Darkside (51 page)

“But, bottom line—”

“Even if they don't smear Julie Markham, this Dyle Booth guy gets commissioned. A Marine officer and a gentleman by act of Congress. A sadist at least, and maybe a murderer.”

“There's still a chance we're wrong,” she said. “The admiral kept pounding on our weak spot: zero real evidence.”

An obese waiter wheezed over and removed their debris, wiping down the counter with a rag that left about as much grease as it picked up. “But they won't even let us talk to this guy,” he said. “If I could just get a look at him, I think I could tell if he was the runner. I'll never forget those eyes.”

She finished her beer and slid the empty bottle down the full length of the counter, where it fell off the end, landing right in the trash can. Jim knew if he tried that, the bottle would miss the can and break all over the floor.

“So now what?” Branner asked. “We just give it up for Lent?”

“You mean do what we're told for once?” He rubbed the sides of his face with both hands. He was tired, and eating all that grease had been a mistake.

She sat there looking at him as if expecting something.

An idea bloomed in his head. “Or…” he began.

“Or?”

“Or I could go get that tennis ball—you know, the one
our runner rolled down the tunnel that night? The one that said ‘You're on'? I could go get that tennis ball, find out what room this guy Booth lives in, and put it on his desk. Then go on down to the tunnels, see what shakes out.”

“Oh, I like that,” she said, a nasty gleam appearing in her eye.

“I could do all that by myself, you know. My ass is already on the skids. No reason for you to burn down, too. I mean, after Bosnia, I know how to do skids.”

She produced her Glock from somewhere beneath the counter and held it up for him to see. “If he did Bagger,
we're
gonna have a talk. And maybe an accident.”

The waiter looked up, got wide-eyed when he saw the Glock, and backed hurriedly into the kitchen, closing the door and then the pass-through hatch.

“Put that thing away,” Jim said softly, glancing at the front windows. “We need to call Liz DeWinter. See if she has Julie's cell number. See if Julie can give us Brother Dyle's room number.”

 

Ev and Liz walked back to where Ev had parked his car. Now that it was dark, Ev had offered to give her a ride back up the hill to her house. The night was clear, with almost no sea breeze coming in from the bay. The occasional cars making the turn at King George towards the city docks seemed unusually loud. Ev thought there might be fog later. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell was tolling the hour.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked her when they got to his car.

“Little bit,” she said. “I mean, I can sort of understand where you're coming from with all that honor code stuff. But a homicide investigation's the real deal.”

“And the honor code isn't?”

“So, you keep telling me the Academy isn't the real world. It's a synthetic environment, where young people are trained to act like naval officers. Emphasis on the act. I think
a lot of this honor code stuff is just a construct. That it doesn't translate to real life in the real Navy.”

He stood by the door on the driver's side. “Actually it does,” he said. “Out there in the fleet, an officer's word is his bond. Some enlisted guys might play cops and robbers with the officers and blow smoke, but an officer never lies except when he's playing Liar's Dice at the O Club bar. If they don't learn that here, they've missed the whole point.”

“So you think Julie ought to, what, confess to the Honor Committee? This close to graduation? Take the chance that they might throw her out?”

“That's what she's supposed to do. The fact that she comes forward on her own hook would mitigate any punishment, as opposed to what happens if, say, Special Agent Branner goes in and drops her in the shit.”

“You sound like you really are disappointed in her,” Liz said. She was standing on the other side of the car, her hands on the roof.

“I'm very proud that she made it into the Academy, and also made it through.”

“But?”

“But she lied. To you, to NCIS, to me. Because she was afraid, because she wanted to deflect an investigation, because she knew she hadn't really done anything to Brian Dell, who knows? She lied.”

“So that's it? Four years, maximum effort, all the shit she had to take as a mid, plus the hassle of being a woman at the Academy? Losing her mother halfway through? She's wearing academic stars in an engineering program, and she's been a winner on the swim team? And you're
disappointed
?”

“As we say in the fleet, one
aw shit
can undo ten thousand
attaboys.
Of course I'm very proud of what she's accomplished. I'm also very disappointed that she lied. To her credit, I think she is, too.”

