Darkside Page 3

  Branner returned to the table, ran her fingers through her hair, and sat down with her knees primly together this time. Jim was almost disappointed.

  “By rights, he should have gone to Bethesda,” she said. “This is a federal case.”

  Jim shrugged again. “I should think an autopsy is an autopsy,” he said. “The city cops and EMTs got there first, so that’s the gutting table he went to. You want to object, get him moved?”

  Branner shook her head. “Not now. It’s just that we’d control the reporting better if he were in Navy channels. But, what the hell, they know what killed him.”

  “So it would seem. You guys ready for Midshipman Markham?” Jim asked.

  Branner nodded. “Midshipmen in panties,” she muttered.

  “Actually, this one ought to be wearing panties,” Jim said. Just like you always should, he thought.

  Branner just looked at him. “Okay, Mr. Hall.” She sighed. “Let’s talk to Midshipman Markham.”

  “Professor Markham, good morning,” Captain Robbins said. He didn’t offer to shake hands, and his expression wasn’t promising. The commandant of midshipmen was a short, intense-looking officer with graying hair. He appeared to be all edges: taut face, prominent beaked nose, and Marine-style buzz cut. His service dress blue uniform, with its four shining rings of gold on the sleeves, was pressed into straight lines wherever possible. His mouth was a thin sliver of determination. Ev had met the captain, soon to be a one-star admiral, but had never had occasion to speak to him one-on-one until this morning. The academic department and executive departments were, by design, worlds apart. Robbins was a surface ship officer and had a reputation for being a stickler for detail, a strict disciplinarian, a workaholic, a physical fitness nut, and a walking, talking personality-free zone. In short, the ideal commandant. But Ev wondered if the chronically choleric captain might not also suffer from short-man’s disease.

  “My daughter just told me she’s to be interviewed by NCIS, Captain,” Ev said. He wasn’t sure whether or not to address Robbins as captain or admiral, but since he was still wearing four stripes, he settled on captain. “She need a lawyer here?”

  Robbins’s eyebrows rose. “A lawyer? I should think not, Professor. NCIS is here because of the unexplained death of an active-duty midshipman on a federal reservation. They have exclusive jurisdiction to investigate. Standard procedure, within the overall context of a JAGMAN investigation. If it makes you feel better, Midshipman Markham is just one of several people being interviewed.”

  Julie was looking straight ahead, her arms still at her sides. “She has the sense that someone thinks she’s involved with this incident,” Ev said, realizing that they were talking as if Julie wasn’t standing there, listening to every word.

  “‘Someone’?” Robbins said contemptuously. He glanced around the rotunda as if in search of the world-famous “someone.” A few midshipmen had slowed down to see what was going on when the commandant appeared in the rotunda area. His quick glance sent them scurrying. When Ev didn’t say anything, Robbins continued. “The county medical examiner called with an initial report,” he said, lowering his voice. “No one’s accusing anyone of anything at this moment, Professor Markham. But there may be issues here.” He looked at his watch. A tall civilian had appeared from behind the partition. He looked to Ev like a Marine masquerading as a civilian. He signaled to Julie.

  Issues, Ev thought. It had become the latest buzzword when people couldn’t or wouldn’t be specific. He nodded thoughtfully. “Well, Julie,” he said to his daughter, “if you get the sense that someone-excuse me, anyone -in authority is even thinking about holding you responsible for what happened this morning, you stop talking and call me.”

  “It’s not going to be like that,” Robbins protested, but Ev raised a hand. With the height disparity between them, an observer might have thought Ev was going to swat the captain.

  “Captain, I had to deal with NCIS before, back when I was on active duty. I’m sure you have, too. I submit that you have no idea of how it’s going to be, especially since you can have no direct influence over their line of questioning, correct?”

  “Well, of course, Professor Markham,” Robbins said, visibly angry now. He was trying to be polite but barely making it. “We just need to find out what happened, and why, if that’s possible. A young man’s dead, sir. His parents are going to want to know why.”

  “I understand, Captain Robbins,” Ev said, matching the commandant’s formal civility. “But this parent wants to make sure there’s no rush to judgment for purposes, say, of getting this unfortunate incident rapidly behind us.”

  Robbins stiffened at that. Ev was speaking in code, but it was a code they both understood. The Academy was highly sensitive to bad news, and the administration had become very adept at damage control in recent years. From the look in Captain Robbins’s eye, Ev realized he might have pushed things too hard. The commandant was the number-two executive at the Academy, reporting only to Rear Admiral McDonald, the superintendent. A civilian professor, tenured though he might be, was well down the food chain from the commandant of midshipmen. But Ev sensed he needed to put the administration on immediate notice: Any attempt to railroad Julie was going to light some fuses.

