all that steam let go. And the noise!”
Jim tried the coffee again. “Plus, he’s no hero. He knew we had the girl, but he took off anyway.”
“Either that or he knows she won’t say shit. Or, just possibly, she doesn’t really know who he is.”
“Right now, I’m interested in what he is,” Jim said. “You do the talking; I’ll just glare at her.”
Branner nodded, got some coffee and the tape recorder, and then they went to the interview room.
The girl was sitting at the small metal table, her elbows propped on it and her head in her hands. She now had an expression of total boredom on her face, and she didn’t even look up when they came into the room. Branner sat down at the head of the table and set up the tape recorder. Jim remained standing to one side, fixing the girl with a steady stare. Without all the Goth paint on her face, she looked much younger, a sophomore maybe. Moon-faced, pasty complexion, limp black hair, the beginnings of a double chin, outsized front, dull, dark eyes, red, dishwater hands with nicotine stains on her right forefinger, exaggerated, extra-long fake nails. A real beauty.
Branner turned on the machine, identified herself and Jim, and then took her through the required time, date, and Miranda warning for the record. When Branner asked her if she wanted a lawyer present, the girl stared straight ahead, saying nothing. Branner stated that she was taking that as a no, and then she asked the girl to identify herself. The girl gave her a surly look but said nothing. Branner paused the recorder and sat back in her chair.
“Listen, sweet pea, we have you for criminal trespass on a federal reservation, assault on a federal officer, destruction of government property, resisting arrest, carrying a concealed weapon, and possession of a controlled substance on federal property. You’re in no position to play hardball with us.”
“What destruction?” the girl asked.
“Causing steam to vent into the Academy’s utility tunnel complex. Destruction of electrical and telephone equipment from water damage. Hope you or your family carry lots and lots of liability insurance.”
The girl blinked when Branner mentioned her family. “I didn’t do that,” she said.
“You were the only one down there,” Branner said, cocking her head to one side. “Right?”
The girl started to say something, looked quickly at Branner, and then clamped her jaw shut. Branner leaned forward. “More to the point,” she said, “you are the one we apprehended. So if someone else did open the steam valve, it really doesn’t matter to us. Unless, of course, you want to tell us who that was.”
The girl set her jaw and said nothing. Branner looked at Jim. “Mr. Hall, there’s a fingerprint kit and a Polaroid in the main office. Could you bring them in here, please?”
Jim left the door open and went to look for the camera and the cardboard fingerprint forms. He could hear Branner explaining what she was going to do. He found the camera, ink pad, and forms and took them back into the interview room.
“Are you going to tell us your name?” Branner asked.
The girl stared back at her. “You said I had the right to remain silent. Guess what?”
“O-kay,” Branner said. “Mr. Hall, do your police have a holding cell?”
“No. If we need to hold someone, we take them downtown to the Annapolis station. Let’s see, at this hour? They’ll probably put her in the women’s drunk tank. She’ll have an interesting intercultural experience.”
“Are you willing to cooperate and let me take your fingerprints?” Branner asked. The girl stuffed her hands into the folds of her black dress.
Branner deactivated the recorder and terminated the interview. “It’s too late for this bullshit,” she said. “We’ll take her downtown. The night-shift cops can get her booked in. She gives them shit, they’ll get a couple of those sumo matrons to help out. I’ll file the charges Monday morning, and she can call her parents. They’re going to be so proud.”
She reached across the table and snapped on handcuffs, locking the girl’s wrist to the ring on the table. They left her in there, closed the door, and went back to the office with the camera and the identification kit.
“What we need here is a good dungeon,” Jim said.
“That one would probably enjoy a dungeon,” Branner replied. “She could hang upside down and hiss a lot.”
“What do you figure?”
“She’s too old to be in high school,” Branner said, getting out her Rolodex. “So I’m guessing St. John’s.” Branner found the number for the Annapolis police. “Do you think she could have been in that group Bagger tangled with? In that Irish pub?”
“It’s possible,” Jim said, rubbing his eyes. He could still feel the steam heat on his skin. “But with all the makeup they were wearing, I couldn’t tell one from another. There’s more attitude than brains in that one.”
“I know some of the state attorneys,” Branner said. “I’ll get one of them to lean on the parents. Talk about big fines.”
Jim didn’t think any of that would work. He doubted there had been any real damage done down in those tunnels. Those equipment rooms were built to protect against leaks of water or steam. The steam plant people had come down, closed one valve, and put the system back in operation. The vent fans had exhausted all the steam in about five minutes. Bancroft Hall probably hadn’t even noticed the outage.
They had missed their real target. Again. Branner was dialing the number.
“I’ll ride with you downtown, if you’d like,” he offered, stifling another yawn.
