Darkside

by P. T. Deutermann

  At 10:30, Jim met with the chief in his office over at the naval station. Bustamente had his three section sergeants, plus a rep from the Marine gate guards detachment present. He laid out his plan to cover all of the access grates with covert surveillance teams, beginning after the evening meal in Bancroft Hall. The Marines were requested to check out all vehicles leaving the Yard to ensure there were no midshipmen on board. The chief had obtained a radio retransmitter set from the county cops that would get signals up out of the tunnels, giving the entire Yard team a way to establish a radio net with the personnel underground. He had also obtained permission from the city police and campus security to set up a surveillance team in the building on the St. John’s campus overlooking the grating nearest to King George Street. A campus cop would be with them.

  “The deal is, the campus cops will arrest anyone coming out of or trying to get into that grating. If it’s a mid, they hand him over to us. If it’s a civilian, we all go downtown to sort it out.”

  “This guy has already abandoned one civilian accomplice in the tunnels,” Jim said. “He’s probably capable of sending out another stalking horse to see if anything’s up.”

  “Okay,” the chief said. “Let’s do this: If someone comes out of the grating, we follow and apprehend out of sight of the grating. If someone goes down into the system, we report it to the underground team, and you guys nail him when he comes through.”

  Jim agreed with that. “That way, he’ll be on federal property. I like that better.”

  “Who’s going to be underground, Cap?” the Marine sergeant asked. He’d been there when Jim had been the detachment CO.

  “I will, with Special Agent Branner. Actually, she’ll be in charge.” He told them about what had happened to Bagger Thompson, and that they thought this guy might be the one who’d done that. The professional casualness bled out of the meeting. They went over communications and stationing procedures, talked a little bit about deadly force authorization, and then the meeting broke up.

  Commander Michaels was rushed, as usual, so Jim briefed him as they walked down the hallway to a department head staff meeting. He told him that he and Branner were setting up a small task force to see if they could capture this runner who was tearing things up down in the utility tunnels. Michaels waved him off, not seeming to care much about that. The Dell case was reaching crisis proportions now that a congressman was asking very pointed questions and the local papers were editorializing about a cover-up. He told Jim that a senior civilian from NCIS, a Mr. Harry Chang, was meeting with the dant and the supe as they spoke.

  “I’ve met him,” Jim said. “At the NCIS office. What’s he doing here?”

  “The answer to that is way above my pay grade, but apparently there’s a lot of stick and rudder coming down from Washington. As usual. Whatever you’re doing tonight, keep it under the media radar if you can, okay?”

  Jim said he’d try, and Michaels hurried into the conference room. Jim went back to his own cubicle and put a call in to the commandant’s assistant, asking for five minutes on the dant’s calendar, preferably before the dant went off to the luncheon being held for the winners of this year’s Naval Institute Prize Essay contest. The assistant said he’d call him. Jim got some coffee, moved some paperwork from his in box to his out box for a few minutes, and thought about what he had put in motion for Julie Markham by getting Branner to call the Honor Committee. Only days before graduation. The summons would scare her to death. The phone rang. It was the dant’s assistant.

  “Five minutes. Now, please.”

  Jim trotted over to Bancroft, and then had to wait while the commandant took a phone call. Finally, the assistant waved him into the inner office.

  “What’s this about an honor hearing on Midshipman Markham?” Captain Robbins asked without preamble.

  And a hearty good morning to you, too, Jim thought. “We think-”

  “Qualify that,” the dant said. “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Special Agent Branner and I,” Jim said, and then paused to see if Robbins had anything to say about that. But the dant just made a gesture for Jim to continue. The phone rang outside, and a light began to blink on the dant’s telephone console.

  “We both think Midshipman Markham knows more than she’s telling about the Dell case.”

  “So I’ve heard. She lying to you?”

  “No, sir, I just don’t think we’ve asked the right question.”

  The commandant thought about that. “Blue-and-gold wall?” he asked.

