Darkside

by P. T. Deutermann

  “I am,” Julie said. “I’ve got nothing to hide, and I want this over with. I suppose this is about that report chit?”

  “Yes, it is. The deputy commandant’s office alerted me to what the report chit contained. My first question is, What were those clothes doing in your room?”

  “No idea,” Julie said. “They weren’t there before. When you and that other agent searched my room.”

  “We did not search your room,” Branner asserted. “We accompanied the officer of the day on an authorized room inspection. That does not mean those uniform items weren’t there at the time. It just means the OOD didn’t find them.”

  “Well, this one did,” Julie said impatiently. “Bottom line? I don’t know. And I still don’t know what Dell was doing wearing some of my underwear. The only connection I had with Dell was that we were both on the swim team. I think we’ve been through all this.”

  “We have,” Branner said. “Was there anyone on the swim team who had it in for Dell?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Julie replied. “We’re a team.”

  “No resentments? No stars who got all the glory while the rest of the team just swam heats?”

  “A Navy varsity team doesn’t work that way, Agent Branner,” Julie said. “Everyone’s busting his ass. If you’re just there for personal glory, you usually don’t stay.”

  Jim could agree with that. None of the midshipmen were eyeing million-dollar contracts in professional or Olympic sports after graduation. They were going to get commissioned and spend the next five years serving their country. He also noticed that Markham had become a little more assertive in her demeanor. No more automatic “sir” or “ma’am” to civilians like Branner. He wondered why the lady lawyer wasn’t here.

  “If you weren’t stashing those clothes, then perhaps someone put them there, most likely to implicate you in the Dell matter. Why would someone do that?”

  “To implicate me in the Dell matter, I suppose,” Julie said patiently.

  Branner bristled. “Someone have it in for you, Markham?”

  “Not that I know of. I broke up with another firstie a few weeks ago, but it wasn’t a jealousy scene or anything. He wanted to keep going after graduation, and I’m going to be too busy for that.”

  Branner asked for his name and company, which Julie gave him. “So he wouldn’t be plotting against you?”

  “He’s had his feelings hurt, but he’ll live. It’s not like I dumped him for someone else.”

  “Okay, then, who else? You strike me as a go-ahead young lady. Some men can’t handle that. You beat out someone for promotion, or status here in the Academy? Class standing, or grades in a particular class?”

  “All those things happen constantly,” Julie said. “That’s the system. Class standing. Academic standing. President of the Glee Club or any other ECA. Everyone competes here, and if they don’t, the Dark Side will notice.”

  “The what?”

  Julie colored slightly. “The senior officers. The people who run the Academy. The supe. The dant. They are the system.”

  Jim found himself nodding in agreement. No one would get killed because he had advanced over someone else in class rank or standing. Branner was appearing to read her next question from her notebook, but that pen was tapping again.

  “So you had nothing to do with Midshipman Dell, and you have no idea of who might have done something, anything, to Dell that would have resulted in his going off the roof?”

  “For the last time, I hope: Yes, that’s correct.”

  “Will you be willing to take a polygraph test to that effect?”

  “No,” Julie said promptly. Branner stopped tapping her pen.

  “Why not?”

  “Because a guilty person has nothing to lose by taking a lie-detector test, while an innocent person has everything to lose if he or she happens to fail it.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Read it in a novel.”

  Branner sat back in her chair. “And you believe that?”

  “Yes, I do. Simple probabilities. A lie detector is a machine being interpreted by a human. That’s a two points of failure scenario, and one point of possible influence.”

  Branner obviously didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Look,” Julie said, leaning forward in her chair. “I know I didn’t do anything to Dell. If somebody put some of his uniform clothes in my room, then that’s the dude you want to find. In the meantime, I’d like you to leave me the hell out of this mess, unless you have some evidence to the contrary.”

  “You’re an evidentiary expert now?”

  “I know that the clothes thing, both sides of it, aren’t evidence of homicide. That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it? Evidence of homicide?”

  Branner controlled her expression and just looked at her, waiting.

  “Okay, tell me this: You people picked up all of Brian’s personal effects after he died, correct?”

  Branner nodded.

  “Did you do an inventory? Because we all have a specified uniform allowance, especially plebes, who are required to maintain a full seabag at all times.”

  “Assuming we did?”

  “If the clothes found in my room are included in that inventory, then someone’s hit your evidence locker. And if they’re not, then someone else had them on the day he died. Find that someone else.”

  “Who says we haven’t?”

  Julie groaned in frustration. “Meaning me? I say so. You people went through my room that day. These clothes were found behind the towels in the closet. Any room inspector looks there. They reach behind the stacked clothes and swipe for dust. You would have looked there.”

  “So maybe you had them somewhere else, then.”

  “And then what? Brought them back to my room and put them out practically in plain sight? This after you’ve called me a suspect?”

  Branner didn’t answer that, and Jim made his first note. He passed it over to Branner, who read it, nodded, and announced that the interview was over. She excused Julie, who looked from Branner to Jim for a moment, then got up and left without another word.

  “Okay,” Branner said. “I shut it off. What’d you hear?”

