“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.”