Darkside

8

It was 1:00 A.M. on Sunday when Branner and Jim got the girl to the NCIS offices. Once out of the tunnel, her defiance had resurfaced and she had refused to say anything to either of them. She was carrying no identification, only a small wallet containing eleven dollars, a condom, and a used movie ticket. Branner had taken her in the bathroom and made her remove all the Goth makeup from her face. While Jim waited outside, she searched her for weapons or other contraband, discovering a nasty little two-inch knife in a flat sheath in the girl’s stocking. She also had had a small leather pouch attached to her belt. It was decorated with odd symbols and contained some minute bits of vegetable material, from which Branner had obtained a positive test for cannabis. She’d then locked the girl in the interview room and told her to wait there.

“So we have her for simple possession,” she was telling Jim while she made some fresh coffee before talking to the girl. “I can big-deal that up to possession of narcotics on a federal reservation-you know, for scare factor.”

“But actually-”

“Yeah, actually, it’s peanuts. The knife was concealed, but not long enough for full weapons status. Anyway, I want to know who that guy was I chased into the city tunnels. I’m assuming that he was probably our vampire mugger.”

“Was he in costume?”

“Couldn’t see, with all that steam. Just that it appeared to be big, male, description, height, weight unknown. He could flat-ass run, I’ll tell you that, and he knew his way around down there. I was bouncing off equipment cabinets. He wasn’t.”

“I wish we could have alerted the gates,” Jim said, drawing off a cup of coffee before the percolator finished hiccuping. The coffee was amber instead of black and filled with tiny coffee grounds. He lifted the lid and poured it back in.

“You think he beat it into town and then circled back?”

“If he’s a mid, right,” Jim said. “While we were in the sauna. You know, I don’t think he just thought that steam move up on the fly, either. He’s getting into this shit.”

“Our boy’s a planner and a plotter.”

“Our boy’s a badass. That touchdown rocket. Live steam. A can of spray paint in the face. He gets chased, he reacts.”

“And it works, too,” she said. “I thought I was going to be smothered down there when all that steam let go. And the noise!”

Jim tried the coffee again. “Plus, he’s no hero. He knew we had the girl, but he took off anyway.”

“Either that or he knows she won’t say shit. Or, just possibly, she doesn’t really know who he is.”

“Right now, I’m interested in what he is,” Jim said. “You do the talking; I’ll just glare at her.”

Branner nodded, got some coffee and the tape recorder, and then they went to the interview room.

The girl was sitting at the small metal table, her elbows propped on it and her head in her hands. She now had an expression of total boredom on her face, and she didn’t even look up when they came into the room. Branner sat down at the head of the table and set up the tape recorder. Jim remained standing to one side, fixing the girl with a steady stare. Without all the Goth paint on her face, she looked much younger, a sophomore maybe. Moon-faced, pasty complexion, limp black hair, the beginnings of a double chin, outsized front, dull, dark eyes, red, dishwater hands with nicotine stains on her right forefinger, exaggerated, extra-long fake nails. A real beauty.

Branner turned on the machine, identified herself and Jim, and then took her through the required time, date, and Miranda warning for the record. When Branner asked her if she wanted a lawyer present, the girl stared straight ahead, saying nothing. Branner stated that she was taking that as a no, and then she asked the girl to identify herself. The girl gave her a surly look but said nothing. Branner paused the recorder and sat back in her chair.

“Listen, sweet pea, we have you for criminal trespass on a federal reservation, assault on a federal officer, destruction of government property, resisting arrest, carrying a concealed weapon, and possession of a controlled substance on federal property. You’re in no position to play hardball with us.”

“What destruction?” the girl asked.

“Causing steam to vent into the Academy’s utility tunnel complex. Destruction of electrical and telephone equipment from water damage. Hope you or your family carry lots and lots of liability insurance.”

The girl blinked when Branner mentioned her family. “I didn’t do that,” she said.

“You were the only one down there,” Branner said, cocking her head to one side. “Right?”

The girl started to say something, looked quickly at Branner, and then clamped her jaw shut. Branner leaned forward. “More to the point,” she said, “you are the one we apprehended. So if someone else did open the steam valve, it really doesn’t matter to us. Unless, of course, you want to tell us who that was.”

The girl set her jaw and said nothing. Branner looked at Jim. “Mr. Hall, there’s a fingerprint kit and a Polaroid in the main office. Could you bring them in here, please?”

Jim left the door open and went to look for the camera and the cardboard fingerprint forms. He could hear Branner explaining what she was going to do. He found the camera, ink pad, and forms and took them back into the interview room.

“Are you going to tell us your name?” Branner asked.

The girl stared back at her. “You said I had the right to remain silent. Guess what?”

“O-kay,” Branner said. “Mr. Hall, do your police have a holding cell?”

“No. If we need to hold someone, we take them downtown to the Annapolis station. Let’s see, at this hour? They’ll probably put her in the women’s drunk tank. She’ll have an interesting intercultural experience.”

“Are you willing to cooperate and let me take your fingerprints?” Branner asked. The girl stuffed her hands into the folds of her black dress.

Branner deactivated the recorder and terminated the interview. “It’s too late for this bullshit,” she said. “We’ll take her downtown. The night-shift cops can get her booked in. She gives them shit, they’ll get a couple of those sumo matrons to help out. I’ll file the charges Monday morning, and she can call her parents. They’re going to be so proud.”

She reached across the table and snapped on handcuffs, locking the girl’s wrist to the ring on the table. They left her in there, closed the door, and went back to the office with the camera and the identification kit.

“What we need here is a good dungeon,” Jim said.

“That one would probably enjoy a dungeon,” Branner replied. “She could hang upside down and hiss a lot.”

“What do you figure?”

“She’s too old to be in high school,” Branner said, getting out her Rolodex. “So I’m guessing St. John’s.” Branner found the number for the Annapolis police. “Do you think she could have been in that group Bagger tangled with? In that Irish pub?”

“It’s possible,” Jim said, rubbing his eyes. He could still feel the steam heat on his skin. “But with all the makeup they were wearing, I couldn’t tell one from another. There’s more attitude than brains in that one.”

“I know some of the state attorneys,” Branner said. “I’ll get one of them to lean on the parents. Talk about big fines.”

Jim didn’t think any of that would work. He doubted there had been any real damage done down in those tunnels. Those equipment rooms were built to protect against leaks of water or steam. The steam plant people had come down, closed one valve, and put the system back in operation. The vent fans had exhausted all the steam in about five minutes. Bancroft Hall probably hadn’t even noticed the outage.

They had missed their real target. Again. Branner was dialing the number.

“I’ll ride with you downtown, if you’d like,” he offered, stifling another yawn.

The game continues! And tonight I got a twofer. The security guy brings along a babe this time. Redhead, packing serious heat. From the NCIS no less. How do I know this? Because I have ways of seeing in the tunnels, that’s how. Learned long time ago, if you have the time, prepare your ground. Marines do that, whenever possible, and they’re the masters of small-unit tactics. So these two come waltzing down into the main complex, and set up some-are you ready for this?-motion detectors! How do I know? Because they talk about them. And I can not only see; I can also hear down there. So I step into a quiet zone just outside and make a quick call to Krill, my most pliable Goth moth. Krill’s up for anything, as I told you earlier, because her prospects in life are, shall we say, limited. I mean, how far will boobs get you these days? Krill’s not the brightest bulb in the circuit, in other words. How she got into St. John’s is beyond me. Suspect some money changed hands in alumni channels somewhere, because those people, as weird and liberal as they are, also have to be fairly smart. Anyway, Krill comes a-running, all decked out in serious Goth cloth. I pitch her into the main complex, send her down Broadway, and wait for the big bad law persons to do their thing. Then as soon as they say the magic word? I cut open a steam-line drain valve directly off the 150-psi heating main, and-presto-the tunnel fills with hot, wet steam. And me? I decided to call it a night and go on back through the Maryland Ave. gate, just like I rated it. Which I did, of course.

