Darkside (2002), page 24
“Thank you,” she said almost mechanically. “I don’t think it’s really penetrated yet.”
“I lost my wife two years ago,” he said. “To a drunk driver.”
“And this Liz DeWinter? Who is she?”
Ev looked down at her, startled by the question and the vaguely disapproving expression on the woman’s face. The yacht hit a large wave and shuddered.
“Right now, she’s saving my life,” he said. “Now get some rest.”
He got up and turned out the lights. As he was shutting the cabin door, he thought he heard her say she was sorry. You don’t know the half of it, he thought. But you will.
9
Jim Hall wrote a quick note at his desk, sealed it into an official envelope, marked it “Eyes only, personal-for RADM-Select Robbins,” and asked a secretary to give it to the commandant’s admin assistant. Then he went to meet Oberst-sturmbannführer Branner over in Mother B.
Branner was waiting for him in the rotunda. She was wearing another tight short skirt outfit, and she was tapping one high-heeled foot impatiently. There was a fat briefcase sitting on the marble floor beside her. Two firsties walking by gave her an unabashed once-over until she looked back at them, at which point they found an urgent reason to pick up the pace.
“We have a development,” she said without preamble when he joined her. “It seems that Midshipman Markham turned up having some of Dell’s clothes in her room.”
“And how did we find that out?” he asked. He was conscious of the fact that their voices were echoing around the cavernous room.
“Room inspection,” she said. “Apparently one of those random things. Markham was in charge of the room for last week. She was placed on report for having nonregulation gear in the room. They called me this morning just before I left to come over here.”
“Was it truly random, or did you put a word in to the Exec Department?”
“Moi?” she asked sweetly. “Actually, no. Fortuitous, but random. We’re meeting with Dell’s roommate in five minutes.”
She picked up the briefcase and they headed for the commandant’s conference room. “What do you want me to do in there this time?” he asked.
“I’ll ask the questions. If you think of something, chime in. This kid’s not a suspect. I’m going to concentrate on what he knew about Dell, not the incident. I will tape it, so you’ll need to ID yourself at the appropriate time. Otherwise, follow my lead.”
“Anywhere,” he quipped as they stepped behind the partition. She ignored the remark. They went into the commandant’s outer office and the secretary led them into the conference room, where Midshipman Antonelli was waiting nervously. He stood up to attention and sounded off when they entered the room. He was a tall, rangy kid with heavy shoulders, a bony face, crooked nose, acne, and the regulation buzz-cut hair of a plebe. Jim guessed he played sprint ball.
“Midshipman Fourth Class Antonelli, sir!” the plebe shouted. Then he realized that one of them was a woman. “Uh, ma’am. Sir!” He blushed furiously, staring straight ahead, hands pressed flat to his sides, tucking his chin in even harder.
“Please sit down, Midshipman Antonelli,” Branner said.
“Yes, ma’am!” Antonelli all but shouted.
“And carry on, plebe,” Jim said in a calm voice.
“Sir, aye aye, sir!” the boy replied. He sat down in one of the side chairs and folded his hands in his lap. He still sat semirigidly. Branner took the chair at the head of the table, and Jim sat down next to her. They brushed knees for an instant, and Jim moved his chair, trying to ignore those shiny stockings. Branner fished the tape recorder out of the big briefcase and set it up.
“Midshipman Antonelli, I need you to relax, please,” she said. “We’re here to talk about Midshipman Dell, but not about what happened to him, understand? You are not a suspect or even a formal witness. We’re just trying to find out more about Dell as a person. What kind of a roommate he was. What kind of guy. How you two got along. Like that, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the plebe said, lowering the volume just slightly and giving Jim a sideways look.
“And this is Mr. Hall, the Academy security officer; he’s helping me with my inquiries. Now, I’m going to tape this, so we’ll do the introductions all over again for the tape.” She saw him frown and moved to reassure him. “The tape’s no big deal—it just keeps me from having to take a bunch of notes, okay?”