  “Possibly. My idea was to use the Honor Committee to get behind the wall. She might play games with us, but not with them if she thinks she’s being set up to take an honor fall this close to graduation.”

  Robbins grunted. “Now you’re starting to think like an executive officer, Mr. Hall,” he said approvingly. “But do you think she’s guilty of some involvement in what happened to Dell?”

  “No, sir. I don’t. Nor do we have any direct evidence that she’s concealing something. It’s just a hunch. Mostly on my part. In reality, if she stands pat, we’re nowhere.”

  “You and NCIS might be nowhere, but I won’t be,” the dant said, and then waited to see if Jim understood.

  “You mean,” Jim said, “that if we don’t get anywhere with this, then the Academy will make a ruling?”

  “NCIS was told to develop evidence of a homicide-if they could. Doesn’t seem like they can. Our position, therefore, is that it wasn’t a homicide. We need to end this matter, Mr. Hall. We really do. I talked to the assistant director of NCIS today, that Mr. Chang. He seems to agree with our conclusions. By the way, he also told me that their junior agent here in the Annapolis office has died as a result of injuries sustained in that mugging? I didn’t realize he’d been that seriously injured. Did you know about that?”

  Shit, Jim thought. He’d forgotten to pass this news up the chain. “Yes, sir, I did. The incident was reported, I believe. You and I discussed it briefly.”

  “I don’t recall that,” Robbins said distractedly. “But then, there are a lot of issues flowing over my desk. Anyway, Mr. Chang says that you and agent Branner are working that case, as well. He said they think that you and Branner have a better chance of finding this guy than they would if they brought a horde of agents into it. True?”

  “We’re getting closer,” Jim said. “The bad news is that I’m more than ever convinced that he’s a midshipman. Probably a firstie. If we catch him-”

  “If you catch him, we get to deal with more shit in the fan.”

  “Yes, sir. Especially if we can tie him to what happened to agent Thompson. Lots more shit in the fan.”

  “That’s just great, Mr. Hall. Sometimes I wonder if we’re accomplishing anything here at the Academy. But I hope you’re wrong.”

  “Yes, sir. I hope I am.” But I don’t think so, he thought.

  The commandant was standing, so Jim got up as well.

  “Remember one thing about the honor system, Mr. Hall,” the dant said. “We can put that machinery in motion, but it’s the mids who will bring it to conclusion, and we almost always have to accept that conclusion. Your gambit here could end up destroying Markham.”

  “Even if she’s totally innocent?”

  “She’s not cooperating. And no midshipman is ever totally innocent. You rate what you skate, right? You went through here, just like I did. You know that.”

  “Yes, sir, but-”

  “Think of it like a tax audit, Mr. Hall. We can always find something.”

  “With respect, sir, we’re not the IRS.”

  Robbins gave him a cold smile. “Do you know what you get when you put the words the and IRS together? Theirs, Mr. Hall. In that respect, we are very much alike. Keep me informed. That’s all.”

  At 1:30 that afternoon, Jim and Branner went into the commandant’s conference room in Bancroft Hall. They’d been waiting for half an hour in Captain Rogers’s office while he signed the necessary paperwork to convene the
Brigade Honor Committee.

  While they waited, Jim had explained how the system was set up. Each company had four honor reps-two first class, two second class. Midshipmen interested in serving on the Brigade Honor Committee put themselves forward as candidates for selection. If the company officer approved, a vote was held. The top fifteen candidates from the thirty companies went through a further selection process to select ten for interviews in front of a board made up of officers, faculty, and midshipmen. Those ten were further whittled down, ultimately by the commandant and the superintendent, to a final seven. The seven positions on the Brigade board were chairman, vice chairman, education director, deputy in charge of investigations, secretary, academic liaison, and honor program coordinator. They would be meeting today with the chairman, investigations deputy, and secretary. Captain Rogers would sit in.