  “Midshipman Markham,” Robbins said, turning to Julie. “Please go with Mr. Hall there. He will escort you to my conference room, where you’ll meet with the NCIS people.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Julie said, and headed for the rangy civilian standing next to the partition. Ev waited for her to disappear into the executive hallway before turning back to the commandant. “The word in the Brigade is that the plebe jumped,” he said.

  “The ‘word’ in the Brigade is more properly called scuttlebutt and is almost always bullshit, Professor,” Robbins said. Ev noticed that Robbins was beginning to do what the mids irreverently called the “Dant’s Dance,” popping up and down on the balls of his feet whenever he became impatient. It probably didn’t help that he had to crane his neck to look up at Ev. “Look, we’d appreciate it if you would back off for the moment and let the system work. I guarantee you that your daughter will be treated fairly. She has an excellent reputation in her class. Again: Our objective here is to find out what happened and why. That’s all.”

  Ev started to reply, but the way Robbins had said “That’s all” sounded very much like a dismissal. It was not an unreasonable request. Julie was an adult, twenty-one, and about to be a commissioned officer. Even as a parent, Ev had no legal standing here; thus, discretion was probably the better part of valor at this juncture. If he got too far up the commandant’s nose, it would be Julie who’d take the heat for it. He nodded and left the rotunda. The commandant, still rocking up on his toes, watched him go for a moment before heading for the partition that separated the public Academy from the very private one.

  It would take Ev five minutes to walk from Bancroft Hall back to Sampson Hall, home of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences. It was 1:30, so the mids were all in class by now. Except for tourists, he had Stribling Walk to himself. The central Yard was a beautiful parklike setting, with its many marble monuments to famous people or incidents of naval history. The brick walk began at the imposing circular colonnade in front of Bancroft Hall and ended one thousand feet away at the equally imposing marble facade of the Mahan Hall complex. There were statues, cenotaphs, an obelisk, heavily oxidized bronze busts, and cannons littering a landscape of brick walks and bright green grass, all presided over by stately old trees. The towering dome of the Academy chapel rose twenty stories through the trees to his left, and the glimmering surface of the Severn River shone between the academic buildings to his right. Stubby gray Yard Patrol boats, YPs, used for seamanship training, blatted their horns out along the quay wall. He had to step around some open trenches, signs of the Academy’s notorious “diggers and fillers” at work on their seemingly perpetual endeavors.

  An NCIS investigation, he thought, mentally shaking his hea
d. Overseen by the Academy’s administration. Hell, maybe the FBI would even get into it, depending on what those mysterious “issues” were. There were already too many bureaucracies getting involved in this incident. And once the media engaged, Ev knew the administration would begin to circle the wagons, if they weren’t doing so already. He was determined to make damn sure they didn’t leave Julie outside the circle. He stopped halfway down Stribling Walk, thumbed his cell phone open, and called Worth Battle, Esquire.

  “Rivers, Linden, Battle and Hall,” a smooth female voice answered. Ev loved the title of the firm: It had such a reassuring resonance.

  “Hi, Felicity,” he replied.

  “Oh, hi, Professor Markham,” she said.

  “Is himself around?”

  “Let me check,” she said, putting him on hold to the sound of Mozart. Ev sat down on one of the benches that lined the walk and waited. Worth came on the line.

  “Doctor,” he said.

  “Counselor,” Ev responded in the familiar litany. “We may need a lawyer.”

  “We?”

  “Julie and I.”

  “Are we on a cell phone by any chance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call me on a landline. Say thirty minutes.”

  Ev went on back to Sampson Hall, which flanked Mahan at the end of Stribling Walk. He headed directly for his office, putting a finger to his lips when Dolly tried to tell him the meeting was still going on. He shut the door as quietly as he could and sat down at his desk. There were no messages. He worried about Julie, sitting in the commandant’s conference room with two thugs from the NCIS.

  Thugs -that’s too strong a word, he reflected. NCIS agents weren’t thugs, but his experiences with NIS, the current organization’s predecessor, had not impressed him. Maybe things were different now that they had a new title and civilian leadership. He just wished it wasn’t his only daughter they were interrogating. Okay, interviewing. He sighed and checked the clock, anxious to talk to Worth. To his surprise, the intercom line on his phone rang.

  “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.