The plebe nodded and then Branner took him through the audio ID process. “So, Mr. Antonelli, tell us about Brian Dell. What kind of guy was he?”
“We got along,” Antonelli said after first licking his lips. He was obviously very nervous. Jim wondered how much of it was due to having to do an interview in the commandant’s office with NCIS, and how much of it was due to what had happened to his roommate. Branner looked over at Jim as if to say, You take it.
“Tell us about your plebe year,” Jim said.
“We were getting through it,” the plebe said. “I mean, like, there were three of us in the room at the beginning of plebe year. Frankie Browning dropped out at Christmas, so then it was just the two of us. That made it a little tougher.”
“I understand,” Jim said. “I graduated in ’93. Went Marine option and then got out. So I understand what plebe year’s all about and what you’ve been going through. What was Dell’s plebe year like?”
Antonelli shrugged. “Tough, I guess. He wasn’t very big. Kinda quiet. Kept his head down and his mouth shut, like most of us.”
“You go out for sprint ball, by any chance?”
“Yes, sir,” Antonelli said with obvious pride.
“But Dell—he wasn’t a big jock, was he?”
“No, sir. Kinda small. He had some trouble with that. I mean, with all the phys ed classes. Boxing. Wrestling. Hand to gland.” He reddened when he realized what he’d just called the self-defense course, but Branner just gave him a neutral smile. “But swimming, that he could do. Actually, he was a competition diver. He even went out for the varsity swim team. Got cut but stayed on as a manager.”
“How about academics?”
“Brian was a math geek,” Antonelli replied. “Otherwise, he kept a two-nine, three-oh QPR. He saved my ass in math.”
Jim nodded. “Did you ever get the impression that the upperclassmen were actively singling Dell out when they ran the plebes in your company? You know what I mean? Like when they really come down on a guy? Hound his ass until he puts his chit in?”
Antonelli hesitated but then nodded. “I know what you mean, sir,” he said. “Brian had to go roaming for a coupla weeks, during dark ages.”
“What’s that mean, ‘roaming,’ ‘dark ages’?” Branner asked Jim.
“Plebes are assigned to company tables in the mess hall,” he explained. “They rotate once a week to a new table, but always within the company. That way, the upperclassmen get a shot at all the plebes. When you go roaming, you report to a new table for every meal, and these are tables outside your company area.”
“So?”
“Well, every meal means hitting the wall with hostile strangers, who all know that you had to be something of a screwup to get sent around the world in the first place. That’s what it was called when I went through. Trust me, it’s very unpleasant.”
“I see. And ‘dark ages’ refers to the time right after Christmas leave?”
“Right,” Jim said. “January and February in Annapolis. Dark and dreary. When it seems like plebe year will never, ever end, right, Antonelli?”
“Seems that way still,” the plebe said, relaxing a bit when he heard Jim speaking in familiar terms.
“How many days till you climb Herndon, then?”
“Ten and a wake-up, sir!” Antonelli replied, the volume back up.
“And was there anyone in the company who was especially hard on Dell?” Branner asked.
The plebe thought about it for a moment. He shook his head.
“That mean all the upperclassmen ran him the same as everyone else?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Who was his squad leader for this striper set?” Jim asked.
“Mr. Edwards,” Antonelli said.
“He and Dell get along?”
“Um. Not that good, sir.”
“You’re saying that Dell’s own squad leader disliked him?” Branner asked.
The plebe was obviously uncomfortable with the question. “Well, ma’am, Mr. Edwards, he’s kinda hard-core.”
“What did Dell do on hundredth night?” Jim asked.
“I was kinda busy on that night, sir. But I doubt Brian would have done much at all. Especially to Mr. Edwards. Like I said, Edwards is hard-core. He’s going Marines.” The expression on his face said that that explained everything.
“You going Marines, Antonelli?” Jim asked.
“Hope to, yes, sir,” the plebe said, squaring his shoulders. Jim repressed a grin.