  Branner was dressed more conservatively today. Severe pantsuit, black shoes, almost no makeup. Jim, used to her flashy style, thought she looked positively drab. She also still seemed to be preoccupied with something. She had a brown envelope in her lap, but she had not told him what was in it.

  “You sure you want me to pitch this thing, and not you?” he asked.

  “You know the lingo,” she said. “We’re agreed on the objective. I’ll get into it at the appropriate time.”

  “The dant warned me this morning when I went in to brief him. Said we stood the chance of really damaging Markham once we turn the Honor Committee loose.”

  “It was your idea-you want to back out?” she asked.

  “I want to know what she knows,” he said. “But she’s so close to graduation-I hate to smear her reputation.”

  “If she knows something that bears on a possible homicide, she should have told us,” Branner said, tapping her foot impatiently. She looked at her watch. “What’s the damned holdup?”

  “But if I’m wrong? And she really doesn’t know anything?”

  “Can’t do this ‘what if’ shit, partner. Our job is to find out what happened to Brian Dell. Nobody else is speaking for him just now, because the little dude’s dead. If this Honor Committee can’t find anything, then we try something else or give it up for lack of evidence. The fact that the committee asks her some questions should not constitute a smear on her personal reputation. If it does, their system here is really screwed up.”

  Captain Rogers came out and motioned for them to come into the room. “Apologize for the delay-we needed to get Midshipman Markham’s Academy service records.”

  The waiting midshipmen stood up. “The chairman is Midshipman First Class Magnuson. He has the authority to make decisions. The DCI-that’s deputy chairman for investigations-is Midshipman First Class Hays. He will take investigative action, if action’s warranted. The recording secretary is Midshipman Second Class Vannuys.”

  He pointed to chairs, and then everyone sat down. Jim started it off by saying that he was assisting Special Agent Branner of the NCIS in an investigation into the death of Midshipman Brian Dell.

  “As I’m sure you all know, Midshipman Dell was killed in a fall from the rooftop of the eighth wing. In the course of the investigation, agent Branner determined that Midshipman Julie Markham might be tangentially involved in this matter.”

  “In what manner, sir?” one of the midshipmen asked.

  “Is this conversation privileged?” Branner asked, directing her question at Rogers.

  “Yes, it is,” he replied. “What’s said here stays here. The board secretary will write up summary minutes for the record, which the chairman will approve. But given the possible consequences to anyone who’s being examined by this group, the board keeps it all close-hold.”

  “Okay, then,” Jim continued. “Midshipman Dell was wearing women’s underwear when he died. Specifically, underwear that belonged to Midshipman First Class Julie Markham.”

  The three midshipmen looked at one another but said nothing. Jim noticed that the DCI, Hays, didn’t seem surprised. For some reason, the name Hays was sticking in Jim’s mind.

  “Naturally, the investigation focused on Markham in the context of whether or not she knew Dell, or had possibly even been intimate with him. She denied the latter, but she did state that she knew who Dell was, and that she had had dealings with him.”

  “‘Dealings’?” the chairman asked.

  “In the course of his plebe summer,” Jim said.

  Magnuson nodded and made a note on his legal pad.

  “There were two other connections, the varsity swim team, and the discovery of Dell’s clothing in her room.” He went on to describe that.

  All three midshipmen took notes. He went on. “We are exploring the possibility that someone may have either influenced Dell to commit suicide or done something that resulted in Dell coming off that roof.”

  “You mean you think someone killed him?” asked Captain Rogers in a surprised voice.

  Apparently, he had not heard the rumors, Jim thought, although the three midshipmen did not seem surprised by this information, either. “Yes, sir, that’s a possibility. Because one of the things that’s come out of the investigation is that no one who knew Midshipman Dell thought he was suicidal.”

  “Could it have been grab-ass up there on the roof?” the chairman asked.

  “With a guy wearing panties?” said Vannuys, the recording secretary. This produced a faint smile on the chairman’s face. Branner slapped the brown envelope down on the conference table, startling everybody. She slid it across to the chairman.