This security guy must be taking things seriously. I’ve tapped into his E-mail terminal, but he doesn’t use E-mail for his cop stuff. I’ve scanned into the Yard cops freq., but that’s all seriously routine, total admin crap. You wondering how I do all this? It’s easy, really. Well, you know, they teach us how. All those years of electrical and electronic engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, materials, chemistry, physics, and lots and lots of math? Well, shucks, I actually use it. Most of my classmates are welded to the get-through treadmill. You know, grind through the courses, pass the daily quizzes, pass the weekly tests, scurry for the Gouge, and then sweat through the exams. And then what do they do? They do a core dump and set up for the next required course. They learn nothing.

Not me. I actually learn it. I actually like it. But, of course, I see all the tests and exams beforehand. And if my classmates treated me better, so would they. It isn’t hard, you know. The faculty dweebs are basically lazy. And they’re bureaucrats. Which means they use test questions from a database (and all God’s databases were made for me to break into). AND, they have to get the test approved by the department head. AND, they use E-mail to do the approval process. AND, I can read any E-mail riding the Academy’s intranets. Piece of cake. They don’t even really encrypt the stuff-of course they have fire walls to protect against outside penetration, but not from someone who can place his own fire-wire port in the faculty server bank. Most importantly, they don’t expect us mids to do this shit. They expect us to hunt for Gouge, but not to read their internal mail.

But I’m not just any mid, am I? Not by a damned sight. I came from nothing much, but everywhere they sent me, I learned all about working the system. There’s always a system. Now we wait to see what the security wienies do next. So little time, so many opportunities for fun down below. Eventually, they’ll figure out they’re playing on my ground. And if they bring a crowd, well, hell, I’ll go have a beer in the Goth lair. Or maybe in my own lair. I do have one, you know.

Did you know that black cop who met up with the vampire Dyle the other night was NCIS? Just like the redhead who got a steam bath last night. I’d better be careful, right? ’Cause NCIS is also investigating the Dell incident. They get lucky, it might be them getting the twofer… You, too, need to pay attention now. This Dell thing’s like an oil spill in water. It can spread out and get all over you.

Ev went into his office at nine o’clock that Sunday morning. He had twenty-three senior term papers left to grade, and nothing in particular holding him at home on a Sunday morning. In fact, Sunday mornings were not a good time for him to be at home. Too many memories, and that intrusive silence in the house.

An hour into the exercise, the words began to run together. Yet another dissertation on the World War I naval battle of Jutland by yet another midshipman who obviously had missed the entire strategic point of the battle. Suddenly tired of things academic, he stepped outside into the sunlight, thought briefly about finding a cigarette, then walked up Stribling Walk toward Bancroft and found a park bench halfway up. Chapel services were in full swing and he could hear the enormous Moeller organ rumbling away in the Academy’s cathedral-sized, 2,500-seat “chapel.” There were some early-bird tourists walking around the grounds, but, compared to the hustle and bustle of a Saturday morning, the Yard was empty. The few people strolling around the brick walks, passing among the aging bronze cannons and marble monuments, actually looked more like townies than real tourists. Except for the couple coming down the double walk from the chapel precincts. An older-looking man was pushing a woman in a wheelchair. The man was overweight, with a reddish face, steel-colored gray hair cut short, and a weary expression on his face, as if he’d been pushing that wheelchair for a long, long time. The woman in the chair was wrapped up in a voluminous blanket. She was also round, but she had an unhealthy pallor, lank gray hair tied back in a bun, and an oxygen line clipped to her nostrils. The chair had an IV stand attached, on which hung the green oxygen bottle. Ev watched them pull abreast of his bench and then look around at the beautiful vistas of the Yard. The Severn River shone like a big blue mirror between the white academic buildings down the walk. The couple was close enough to Ev’s bench that he felt obliged to say good morning.

“Your first visit to the Academy?” he asked.

They both looked at him, but it was the man who answered. “Nope. Been here once before. August. Hotter’n hell. This is much better.”

“August?” Ev said. “Parents’ weekend?”

“Yup,” the man said, turning the wheelchair so that the woman didn’t have to crane her neck. “Much good that it did us.”

Ev didn’t understand that comment, but he let it pass. It must have been a real effort to bring this woman into the crowds of parents’ weekend. That was when parents got to see their sons and daughters looking like midshipmen for the first time. The transformations were always something of a small but proud shock. The woman was having trouble breathing, and Ev suddenly realized that she was weeping.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked, leaning forward on the bench. “Can I help you?”

The man wiped a tear out of his eyes. “Don’t think you can,” he said, patting the woman’s shoulder. “See, our boy’s dead. Our Brian. That’s why we’re here. There’s gonna be a memorial service. Up there, in that big church. This afternoon. We got here too early.”

Ev felt a chill settle over his shoulders. These were Midshipman Dell’s parents. He tried to think of something comforting to say, but his voice was stuck in his throat.

“You work here, sir?” the man asked.

“Yes, I do. I’m a professor in the Social Sciences Division. I teach naval history.”

“You know our boy, maybe? Brian Dell?”

“No, Mr. Dell. I didn’t. I teach mostly first classmen. Seniors. Your son was a plebe. I-I heard about what happened, of course. I’m very sorry for your loss. We all are.”

“Doubt that,” the woman wheezed, speaking for the first time. “Sumbitch who killed him isn’t sorry.”

“Killed him?” Ev said, and then felt stupid. Of course they would have learned of the rumors. “I thought he, um, fell.”

“He fell all right,” Dell’s father said. “But there’re some folks think he had him some help. That some bastard pushed him, maybe.”

“I really can’t imagine that,” Ev said. He thought he should stand up, but then he’d be towering over both of them.

Dell’s mother grunted, and then concentrated on her breathing for a long moment. “Brian was small,” she said, exhaling. Her voice was raspy and wet at the same time. “Kids picked on him in school. He shouldn’t oughta come here. Everyone’s too big. Like you.”

“Well, not everyone,” Ev said, thinking of the women midshipmen. Then he thought of Julie, who was hardly petite. “And everyone gets picked on for the first year. Even big guys like me. It’s part of the program.”

“You say so,” the woman said, and then began to cough. Her husband did something with the oxygen bottle’s valve, and the coughing subsided. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing again.

“You go through here?” Mr. Dell asked.

“I did. Almost thirty years ago. And I have a daughter who’s about to graduate.”

“How come you’re a professor, then? How come you’re not in the Navy?”

“I was in the Navy for thirteen years. Flew carrier jets. Got tired of it, being away all the time. Having a wife and daughter I rarely saw.”

The man nodded. “I was a lifer,” he said. “Twenty-two years. Signalman chief. Brian was my son, by my first wife. Lost her to the cancer.” He had tears in his eyes again. He wiped them away with his sleeve.

“I lost my wife to a drunk driver,” Ev blurted out without thinking.

Mr. Dell’s eyebrows rose, and then he nodded. “Then you know,” he said. “You know.”

Ev wasn’t entirely sure what it was he knew, but he understood the sympathy. A foursome of young civilians came down the walk, passing the Dells on either side, trying not to stare at Mrs. Dell.

“Didn’t send him here to die, goddamnit,” Mrs. Dell said, loudly enough that one of the girls looked back over her shoulder in surprise. “They took him because he could do that math. And he was a diver. A really good one. Supposed to throw his hat in the air one day. Be a Navy officer. Now he’s in a drawer in some morgue somewhere. Goddamn people won’t even let us see him.”

“Uh, that’s probably a good thing, Mrs. Dell,” Ev said. “They’re doing that for your protection. For what it’s worth, they never even found my wife. So I know something of what you’re feeling, although losing a child is really tough. But they’re not bastards.”

She turned her face away from him and stared angrily down the walk. From her tone of voice, he had the feeling that she would have spit on the ground if she could have.

“She’s real upset,” Mr. Dell said. “We both are. They’re being as polite as they can, but nobody can say for sure what happened. We’re beginning to wonder.”