“Did Dell ever talk about the swim team? Personalities on the team? Anyone he might be buddies with?”
“He’d tell me about the meets, especially the away meets. How they did. Who the power guys were. The best divers. I went to some of the meets here. You know, yell for Navy. Support my roomie.”
Jim looked over at Branner, who asked the next question: “Did he ever mention a Midshipman Markham?”
Antonelli nodded. “Yes, ma’am. He said they called her ‘Hot Wheels.’” He stopped, looking from Branner to Jim in sudden embarrassment. “I mean, they all did. She almost always won her event, and she—she…”
Branner sat back in her chair, crossed her legs dramatically, and then smiled at the struggling plebe’s red-faced reaction. “And she has a magnificent rack and all the guys who see her in a competition swimsuit fantasize about her? Is that about right?”
“Y-y-yes, ma’am,” Antonelli stuttered, looking even more miserable. Jim could empathize. He had done a little fantasizing himself. Markham was gorgeous.
“What we need to know,” Jim said gently, “was whether or not Dell had a thing for Midshipman Markham, or she for him, something that went beyond what any normal red-blooded American male would think about when he sees a beautiful woman?”
Antonelli looked horrified. “But she’s a firstie,” he said. “That would be serious dark-siding. No way, no day. Sir.”
They had their answer. “Did Dell get a sugar report from anyone on a steady basis?” he asked. “He have a girlfriend back home somewhere?”
Antonelli shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. “He got mail once a month from his ’rents. They’d usually spot him a twenty, you know, gedunk money. But if he had a girl, I didn’t know anything about it. He kept to himself pretty much in that department. It’s not like we had a lot of free time. It’s only now slowing down a little.”
“Who was his youngster?” Jim asked.
“He didn’t have one, not since Christmas leave. Guy didn’t come back. Put his chit in and went back to CivLant.”
“Interesting. So would it be fair to say that Dell was a loner? I mean, where did he go during his free time? Who’d he hang out with?”
“Free time, sir?” Antonelli said, as if Jim had asked about Dell’s Rolls-Royce.
Jim smiled. “Point taken,” he said. Plebes didn’t get any free time, except during study hours. And even then, stuff could happen.
“Would you say that he had been depressed over the past few weeks?” Branner asked.
Antonelli hesitated again. “You’re asking if he was suicidal?”
“No, not that extreme,” she said. “But was he unusually down?”
The plebe thought about it but didn’t answer.
“Did he say anything that might lead you to believe he was in trouble?” Jim asked. “Like he was wondering if he was going to make it through the year?”
Antonelli shook his head slowly. “He was getting by,” he said. “Head down, mouth shut, counting days to Herndon. Just like the rest of us.”
“So who sent him roaming, then?” Jim asked suddenly.
“Uh, actually, I think it was Mr. Edwards, sir,” Antonelli said. He looked embarrassed again.
“Anybody outside your company running him, then?”
Antonelli frowned again. “Brian’d sneak out at night sometimes. I always thought it was to study. Guys do that, get together in somebody’s room after taps, hold a Gouge session. I’d see him go, but not come back. Sometimes, next morning, he’d be kinda down.”
Jim gave Branner a look. She raised her eyebrows, but he shook his head. Then she thanked the plebe for his help, told him they might want to talk to him again, and asked that he not discuss any part of the interview with anyone until the investigation was completed. She switched off the tape once he’d gone.
“What?” she said.
“A plebe’s own squad leader sends him roaming? There had to be a major problem there somewhere. Usually, it would be someone else, and his squad leader would be in that guy’s face, raising hell about it. You look after your plebes. That’s the whole point.”
“So we need to talk to this Edwards guy, then?”
“Absolutely.”
She checked her case notes and discovered that they had already interviewed Edwards. “He didn’t come up with anything unusual,” she said. “Typical dumb-ass plebe, lower than whale shit, et cetera, et cetera. But we didn’t detect any personal animus.”
