“Yes,” Jim said. “The Goth girl we picked up in the tunnels.”
“That’s the one. You guys didn’t file any immediate charges, so we ROR’ed her. Well, now her faculty adviser is back to us, asking if we picked her up again, because she missed all her classes yesterday and her morning ones today.”
“Kids skip all the time,” Branner said.
“Yeah, but this adviser-name’s Evelyn Wallace-had our Hermione on a short tether since we picked her up. Supposed to report in at the end of each day kinda thing, plus no more all-night flights with the rest of the coven. Well, she didn’t show. Adviser asked around, found out she’d gone AWOL.”
“She go home?” Jim asked.
“Pulled that string. Parents didn’t have a clue. In fact, didn’t know she’d been in trouble with the cops. Did know she was doing the Goth scene.”
“But they hadn’t heard from her.”
“That’s a negative. Now they’re all spun up. I told them to call Professor Wallace. She called back here, saying Hermione’s roommate hasn’t seen her for three days. The college cops are involved now, so we’re gonna have us a situation here, I think.”
“Is the roommate into the Goth scene, too?” Jim asked.
“Don’t know. Professor Wallace simply gave me the facts. Said the parents are coming down to Annapolis from D.C. this afternoon. They’re both civil servants, apparently.”
“Well, we don’t have her and haven’t seen her,” Branner said. “Are you gonna work it?”
“Unless I can find someone else to, yeah, I’ll work it. They’ll want to talk to you guys.”
“We’re available. And she’s just flat gone, huh?”
“Well, with that Goth crap, who knows? You know how they get, all into doom, death, despair, vampires and shit. Maybe she flew off to Transylvania for some OJT.”
Jim and Branner smiled. Then Jim remembered he hadn’t told the dant about catching the girl in the tunnel. “When you come to the Academy, come through me if you can,” Jim said. “I need to go up my tape so nobody gets surprised.”
“Better go now, then,” Sorensen said. “The only reason we saw her was because of you guys.”
“Will do,” Jim said, and gave the detective his office phone number. Sorensen thanked him and hung up.
“I’ve gotta get over to the admin building,” Jim said. “I told the Ops boss about the runner, but he didn’t want to go up the line with it because of the Dell incident. I don’t need the dant getting blindsided.”
“Okay, you do that. Then let’s meet and get going on Markham. I’m assuming this Natter bullshit won’t knock Dell off the top of the dant’s priority list.”
“How about this other problem, the runner? I’d planned to go back down tonight to see if he got my message, but he made it clear he already had. So now I’m gonna set up some backup with my guys and go after him tomorrow night.”
She thought about that. “If he’s tied into this Dell business, maybe sooner would be better. Get him, we might not need Markham.”
Jim shook his head. “My theory’s interesting, but hardly solid. We need Markham. I still think she’s the key to what happened to Brian Dell. I’ll call you from my office.”
Jim found the operations officer having an early lunch at his desk, the Washington Post spread out under his sandwich.
“Only time I ever get to read the damn paper,” he said. “What’s up?”
Jim told him about the developments with the missing girl, and that someone would be coming to see the Academy authorities soon.
“Oh, great,” Michaels groaned. “Just what we need-more bereft parents.”
“I need to back-brief the dant on where we are with the Dell case. I can bring him up to speed on this stuff, too.”
“He’s gonna ask why he didn’t hear about it before-the runner bit, I mean. And that’s my fault.”
“Actually, he did, at one of the first Dell meetings. Picking up the girl will be news. I did that. He won’t have time for getting pissed off.”
“He probably won’t have time to see you, either,” Michaels said, pulling out the executive calendar sheet. “He’s got a dry run for the Board of Visitors briefing. He’ll be with the academics all day today. That’ll put him in a great mood.”
“I’ll check with his admin guy; the dant said to come see him when I had news and that he’d work me in.”
“Take your flak vest, matey,” Michaels said. “And if there’s any shit over my not bringing the runner problem up the line, I’ll go fall on my sword later this afternoon.”
Jim grinned. Commander Michaels was in his swan-song tour, with retirement coming in less than a year. He definitely did not sweat the career load. Jim called the dant’s assistant but struck out. Everyone was with the dant over in the Mahan Hall auditorium. Jim asked the secretary where the commandant would be for lunch.
“With the supe in quarters,” she told him. “He’ll swing back through here for five minutes at around thirteen-fifteen. And no, you can’t see him then.”
“Tell you what,” he said. “Tell him I need two minutes on the Dell matter. I’ll be waiting in the rotunda.”
“I’ll tell him, Mr. Hall,” she said. “But with his sked today, you’ve got those famous two chances.”
She was wrong. Jim was summoned a few minutes later. The dant was standing behind his desk skimming through a stack of staffing folders. His assistant stood at his side, making notes. Three lines were blinking on hold on the console phone. Jim stood in front of the commandant’s desk for three minutes before the dant finally looked up.
“Report,” he said.
Jim had done some thinking about what to say in the allotted 120 seconds. The dant would not be interested in theories. He wanted to know where NCIS was with the case.
“Sir, they’re pursuing a homicide investigation,” he began. The dant put down the folder he had been reading and stared at him over the top of his reading glasses.
“Ruling out or ruling in?”
“In my opinion, ruling in.” He told the dant about meeting Harry Chang and that they were going to pull a board together to review the forensics package. “And there’s a possible link to another problem I’ve been working, sir. The tunnel runner.”
The commandant decided to sit down in his chair. “Tell Mary to tell the dean I’ll be delayed ten minutes,” he said to the assistant, who left the room. Jim then reviewed what had been going on with the runner, including the news that more parents were inbound.
“There’s a possibility that this guy was responsible for beating up that NCIS agent, Thompson, last week, plus some other incidents in town. Assuming he’s a mid, we’ve got a really bad apple loose in the Brigade. If that’s all true, and I know there’s a lot of assuming going on, I believe he might be connected to the Dell case.”
“You have evidence of any of this?”
“No, sir. Nothing direct. But Special Agent Branner thinks it might be possible. I’m setting up a full court press to catch this guy, and then we’ll see if there’s a link to the Dell case.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Robbins said, frowning. “What link?”
“Sir, given the time press right now, it would take too long to explain that. I’m inside the NCIS investigation, and they’re comfortable with that, including that Harry Chang guy.”
“Hang on a minute,” Robbins said, and hit the intercom button. When his admin assistant responded, he said, “Pren, the subject is NCIS. Find out who Harry Chang is. He’s at their HQ.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the assistant answered. The commandant turned back to Jim.
“These are our problems, Mr. Hall,” he said. “A dead midshipman. The Board of Visitors. The press. Dell’s parents. Commissioning week. The vice president. We need the Dell matter resolved, not expanded. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if there’s any doubt or ambiguity about this being a homicide, we need a determination that it wasn’t a homicide, and we need that in public, and now would be really nice. I’m not pleased at all to hear about ruling in rather than ruling out. You sure this isn’t some kind of ego trip with that Branner woman?”