And here we go, he thought. He looked at his watch: The meeting would start in twenty minutes. Should he go over there? He assumed it would be in the commandant’s conference room. He dialed up Liz’s office phone number, but she was in court for the rest of the day. The secretary asked if he wanted to leave a message. He told her to have Liz call him, gave her his home and office numbers just to be sure, and hung up. Liz had instructed Julie not to attend any meetings with NCIS unless she, Liz, could be present. But that was before Julie had had her little tantrum. Even as her father, he had no standing to attend such a meeting. Julie would be on her own. Based on their last meeting together, she might actually prefer it that way. He hoped she would remember some of the things Liz had told her.
He called Lieutenant Tarrens, Julie’s company officer, to see if he knew about the meeting. The lieutenant did not. Ev asked him what might be going on. The lieutenant had no idea. The summons had probably come through the watch organization in the battalion office. He assumed it was about the Dell case again, but the commandant’s office wasn’t in the habit of clearing a summons like that through the company officer.
“They’re doing an investigation, Dr. Markham,” Tarrens said. “Word is that they’re calling people in, asking everybody a shitload of questions. Dell’s roommate, his squad leader, his company officer. They’ll probably question all his profs next. Hell, maybe even the mokes. I don’t think you should worry. This is routine.”
Ev thanked him and hung up. It might be routine for NCIS, but it was not routine for him. The bells rang for class break. It took all his self-control not to cancel his next class and go over there right now. But what would he say to her? She’d as much as said she wanted to cooperate with them and dispel this cloud of suspicion. Hell, maybe that was the way to play it. If she’d had no part in this incident, what did she have to worry about? He sat there tapping a red pencil on the desk. He really wanted to talk to Liz. And not just about Julie.
Jim went directly to the conference room, where Branner was already set up. Midshipman Markham was due in five minutes. He had bummed a cup of coffee from the receptionist.
“Once again, how do you want me to play it?” he asked Branner. She had everything in place and was sitting at the head of the table.
“If we have a homicide here, then she qualifies as a potential suspect, as far as I’m concerned. So I’ll do another Article Thirty-one warning. If she’s willing to talk without her lawyer, I’ll try to take her from the clothes to a connection with Dell.”
“You want me to chime in when I sense the wall?”
“How about making notes and passing them? If she turns out to be involved in this kid’s death, I don’t want any ambiguities about your being here tainting testimony. That way, the tape will have only me and her in the interview. You’ll be identified as being present, but that’s all. You okay with that?”
“Absolutely. I want to help, not screw the thing up.”
“Marvelous,” she said brightly.
“What?” he asked.
“A man who can take direction from a woman without a bunch of bullshit.”
“Heck, I often take direction from women,” he said with a grin. “But it’s not called an interview.”
“Believe it or not, I can relate to that, too,” she said, brightly. “Okay. Let’s get our grillee.”
Julie was dressed in her working blues, which consisted of not particularly flattering dark blue, almost black trousers, a long-sleeved black shirt and tie with the collar insignia denoting first class rank, and black shoes. Next to Branner, she looked almost asexual. She glanced quickly at Jim. He was pretty sure she recognized him. Branner asked her to sit down and then led her through the Article 31 warning procedure again.
“Are you willing to make a statement without Ms. DeWinter being with you, Midshipman Markham?” she asked.
“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.”