Darkside Read online

  “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.

  “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.

  “You ever take this thing out on the open water?” she asked.

  “Almost never,” he replied. “It’s a place to live. Like having a condo where I also happen to own the building. And besides, sailing something this size takes crew. I’m not into group efforts anymore.”

  “But you do know how to sail it?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, wondering if another challenge was coming. “I grew up in my father’s boatyard down in Pensacola. I could not only sail her; I could build her. But she’s just a glorified houseboat now. Dock ornament.”

  “Sounds like you and the boat are perfectly suited,” she said, looking across the harbor.

  He was getting a little tired of her critical attitude. “So,” he said. “You come out here for a specific reason this morning, or did you just get up and feel like breaking balls?”

  “Bit of both, I suppose,” she said with a small yawn. She had put her mug down and now put her hands behind her head, leaned back on the boom, closed her eyes, and arched her back so she could turn her face to the sun. He had to admit the effect was spectacular. “I guess I’m partial to strong, purposeful men,” she continued. “I don’t really mean to break balls; it’s just, I don’t know, some guys are more fragile than others.” She opened her eyes and looked over at him. “But actually, what I need right now is some full-time help with this Dell case. I need someone who’s been inside Bancroft Hall, who’s been a midshipman, but who’s not a part of the Bancroft Hall Executive Department.”

  Jim tried not to laugh out loud. He could suddenly visualize a tiny commandant devil sitting on his other shoulder, whispering urgently into his ear, Say yes, yes! Immediately!

  “Help doing what?” he asked as casually as he could.

  “What you just did, there, earlier. Suggesting a line of questions for the roommate.”

  “So you want, like, a consultant.”

  “Basically. For the most part, our office works what I’d call ‘admin crime.’ Fraud, theft, drugs, contractors cheating the Supply Department, mids cheating on exams. But this case is different, and I think you’re right-solving it is going to turn on penetrating that blue-and-gold wall, as you called it. I can’t ask the officers in the Executive Department because their boss initiated the investigation.”

  “Go on.”

  “Thing is, we both know what the administration wants in a case like this.”

  He thought for a moment. “To solve it, of course,” he said. “To right all wrongs, root out evil, so that justice and the American way prevail.”

  She laughed out loud, the sound echoing over the water between the docks. “Yeah, right,” she said. “Think about it? I’ll even stop trying to break your balls.”

  “That would be nice,” he said. “You feel obligated to put men down?”

  “Only men who go through life at half power,” she said, not giving him an inch. “But give me a hand with this Dell thing, who knows? You might like a real investigation.”

  “Will I get paid extra?” he asked with a straight face.

  She laughed again. “How’s an NCIS ball cap sound? Or, hell, maybe we’ll figure something else out.” She gave him a mock leer, but then her face grew serious. “I’m going up to Bethesda today. Hopefully, talk to Bagger. Call me tomorrow morning? I do need some help with this. For the Academy’s sake, and maybe for Dell’s.”

  “Sure, what the hell,” he said, trying to hide his elation. “The chief runs the day-to-day bits of my nothing job anyway. The only thing I have going is the vampire runner gig. And protecting my gonads from transient redheads.”

  “Oh, lighten up, Hall,” she snorted. She got up, shot an imaginary finger gun at Jupiter, said, “Bye-bye, birdie,” and set off. “And thanks for the coffee,” she called to Jim as she went down the brow.

  He watched her go up the dock, slim legs pumping. Jupiter muttered something unkind. No halfway measures with that one, he thought. Casually busting my hump, and I still don’t know her first name. He almost called her back to tell her the rest of it. But she steamed right out of sight. Life was still unfair.

  A pleasant young man dressed in the Annapolis Yacht Club work uniform asked if he could be of any assistance as Ev walked down toward the restricted dock area. He gave the young man Liz’s slip number and was then politely escorted to the proper dock, where the man waited to see if Ev was indeed a legitimate and expected guest. Occupying slip 47 was Liz’s so-called stinkpot, a gleaming white Eastbay 43 power cru
iser with the name Not Guilty spelled out in bronze letters on her transom. Liz, dressed in white short shorts, a red halter top, wraparound sunglasses, and long-billed white ball cap, waved him on board as the young man dutifully disappeared back toward the parking lot.

  “I have a boat,” he announced as he handed over two six-packs of beer. “It’s about eight feet long and powered by Norwegian steam. This, on the other hand, is a boat. ”

  “Yeah, it is,” she said, indicating he should come below. The main salon was fully enclosed, decorated with rubbed teak, stainless steel, and lush carpeting. There was a U -shaped galley, a center island-style master stateroom, a guest stateroom with upper and lower berths, a head with shower, and storage compartments everywhere. Liz stashed the beer in the reefer and gave him the full tour. Ev realized this must be a half-million-dollar yacht at least.

  “She can range four hundred miles, has a top speed of twenty-four knots on a good day and with a following sea. Twin Cat diesels. Forty-three-foot overall and a great sea-keeper. I mostly cruise the bay, but she can go offshore with the best of them.”

  “It’s magnificent. Do you just buy something like this, or do you take out a mortgage?”

  She smiled at his question. “As the broker would say, if you have to ask…”

  He put up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “Okay, okay. And I would have to ask.” Although, he thought, you wouldn’t, would you? On the other hand, he knew he would never spend a huge amount on a boat, remembering the old adage about the three things in life a man should always try to rent, not own.

  “Come topside while I get her lit off,” she said, and went up the polished companionway to the bridge area. Ev followed, enjoying the sight of her slender legs and full figure climbing ahead of him. Follow you anywhere, he told himself. The day had bloomed into one of glorious sunshine and a twenty-knot sea breeze that was already rippling the Annapolis harbor with tiny whitecaps. Julie and her problems were suddenly forgotten.

  “Stinkpot-that means powerboat?” he asked.

  “In sailboat language. As opposed to the much more politically correct and environmentally considerate sailing vessels. Annapolis is the premier sailing harbor on the East Coast. Just ask any sailor. We heedless Philistines who dare to sully the sea breeze with diesel fumes, engine noises, and big wakes are held in some long-nosed contempt by our bay-hugging betters.”