Darkside

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Who was that?” Ev asked as Julie got in.

  “Tommy Hays. You remember Tommy. Classmate. Swim team. No sweat-he’s cool.”

  Ev wanted to ask if they’d been talking about what was going on, but he decided not to pursue it. Ever since Joanne had died, Julie had become somewhat secretive about her social life. She gradually stopped bringing other mids home on the weekends, and sometimes took a weekend without telling him where she was going-or with whom. He was pretty sure Tommy Hays was or had been a regular. But everyone on the faculty knew that spring of first class year was a stressful time for Bancroft Hall romances. With graduation, commissioning, and first duty orders rapidly approaching, they either signed up for one of the assembly-line marriages in the chapel at the end of commissioning week or they never saw each other again as they scattered to fleet training schools all over the country. Ev drove Julie back to the house in worried silence.

  Liz arrived fifteen minutes after Ev returned home with Julie. She showed up wearing designer jeans, an oversized Columbia University sweatshirt, and carrying what looked like a fat day planner. Ev heard the car in the drive and went to the porch to meet her. He could tell from her expression as she looked around that she was probably surprised by the size of the lot and the house. People who didn’t know him wondered how a Naval Academy professor could afford a place like this. She locked the Mercedes and headed for the front porch, where she saw Ev waiting for her in the lighted doorway and waved. He greeted her and led her to the spacious study, where Julie, still in her working blues, was waiting with a worried look on her face. Ev asked Liz if she’d like a drink, but she declined and turned directly to Julie. “Okay, Julie, tell me again what happened.”

  Ev fixed himself a scotch while Julie talked to Liz. “And no one’s contacted you?” Liz was asking. “No official summonses to front offices?”

  “Not a word. Since we talked last night, I’ve been going to classes, working out with the swim team, formation-the usual stuff. Our company officer didn’t know anything about this visit, either.”

  “Or so he said.”

  Julie thought about that for a moment and then shrugged. “I guess that’s possible. But when I signed out in the batt office this evening, no one seemed to care.”

  Liz turned to Ev, who was sitting on the brick apron of the fireplace.

  “I’ll take you up on that offer of a drink now,” she said.

  “I have some single malt,” he said. “Straight up?”

  “Perfect,” she said, apparently surprised that he remembered from the boat party. As he fixed her drink, she looked over at Julie. “Now that you’re a suspect, you want a drink, too?”

  “What!” Julie exclaimed, her eyes widening. Ev brought Liz her drink and then sat down in one of the upholstered chairs.

  “If federal police did in fact come in and search your room,” Liz said, “it means they may have a federal search warrant with your name on it. Did they go into your computer?”

  “Gosh, I don’t think so, but then-”

  “Right, you’d have no way of knowing.”

  “Warrant?” Ev asked. “Based on what?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” Liz said. “Until they charge her, they don’t have to tell her anything. But they must have something that implicates Julie in that plebe’s death, something more than the underwear thing.” Then she stopped. “Unless-”

  “Unless what?” Ev said. Julie was sitting on the edge of her seat now, just like he was, chewing on a fingernail.

  “Does the Academy have the right to search a midshipman’s room at any time? Or do they have to go through due process?”

  Julie looked at Ev. “I’d have to look in the reg book,” she said. “But my guess is, they can if they want to. It’s not like a civilian school. They can inspect anytime they want to.”

  “And your company officer knew nothing about this?” Ev asked.

  “He failed open when I asked him,” Julie said, surprising Ev with the naval engineering expression. “He said he’d find out, but I hadn’t heard anything by evening meal hour.”

  The phone rang. Ev checked the caller ID. “It’s a two-nine-three number; that’s the Academy,” he said. He picked it up and identified himself. “Yes, she is,” he said, and then listened for another minute, his eyes on Julie, who was getting a deer-in-the-headlights look back on her face.

  “Very well, I’ll pass that on, Mr. Tarrens.” He glanced at his watch. “Will twenty-one hundred be satisfactory? She’s meeting with her attorney right now.” Another pause. “That’s right. So twenty-one hundred works?…Good. And could you please pass something up your chain of command for me? Midshipman Markham will want her attorney present for any further encounters with NCIS regarding the Dell incident.”