Liz was shaking her head. “It's been what, almost thirty years since you got out?” she said. “And you're still locked into this honor code thing? Even if it means destroying your
own daughter's future?” Her voice rose, and Ev saw the Marines over at the visitors' gate look up. After the New York City atrocities, the gate guards had been much more vigilant.

“You either believe in the concept of honor or you don't, Liz,” he said calmly. “I believed in it when I went through. I think the mids still believe in it. It's what makes the Academy different and, at the same time, special. It's why we should keep the place alive, all the chickenshit regs, firsties running plebes, and plebes squaring corners not withstanding. If she joins the fleet and lies, people who will
reflexively
depend on her word might end up dead. Remember what business these kids are going into. It's not like being a lawyer, where lies can be tactically necessary.”

“Granted,” Liz said. “But she did not kill Brian Dell, assuming someone did. That's the important thing here.”

“Then Julie ought to help NCIS, not hide behind your skirts. By the way, I think I remember this Booth. Not personally, but as a student. Fall semester.”

“And is he…strange?”

“If he's the one I'm thinking about, yes. A little. I mean, he's a big guy, very intense. Obviously intelligent. But he didn't do very well in my class. It may be a reading problem.”

“How the hell does someone with a reading disability get in?”

“I pulled his admissions package when he began to slip. As I remember, he came in under one of those special programs. Came from a pretty tough background, but he was a championship swimmer, and he scored off the charts in math and science. I had no idea he knew Julie, other than as a member of the varsity swim team.”

“Did you flunk him?”

“Very nearly. But I also gave him some extra instruction. Some tutoring, if you will. He seemed to be trying, so I let him pass.”

“This night gets better and better,” she said. “You tutored the guy who may have offed Brian Dell. And he's been intimate with your daughter.”

Ev shook his head. “Until tonight, I knew of no connection between Dyle and Julie, or Midshipman Dell.”

“Did he ever pump you for information about Julie, especially after that weekend at UVA?”

Ev tried to remember if Dyle had ever asked him personal questions. “No, not that I can recall,” he said. “We did talk about the fact that my house is nearby. He asked if I worked out, and I said, yes, and that I walked to and from work. Things like that.”

Liz was quiet for a minute. “Could he have been faking the problem, in order to get close to you?” she asked.

“It's possible, I guess. Verbally, he was sharp enough. He mostly came across as a gung ho Marine officer candidate. Popped to attention when I'd come into the room, no matter what I told him. ‘Sir, yes, sir' to everything. I sensed a lot of anxious energy right beneath the surface, which I attributed to his struggle with the material. He's physically imposing. He's almost my height, but bigger by half otherwise.”

“How did his classmates react to him?”

“Carefully, now that I think of it. Wary, even. But I can see the Marines loving this type of guy. Hump an eighty-pound pack uphill all day and still be chanting in cadence.”

One of the Marine sentries had stepped across the street to stand at the edge of the parking lot. He asked if everything was all right. Both Liz and Ev said they were fine. Then Ev had an idea. “I'm wondering if we should call the duty officer,” he said. “See if we can get Julie out of Bancroft Hall for a night while NCIS finds this guy and gets a reading on him.”

“You mean take her to your house? Take her home?”

“Yeah. Just until we know something more about what the hell's going on. Now that I remember Booth, I'm a little worried.”

“I don't know that Julie would want to do that, not after your reaction tonight. Like you said, that sounded like good-bye.”

“Well, maybe to your house, then? Would you take her in?” He looked over at the lighted outline of Bancroft Hall,
which now looked faintly ominous to him. “I just don't think she should be in Bancroft tonight.”

“Certainly, if she's willing to come. How would we manage it?”

“I'd get her to sign out for town liberty. She just wouldn't come back. I think we can sort out any problems with that tomorrow, once we get the commandant into it. I'm assuming NCIS is looking for Dyle right now. There's a phone in the car. Let me make a call; then you talk to her.”

