“So?”
“Well, every meal means hitting the wall with hostile strangers, who all know that you had to be something of a screwup to get sent around the world in the first place. That’s what it was called when I went through. Trust me, it’s very unpleasant.”
“I see. And ‘dark ages’ refers to the time right after Christmas leave?”
“Right,” Jim said. “January and February in Annapolis. Dark and dreary. When it seems like plebe year will never, ever end, right, Antonelli?”
“Seems that way still,” the plebe said, relaxing a bit when he heard Jim speaking in familiar terms.
“How many days till you climb Herndon, then?”
“Ten and a wake-up, sir!” Antonelli replied, the volume back up.
“And was there anyone in the company who was especially hard on Dell?” Branner asked.
The plebe thought about it for a moment. He shook his head.
“That mean all the upperclassmen ran him the same as everyone else?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Who was his squad leader for this striper set?” Jim asked.
“Mr. Edwards,” Antonelli said.
“He and Dell get along?”
“Um. Not that good, sir.”
“You’re saying that Dell’s own squad leader disliked him?” Branner asked.
The plebe was obviously uncomfortable with the question. “Well, ma’am, Mr. Edwards, he’s kinda hard-core.”
“What did Dell do on hundredth night?” Jim asked.
“I was kinda busy on that night, sir. But I doubt Brian would have done much at all. Especially to Mr. Edwards. Like I said, Edwards is hard-core. He’s going Marines.” The expression on his face said that that explained everything.
“You going Marines, Antonelli?” Jim asked.
“Hope to, yes, sir,” the plebe said, squaring his shoulders. Jim repressed a grin.
“Did Dell ever talk about the swim team? Personalities on the team? Anyone he might be buddies with?”
“He’d tell me about the meets, especially the away meets. How they did. Who the power guys were. The best divers. I went to some of the meets here. You know, yell for Navy. Support my roomie.”
Jim looked over at Branner, who asked the next question: “Did he ever mention a Midshipman Markham?”
Antonelli nodded. “Yes, ma’am. He said they called her ‘Hot Wheels.’” He stopped, looking from Branner to Jim in sudden embarrassment. “I mean, they all did. She almost always won her event, and she-she…”
Branner sat back in her chair, crossed her legs dramatically, and then smiled at the struggling plebe’s red-faced reaction. “And she has a magnificent rack and all the guys who see her in a competition swimsuit fantasize about her? Is that about right?”
“Y-y-yes, ma’am,” Antonelli stuttered, looking even more miserable. Jim could empathize. He had done a little fantasizing himself. Markham was gorgeous.
“What we need to know,” Jim said gently, “was whether or not Dell had a thing for Midshipman Markham, or she for him, something that went beyond what any normal red-blooded American male would think about when he sees a beautiful woman?”
Antonelli looked horrified. “But she’s a firstie,” he said. “That would be serious dark-siding. No way, no day. Sir.”
They had their answer. “Did Dell get a sugar report from anyone on a steady basis?” he asked. “He have a girlfriend back home somewhere?”
Antonelli shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. “He got mail once a month from his ’rents. They’d usually spot him a twenty, you know, gedunk money. But if he had a girl, I didn’t know anything about it. He kept to himself pretty much in that department. It’s not like we had a lot of free time. It’s only now slowing down a little.”
“Who was his youngster?” Jim asked.
“He didn’t have one, not since Christmas leave. Guy didn’t come back. Put his chit in and went back to CivLant.”
“Interesting. So would it be fair to say that Dell was a loner? I mean, where did he go during his free time? Who’d he hang out with?”
“Free time, sir?” Antonelli said, as if Jim had asked about Dell’s Rolls-Royce.
Jim smiled. “Point taken,” he said. Plebes didn’t get any free time, except during study hours. And even then, stuff could happen.
“Would you say that he had been depressed over the past few weeks?” Branner asked.
Antonelli hesitated again. “You’re asking if he was suicidal?”
“No, not that extreme,” she said. “But was he unusually down?”
The plebe thought about it but didn’t answer.
“Did he say anything that might lead you to believe he was in trouble?” Jim asked. “Like he was wondering if he was going to make it through the year?”
Antonelli shook his head slowly. “He was getting by,” he said. “Head down, mouth shut, counting days to Herndon. Just like the rest of us.”
“So who sent him roaming, then?” Jim asked suddenly.
“Uh, actually, I think it was Mr. Edwards, sir,” Antonelli said. He looked embarrassed again.
“Anybody outside your company running him, then?”
Antonelli frowned again. “Brian’d sneak out at night sometimes. I always thought it was to study. Guys do that, get together in somebody’s room after taps, hold a Gouge session. I’d see him go, but not come back. Sometimes, next morning, he’d be kinda down.”
Jim gave Branner a look. She raised her eyebrows, but he shook his head. Then she thanked the plebe for his help, told him they might want to talk to him again, and asked that he not discuss any part of the interview with anyone until the investigation was completed. She switched off the tape once he’d gone.
“What?” she said.
“A plebe’s own squad leader sends him roaming? There had to be a major problem there somewhere. Usually, it would be someone else, and his squad leader would be in that guy’s face, raising hell about it. You look after your plebes. That’s the whole point.”
“So we need to talk to this Edwards guy, then?”
“Absolutely.”
She checked her case notes and discovered that they had already interviewed Edwards. “He didn’t come up with anything unusual,” she said. “Typical dumb-ass plebe, lower than whale shit, et cetera, et cetera. But we didn’t detect any personal animus.”
“I’d have asked about that roaming thing. And whether or not he knew about the late-night Gouge sessions. Antonelli assumed that’s what they were.”
“Okay, maybe we’ll pull that string again. What was that ‘hundredth night’ stuff?”
“A hundred nights before graduation, the plebes and the firsties reverse roles for a few hours. The plebes get to run the firsties. Like payback time. It gets real noisy.”
“Is plebe year over after that?”
“Nope.”
“So one would have to be careful how far he went with that?”
“Very.”
“I think I’m glad I asked you to get involved in this. I’d have never caught that bit about the roaming.”
“Some of it’s the blue-and-gold wall,” he said. “But you saw his reaction when we suggested there was something between Markham and Dell?”
“As in, Never happen,” she said. “Hot Wheels. I love it.”
“It’s a good thing you never went through here,” he said with a grin, glancing at her legs.
She gave him an arch look. “Eyes in the boat, sailor,” she said. “And right now, I want to get Markham back in here. I want an explanation for those clothes.”
He shook his head. “Interesting timing with those clothes, don’t you think?” he said. “Look, I’ve got paperwork piling up. Call me when you round her up, and I’ll come sit in again. By the way, how’s Bagger?”
“The same. The docs are of two minds. Most still say he’ll come out of it.”
“How the hell do they know?”
“Because he hasn’t died yet?”
Jim tackled his in-box for an hour, attended a department meeting with Commander Michaels, and made a call to Public Works in search of the senior tunnel supervisor. Just before noon, he called the commandant’s admin assistant and asked if he could get three minutes. The assistant said no way. There was a Saudi delegation visiting the Yard, and the commandant was joined at the hip to the duty prince for the entire day. As Jim was about to go find lunch, the assistant called back.