Ev couldn’t bring himself to tell them about his relationship to the incident, or that he knew anything about the investigation. “Well, they’re not hiding anything, Chief, if that’s what you’re worried about. There’s an official investigation going on. NCIS. Those things take time. You probably remember-they never say anything while the investigation’s still going on.”

“We met with the superintendent, that Admiral McDonald. In his office. This morning. We showed up early, so they had to go get him. He said he was very sorry that it happened. I believe he meant it.”

“I can assure you he meant it,” Ev said. “He feels responsible for every midshipman here. We all do. Faculty and staff.” Even as he said it, he could hear the official line creeping into his words. Mrs. Dell, who still wouldn’t look at him, was clearly not buying it, although the chief seemed mollified.

“We’re gonna walk around some,” he said. “It’s been nice talking to you, Professor…?”

“Markham. Ev Markham,” Ev responded, standing up and offering his hand to the chief. “And I meant it when I said I was sorry for what happened to Midshipman Dell. We all are. Truly, we are.”

“Well, we thank you for that,” Chief Dell said, and then pushed the chair down toward the Mexican monument. As Ev sat back down on the bench, Mrs. Dell turned around in her chair. “Didn’t send Brian here to die,” she said in a surprisingly clear voice. “There’s something wrong with this place. Bad wrong.”

When Ev got to his office, he found Julie waiting for him. She was standing by the windows behind his desk. She was dressed in service dress blues, probably for chapel, he figured. When he had gone through, attendance at chapel on Sundays had been mandatory. Now it was optional. She didn’t turn around when he entered the office. He stopped in the doorway.

“Going to church services?” he asked, and then realized that services were already in progress. He kept his tone cool. If she was here to apologize for that crack about Liz, he wasn’t going to make it easy.

“I was,” she said. “Then I changed my mind.”

“What’s happened now?”

She turned around and he saw the worry in her eyes. “There was a company-wide room inspection yesterday. The OOD hit four plebe, four youngster, two second class, and two firstie rooms. One of them was ours.”

Ev frowned. Saturday room inspections were not unheard of, but it was a bit unusual for the officer of the day to hit first class rooms on a weekend.

“Who was the OOD?” he asked.

“Commander Talbot,” she said. “First Batt officer. Hard-ass.”

“I guess if I had the OOD duty on Saturday, I’d be a hard-ass, too. So?”

She went over to one of the chairs in his office and sat down. “So, when I got back in last night, I found a form two-a report chit. I was ICOR-in change of room. Talbot fried me for having nonreg gear-namely, men’s uniform items-in my locker. An Academy T-shirt, athletic shorts, and a Speedo swimsuit. In my closet. Up on the shelf.”

Ev didn’t understand-what was the big deal? A boyfriend’s clothes in her room-okay-a ten-demerit pap. It wasn’t as if the OOD had burst in on them making out in her bed. Except Julie looked like that was exactly what had happened.

“And?”

“And the report chit specified the owner of the clothes.” She looked up at him. “Dad, the clothes belonged to Dell.”

He walked over to his desk and sat down behind it. “Dell? What were they doing in your room? I would think they’d have picked up all of his personal effects by now?”

“I don’t have any idea. I know this: They weren’t there when I went out Saturday morning. Dad, I think someone’s trying to frame me for what happened to Brian.”

Ev frowned and tried to think it through. First Julie’s underwear on Dell’s body. Now some of Dell’s clothes appearing in Julie’s locker. “Laundry marks again?”

“I guess. The report chit said the clothes were ‘hidden’ behind a stack of towels.”

“Didn’t those NCIS people look through your room right after the incident? If these things had been there, they would have found them.”

“ If they had been there then, sure. But they weren’t. I put clean towels in that locker day before yesterday. We get laundry back on Fridays. This stuff was not there, and I sure as hell didn’t put it there.”

“Okay, if that’s true, then somebody else put it there.”

“What do you mean, ‘if that’s true’?”

“I was stating a logical case, Julie. If you didn’t hide Dell’s stuff in your locker, then obviously someone else did. Now, who, and why?”

“Someone’s trying to implicate me in what happened to Dell,” she said again.

“I say again, who, and why?”

She got up and started pacing around the office. “I have no goddamned idea!”

“You have real enemies?” he asked. Then he remembered what both the swim coach and Julie had said about her ex-boyfriend, Tommy Hays. “You said you broke up with Tommy. Could he be doing this?”

She shook her head vehemently. “Tommy’s not like that, not at all. Besides, I think he’s still…still-”

“You think he still cares for you?”

“Yes. He’s angry, but I think he’s more hurt than angry. I mean, it’s not like I dropped him for another guy. I’m just facing reality. He isn’t.”

“Any other lovelorn corpses bobbing in your wake?” he asked.

She gave him an exasperated look. It reminded him of looks he used to get when she was a teenager. And sometimes from Joanne. “No-o,” she groaned.

The chapel bell began to toll. “Okay then, let’s play this out,” he said. “There are rumors circulating that Dell’s fall was a homicide, not an accident or suicide. Say it’s true, that it was a homicide. There’s a fair chance that whoever’s planting this stuff is probably the guy who did it. It would just about have to be another midshipman to have this kind of access to your rooms. That or one of the company officers.”

Julie sat down again. After a moment, she nodded. “Yes, it would. Anybody else messing around in rooms, someone would notice. Even if it was one of the Executive Department officers.”

“Where was your roommate yesterday?”

“She’s on an authorized weekend. So the room was empty for most of the day.”

“You weren’t there?”

“I was…away.”

Away, he thought. As in, That’s my business. “All right,” he said. “So let’s hit this from another angle: Who might want Dell dead?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean, the whole notion of a midshipman wanting to kill another mid-it’s outrageous! We don’t have people like that at the Naval Academy!”

“Well, there’s a notion that might now be in doubt. I mean, there was that case a few years back, where those two cadets killed another kid. As I remember, one of them was Air Force Academy, the other was Naval Academy?”

“But that was different. That was some warped boyfriend-girlfriend thing.”

“Like that never happens here? Two guys getting into it over the same girl? All of them midshipmen?”

“Well, yes, I suppose, but not to the extent where they go get guns or anything.”

“If Dell was killed, and of course we still don’t know that, it wasn’t with a gun, Julie. But he was wearing your underwear when he hit the pavement. So there was something pretty weird going on there that didn’t come out of the Academy reg book. Now look: Dell was on the swim team. You were on the swim team. Was there someone on the swim team who might have hated you both?”

Julie sat there, shaking her head from side to side. “I don’t know about Dell,” she said slowly. “I mean, he was just a manager. But no, I can’t think of anyone. We’re a team first, individual winners second. No superstars, no goats. That’s the whole point.”

But there was something in her voice that got his attention. Not evasion exactly, but just a whiff of artful casualness. If he’d been talking to just another midshipman, he would not have detected it. But this was his daughter, Julie, who used to tell some barefaced whoppers in precisely that offhand tone of voice when she was a kid. Back then, he would have braced her up about it. But now, with graduation, commissioning, adulthood visible on the horizon, he just couldn’t do it. This was Julie, but she was also Midshipman Markham, almost Ensign Markham, USNR. She was already mad at him for seeing Liz. He realized what he was really afraid of: saying something that would pull down a real iron curtain between them.

“Well, think about it, Julie,” he said. “When that report chit gets into the system, those NCIS people are going to be all over it. They’re going to sound like a broken record: Why was Dell wearing your underwear? Why does a room inspection come up with some of Dell’s clothes in your room? What connects you to Dell? And if not you, who’s doing this shit? And why?”

Julie nodded but didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she said, “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

He hesitated, terribly aware of all the possible permutations. But then he thought, Hell with it: She wants to be a grown-up. “Yeah, but you started it,” he replied.

“What I said about Liz DeWinter?”

“Yes. As if I’m somehow being unfaithful to your mother. Your mother is dead, Julie. Living alone in that house is beginning to wear me down. All of my friends, the close ones anyway, are forever telling me to get back into the world. The first time I do, my own daughter goes off on me?”

She opened her mouth to reply but then shut it. He thought about softening what he’d just said, then decided to hold fast. Finally, she nodded, got up, said, “Okay, Dad,” and walked out of his office, closing the door gently behind her.