The game continues! And tonight I got a twofer. The security guy brings along a babe this time. Redhead, packing serious heat. From the NCIS no less. How do I know this? Because I have ways of seeing in the tunnels, that’s how. Learned long time ago, if you have the time, prepare your ground. Marines do that, whenever possible, and they’re the masters of small-unit tactics. So these two come waltzing down into the main complex, and set up some—are you ready for this?—motion detectors! How do I know? Because they talk about them. And I can not only see; I can also hear down there. So I step into a quiet zone just outside and make a quick call to Krill, my most pliable Goth moth. Krill’s up for anything, as I told you earlier, because her prospects in life are, shall we say, limited. I mean, how far will boobs get you these days? Krill’s not the brightest bulb in the circuit, in other words. How she got into St. John’s is beyond me. Suspect some money changed hands in alumni channels somewhere, because those people, as weird and liberal as they are, also have to be fairly smart. Anyway, Krill comes a-running, all decked out in serious Goth cloth. I pitch her into the main complex, send her down Broadway, and wait for the big bad law persons to do their thing. Then as soon as they say the magic word? I cut open a steam-line drain valve directly off the 150-psi heating main, and—presto—the tunnel fills with hot, wet steam. And me? I decided to call it a night and go on back through the Maryland Ave. gate, just like I rated it. Which I did, of course.
This security guy must be taking things seriously. I’ve tapped into his E-mail terminal, but he doesn’t use E-mail for his cop stuff. I’ve scanned into the Yard cops freq., but that’s all seriously routine, total admin crap. You wondering how I do all this? It’s easy, really. Well, you know, they teach us how. All those years of electrical and electronic engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, materials, chemistry, physics, and lots and lots of math? Well, shucks, I actually use it. Most of my classmates are welded to the get-through treadmill. You know, grind through the courses, pass the daily quizzes, pass the weekly tests, scurry for the Gouge, and then sweat through the exams. And then what do they do? They do a core dump and set up for the next required course. They learn nothing.
Not me. I actually learn it. I actually like it. But, of course, I see all the tests and exams beforehand. And if my classmates treated me better, so would they. It isn’t hard, you know. The faculty dweebs are basically lazy. And they’re bureaucrats. Which means they use test questions from a database (and all God’s databases were made for me to break into). AND, they have to get the test approved by the department head. AND, they use E-mail to do the approval process. AND, I can read any E-mail riding the Academy’s intranets. Piece of cake. They don’t even really encrypt the stuff—of course they have fire walls to protect against outside penetration, but not from someone who can place his own fire-wire port in the faculty server bank. Most importantly, they don’t expect us mids to do this shit. They expect us to hunt for Gouge, but not to read their internal mail.
But I’m not just any mid, am I? Not by a damned sight. I came from nothing much, but everywhere they sent me, I learned all about working the system. There’s always a system. Now we wait to see what the security wienies do next. So little time, so many opportunities for fun down below. Eventually, they’ll figure out they’re playing on my ground. And if they bring a crowd, well, hell, I’ll go have a beer in the Goth lair. Or maybe in my own lair. I do have one, you know.
Did you know that black cop who met up with the vampire Dyle the other night was NCIS? Just like the redhead who got a steam bath last night. I’d better be careful, right? ’Cause NCIS is also investigating the Dell incident. They get lucky, it might be them getting the twofer…. You, too, need to pay attention now. This Dell thing’s like an oil spill in water. It can spread out and get all over you.
Ev went into his office at nine o’clock that Sunday morning. He had twenty-three senior term papers left to grade, and nothing in particular holding him at home on a Sunday morning. In fact, Sunday mornings were not a good time for him to be at home. Too many memories, and that intrusive silence in the house.
An hour into the exercise, the words began to run together. Yet another dissertation on the World War I naval battle of Jutland by yet another midshipman who obviously had missed the entire strategic point of the battle. Suddenly tired of things academic, he stepped outside into the sunlight, thought briefly about finding a cigarette, then walked up Stribling Walk toward Bancroft and found a park bench halfway up. Chapel services were in full swing and he could hear the enormous Moeller organ rumbling away in the Academy’s cathedral-sized, 2,500-seat “chapel.” There were some early-bird tourists walking around the grounds, but, compared to the hustle and bustle of a Saturday morning, the Yard was empty. The few people strolling around the brick walks, passing among the aging bronze cannons and marble monuments, actually looked more like townies than real tourists. Except for the couple coming down the double walk from the chapel precincts. An older-looking man was pushing a woman in a wheelchair. The man was overweight, with a reddish face, steel-colored gray hair cut short, and a weary expression on his face, as if he’d been pushing that wheelchair for a long, long time. The woman in the chair was wrapped up in a voluminous blanket. She was also round, but she had an unhealthy pallor, lank gray hair tied back in a bun, and an oxygen line clipped to her nostrils. The chair had an IV stand attached, on which hung the green oxygen bottle. Ev watched them pull abreast of his bench and then look around at the beautiful vistas of the Yard. The Severn River shone like a big blue mirror between the white academic buildings down the walk. The couple was close enough to Ev’s bench that he felt obliged to say good morning.
“Your first visit to the Academy?” he asked.
They both looked at him, but it was the man who answered. “Nope. Been here once before. August. Hotter’n hell. This is much better.”
“August?” Ev said. “Parents’ weekend?”