“Why don't I make the call and just ask her to get out of there? I don't think she'll do it if you ask her.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Let's just hope Agent Branner and Mr. Hall are working on getting Dyle Booth into an interview room.”

 

Just after 9:00
P.M
., Jim entered the doors on the ground floor of the eighth wing. He went down to the basement, then walked along the corridor of darkened activity rooms until he found the elevator. He pushed the call button and waited. He was dressed in khaki slacks, a short-sleeved shirt, and black shoes. He was also wearing a dark blue Naval Academy windbreaker with the Academy logo and a dark blue ball cap with USNA stenciled on it in gold letters. From a distance, he might look like one of the company officers. As the Academy security officer, he had a right to be in Bancroft Hall, although normally he would have checked in with the watch officers in the Executive Department. As it was, he didn't intend to spend a lot of time in the eighth wing. The elevator arrived and opened. He stepped in and pressed the button for the fourth floor. The door slowly slid shut and the elderly elevator started up.

He had left Branner outside in the truck, where she could see the window of Booth's room on the fourth deck. If he actually encountered Booth, he would keep the midshipman in the room and flick the room lights on and off several times. That would be Branner's signal to come into the building and join him in Booth's room. She knew the room number.
They would then interview him and take him into custody if warranted. But he didn't expect to encounter Dyle Booth. Unable to raise the lawyer, he had called in to the battalion office and asked if he could speak to Midshipman Booth. After an interminable wait on hold, the mate came back on and said that Booth was signed out for study hall. That meant he could be anywhere in Bancroft Hall or even in an academic building. As a firstie, he would be able to go almost anywhere he wanted. But taps was approaching. He would have to be back in his room at taps, so this was the time to leave the message. Julie had said that Booth did not have a roommate, which was unusual, although not unheard of. The mate had given him the room number.

The door opened on the fourth floor and he stepped out. The corridor was empty. He could hear the familiar sounds of Mother Bancroft during study hour. Some voices were audible, as well as some music and the sounds of a shower going in the room right next to the elevator. Riding the elevator was a firstie privilege. The only other people using the elevators would be the watch officers. He hoped like hell he didn't run into the real OOD, because that would become truly awkward.

He glanced at the nearest room number and then turned left and headed toward the bay end of the building. The rooms were small and entirely uniform. Most doors were closed. The floor in the hallway was highly polished, and the place smelled of floor wax and cleaning agents. The doors to the men's bathroom were open and the pungent odor of urinal disinfectant seeped out into the corridor. A plebe came out of his room in his bathrobe, hands rigidly at his sides, eyes in the boat, squaring every corner and walking briskly down the channel, or center of the passageway. He said “Good evening, sir,” as he passed the big man in the windbreaker. If he was curious about Jim, he did not show it. He was obviously trying to get to the head without running into any upperclassmen.

Jim arrived at room number 8424. Eighth wing, fourth floor, room twenty-four. The nameplate read
D. BOOTH
,
2002. Name and class. There was light showing through the frosted pane in the wooden door. Jim didn't hesitate. He knocked twice, making sure his Naval Academy ring hit the wooden frame in two solid raps, a familiar sound in Bancroft Hall. To a plebe, it meant jump up into a brace and prepare to sound off, because there was at least a firstie outside, or maybe even a watch officer. He pushed the door open.

There was no one inside. It was a standard room: single-tier bunk on either side, two desks pushed back-to-back in the middle, an aluminum chair placed squarely in front of each one. The beds had been made up with military precision. There were no clothes strewn about, nor any other personal gear adrift. No shoes, clothes, coats, notebooks—nothing. The windows overlooked Lejeune Hall, the physical education center and home to the Marine detachment, appropriately enough. The dark bulk of Dahlgren Hall was visible to the right. He could see Branner's white face peering up under the streetlights from the parking lot below. He turned off the room lights, waited ten seconds, and turned them back on. That was the second signal: I'm in and there's no one here. She had wanted to come up, but he'd pointed out that if this worked, Dyle would think it would be just Jim waiting for him. Especially if Booth asked around and was told there had been one stranger on deck earlier, not two.