He threw a pen across the room. Well done, Professor, he thought. Now who’s she going to talk to? Then he had an idea. Turn this to advantage. He’d call Liz, tell her what had happened, get Liz to call Julie. He had a feeling that Julie might need Liz more rather than less come Monday, when that report chit lighted some fuses. He put in a call to Liz’s office, then remembered it was Sunday. He called her home number, and she picked up.

“Good morning, Professor,” she said brightly.

“Good morning to you, counselor,” he answered. “You’re sounding chipper this morning.”

“Well, so I am. What’s up?”

He told her Julie’s news about the room inspection.

“This has to be a setup,” she said immediately.

“Yeah, that’s what I think. Even if Julie had been involved with that plebe, she sure as hell would not have left some of his stuff out in plain sight, and certainly not after coming under the gun this past week. Somebody’s fucking around.”

“To say the least,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Office.”

“Ah. Sunday morning.”

“You’ve been down this road.”

“I have indeed. Look-I have a boat. Sunday afternoons, I usually go out for a couple of hours. Care to join me? We can talk about this.”

“Love to,” he said immediately. Anything to get out of the Yard just now. Plus, he wanted to see her. No matter what his daughter thought about it.

“Okay. It’s a stinkpot, so you won’t have to crew or anything. I’ll stop by the Greek place, get some lunch stuff. You bring the beer. I like anything dark. Slip forty-seven, AYC. Bring a bathing suit-it gets hot out there.”

“Roger that. See you in forty minutes or so.”

He hung up the phone and sat back in his chair. Annapolis Yacht Club. Sometimes he forgot she was a successful lawyer with her own firm. Julie, he reminded himself. This is all about Julie. But he had to admit that talk of bathing suits had perked him right up.

Jim was giving the Chantal a freshwater wash-down when he spotted Branner coming down the pier. He had brought Jupiter up on his shoulder for some sunlight R and R. It was fairly safe; the parrot had tried a short flight just once, when he’d first moved aboard. Even with his primaries clipped, he had managed to flap over the side and then down into the harbor. Jim had had to fish him out with a swab. Ever since then, Jupiter had hung on with his version of a Vulcan death grip whenever Jim brought him up on deck.

Branner let herself through the visitors’ gate and came down his dock. She was wearing wraparound shades, jeans, flat white tennis shoes, and a sleeveless white blouse. He paused to watch her progress, and she gave him a crooked smile when she saw him watching. The guy on the Hatteras across the pier walked into a deck chair while doing his own surveillance. Special Agent B for Branner, on the strut, Jim thought.

“What’s that you’re wearing?” she asked as she came up the gangway. “Is that a bird bib?”

“Exactly; Jupiter’s medium housebroken when I carry him around down below, but up here, he acts like any damn seagull. What’s the word on Bagger?”

She plopped herself down on the edge of the hatch leading down into the main salon and shrugged. “He’s holding his own, but barely. In and out of consciousness. His ex-wife is with him.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Not sure. The theory is that seeing her will scare him into full consciousness. Otherwise, the docs are babbling the usual oatmeal.”

“Want some coffee?” he asked, indicating the percolator perched on the binnacle.

“Yes, please,” she said. “Black and sweet.”

He went below, grabbed a relatively clean mug and the box of Domino Dots, came back up topside, and got her coffee. To his amazement, she popped one of the cubes between her front teeth and started sipping the coffee through the cube.

“I can get you a glass,” he said. “Which one of your parents was Russian?”

“M’mother,” she mumbled around the cube. Jupiter wanted a cube, so Jim gave him one. He promptly began reducing it to powdery bits.

“Okay,” he said. “I have to ask: What’s your first name? Bagger wouldn’t tell me.”

“Special Agent?” she said, popping the sugar cube out into the mug. “And Bagger wouldn’t tell you because he doesn’t know.”

A huge motor yacht sounded its horn imperiously as it got under way from the Annapolis Yacht Club across the way. A dozen swirling seagulls screamed back at it. Jupiter joined in, momentarily deafening Jim. He reached up and flicked Jupiter’s beak with the tip of his finger. Jupiter dropped a bomb down the back of the bib and made to bite Jim’s ear.

“Nice birdie,” she said. “What’s deep-fried parrot taste like?”

Jupiter, hearing something hostile in her tone of voice, went into range-finder mode, swinging his head back and forth and glaring at her.

“If that thing flies over at me, I’ll smack it clean across the harbor,” she said pleasantly. “Nothing personal, you understand.”

Jim laughed, swiped Jupiter off his shoulder with his right hand, and began scratching the back of his neck. The parrot, mollified, closed his eyes, although he peeked occasionally at Branner as if to say, I’m watching you.

“Your Goth slag still in the pokey?” he asked.

“They let her out this morning. Some ponytailed faculty adviser of uncertain gender assumed responsibility for her. Made lots of noise about jackboots and storm troopers. The town cops were way impressed. They’ll bring her back in for a hearing when and if I make formal charges. Her first name, by the way, is Hermione. Hermione Natter.”

Jim leaned back against the life rails, enjoying a sudden bloom of sunlight. “‘Hermione’? I think I’d become a Goth, too. What were her parents thinking?”

Branner shook her head. “Mom must have been getting even for a tough labor. Anyway, she wouldn’t give up the other runner, so we’re nowhere with that little problem.”

“You have enough for charges?”

“Nah. The laundry list of heinous crimes and misdemeanors either works right away or it doesn’t. Then lawyers set in. It was worth a try.”

“You going to let the downtown cops work on her for the muggings?”

“I’ve talked to the case detective, but there’s no probable cause to connect this girl with those incidents. You know, all Goths look alike: uniformly grotesque. So tomorrow, I’m going to get back on the Dell case. I need to find some leverage on Markham. Get her to talk to me.”

The wake from the big motor cruiser rocked the Chantal gently. “I still can’t feature midshipmen offing other midshipmen,” Jim said. “I mean, those bruises could have come from a hand-to-gland class the day before he died. Or a boxing class, or a wrestling class. They put the plebes through the whole gamut in their first year.”

“I know; I’m one of the coaches for the Academy judo sports club.”

“I didn’t know that. You coach just the girls?”

She grunted. “I coach them all, the long, the short, and the tall. When I get a guy whose attitude exceeds his ability, I hum that airline commercial song, ‘Come Fly with Me.’…You ought to try it sometime.”

“Sorry, there, Special Agent. When I clinch with the ladies, it’s for purposes other than throwing them across the room.”

“Or getting thrown, maybe?”

“Guess I’m a lover, not a fighter,” he said.

“Sometimes love’s a fight,” she shot back. “Think about it. Back to Dell: Who would have his class schedule?”

“Any prof in the academic department could call it up on the faculty intranet,” Jim said. “And I suppose the officers in the Exec Department could, too. You get into Dell’s computer?”

“Not yet; we have the box, but that was Bagger’s specialty. Dude was a total whiz with those damn things. Now we’ll have to import a lab rat from Washington. It’ll be low priority as long as it’s a suicide case.”

“And that’s where you are with Dell? Suicide?” Jim asked as he went to get himself some more coffee. He refilled her mug.

“That or DBM. Homicide’s looking shaky just now. The data well dried up.”

“I think I’d talk to Dell’s roommate,” he said. “Plebe year roommates have no secrets. They’re under attack from the upperclassmen as a room, if you will. You know, room inspections, uniform races, one guy’s gear adrift bilges the entire room. Like that.”

“We questioned him briefly, of course,” she said. “But he says he was asleep when the thing went down. He only realized who was dead when Dell didn’t show up at morning formation, and then we called him in.”

“Yeah, but this time, pull the string on Dell’s life as a plebe. Who his friends were. What he did on weekends. Whether he had a girlfriend. If he got mail, and from whom. And aren’t there suicide profiles? Questions you ask to establish a predisposition?”

Branner gave him a look. “You want a job?” she asked.

“Got a job.”

“Oh, right.” She sniffed, looking across the harbor.

