“No?”
“You look like you’re twenty-eight.”
Her smile broadened. “One of the advantages of being black. We don’t crack.”
“Excuse me?” He had to stifle a laugh.
“Black don’t crack; you’ve never heard that before?”
Del blew out a breath, unsure what to say.
“I’m forty-one,” she said. “But my skin says I’m twenty-eight. No wrinkles. My mother and I used to get confused for sisters. It bugged the hell out of me until I realized I’d someday be in my forties.”
“Ah,” Del said, understanding. “My mother and I were never confused for sisters.”
Celia laughed, lifted the basket, and approached. They stared at each another, like two high school kids.
“I don’t have anything more on Allie’s dealer—an e-mail address, but not a name.”
“You’ll get there.” She lifted the picnic basket. “I figured you hadn’t eaten.”
“It’s twelve thirty at night.”
“I know. I thought you said you get off at twelve. What do you people do for half an hour? I figured you’d be running out of there like the place was on fire.”
It dawned on Del that McDaniel’s presence had nothing to do with Allie’s case. Celia knew he’d had a hard day going through Allie’s computer and phone records, and she’d gone to a lot of trouble just to make him feel better, to let him know that she cared. “Faz was waiting for his wife . . . Wait, what about your trial?”
“I’m no longer in trial. Shortly after getting off the phone with you, I received a phone call from the defense attorney accepting my last plea deal. We went back to court and put it on the record.”
So she didn’t have to work.
She lifted a blue-and-white-checkered dish towel covering the basket’s contents. “Now, nothing special—some French bread, prosciutto, salami, cheeses, and an assortment of olives.”
“Wow. It doesn’t get any more special,” Del said, not even glancing at the basket’s contents.
“I figured Italian was a safe bet. We don’t have anything to drink, though. I’m hoping you have a good Italian wine to go along with it?”
“I bet I could find something,” he said.
CHAPTER 25
The following morning, Leah Battles thought the MA at the Charleston Gate took twice as long as necessary to consider her identification card, though she realized it could just be her paranoia in the aftermath of the Article 32 hearing. Word spread like a wildfire across a naval base, and no doubt everyone was talking about the missing videotape and speculating over what had happened to it. That was the reason Battles got up that morning to go to work, as scheduled. Her mother had once told her, during Battles’s high school years, that her absence spoke volumes, and so did her presence. She intended to be present.
When she entered the front door of the DSO building, Darcy, the receptionist, and two people standing at her desk turned to Leah. They looked as if they’d been caught. Their conversation ceased, and the other two slowly turned and walked away. Battles nodded to Darcy and continued toward her office, waiting for Darcy’s customary greeting. It never came.
She slipped into her office and shut her door, taking a moment to consider her surroundings. Her office décor was just the right mix of work and home, and it had always been a sanctuary, a place where she felt grounded. Today, however, it felt foreign, isolated, and claustrophobic. She wanted to turn and leave, but she knew she couldn’t make it that easy on them. Instead, she turned on the overhead fluorescent lights, hoping their brightness would remove some of the impending gloom, and changed into her working blues.
Sitting at her desk, she hit her keyboard, received the customary prompt asking for her name and password, and typed in both. While the computer booted up, she finished changing into her blue work uniform and black boots. Then she unlocked her desk drawer where she kept her active files and pulled it open. The drawer was empty. She looked at her computer monitor. The system did not recognize her name or password.
She swore under her breath and typed in her name and password a second time, though the empty desk drawer made it clear she hadn’t made a mistake. Again, the screen refused her access. She rocked back in her chair, processing what had happened. She’d never heard of a defense attorney having her files yanked so quickly. The attorney-client privilege mandated that an attorney’s clients had to release the attorney. There was only one likely explanation. They’d locked her out and taken her files.
So much for being present.
A tentative knock on her door diverted her attention. “Come in,” she said.
Darcy poked her head into the room with a tentative smile, the kind normally reserved for funerals. “What’s up, ma’am?” she said softly.
Battles almost said, “Not me for promotion,” but she wasn’t about to act defeated. She returned the smile. “Sun and sky, Darcy. I’ll let you know when they aren’t.”
Darcy stepped in and closed the door.
“How’re you doing, ma’am?” Darcy asked. Enlisted personnel always used “ma’am” as a sign of respect when addressing female naval officers.
“I’m doing fine. Thanks for asking. What’s the status of the rumor mill out there?”
Darcy stepped to the corner of Battles’s desk. “Everyone is talking about what happened.”
“So what’s the verdict? Am I guilty?” The unwilling computer and empty desk drawer seemed to answer that question.
Darcy grimaced.
Battles managed another smile. “Don’t worry about it, Darcy.”
“I don’t believe it, ma’am,” Darcy said quickly. “I didn’t believe it when I heard it and I still don’t. I wanted you to know that.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“So, you’ll still be coming in?”
“Until they tell me otherwise,” she said, which they could do any minute now.
“Then you’ll let me know if the sky is falling.”
“Count on it.”
Battles’s desk phone rang.
“I’ll let you get back to it then,” Darcy said. She smiled as she pulled open the office door, but the smile had a sad quality to it, like she was looking at a death-row prisoner a final time before her execution.
Battles looked at the clock on her wall: 9:01. Darcy might very well be right.
With two nine-year-old boys in his sister’s house, Del doubted there were many secrets, especially about who was dating whom. He was right. Mark and Stevie quickly pegged “J-Man” to be Jack Welch, a senior at Ballard High School, who they said had been sniffing around Allie for six months.
“He’s a loser,” Stevie said, dismissing Welch with a wave of his hand. “He’s in a band.”
“They suck,” Mark said, eyes widening. “We saw him play once at a talent show at Allie’s school. He was like . . .” Mark jumped off the couch, furiously strumming the imaginary strings of an air guitar and bobbing his head so hard Del thought it might snap.