  He saw Liz frown when he said that, but he didn’t waver. She probably would have wanted him to wait a little longer before revealing that Julie had counsel, but what the hell. There had to be something going on over there. Something bad. He identified Elizabeth DeWinter as Julie’s attorney, then said good night and hung up.

  “How’d he react?” Liz asked.

  “Audible gulp. Said he’d pass it right along. And twenty-one hundred is when they want you back in Mother Bancroft,” he told Julie.

  “He mention searching my room?” she asked.

  “Nope. Just that he wanted you back at Bancroft, in his office, as soon as possible. He was trying for a little bluster, as in, Right now would be nice, until I mentioned Liz here. He didn’t seem to know what to do then.”

  “Okay,” Liz interjected. “I don’t propose to spend the evening in Bancroft Hall. If they want to ask more questions when you get back, you reiterate that you’re not talking to anyone until your lawyer is present, and your lawyer’s not available until normal working hours tomorrow morning. On the other hand, see if you can find out why NCIS agents were in your room. I’ll be interested to see what they say, if anything. Especially if they use the inspection pretense.”

  Julie was shaking her head slowly. “I don’t know what’s going down here,” she said in a small voice. “I haven’t done anything. Not to that plebe, nor to anyone else.”

  “Good,” Liz said brightly. “Ev, is this how the Navy usually does business?”

  “The Naval Academy isn’t the Navy,” he said immediately. “But, once you swear the oath, you do surrender a lot of civil liberties when you go into military service.”

  “So they could go in and search her room just because they wanted to?”

  “They can do a room inspection anytime they want to.”

  “Using NCIS agents?” Julie asked.

  “Well, that’s a point,” he admitted. “But if the OOD was present, they could simply say they were along for the ride while he did the inspection.” He turned back to Liz. “But look: If military law’s been invoked-you know, the UCMJ-and they’re getting ready to accuse Julie of something, maybe she needs to ask for a military co-counsel.” He paused, realizing Liz might take that wrong. “I mean, um, I don’t mean-”

  She let him off the hook. “I understand what you’re saying. Military law is different. But I don’t think we’re there yet. Besides, if it comes to that, we don’t let them appoint a JAG defense counsel. We’ll go get our own, preferably from somewhere outside the Academy.”

  “Defense counsel?” Julie squeaked. Ev could see real fear in her eyes now.

  “Normally, I’d tell you to relax, Julie,” Liz said, “But what you need to be now is vigilant. They’re going to be afraid of me, or at least more afraid of me than they would be of some JAG lawyer they appoint as your defense counsel. A midshipman is dead, and that’s serious enough. Somehow, it involves you. Beyond that, we don’t know squat. Which means our next step is to make them tell us.”

  Julie just stared into space.

  “Why don’t I give you a ride back to Bancroft Hall?” Liz said, giving Ev a look that meant, Go with me on this. She put down her scotch, untouc
hed, and got up to emphasize the point. Ev understood and nodded. While Julie went back out to the kitchen to get her hat, Liz said she’d come back after dropping Julie off.

  When she returned twenty minutes later, they went back to the study, where she now sampled the single malt.

  “So, how’d that go?” he asked.

  “Basically, I needed to calibrate the client,” Liz said. She told him that Julie was more pissed off than anything else and, unfortunately, more than willing to talk to the authorities if that’s what it would take to clear this mess up, especially since she hadn’t done anything. “I told her she needed to play by my rules for a while. That you don’t talk to the enemy, especially when they’re keeping you in the mushroom mode.”

  “Right.”

  “I think she got the picture. I told her to be perfectly respectful: no displays of attitude. On the other hand, she shouldn’t talk to anyone, not her friendly company officer, not the commandant, not the NCIS, the FBI, or the CIA, whoever and whatever, unless I was present.”

  “They won’t like that,” he said.