He sat down on the deck, his back against the rails. Jupiter squawked at almost getting squished. “Okay, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that-well, security officer at a military academy? I would expect some fifty-year-old retired officer to be doing that, not a young Studly-Dudley like yourself. I mean, most guys your age I know are hot and heavy into their careers. This job seems like a side pass. What’d you do before this-weren’t you a Marine officer?”

“Yeah. CO of the MarDet here at the academy. Packed it in when my obligated service was over.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “How come? Seems to me that CO of the Academy marine detachment would be a pretty high-vis posting. Good for the old career.”

“My career was over before it began. Little operational problem in Bosnia.” He gave her the same version he’d given the dant.

“And you had to take the rap for that? I thought the Marines were straight shooters.”

“Most of the time. Unless it involves embarrassing the Corps. Then they have other rules. It wasn’t personal, just the system. I didn’t go away mad, just went away.”

“I’d say you got screwed.”

He wanted to tell her there was more to it, but let it go. “Yup,” he said. “Shit happens, going west. But then life goes on. And, hey?” He paused, gesturing at the beautiful harbor, the fine morning, even the good coffee. “Life ain’t so bad, is it?”

Across the harbor, two guys in full yachting costume were trying to be seriously traditional by sailing their fancy yawl out of the city harbor without using the engine. With both of them wrestling the sails, no one was watching the navigation, and Jim saw that they were headed straight for a mudflat. The sunlight reflecting off the water was almost bright enough to hurt his eyes.

“So you’re parked? Is that good enough for you?”

“I think I’m not career material,” he said.

“A career isn’t necessarily a life sentence, not if you’re doing something you enjoy.”

“You enjoy being a government cop?”

The two guys on the yawl achieved a sudden, spectacular mast-bending stop on the mudflat. One pitched over the side and popped up, squawking for help until his buddy told him just to stand up. Older salts along the city dock were grinning at the spectacle.

Branner shrugged. “Yeah, most of the time. I’ve got my own shop, small as it is, at an early age. The NCIS has plenty of opportunities for women.”

“Well, there you are. Sounds like you’re all set up.”

She laughed, putting up her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, I withdraw the comment. Obviously, you’re not hurting for money, so maybe this all makes sense.”

Stung, Jim wanted to defend himself, but then he forced himself to relax. He suspected that Branner went through life provoking other people. It must be the red hair, he thought.

“You ever take this thing out on the open water?” she asked.

“Almost never,” he replied. “It’s a place to live. Like having a condo where I also happen to own the building. And besides, sailing something this size takes crew. I’m not into group efforts anymore.”

“But you do know how to sail it?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, wondering if another challenge was coming. “I grew up in my father’s boatyard down in Pensacola. I could not only sail her; I could build her. But she’s just a glorified houseboat now. Dock ornament.”

“Sounds like you and the boat are perfectly suited,” she said, looking across the harbor.

He was getting a little tired of her critical attitude. “So,” he said. “You come out here for a specific reason this morning, or did you just get up and feel like breaking balls?”

“Bit of both, I suppose,” she said with a small yawn. She had put her mug down and now put her hands behind her head, leaned back on the boom, closed her eyes, and arched her back so she could turn her face to the sun. He had to admit the effect was spectacular. “I guess I’m partial to strong, purposeful men,” she continued. “I don’t really mean to break balls; it’s just, I don’t know, some guys are more fragile than others.” She opened her eyes and looked over at him. “But actually, what I need right now is some full-time help with this Dell case. I need someone who’s been inside Bancroft Hall, who’s been a midshipman, but who’s not a part of the Bancroft Hall Executive Department.”

Jim tried not to laugh out loud. He could suddenly visualize a tiny commandant devil sitting on his other shoulder, whispering urgently into his ear, Say yes, yes! Immediately!

“Help doing what?” he asked as casually as he could.

“What you just did, there, earlier. Suggesting a line of questions for the roommate.”

“So you want, like, a consultant.”

“Basically. For the most part, our office works what I’d call ‘admin crime.’ Fraud, theft, drugs, contractors cheating the Supply Department, mids cheating on exams. But this case is different, and I think you’re right-solving it is going to turn on penetrating that blue-and-gold wall, as you called it. I can’t ask the officers in the Executive Department because their boss initiated the investigation.”

“Go on.”

“Thing is, we both know what the administration wants in a case like this.”

He thought for a moment. “To solve it, of course,” he said. “To right all wrongs, root out evil, so that justice and the American way prevail.”

She laughed out loud, the sound echoing over the water between the docks. “Yeah, right,” she said. “Think about it? I’ll even stop trying to break your balls.”

“That would be nice,” he said. “You feel obligated to put men down?”

“Only men who go through life at half power,” she said, not giving him an inch. “But give me a hand with this Dell thing, who knows? You might like a real investigation.”

“Will I get paid extra?” he asked with a straight face.

She laughed again. “How’s an NCIS ball cap sound? Or, hell, maybe we’ll figure something else out.” She gave him a mock leer, but then her face grew serious. “I’m going up to Bethesda today. Hopefully, talk to Bagger. Call me tomorrow morning? I do need some help with this. For the Academy’s sake, and maybe for Dell’s.”

“Sure, what the hell,” he said, trying to hide his elation. “The chief runs the day-to-day bits of my nothing job anyway. The only thing I have going is the vampire runner gig. And protecting my gonads from transient redheads.”

“Oh, lighten up, Hall,” she snorted. She got up, shot an imaginary finger gun at Jupiter, said, “Bye-bye, birdie,” and set off. “And thanks for the coffee,” she called to Jim as she went down the brow.

He watched her go up the dock, slim legs pumping. Jupiter muttered something unkind. No halfway measures with that one, he thought. Casually busting my hump, and I still don’t know her first name. He almost called her back to tell her the rest of it. But she steamed right out of sight. Life was still unfair.

A pleasant young man dressed in the Annapolis Yacht Club work uniform asked if he could be of any assistance as Ev walked down toward the restricted dock area. He gave the young man Liz’s slip number and was then politely escorted to the proper dock, where the man waited to see if Ev was indeed a legitimate and expected guest. Occupying slip 47 was Liz’s so-called stinkpot, a gleaming white Eastbay 43 power cruiser with the name Not Guilty spelled out in bronze letters on her transom. Liz, dressed in white short shorts, a red halter top, wraparound sunglasses, and long-billed white ball cap, waved him on board as the young man dutifully disappeared back toward the parking lot.

“I have a boat,” he announced as he handed over two six-packs of beer. “It’s about eight feet long and powered by Norwegian steam. This, on the other hand, is a boat. ”

“Yeah, it is,” she said, indicating he should come below. The main salon was fully enclosed, decorated with rubbed teak, stainless steel, and lush carpeting. There was a U -shaped galley, a center island-style master stateroom, a guest stateroom with upper and lower berths, a head with shower, and storage compartments everywhere. Liz stashed the beer in the reefer and gave him the full tour. Ev realized this must be a half-million-dollar yacht at least.

“She can range four hundred miles, has a top speed of twenty-four knots on a good day and with a following sea. Twin Cat diesels. Forty-three-foot overall and a great sea-keeper. I mostly cruise the bay, but she can go offshore with the best of them.”

“It’s magnificent. Do you just buy something like this, or do you take out a mortgage?”

She smiled at his question. “As the broker would say, if you have to ask…”

He put up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “Okay, okay. And I would have to ask.” Although, he thought, you wouldn’t, would you? On the other hand, he knew he would never spend a huge amount on a boat, remembering the old adage about the three things in life a man should always try to rent, not own.

“Come topside while I get her lit off,” she said, and went up the polished companionway to the bridge area. Ev followed, enjoying the sight of her slender legs and full figure climbing ahead of him. Follow you anywhere, he told himself. The day had bloomed into one of glorious sunshine and a twenty-knot sea breeze that was already rippling the Annapolis harbor with tiny whitecaps. Julie and her problems were suddenly forgotten.

“Stinkpot-that means powerboat?” he asked.

