There was a clicking noise as Liz leaned forward to hit stop and rewind. “I guess I’d never thought much past the smart uniforms, pretty dress parades, drums and bugles, and football game rallies in Tecumseh Court,” she said. “I didn’t realize that day-to-day life inside that big building is so intense. Or that the midshipmen themselves know what they are doing.”
“I think Julie’s a cut above in considering all that,” Ev said, still somewhat aghast. “But she’s right: Civilians have no idea. I’ve often thought about how life at the Academy begins a separation between the officers who come out of there and the American taxpayers, who pay the bill.”
“‘Civilians’? Aren’t you a civilian?”
“Nope. Never will be, either. Not in my mind. I’m an Academy grad who was also a Navy fighter pilot. Even after all these years in academia, I’m still not a civilian.”
“How interesting.”
“The place changes you. Julie’s right, in a way. If you didn’t go there, you probably can’t understand just how much it changes you. Or the intense pride one has in getting through it.”
She sipped some wine while gazing out over the creek, where twilight was softening the individual features of trees, docks, and houses. She was obviously going to skip right past that part of the discussion involving him. Ev saw her make a token effort to tug on her skirt, but that only made things more interesting. He found himself suddenly very aware of her, physically, and he hadn’t experienced that feeling in some time. He felt a sudden urge to pick her up. She was tiny, but oh, my. The silence lingered.
“You graduated when?” she asked finally.
“Class of ’73. Seems like a century ago.”
“I loved my time at college, law school less so. Would you describe your time at the Academy as being happy?”
“Happy? No. But the Academy’s not college. I majored in aeronautical engineering, so I felt as if I had a creditable degree, but the degree was almost a sidebar. Getting through the four years, getting commissioned, that was the accomplishment.”
“If Brian Dell had been gay, do you think that would be a reason for someone or some group to kill him?”
Ev shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t think so. If he was gay, and groped somebody, he’d get his clock cleaned and be separated. If they caught him doing homosexual acts, they’d separate him. We had two guys in my class who got caught playing drop the soap in the gym. Both gone the next day. One other guy said he was gay, but the word was he just wanted out without having to serve out his obligation in the fleet as a white-hat. But throwing a kid out the window for being gay? Nah. Is that the current theory?”
“I don’t know. I was just speculating. You know, the underwear thing.”
“But the homicide angle-you think that’s real?”
“My source does. I asked the NCIS people what motives there might be for murder in Bancroft Hall. He said the usuaclass="underline" money or love.”
“Not many people in Mother Bancroft have money,” Ev mused.
“Right. Which leaves love. An Academy romance gone way off the tracks.”
“One assumes boy-girl. I suppose in this modern age, it could have been boy-boy.”
They were interrupted by the doorbell. Ev left her in the kitchen to go get the pizza. When he came back, he found her looking at a collection of Markham family pictures on a shelf beneath the cookbooks. She was holding one picture in her hand, a group photo of Ev, Joanne, and Julie at about age thirteen, based on the awkward posture and the hint of the good looks to come. Ev, taller than both, was beaming with pride, his arm around both wife and daughter. Joanne was spectacular in this picture, a glowing brunette, wide-eyed, perfectly proportioned face, luxuriant figure, looking back at the camera with practiced ease, knowing that she was beautiful, and apparently comfortable with it. Liz put the picture back as he walked in, then cleared some mail off the counter to make room for the pizza.
“Arrgh,” she said when she saw the anchovies.
“I know,” he said, “But it’s half-and-half. I was going to abstain, but I happen to love the little stinkers.”
“Aptly put,” she said, wrinkling her nose. He laughed at her.
“I’m going to switch over to beer,” he said. “Your half okay?”
“It’s fine. I rarely eat pizza, so when I do, it’s always good. Although hell on the girlish figure.” He got out some plates and silverware, and she helped herself to a slice well away from the offending anchovies.
“Nothing wrong with the girlish figure from where I’m standing,” he said, cracking open a Coors.
“One of these days, I’m going to give up and just let myself…expand.”
Ev laughed as they moved back to the counter.
“Is there a chance Julie might know more about this Dell business than she’s telling either of us?” she asked.
Ev felt a protective impulse rise in his chest. Liz kept coming back to this. She saw his concern.
“You want to know why I keep asking,” she said. “I sense there’s something wrong over there in Bancroft Hall. This is the Naval Academy. Four thousand straight-arrow men and women, the best and the brightest, duty, honor, country, pick your slogan. And yet someone’s killed a plebe?”
He stared at her, then down at his pizza. He pushed it away and concentrated on his beer while trying to marshal his thoughts. “You think Julie’s lying to you?” he asked.
“Not exactly. I mean, I don’t think she had a hand in the boy’s death, of course. But I do think she’s not telling me everything. I’m just a civilian, you see. She’s one of…them.”
“Them. Right.” He nodded slowly, still not looking at her. He was aware of the lights reflecting in small dazzling patterns across the creek. The house was very still.
“I hired you to protect Julie,” he said slowly.
“That’s correct.” She seemed to be waiting for him to understand something important.
“But you can’t do that if she’s holding back on you, can you?”
“Bingo.”
“And you’d like me to do what, exactly?”
“I’d like you to reinforce the notion that if she does know something about this incident, she needs to tell me, and preferably before those G-persons do. Maybe point out that precisely because she’s not a civilian, the government’s investigators might not play nice.”
He steepled his hands in front of his face, then nodded again, making up his mind. He’d been on the verge of getting angry, but he then saw the logic in what she was saying. “You’ve got my attention, counselor,” he said. “I’ll try to think of something.”
“Liz,” she said. “So far, I can’t get either one of you to call me by my first name.”
He laughed. “Liz it is.”
They finished their pizza, and Ev made some coffee. They took it into the study.
She stirred her coffee for a moment. “Julie indicated that sometimes there’s a collective decision made that a plebe isn’t worth keeping. That he’s a ‘shitbird.’ What happens then?”
“Pretty much what she described. In my day, he’d become a target for the entire company’s upperclassmen. After a month or so of that, he’d crash and burn and then resign. Nowadays, though, my impression is that the system steps in. The company officers, the kid’s academic adviser, his squad leader, his mentoring youngsters, even his sponsor, maybe. That said, they do lose a couple hundred by attrition during plebe year.”
“I guess what I’m trying to understand is how much power do the upperclassmen have? Julie implied it was a lot. Even if the executive staff and the faculty get into it, can the upperclassmen run a guy out?”
Ev shrugged. “I’m twenty-eight years out-of-date. When I went through, the answer would have been yes. But he’d really have to be a shitbird. Someone who bilged his classmates, skirted the honor system, or was suspected of stealing-that kind of stuff. It wouldn’t happen just as a matter of unpopularity.”
“Sounds like extra work for the upperclassmen.”
“Actually, they’d set in motion the ultimate sanction: Get the guy’s own classmates to shun him. The upperclassmen can run a guy ragged, but if his classmates see that as unfair persecution, they’ll help him, carry him even. But if they dump him, he’s meat.”