  “Those are some pictures of Brian Dell,” she said. “After he hit the concrete. Take a good look, Mr. Magnuson. See if you still think this is funny.”

  The chastened midshipman stared at the envelope and then at Captain Rogers, who nodded. Magnuson fished the pictures out, took one look, blanched, and passed them to his left. Hays looked at each one before passing them to Vannuys, who was visibly aghast at what he saw. The recording secretary got up and gave the pictures to Captain Rogers, who avoided looking at them, tidied them into a neat pile, and slid them back across the table to Branner.

  “That’s what we’re here to talk about, gentlemen,” she said. “In barracks terms, this is serious shit, in case you didn’t notice. And that puddle of human flesh was not what Chief Petty Officer and Mrs. Dell expected from their son’s Academy experience, okay?”

  All three nodded, almost in unison.

  “Here’s our problem,” she continued. “Based on interviews, it is our opinion that Midshipman Markham does know something about what happened to Dell. Either something that would explain why he’d jump or something that would point a finger at someone else who might have been involved. The cross-dressing means something. Grab-ass, homosexual activity, or even sadomasochistic behavior. We don’t know. But we think Markham does.”

  “And you want us to do what, exactly, ma’am?” the chairman asked. Branner glanced sideways at Jim.

  “Make the fact that she knows something but isn’t telling an honor issue,” Jim said. “Do what you guys do in such a manner as to find out what she knows.”

  “But it’s not,” the chairman said.

  “Not what?”

  “An honor issue. What she knows is not an honor issue. You’re confusing us with West Point. Their code doesn’t tolerate anyone who lies, cheats, or steals, or who has knowledge of those who do. Our code stops at the word steals. ”

  “Knowledge might constitute a conduct offense,” Rogers said. “Knowing of an honor offense and not saying anything constitutes an offense against the Academy’s regulations.”

  “But that’s not an honor offense?” Jim asked.

  “No, sir,” said the chairman.

  Jim, surprised, didn’t know what to say. Branner leaned forward. “What if she said she knew nothing pertinent but she actually did?”

  “That would be a lie. That could be an honor offense.”

  “Then once again, how about you finding out what she knows?”

  “Did she tell
you that she knows nothing about what happened to Dell?” asked Hays.

  “Yes,” Branner said. “So if you could find an indication that she knows something about this, other than what we’ve told you and shown you, then-”

  “Agent Branner, ma’am,” Midshipman Magnuson said, “with all due respect, I have no idea of how to do that, or if we even should do that.”

  He looked over at Captain Rogers as if for moral support, and the captain indicated he should go on. “Ma’am, the Honor Committee investigates actions. Someone tells a lie and gets caught out. Someone steals something. Someone is seen cheating on an exam-crib notes written on his forearm-again, actions. But we don’t investigate anything until there’s been an accusation made, and the matter’s already been discussed between the accuser and accused. That’s step one: Approach and discuss. I don’t know how we would prove that she knows something about the Dell incident. DCI, you want to comment?”

  “I do,” said Hays. Of the three midshipmen, he was the largest. Jim figured him for a varsity athlete. Wide shoulders, big, rangy physique. That look of watchful aggression.

  “Go ahead,” Rogers said.

  “Normally, I’d assign a BIO,” Hays said. “That’s one of our Brigade investigative officers. But given that,” the DCI said, pointing at the pictures, “I think that I should talk to Midshipman Markham.”

  “How would you proceed?” Branner asked. “I mean, why should she talk to you?”

  “Because of who I am on this board,” Hays said. “And because of what I can do. I’m the DCI. I can call in everyone who knows her. Her roommates, past and present. The other members of the swim team. All the firsties in her company. The people in her academic classes. Her instructors. Her extracurricular activities officers. I’d tell ’em we’re doing an honor investigation, and that I want to know what they know about Midshipman Markham.”