  “Deflection. Let’s play the tape back.”

  She rewound it, fast-forwarded past the Article 31 prelude, and then set it on play. When it got to the point where Julie said that she knew she didn’t do anything to Brian Dell, Jim stopped it.

  “She asserts that she knows she didn’t do anything to Dell. She does not assert that she doesn’t know who else might have done something to Dell. You asked her a two-part question, remember? She’s ducking the second part of your question. And I’ll bet that’s why she refuses to take a lie-detector test. I think she does know something.”

  Branner rewound the tape and listened to it again. She seemed unconvinced. “She might just not have thought to say both things,” she said.

  “She’s projecting a different attitude. Today, she was on offense. When she was with her lawyer, she was on defense, deferential, and it was the lady lawyer who was confrontational. Her demeanor just now is not typical of a midshipman in the presence of authority.”

  Branner stopped the tape and began tapping her ballpoint pen. After thirty seconds of that, Jim was ready to swat it.

  “Okay, suppose you’re right,” she said. “How do we get into her backfield and find out?”

  “We pulled in Dell’s roommate; now let’s pull in Markham’s.”

  “I don’t know her schedule.”

  “The deputy dant does, and he’s right next door. But I think you should do the asking.” He checked his watch. “It’s just after fifteen hundred. She might be free.”

  In the event, Julie’s roommate was available, and she arrived at the conference room twenty minutes later. Her name was Melanie Bright, and she looked like her name. Tall, athletic, sparkling blue eyes in a Nordic face, and a friendly, engaging smile. Even Branner smiled back at her when
she introduced herself and sat down.

  “Midshipman Bright,” Branner said, “NCIS is investigating the Brian Dell incident. You are neither a suspect nor a designated witness. We’d simply like to talk to you in order to fill in some background relating to this regrettable incident. Will you help us?”

  “Yes, ma’am, if I can.” Midshipman Bright had a fairly broad California accent, and Jim was pretty sure she had a wad of chewing gum stashed back in her mouth somewhere.

  “Good. You are Julie Markham’s roommate. Have you and she talked about the case, and her interactions with us so far? Including today?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bright said. “Although I haven’t seen Julie since today’s noon meal formation. She said she had to come in and, like, see you guys this afternoon.”

  “Right, we’ve just spoken to her. You’re aware of the special circumstances that connect Midshipman Markham to Midshipman Dell? The clothes?”

  Bright’s smile dimmed somewhat. “Yes, ma’am. Our room went down for that this past weekend. I wasn’t there, and Julie was ICOR-So, like, she’s the one who got fried. I can’t explain the clothes bit, either.”

  Either? Jim thought. Maybe she had seen Julie since her 1430 interview. And yet, this young woman looked completely guileless.

  “To your knowledge, was there anything going on between Julie and Dell? Other than that they were on the same varsity team?”

  “No way,” Bright said. “I mean, yes, they were on the same team. But he was a plebe.”

  “I understand that,” Branner said. “How about between Julie and any other members of the swim team?”

  “Well, there was Tommy. Tommy Hays? He’s a classmate. But they broke up a while ago. They’d been dating since second class year, I think.”

  “And no one else? Maybe outside of the Academy?”

  Bright shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not after her mother died and all. I mean, there were a couple of times when she and Tommy had some ups and downs-you know, the usual stuff. Didn’t see each other. Like that. She saw some other guys then, but nothing serious.”

  “Does she get mail?” Branner asked, looking down at her notepad.

  “Mail? Well, yeah, bills, stuff like that.” Bright patted her hair self-consciously.

  “No, I mean personal mail. From friends outside the Academy?”

  Bright thought about it for a moment. Jim suddenly had the impression that Miss Bright Eyes here might be putting on just a little bit of an act. “You’re talking about snail mail, right?” she said. “Because personal stuff? That’s going to be on the Net. I mean, I don’t know anybody who actually writes letters.”

  Jim made a note to find a way to get into Markham’s E-mail account. He looked up when Branner asked her next question.

  “Where were you on the morning Dell went off the roof?” she asked.

  “Me? I was in my rack, I guess. I mean, I don’t know exactly when it happened. I didn’t find out about it until morning meal formation. Gross.” She made a face.

  “Was Julie in her rack? When you guys got up at reveille that day?”

  “Yes, ma’am, she was.” Jim wrote another note and passed this one to Branner. She glanced at it before proceeding.

  “Midshipman Bright, if Julie had gotten up earlier, would you have noticed?”

  “You mean like for early swim practice? She did that all the time, although I think they’re all done now. But no, I’da slept right through that. I mean, if you’re gonna get up early, or come in late, you don’t wake your roommate.”

  “Early swim practice?”

  “Ya. The whole swim team does it. They go down to the pool at zero dark-thirty and swim until reveille. Then they go to their classes, and practice again after that.”

  “Are you on the swim team?”

  “No, ma’am. I run track and field.”

  “Do you know people on the swim team?”

  “I guess I know my classmates on the team, or most of them anyway.”