  “Probably not. I reminded her that if she hasn’t done anything, they can’t make any kind of case against her, unless, of course, she inadvertently hands them something. And that that’s rule two, by the way.”

  “Rule one being never lie to your lawyer?”

  “Precisely. I told her that she must tell me the absolute truth with regard to any question I ask. I promised, in turn, not to make value judgments, and confirmed that what she tells me is always protected by lawyer-client confidentiality. I made her promise.”

  Ev nodded thoughtfully. “And did she? Promise?”

  Liz sipped some scotch. “You know, I’d swear she hesitated. Just a fraction, but it was there.”

  “I’m not entirely surprised,” he said. “What you’re telling her makes perfect lawyer sense, but it violates just about every principle of ethics and professionalism they’ve been pounding into her for four years. I can understand that hesitation.”

  “About telling the truth?”

  “No, no, about not talking to them. About clamming up and hiding behind a lawyer’s skirts, so to speak. The mids are taught to address issues head-on. To be forthright. Truthful to the degree of pain. Never to equivocate.”

  “I suppose. But look: Our legal system is trial by lawyer, not trial by jury. Usually, the best lawyer wins, not necessarily the most innocent client. I can’t be the best lawyer here unless I know the truth. And frankly, that’s what I think the hesitation was about. Not about hiding behind my so-called skirts.”

  Ev blinked. “You think she’s hiding something?”

  Liz waved her hand dismissively. “Hell, Ev, I don’t know. But I’m a defense lawyer. My clients tend to be deceptive. I always make them promise to tell me the truth. She did, but she tingled my trip wires in the process.”

  What has my daughter been thinking? he wondered, frowning. And was she, God help us all, involved in what happened to that poor plebe? “Well, I’ll certainly reinforce that notion,” he said. “That’s fundamental.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Back to rule two: not to offer them anything, even out of some sense of duty. She’s dealing with cops now. Nine times out of ten, when cops have nothing, it’s the suspect who hands something to them by opening his yap. Remind her of that. Coming from you, it might carry more weight.”

  Upset by the word suspect, he got up and started to pace around the room. “We’re so close to commissioning week,” he said. “More than just graduation. It’s a victory in every sense, victory after four very hard years operating within a system designed to remove a quarter to a third of them by attrition. And here she is, being worked over by federal cops for something some damned plebe did?”

  “We’re assuming it was something the plebe did; they’re acting like somebody may have helped him do it.”

  “What?” he shouted, whirling around. “Now you’re talking homicide ?”

  She leaned back in the chair, a picture of lawyerly composure now. “If NCIS is interviewing people and conducting searches without warrants, then this is more than just a routine incident investigation.”

  Ev swore and went to refill his drink. This day was truly turning to shit.

  “Look,” Liz said, obviously concerned that she might have gone too far. “I’ve upset you, and perhaps prematurely. Bottom line? They’re on notice over there. Now we have to wait.”

  He plopped back down in his chair and tried to get his mind around what was happening. She smiled at him, and it transformed her face, putting a sweetness there. He’d forgotten how attractive she was, with those coloratura features and silken white skin. He unconsciously glanced over her shoulder toward his wife’s picture up on the bookshelf. She caught his glance, turned, and looked at the picture for a moment. “That was your wife? Worth told me what happened. That’s a lovely picture.”

  “That was…Joanne, yes,” he said softly.

  “Julie favors her,” she said, turning back around. “How are you coping with all that?”

  “Poorly,” he said immediately, then almost regretted his candor. He didn’t know her that well. “I mean, I get by, one day at a time, I suppose. There are places I don’t go. Like chapel-I stopped going to Sunday chapel because I’d get too emotional. The senior chaplain-he’s an ex-Marine-asked me one day whom I was weeping for, her or me. As in, Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “That’s such bullshit,” she said. “Grief suppressed poisons the soul.”

  “Well,” he said with a small shrug. “He did make me think. Didn’t take me long to figure out the real answer, either. But I still stopped going.”

  “Showed him,” she said, and he smiled despite himself.

