seen naked … and that could only increase the titillation for them.
Hell, every time they met her in a passageway, they’d be thinking about
that damned photo.
It made this violation of the women’s privacy that much worse, a kind of
sneaking, nonphysical rape.
Disgusted, he closed the folder with a snap. “Do you think you got ’em
all, Master Chief? Could he have made more?”
“That’s all we found in his locker, Captain,” Weston replied.
“The negatives from two rolls of film, two contact sheets, and
twenty-eight enlargements. We checked the prints against the negatives.
He could’ve made additional prints, of course, but there are no
enlargements in that stack that aren’t accounted for among the
negatives.”
“How about it, Margolis? Are these all of the photographs? Or did you
already sell some of them to your buddies?”
“Th-those are all, sir. I swear! Two rolls of thirty-six. And I
wasn’t gonna sell them, sir. They were just … just-”
“Just for the amusement of you and your ‘buddies.””
“That’s right, sir.”
“Did your friends put you up to this?”
Margolis looked uncomfortable. “No, sir. Not really, sir. It was all
my idea.”
Brandt suspected he was lying, or at least shading the truth a bit.
Margolis didn’t fit the profile of the typical shipboard troublemaker,
and from the look of him he must have been scared to death throughout
the time he was up there in the overhead. He could have done it all
alone, but it would have helped to have someone to help boost him up
into the crawl space, and to come in and tell him the coast was clear
afterward.
Chances were, though, he’d never admit to having accomplices.
He wouldn’t want to be seen as a guy who would rat on his shipmates.
Brandt doubted that it would be productive to question him further along
those lines.
He tapped the folder with an ominously slow meter for emphasis.
“Son, this had damn well better be all of these. If there are any more,
negatives or prints, or if any of your buddies already have some of
these, you tell me right now. You won’t be in any worse trouble than
you already are.”
Margolis hesitated, then swallowed. “There aren’t any more, sir.”
“If I find out that there are more of these floating around this ship, I
am going to smack you down so hard that when you look up, whale shit’s
going to look like shooting stars to you.”
“I swear, sir! Really! That’s all there are. Two rolls, and I didn’t
have time to make up any more than those prints you have right there. I
gave everything to the COB when he asked me.”
“Very well. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Uh … no excuse, sir.” The standard Navy all-purpose statement for
when you were caught red-handed. Attempts to make excuses in such
circumstances generally backfired.
“You sure, son? I’m not sure you realize just how much trouble you’re
in because of this.”
“I … uh, sir, I mean … I didn’t mean any harm by it, sir. Honest
to God I didn’t!”
Brandt looked at the officer behind Margolis. “Chief Warrant Officer
Dupuy? Do you have anything to add in this man’s defense?”
“Sir, PH2 Margolis has been in my department since he came aboard. He
does what he’s told, and he’s never given me any trouble. Three-eights
and four-ohs on his last fitness report. He does his work with a
minimum of supervision and he does it well.”
“A little too well in this case,” Brandt said. “I’d feel better if
these things weren’t so damned professional-looking. If he’d just cut
their heads off or overexposed them or something.”
Michener coughed suddenly, and Brandt looked up. He caught a tightening
of Weston’s jaw, a narrowing of his eyes, and realized the COB was
rigidly stifling a laugh. Same with Dupuy.
He replayed what he’d just said in his mind, then groaned inwardly.
Overexposed! Yeah, these women were overexposed, all right, though his
pun had been completely unintentional. Damn it all, there were aspects
of this mess that were hilarious, but it could lead to bad, bad trouble