Free Sweepers by P. T. Deutermann Page B

that Carpenter would be working his agenda, which would not necessarily parallel Sherown man’s best interests. As the JAG, Carpenter would have his eye on protecting the Navy. And she was not, in fact, his lawyer. So legally speaking, there were no confidentiality aspects to their conversations.
    So there really wasn’t a problem here, right? Right. So why did she feel she was betraying the man?
    She mentally reevaluated her tasking: gain Sherman’s confidence, tell him that she had a line into the cops and that she would alert him to anything shaking from those quarters. In return, he would tell her-what, if anything? Well, like going to Elizabeth Walsh’s house last night, where the slipper business had come up. She sighed as she drove down Route 50 toward the Beltway.
    Time for a workout. She would call Sherman’s office from the athletic club to see when he had a hole in his schedule after lunch. Then the hard part: She would have to back-brief Carpenter and talk to von Renselshe hadn’t spoken to him yet today.
    Ten minutes after one o’clock, Karen entered the OP-32 outer office, with a salad plate in hand. The yeoman got up and knocked on Sherman’s inner office door, stuck his head in, and then held the door open for her. Sherman was finishing a sandwich at a small conference table. His office was similar to Admiral Carpenter’s but smaller and with less prestigious furniture. He did not get up, just waved her over to the table.
    “So, how did it go out there with the Polizei?”
    She took a moment to summon her thoughts while she unwrapped her plastic fork and opened a carton of milk. She took a bite of salad.
    “Well,” she said, “it was pretty short. I told him about your visit to Ms. Walsh’s house, and the slippers-that she would not have been wearing those slippers.”
    “And?”
    “Mcnair didn’t really react one way or the other, but he did make a note of it.”
    “Did he seem to care that I had gone there?”
    “No, sir. They’re apparently not treating her house as a crime scene. In a way, it’s kind of strange what they’re doing—or not doing, I mean.
    The slippers, the laundry, the basket: All of that would have been held in a lab somewhere if this was a homicide investigation. And their would have been police seals on the house. Frankly, I don’t think there’s anything going on. Or if there is, Mcnair didn’t reveal it.”
    “You’re probably right,” he said. “Did you get any hint of what those forensic ambiguities were?”
    . “No, sir. But I’m almost beginning to think that that term is a euphemism for somebody’s hunch.”
    He nodded thoughtfully and finished his sandwich. Crumpling up the’paper plate, he leaned back in his chair. “Do they understand that I’m a little reluctant to be Freddy Forthcoming as long as they’re acting as if I’m possibly a suspect of some kind?”
    “Yes, sir. But, Admiral, I don’t think you are a real suspect.
    “Then why won’t they just say so? The longer they keep this up, the bigger my political problem in Opnav becomes.”
    “Cops don’t work that way, Admiral. They don’t tell outsiders anything they don’t have to. Besides, the converse is true: If you were a viable suspect, they would be acting altogether differently.”
    H’ nodded again and looked away for a moment, e as if making a decision.
    “I need to tell you something,” he said.
    “But it has to remain in confidence for now, vis-A-vis the cops at least. Are you okay with that?”
    She thought fast. Here it was: the confidentiality issue.
    From the cops, he’d said. Did that mean from Carpenter, too? She stalled for time by miming that her mouth was full.
    “Admiral,” she said finally, “if you’re about to tell me you’re an ax murderer, then, no, that’s not going to be possible.” She thought about qualifying that, but she said nothing more. Somewhere along the line, she was going to have to face this problem. But he did not seem