“In sailboat language. As opposed to the much more politically correct and environmentally considerate sailing vessels. Annapolis is the premier sailing harbor on the East Coast. Just ask any sailor. We heedless Philistines who dare to sully the sea breeze with diesel fumes, engine noises, and big wakes are held in some long-nosed contempt by our bay-hugging betters.”

“Hoo-boy,” he said.

“On the other hand, our popularity rises somewhat when there’s a dead calm out on the bay and our purist friends have zero chance of getting back in before sundown on a Sunday afternoon, unless of course one of us Philistines offers them a tow.”

“You do that often?”

“Often enough to get enormous satisfaction when it happens. Have a seat while I do the checklist.”

He watched as she sat up on the captain’s chair, her legs not quite long enough to reach the deck, and flipped switches. A few minutes later, she brought the two big Cats to life. Ev was directed to bring in the mooring lines, and then she backed the big boat expertly out of the slip, brought her about, and headed for the channel at the prescribed idle speed. She motioned for him to bring up the fenders, then beckoned him back up to the bridge.

“You don’t take your scull out of the river, do you?”

“Did it once,” he said, rubbing on some sunblock. “On one of those dead-calm days you talked about. Then came fog.”

“Yow,” she said. “I’ll take some of that.”

He obliged by standing behind her while she sat at the wheel and rubbing the sunblock cream on her shoulders, upper arms, and back. “And you under way with oars? What’d you do?”

“One of these enormous ‘stinkpots’ came by, idling in on radar,” he said. She had wide shoulders and surprisingly taut muscles for such a petite woman. Then he remembered that she swam regularly for exercise. He stopped when he got to her waist. “He was going really slow, so I fell in behind him, following his wake. Ended up in a marina, hoisted out, and took a cab home to get my car and trailer. Felt like a proper idiot.”

“I’ll bet they never knew you were back there.”

They were passing the Naval Academy on the port hand as they headed for the entrance of Spa Creek, another river estuary. Bancroft Hall rose in gleaming splendor beyond the landfill hump of Farragut Field. They could see tourists swarming around the visitors’ center, and there were several knockabout-class sailboats trying not to collide with one another around the Santee Basin on the Severn side. When they pulled abreast of the Triton Light monument, which memorialized all the lost American submarines now on eternal patrol, she brought the speed up and pointed fair for the bay itself.

Ev wedged himself into a corner of the pilothouse and watched as she concentrated on maneuvering the big cruiser through all the smaller powerboats, dinghies, fishermen, yachts, channel buoys, and even two YPs out into the more open waters of the bay. He could see a large tanker plowing its way up toward Baltimore about five miles out, seemingly motionless until he lined it up visually with a distant buoy and saw the buoy appear to move.

“Get yourself a beer and bring me up a Coke, if you would, kind sir,” she said, checking the radarscope. “We’ll go down past South River and then anchor for a swim and some lunch, if that’s okay.”

“This is glorious,” he said, looking around at the sparkling water and grateful that his sunglasses were polarized; the glare was very strong. “Whatever you want to do suits me.”

She flashed a mischievous smile over her shoulder and then went back to her driving. He went below and got the drinks. The interior air conditioning was on, and the salon was already wonderfully cool.

An hour later, she turned in toward the bluffs below the South River estuary and began paying attention to the depth finder. She asked him to go forward and release the anchor stopper chain. When the depth finder read twenty-five feet, she slowed, stopped, backed the engines gently, using them to point the yacht’s bow into the breeze, and then released the anchor. She backed slowly, veering chain until she had it set, veered more chain, and then shut down the engines.

“This is good holding ground,” she said. “But we’ll just watch for a few minutes to make sure.”

Now that the boat was no longer under way, it was suddenly hot and muggy up in the pilothouse, even with the sea breeze. “How will you tell?” he asked.

“And you were in the Navy how long?” she asked, staring down into the cone of the radar display.

“I was a naval aviator. Navigation, piloting, that’s black-shoe stuff. Shipboard duty, that is. Our idea of a boat was ninety thousand tons, a thousand feet long, with a crew of six thousand people who did the nautical stuff.”

“I see,” she said archly. “So your ignorance of seamanship, navigation, boat handling, rules of the road-”

“Is damned near infinite,” he said before she could continue. “Hell, all we did was fly our trusty, if aging, warbirds onto the flight deck at a hundred and eighty knots and hope the frigging arresting wire didn’t break. The ocean was just something that kept the carrier afloat and provided a soft spot to land in if we had to eject.”

Liz laughed at that and shook her head. She checked the radar again to make sure the range rings weren’t moving downwind. Satisfied the anchor was holding, she suggested a swim. He got his suit and went below to change while she deployed a sea ladder and a buoyed line off the stern. By the time he came back topside, she was in the water. He looked around to see if there were any other boats in view, but they had the shoreline to themselves. As he headed for the transom, he spied that red halter top on the aftermost cushions. He went over the side and swam toward her, coming up alongside her fifty feet from the transom of the yacht. She was treading water, with only her neck and face bobbing above the slight chop.

“What’s this for?” he asked, grabbing the buoy line with one hand. He tried not to look at anything other than her face.

“For just exactly what you’re doing. Also, if you get tired, or catch a cramp, you can pull yourself back to the boat with a minimum of effort. You’d be surprised at how often the Coast Guard finds perfectly intact boats out here with no crew aboard.”

The waves were just big enough to require some effort to keep his face out of the water, and he found himself having to work his legs to stay in one place. She was doing the same thing, and their legs touched from time to time. The water was cool, almost cold, and a nice relief from the humid air. The upper part of her body was a blue-green blur. He felt a flush rising in his face that wasn’t entirely due to the sun.

“I was a swimmer back in my Academy days,” he said, determined to keep things totally normal. “But I never once went into the bay.”

“Why not?” she asked. There were little beads of water glistening on her forehead, and he wanted to wipe them off her perfect complexion. He realized what he really wanted to do was touch her. She’d left the sunglasses back on the boat, and her eyes were laughing at him.

“Didn’t like the thought of all those creatures swimming around down there and looking up at their lunch. Plus, we used to go hunting for sharks’ teeth along these bluffs. Some of those teeth were serious.”

“And all a hundred million years old, too,” she pointed out. “Biggest problem out here are the damned jellyfish, but it’s too early.” She ducked beneath the water for a moment, then came back up, flipping her hair back. Her bare breasts nearly popped out of the water, and this time he found himself staring. She was wiping the water out of her eyes. “Ready to go back?” she asked.

“Yep,” he said, a slight catch in his throat. They pushed off together, their legs and hips touching again, just for an instant. He was the more powerful swimmer, arriving at the ladder first, but he moved aside to let her go up. She rose out of the water like a sleek mermaid. Those white shorts were now thoroughly transparent. She was sufficiently well made to carry it off, and he almost forgot to climb the ladder himself once she was on deck. Realizing he was getting an erection, he hesitated at the bottom of the ladder long enough for things to calm down. It had been two years since he’d really even looked at a woman, and he was surprised at the strength of his reaction.

“You coming aboard?” she called from the top of the ladder. He forced himself not to look up.

“Uh, yes, right,” he answered, and pulled himself up the ladder, trying to turn sideways as his own wet trunks clung to his thighs and exposed his arousal. When he got on deck, she was rubbing her face and hair with a towel, and her breasts swung gently in time with her efforts. He reached quickly for a towel and unconsciously, and absurdly, began drying off his middle.

“Dry my back, please?” she said, turning around. He used his own towel to dry off her back and shoulders. She stood there, slightly bent at the waist, and it was everything he could do not to reach around to her front. Then before he knew it, she had turned around and was pressing her towel up against his chest and around to his upper back, their faces inches apart. He held his breath as he felt her fingers rubbing across the back of his neck and her warm breath close to his face. In their bare feet, the difference in their height was very obvious, and suddenly, as a wave rocked the boat, she was standing very close, the tips of her breasts touching his stomach and her hands coming around to run the towel slowly across his chest and then his stomach. He closed his eyes, swallowed once, and took a deep breath.