  Branner glanced momentarily at Jim, as if considering whether or not she should ask the next question. But then she went ahead. “Midshipman Bright, we’re really trying to figure out the business with the clothes. Julie’s and Brian Dell’s, if you follow me. Julie states that she has no idea of how they got where they got. Assuming that’s true, who else might have done that?”

  “You mean put Dell’s uniform stuff in her locker?”

  “Yes.”

  Bright shook her head slowly. “No idea,” she said, looking back at both of them and turning that smile back on. Jim once again felt that Bright might be just blowing them off. Know nothing, saw nothing, and, like, heard nothing. He knew that if his roommate had ever gotten across the breakers with the NCIS, they would have talked out every tiny detail. He passed another note to Branner.

  “Are there any weirdos in your class, Midshipman Bright? You know, heavy dudes, guys who are known or thought to be…well a little different?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean, Agent Branner,” Bright replied, that smile still pasted on her face. “I mean, this is the Naval Academy. People like that? My high school had some, you know, out-there guys, the kind that some people thought might show up at school with guns one day? Like, to do a Columbine? But here? The system wouldn’t put up with that sh-um, with that attitude.”

  “So this place is strictly for Boy Scouts, then?” Branner asked with a faint note of challenge in her voice.

  “And Girl Scouts,” Bright said, coming right back at her. The smile never wavered.

  Branner shot him that “What next?” look. He shook his head, and Branner ended the interview. Once Bright had left, Branner turned off the tape recorder. Jim realized he had not seen her turn it on, and then he remembered that she had been fooling with it just before Bright had walked in. Branner being sneaky.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Well, I think she’s shining us on,” Branner said. “I’m so pretty. I’m so full of personality. I’m so…so very Bright. Yes, that’s it,” she said in a singsong voice that sounded remarkably like Bright’s voice. Jim was laughing by the time she’d finished.

  “They’ve not only talked about it; they’ve probably agreed on what Bright would say or not say.”

  “Gosh, you think?” Branner said drolly.

  “Yeah, I think. Roommates are damn near married-it’s usually that close, especially by first class year. Way back in the real old days, midshipmen used to call their roommates ‘wives.’ We need to check to see how long they’ve been roomies. If it’s been a couple of years-and that’s not unusual-then this was smoke and mirrors.”

  Branner made a quick note. “At least a little contrived,” she said. The commandant’s secretary stuck her head in and asked if they were finished, as the room was scheduled. Jim helped Branner pull her stuff together. “The important thing I’m finding out here is that the midshipmen are perfectly willing and able to close ranks,” she said. “Buncha guys with a code of silence. Remind you of anyone?”

  “That’s a little extreme. Part of it is the system here. The conduct system, where people get put on report for about a million different infractions, large and small. Getting ‘fried,’ as it’s called, becomes a bit of a cops and robbers game. But two rules do apply: One, it’s a cultural crime to bilge someone else.”

  “‘Bilge’?”

  “Get someone else in trouble, especially a classmate. Think rat squad. And it’s even worse if you do it to save your own ass, or to gain advantage. I’m talking of infractions outside of the honor code, of course. That’s different.”

  Branner paused in the doorway, ignoring the hovering secretary. “How is that different?”

  “That’s rule two: Rule one doesn’t apply in honor cases, because an honor offense is an offense against everyone. I’m talking cheating on exams, lying, stealing, like that.”

  “How about covering up for someone?”

  “If you lie to do the cover-up, it’s an honor offense.
If you’re asked a direct question by a competent authority, you’re supposed tell to the truth. What you don’t do is slip into the deputy dant’s office after hours and bilge someone for offenses, other than honor offenses.”

  They moved out of the anteroom and into the hallway. “So if the roommate was covering for Julie-that is, if she knows Julie did go out of the room early that morning, she’d be obliged to tell us that?”

  “That’s what the system expects.”

  “Now who’s equivocating? Is that what the system always gets?”

  Jim shook his head. “I’d have to call that a gray area. See, the midshipmen are always watching. The administration tends to forget that the honor system is a two-way street. The mids watch to see how the Academy administration comports itself, too. Every time something bad happens, like this Dell case, they watch to see how the administration’s response squares with what they think to be the facts.”

  “In other words, if they think the administration is trying to cover something up, then it’s okay for them to play cover-up, too?”

  “It may not be okay technically, but now they’ll play the game. Or at least that’s my take on it.”

  Branner thought about that for a moment. “This is going to be hard, isn’t it?” she said. “Finding out what really happened here?”

  Jim looked around to see who was listening. Nobody appeared to be. “Yes, it is,” he replied. “Fact is, we might never find out what really happened, especially if the administration persists with this ‘accident’ spin.”

  “The mids recognize spin when they hear it?”

  “Oh yes. Plus, there’s the basic fact of leadership: Whenever the leader goes into the ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ mode, he forfeits his moral right to be the leader. That’s the problem with teaching a bunch of smart kids about leadership: They learn.”

  Branner shook her head again and started walking down the corridor. They didn’t speak until they were out on the steps leading up to the rotunda.

  “I’ve got to do some thinking,” she said. “Hate that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I may not be able to keep this case to myself after all.”