  “How about you?” he asked, surprising himself. “Worth said you’d been married before. You have someone in your life?”

  “No one of substance,” she said. “I was married twice, actually. You know what they say about the triumph of hope over experience? Well, my first ex was a Marine aviator. That one was all experience. Second ex was another lawyer, and that was hopeless.”

  He laughed. “I know all about those Marine aviators,” he said. “We had a couple in my first fighter squadron. Certifiably crazy bastards, but definitely fun.”

  “Precisely,” she said. “But, trust me, you wouldn’t want to marry one.” She shook her head and got up to leave. He got up, as well.

  “We need to take this Dell matter one day at a time,” she said. “It’s in their interest to put it to bed quickly, so unless there’s some glaring evidence of foul play, that’s what they’ll do. I’ll keep Julie as safe as I can.”

  “Good,” he said. “And I’ll keep in touch with you, too. Julie will probably want to talk to me.”

  “Yes, please do,” she said, pausing at the front door. “And if you need to talk-about anything-please feel free to call me.”

  He looked down into her eyes and saw a smile of friendly sympathy. “Thanks,” he said. “I will.”

  It’s me. I’m in computer lab. Finished their stupid little finals project. So, let me tell you how it went. My after-hours town libs, that is. I mean, it was a blast. Met up with the Goths in their lair on West Franklin Street. That’s what they call it-“their lair.” Okay, so these Johnnie chicks are seriously whacked, but they’re hot as hell underneath all those black rags and the weird makeup. What a surprise when you check out the underscene! And they will do anything as long as I play along with their Goth shit. And I mean anything. I’ll bet you know what I mean.

  It’s a rush, especially when I can experience such a total Jekyll and Hyde existence. By day, I’m supermid. Sir! Yes, sir! At the top of my considerable lungs. A-J squared away to the max. Creases on my creases. A military-bearing ramrod stuck so far up my ass that my ears are aligned. Hoo-ah! And then, once the superstraight world of Mother B is asleep, out comes the vampire Dyle. That’s right, vampire. Okay, okay, so the whole Goth-vampire-death worshi
p scene is-what’s the word, infantile? Fucking laughable? Especially when you realize that they’re serious about that shit? Thing is, though, I’m like a dead ringer for the bad guy, especially in costume. One of the girls is in their drama club, so she got her claws on a vampire costume. And that’s our town gig-the Goths as bait, and Dyle as the hammer.

  You ought to come along. Works like this: past midnight-the girls in their Goth drag: calf-length black dresses, some very white makeup, lots of eye shadow, red, red lipstick, hair everywhere, maybe a dog-collar, laced-strap witch-bitch boots. Those swirling black dresses are slit up the sides, so if they work it right, they can flash black mesh thigh-highs. And that’s what they do: They stroll down the street after midnight, ease into and out of the townie bars. Inevitably, a couple of locals will rise to the occasion. Come out onto the street and make their drunken noises. Jeering at the Goths. Calling them “lezzies” “freaks,” the usual. The girls pretend to ignore them. Put their noses in the air, supremely intellectual Johnnies, much too high-and-mighty to respond to the provocation of mere village louts. Tossing back quietly muttered words about losers, white trash, the makings of a permanent underclass. But swirl the skirts just a little, enough to flash. Look back. Smile.

  The boys follow, of course-they almost always do. Usually, one of them is the alpha dog, the others, onesies, twosies, almost never more than two, the perpetual followers. Not quite sure of what they’re going to do next, but enjoying the scene. Everyone shining attitude, which goes pretty quick to sexual taunts: The girls are pros, sluts, whooers, ready to peddle their asses, and hey, the boys are game, right? They’ve each got two-bits. That’ll do it, right, babe? Then the girls begin to ape the walk of working girls on the stroll, laughing at the following rubes, putting an element of challenge into it, but keeping thirty feet or so between the boys and themselves, leading them, always leading them, toward the alley. Toward me. The girls flash some more leg, attend to a stocking, maybe rub each other on the ass a little, making sure the rubes are watching. That usually does it.