“You can look at me now,” she said in a husky voice, and he did, fully aware of the heat rising from her body, her arm wrapped around his neck, pulling him down, and the press of her lips on his. And then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in tight, his longing driving the breath right out of her. He pulled her down onto the cushioned bench seat, where they kissed as their bodies melted together. He almost came when she thrust her belly up against his and held herself there, the wanting palpable. Then she stopped, her eyes huge, and stood up. She unbuttoned her shorts and beckoned for him to come to her. He leaned forward in front of her, holding her hips while he consumed her from top to bottom, until she pulled his bathing suit off, rolled on top of him, and rode him like a bronc rider for what he later felt was far too short a time. Then after a few minutes and without a spoken word, they went below into the air conditioning of the master stateroom and tried it all out again, slower this time, concentrating on making sure nobody got left out.

Afterward, he lay on his back beside her, deliciously spent, staring at the polished ceiling in quiet contentment. He realized that she had ambushed him, and he had been so ready that it had taken all his effort not go off in the first minute like some randy teenager. She lay quietly next to him, her face on his chest. He rolled over, to find her watching him.

“I had no idea,” he said.

“I know,” she replied. “But I did.”

“And thank God for that,” he said, surprised at how grateful he felt.

She chuckled and rolled over onto her stomach as he sat up on one elbow and began to stroke her back. She was a study in feminine roundness, with smooth skin and yet muscles from top to bottom. He leaned over and kissed the hollow below her collarbone. Her skin tasted of salt.

The boat was rolling steadily now as the sea breeze picked up and the wave action increased. They decided to get up, check the anchor, and have lunch. An hour later, they got under way and headed back toward Annapolis. The wind had backed to the north, and the big Cats were driving the boat into the chop with a thumping authority. She kept it at a speed that covered ground but didn’t make the ride too rough. She offered to let him drive, but he demurred, preferring to watch her work, even though the red halter top was back in place. The wind was whistling hard enough to make further conversation difficult, and he saw that there were several other boats apparently intent on getting back in before things got hairy out on the bay, which was notorious for changing the odds in a hurry.

As they drew abreast of the South River, they came under a partial lee from Sandy Point to the north, and the waves diminished a bit. The visibility was unlimited, and the sky was a ferocious blue, darkening somewhat as the day sloped into late afternoon. Ev felt more alive than he had in years. More years, he realized, than Joanne had been gone. He felt a wave of guilt at that disloyal thought, but there was no getting around it. This woman excited him, surprised him, challenged him in a way that Joanne never had. He wondered if that was simply the toll of many years of marriage talking, or if he and Liz were better suited than he and Joanne had been. That’s unfair, a voice whispered. He wondered what Julie would have thought of his Sunday afternoon.

Julie.

That problem hadn’t gone away. They hadn’t even discussed it, either. He wanted to seek reassurance from Liz that it would go away, but he was unwilling to break the spell. Liz signaled to him to look at something with the binoculars while she slowed the big boat and brought her up directly into the wind.

“Over there-starboard bow. Is that a boat capsized? I thought I saw a sail in the water.” She had to raise her voice to make herself heard over the whipping wind. The yacht was starting to wallow a bit as the power decreased and her bow began to bump into the seaway. He had to wedge himself to hold the binocs steady.

He searched but saw nothing. After looking at Liz again to see where she was pointing, he refocused and saw a blur of white in the water. Then he noticed a flash of metal as what looked like a mast surfaced briefly and then went back under.

“Yes. There’s a boat over. Sailboat. Can’t see people.” Then he could, or rather, he glimpsed a single white arm waving once before disappearing into the whitecaps. “Whoa, there are people out there. I just saw an arm.”

“Okay,” she shouted. “I’m going to head over there. You get that life ring, snap it to that coil of line right there, and get up on the bow. Get into a life jacket first-they’re in that locker by the companionway. When you get up on the bow, sit down, wedge your legs, and hold on to the lifeline until I get her alongside.”

He saw several other boats passing behind them, all oblivious to the capsized boat ahead. As Liz drew closer, she got on the radio and called the Coast Guard station to report a capsized boat and their radar position.

He got into a life jacket, grabbed the ring and the coil of white nylon line, and went forward. He was immediately soaked by a wave that slapped salt spray all over the bow. The boat was pitching more dramatically now as she crept forward. After what seemed like a long time, they got close enough to see the boat, or its bottom anyway. Something, probably internal floatation gear, was keeping it from sinking. He could not see the people, even when they were only fifty feet away. His perch was pitching rhythmically now, dousing him with spray and even the occasional greenie. He was glad for the life jacket, although it seemed positively flimsy compared to the Navy’s kapok jackets. He saw an arm again, and then a head. A woman’s head, from the looks of it. He turned to see if Liz had seen the woman, and she nodded vigorously, adding power to the engines to get closer while still keeping the bow into the wind and sea.

Ev got on his knees, wedging himself between the pilothouse and a lifeline stanchion. There was a constant thrash of water coming over the deck, and the wind was going to make it very hard to throw a lifeline anywhere. Liz brought the big yacht within ten feet of the capsized boat, then surprised Ev by sounding the horn in one long blast. Then he saw why: The woman in the water hadn’t actually seen the Not Guilty. Now she looked up and shouted something, but her words were whipped away in the wind. She appeared to be holding on to the overturned hull with one hand while supporting something else with the other. Another person? Was that a child? She was as white-faced as the waves and visibly exhausted.

Liz eased the yacht to a position ten feet beyond and upwind of the overturned boat, then held her there with powerful thrusts of the engines as the wind buffeted the Not Guilty. Ev rose up on his knees, skinning them on the nonskid surface of the deck, and heaved the life ring upwind of the capsized boat. The ring hurtled past it and then fell into the water, dragging the line right over the woman’s head.

Shit, he thought, she never even saw it. She must be about done. As he reeled the line in, he turned to the pilothouse and signaled that he was going to go into the water to get her. Liz shook her head violently, motioned for him to wait, then disappeared. She popped back into view a moment later, just in time to gun the port engine to reposition the yacht. Then she opened a window and slid two life jackets down to him.

He grabbed the jackets before the next wave could snatch them off the bow. He understood now that he had to get the life jackets on the two people, then try to bring them back to the yacht. He’d been about to make a big mistake, just swimming over there. He snapped the two extra jackets onto his left arm, slid the life ring around his right shoulder, made sure his line was clear and secured to a cleat on the bow, and then slipped over the side. The bow immediately rose up on a big wave and very nearly knocked him senseless when it came back down, barely pushing him away in a rush of water. He could no longer see the capsized boat, but he remembered where it had been relative to the yacht. He struck out in that direction, doing the sidestroke so he could keep an eye on the yacht to maintain direction. The water seemed colder out here, but he hardly noticed as his adrenaline kicked in.

When he thought he was where the overturned boat should be, he looked back at Liz, who was pointing to his right while she wrestled the yacht. He spun around in the water and nearly impaled himself on the tip of the semisubmerged mast. He grunted with the pain, and then a wave took him under. He would have been in trouble if not for the fact that he was in great shape, had once been a competitive swimmer, and had the life jackets. Being underwater was no big deal; he only wished he had goggles.

He grabbed for that mast tip to keep himself off of it, but that proved to be a mistake, as it was being whipsawed by the punishing waves. He pushed away from it, surfaced again, bobbing high with the life ring and the extra jackets, and swam around the overturned hull until he spotted the woman. She was hanging on to a small length of line. She was not wearing a life jacket; her eyes were shut, but her fingers were grasping that line in a white-knuckled death grip. With her other arm, she held on to a small child, who was almost invisible, bundled in an adult life jacket. The child was looking right at him, as if he were some kind of sea monster.

He tried yelling at her, but she couldn’t hear him in the sea noise. He swam right up to her and grabbed the same line she was holding. She opened her eyes, and he yelled at her to hold on, to stay still, while he worked to fit a life jacket onto her. He was barely conscious that the Not Guilty was close by, but it took all his concentration to fasten a jacket onto her upper body and then pass her the life ring. She put her arm through it but then gripped the boat line again. Her eyes were partially unfocused, and Ev realized he was going to have to do everything for her. The child was obviously terrified, but in no danger of sinking. The line back to the boat was alternating between being slack and then taut as the yacht’s bow bounced around in the waves, but Liz was maintaining perfect position.