“Yup,” the man said, turning the wheelchair so that the woman didn’t have to crane her neck. “Much good that it did us.”
Ev didn’t understand that comment, but he let it pass. It must have been a real effort to bring this woman into the crowds of parents’ weekend. That was when parents got to see their sons and daughters looking like midshipmen for the first time. The transformations were always something of a small but proud shock. The woman was having trouble breathing, and Ev suddenly realized that she was weeping.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked, leaning forward on the bench. “Can I help you?”
The man wiped a tear out of his eyes. “Don’t think you can,” he said, patting the woman’s shoulder. “See, our boy’s dead. Our Brian. That’s why we’re here. There’s gonna be a memorial service. Up there, in that big church. This afternoon. We got here too early.”
Ev felt a chill settle over his shoulders. These were Midshipman Dell’s parents. He tried to think of something comforting to say, but his voice was stuck in his throat.
“You work here, sir?” the man asked.
“Yes, I do. I’m a professor in the Social Sciences Division. I teach naval history.”
“You know our boy, maybe? Brian Dell?”
“No, Mr. Dell. I didn’t. I teach mostly first classmen. Seniors. Your son was a plebe. I—I heard about what happened, of course. I’m very sorry for your loss. We all are.”
“Doubt that,” the woman wheezed, speaking for the first time. “Sumbitch who killed him isn’t sorry.”
“Killed him?” Ev said, and then felt stupid. Of course they would have learned of the rumors. “I thought he, um, fell.”
“He fell all right,” Dell’s father said. “But there’re some folks think he had him some help. That some bastard pushed him, maybe.”
“I really can’t imagine that,” Ev said. He thought he should stand up, but then he’d be towering over both of them.
Dell’s mother grunted, and then concentrated on her breathing for a long moment. “Brian was small,” she said, exhaling. Her voice was raspy and wet at the same time. “Kids picked on him in school. He shouldn’t oughta come here. Everyone’s too big. Like you.”
“Well, not everyone,” Ev said, thinking of the women midshipmen. Then he thought of Julie, who was hardly petite. “And everyone gets picked on for the first year. Even big guys like me. It’s part of the program.”
“You say so,” the woman said, and then began to cough. Her husband did something with the oxygen bottle’s valve, and the coughing subsided. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing again.
“You go through here?” Mr. Dell asked.
“I did. Almost thirty years ago. And I have a daughter who’s about to graduate.”
“How come you’re a professor, then? How come you’re not in the Navy?”
“I was in the Navy for thirteen years. Flew carrier jets. Got tired of it, being away all the time. Having a wife and daughter I rarely saw.”
The man nodded. “I was a lifer,” he said. “Twenty-two years. Signalman chief. Brian was my son, by my first wife. Lost her to the cancer.” He had tears in his eyes again. He wiped them away with his sleeve.
“I lost my wife to a drunk driver,” Ev blurted out without thinking.
Mr. Dell’s eyebrows rose, and then he nodded. “Then you know,” he said. “You know.”
Ev wasn’t entirely sure what it was he knew, but he understood the sympathy. A foursome of young civilians came down the walk, passing the Dells on either side, trying not to stare at Mrs. Dell.
“Didn’t send him here to die, goddamnit,” Mrs. Dell said, loudly enough that one of the girls looked back over her shoulder in surprise. “They took him because he could do that math. And he was a diver. A really good one. Supposed to throw his hat in the air one day. Be a Navy officer. Now he’s in a drawer in some morgue somewhere. Goddamn people won’t even let us see him.”
“Uh, that’s probably a good thing, Mrs. Dell,” Ev said. “They’re doing that for your protection. For what it’s worth, they never even found my wife. So I know something of what you’re feeling, although losing a child is really tough. But they’re not bastards.”
She turned her face away from him and stared angrily down the walk. From her tone of voice, he had the feeling that she would have spit on the ground if she could have.
“She’s real upset,” Mr. Dell said. “We both are. They’re being as polite as they can, but nobody can say for sure what happened. We’re beginning to wonder.”
Ev couldn’t bring himself to tell them about his relationship to the incident, or that he knew anything about the investigation. “Well, they’re not hiding anything, Chief, if that’s what you’re worried about. There’s an official investigation going on. NCIS. Those things take time. You probably remember—they never say anything while the investigation’s still going on.”
“We met with the superintendent, that Admiral McDonald. In his office. This morning. We showed up early, so they had to go get him. He said he was very sorry that it happened. I believe he meant it.”
“I can assure you he meant it,” Ev said. “He feels responsible for every midshipman here. We all do. Faculty and staff.” Even as he said it, he could hear the official line creeping into his words. Mrs. Dell, who still wouldn’t look at him, was clearly not buying it, although the chief seemed mollified.
“We’re gonna walk around some,” he said. “It’s been nice talking to you, Professor…?”
“Markham. Ev Markham,” Ev responded, standing up and offering his hand to the chief. “And I meant it when I said I was sorry for what happened to Midshipman Dell. We all are. Truly, we are.”