“I’d have asked about that roaming thing. And whether or not he knew about the late-night Gouge sessions. Antonelli assumed that’s what they were.”
“Okay, maybe we’ll pull that string again. What was that ‘hundredth night’ stuff?”
“A hundred nights before graduation, the plebes and the firsties reverse roles for a few hours. The plebes get to run the firsties. Like payback time. It gets real noisy.”
“Is plebe year over after that?”
“Nope.”
“So one would have to be careful how far he went with that?”
“Very.”
“I think I’m glad I asked you to get involved in this. I’d have never caught that bit about the roaming.”
“Some of it’s the blue-and-gold wall,” he said. “But you saw his reaction when we suggested there was something between Markham and Dell?”
“As in, Never happen,” she said. “Hot Wheels. I love it.”
“It’s a good thing you never went through here,” he said with a grin, glancing at her legs.
She gave him an arch look. “Eyes in the boat, sailor,” she said. “And right now, I want to get Markham back in here. I want an explanation for those clothes.”
He shook his head. “Interesting timing with those clothes, don’t you think?” he said. “Look, I’ve got paperwork piling up. Call me when you round her up, and I’ll come sit in again. By the way, how’s Bagger?”
“The same. The docs are of two minds. Most still say he’ll come out of it.”
“How the hell do they know?”
“Because he hasn’t died yet?”
Jim tackled his in-box for an hour, attended a department meeting with Commander Michaels, and made a call to Public Works in search of the senior tunnel supervisor. Just before noon, he called the commandant’s admin assistant and asked if he could get three minutes. The assistant said no way. There was a Saudi delegation visiting the Yard, and the commandant was joined at the hip to the duty prince for the entire day. As Jim was about to go find lunch, the assistant called back.
“I lied,” he said. “Come over right now. You got three minutes.”
Jim hurried out of the admin building and raced over to Bancroft Hall, where noon meal formation was just concluding to the boom and blare of the much-maligned Midshipman Drum and Bugle Corps. Jim saw the commandant standing on the front steps with several uniformed Saudi officers and one impressive-looking sheik in flowing white robes. He went in through the doors of the first wing, then trotted up one deck and through the corridors to the commandant’s office. By the time he got there, Captain Robbins was standing behind his desk, doing a rapid scan of his messages. Jim stood there in his doorway for a minute, and then the commandant looked up. “Report,” he ordered.
Jim gave him a quick summary of what he’d been doing. The commandant’s eyes lighted up when he heard Jim was actively participating in Branner’s investigation.
“And you’re a civilian, too,” Robbins said. “That gives us plausible deniability, somebody starts squawking command influence. Perfect. Well done. Now, suicide or accident?”
“No data, yet, sir,” Jim said. “But Midshipman Markham, the one whose—”
“Yes, yes, I know. What about her?”
“There was a room inspection this past weekend. Random OOD hit. Some of Dell’s clothes turned up in Markham’s room. OOD fried her for nonreg gear.”
The commandant sat down. “Son of bitch,” he murmured. “Then somebody’s lying.”
“Possibly, sir. Or somebody’s setting her up. If she were involved, she’d hardly keep anything belonging to Dell in her room, not with NCIS on the prowl.”
“What does she say now?”
“We’re going to interview her again, probably this afternoon. I’m waiting for Agent Branner to call and tell me when.”
Robbins looked at his watch. “My deputy, Captain Rogers, is occupying the prince for lunch in King Hall,” he said. “I have to get back. Dell’s parents were here Sunday. Tough scene. They’re asking questions. They’re not buying the accident theory, and they can’t believe suicide. Of course, the parents never do believe suicide.”
“Unfortunately, I’d say the case was open, sir,” Jim ventured, even though he knew his three minutes were up. “Branner is tough. With me helping to steer her questions, I think we’ll find out.”
“At this juncture, Mr. Hall, I’m not sure I can stand all the possible answers,” Robbins said. “And what was this incident with a goal rocket in the utility tunnels the other night?”