“You hang on,” he yelled. “I’ll take the child back to the boat, then come back for you.”

The woman just stared at him, and then there was a glimmer of understanding. A big wave washed over all three of them, and he said it again twice more, until he was sure she understood. He tied the bitter end of the small boat line to the life ring and made her put her head and one shoulder through it. That’ll make it easier for her to hold on, he thought. As long as their boat doesn’t sink. He let go of the remaining life jacket, reached his arm through one of the straps on the child’s jacket, and then pulled them both through the water back toward the Not Guilty. Liz, of course, couldn’t help, because she had to keep the yacht in position, as that light nylon line would never hold the two boats together. When he got alongside the boat, he realized there was no way to get up the high sides of the bow. He let go of the line and drifted back with the waves down the starboard side, the child held close alongside, until he banged up against the bottom of the folded-up sea ladder. He grabbed the ladder, extended it, and hoisted himself and the child up on deck. He took the child down below to the main salon and put her-a little girl, he realized-down on the deck and forcefully told her to stay there. Her lower lip popped out and she began to cry, but she obeyed.

Ev raced back on deck and got himself back up to the bow. The light line was still attached to the overturned boat, although he could no longer see the woman. Liz nodded and pointed, and he dived over the side this time and swam directly to the downwind side of the capsized boat. The woman was still there, her head thrown back in the life ring, both arms holding on to it, with only the small boat line holding her to the gunwale of the wrecked boat. Ev came alongside of her, touched her back, and got her to open one eye. Then they rode through a set of three big waves, which submerged them each time, and Ev felt something happen underwater. The boat was finally going down, and he didn’t have a knife. The woman was oblivious, but Ev felt the suction beginning under his legs and realized she was tied to the sinking boat. There was no way he was going to be able to get that line untied, or the ring untied in time. Without warning her, he went underwater and simply pulled her out of the life ring and away from the dark shape that was settling into the depths below. Holding on to her life jacket, he pulled her away and up to the surface in a gasping thrust.

The Not Guilty was no longer close, and the light nylon line from her bow cleat to the submerging life ring was now taut as a wire; then it parted with a vicious crack, its end lashing the Not Guilty ’s pilothouse window hard enough to crack it from top to bottom. The woman was limp in his arms, which was probably a good thing, he realized. He did the sidestroke again, aiming for the starboard quarter of the Not Guilty and that ladder, very grateful for the life jackets, which took a lot of the work out of it. Liz saw what he was doing and kicked the stern around to provide a momentary lee. A few seconds later, he was at the ladder and so was Liz, helping to pull the nearly unconscious woman up on deck, where they deposited her like a wet sack of potatoes.

“Is she breathing?” Liz asked.

As if in reply, the woman turned sideways, vomited a huge amount of water all over the deck, and then went into a paroxysm of coughing and heaving while they both held her. She was a small woman, fully dressed in slacks, a blouse, and flat tennis shoes. She was very pretty, Ev realized, even though she was barely on the plus side of a drowning equation. The Not Guilty, with no one at the helm, began to wallow as her head fell off into the seaway.

“I put the little girl down below,” he told Liz, who immediately went down into the main salon. She appeared back on deck a moment later with the little girl still swaddled in that huge life jacket. The girl tottered over to her mother, shouting, “Mommy, Mommy,” and Ev helped the woman to sit up and embrace her daughter. The boat began to roll heavily as she came fully sideways to the running seaway, and Liz hurried back up to the pilothouse to straighten her out and ease the ride. The woman was getting some color back in her face and had begun to breathe more normally as she realized she was finally safe.

“My husband,” she began, but then stopped, staring at her daughter’s wet head, and bit her lip as if she’d said something wrong.

“Let’s get you below where you can dry off,” he said. “We’ll stay in the area and look for him.” But even as he said it, he knew whose life jacket the child had been wearing. The woman gave him a long, bleak look that told him she knew, too, but she didn’t say anything. He took them below and into the master cabin. He made them both lie down, wet clothes and all, right on the rumpled bedclothes where he and Liz had made love only a few hours ago.

“Just rest for a few minutes,” he said. “We need to contact the Coast Guard, let them know we have you, and set up a search. What was the name of your boat?”

“Windsong,” she said, her voice low. She said it again, louder. “Just the three of us on board.”

She had anticipated his next question. He pulled a blanket over them both, told them to sit tight, and went back topside to the pilothouse. Liz had the boat pointed in toward Annapolis harbor.

“There was a man on board,” he announced. “I think the kid had his life jacket. We need to tell the Coast Guard.”

“I marked the position,” she said, pointing to an X in grease pencil on the chart. “But I didn’t see him.”

“I told her we’d do a search,” he said, feeling suddenly a little weak as his adrenaline began to crash. Liz glanced at his face.

“Okay, now you sit down. We’ll hang around the area until they show up. Although it’s pretty hopeless.”

“Are we okay in this shit?” he asked, looking at the solid green waves coming at them like white-capped infantry, angry at losing their prey.

“Hell yes,” she said. “This is nothing. This is a trawler hull, basically. Tarted up inside, but she’s a pretty tough sea-keeper. You did quite a job out there today. You okay?”

“A little winded, but, yeah, I’m fine. It was the sex that wore my ass out, I think.”

She grinned and gave him a thumbs-up, then brought the yacht around to head back to the area where the boat had sunk. Ev saw the flashing lights of a Coast Guard boat behind them. It was banging through the waves, sending up dramatic V ’s of spray. Liz switched over to the emergency band and checked in with the approaching boat. Ev was content just to sit there in a corner of the pilothouse. And Sundays used to be such quiet, peaceful days, he thought. Then he remembered that there were a woman and child down below, a child who had probably just lost her daddy. He heaved himself upright and went below decks.

Down in the master cabin, the survivors were huddled together under all the blankets and sheets on the bed. Ev wondered if he should find the air-conditioning thermostat and turn it off, but they were probably experiencing the cold of exhaustion. The little girl appeared to be asleep, but her mother was staring fixedly at nothing when he came in. He sat down gently on one corner of the bed.

“Can I get you anything? Some water? Coffee? A drink?”

She shook her head. The boat was corkscrewing now as Liz took her across the seas toward the sinking datum. Being inside wasn’t pleasant.

“The Coast Guard boat is almost here,” he said. “We’re staying in the area for a search. They’ll probably send a helo out, too.”

The woman reached down and put her hand over her daughter’s upturned ear. “He’s gone,” she whispered. “I saw him go down. He put his jacket on Lily. Then the mast hit him, right on the head. Hard. His eyes rolled up and he was gone. I couldn’t reach him and still hang on to her.”

He sighed and nodded. “How long were you in the water?” he asked.

“Forever,” she said, still speaking softly, not wanting to wake the child. “I didn’t thank you, did I?”

“No need. It was Liz who saw the sail. Liz DeWinter. This is her boat. We almost went right on by.”

“Several boats did. They couldn’t see us, I suppose.”

“I couldn’t see you until we were damn near on top of you.” The boat began to roll again as Liz slowed and turned parallel to the seas. Ev could hear the deep-throated engines of another boat close by. “Get some rest,” he said. “There’s no point in transferring you to the Coast Guard boat. We’ll take you in. I’m sorry about your husband.”

“Thank you,” she said almost mechanically. “I don’t think it’s really penetrated yet.”

“I lost my wife two years ago,” he said. “To a drunk driver.”

“And this Liz DeWinter? Who is she?”

Ev looked down at her, startled by the question and the vaguely disapproving expression on the woman’s face. The yacht hit a large wave and shuddered.

“Right now, she’s saving my life,” he said. “Now get some rest.”

He got up and turned out the lights. As he was shutting the cabin door, he thought he heard her say she was sorry. You don’t know the half of it, he thought. But you will.