A/N: ok, I have posted this story on FF before, but it had tons of mistakes and terrible formatting. It was embarassing. That being said, there are still tons of grammatical errors, and I really don't want to read it again. Sooooooo try to ignore them:D I wrote this on my ipod, and it deleted three times, so I had to rewrite it three times!
Ding! The elevator doors opened and Tony, Ziva, and McGee straighten in their chairs. Simultaneous "Good morning boss"s sounded in the squad room. But this morning, Gibbs didn't settle down into his desk like normal. Instead, he grabbed the keys to the van and tossed them to Tony.
"Got a dead petty officer at Quantico: grab your gear. Get the van, DiNozzo." He said. Now THAT was normal. The team grabbed their backpacks and exited the squadroom. Tony tossed the keys up in the air, intending to catch them under his leg, but Ziva was quicker. She snatched the keys from his reach.
"I am driving today" she stated simply.
"I hate to burst your bubble Zee-VAH but boss told ME to drive."
"NO, he told you to get the van. He did not mention anything about you driving." she stated.
"She's right, Tony" says McGee.
"Shut up McNosy. Mind your own business."
"It is my business who will be driving me, Tony"
"And that is EXACTLY why you should be backing me! Do you WANT to end up wrapped around a tree trunk?"
"Are you saying you doubt my ability to drive us to Quantico without killing us?" Inquired Ziva.
"Yes I-" began Tony before Gibbs interrupted him.
"DiNozzo!"
"Yes boss?"
"Let Ziva drive."
"Are you sure boss I mean I just ate breakfast and- of course you're sure." sighing, Tony finally let the subject drop. But he knew his breakfast was going to end up on the floor of the van.
"Time of death, approximately 9 hours ago, Jethro." Ducky informed Gibbs. Then he turned to the woman's body laying face down on the grass behind a house. "Now what WERE you doing in your backyard in your pajamas the middle of the night? Oh yes, this reminds me of the time when I slept walked into my backyard. I woke up in the middle of the night And hadn't even an inkling where I was!" the doctor said with a chuckle.
"What is an 'inkling' Ducky?" asked Ziva
"Well-" Ducky begins to reply, but is interrupted by Gibbs saying,
"David, bag-and-tag. DiNozzo, crime scene photos. Be sure to get the inside of the house too."
"Sorry Ducky," she apologized before taking off to get the evidence bags.
"That's quite alright, my dear. Mr. Palmer, would you be so kind as to fetch the gurney?" requested Ducky.
"Yes, doctor." replied his obedient assistant.
"You got a preliminary cause of death yet, Duck?" asked Gibbs.
"I'm going to go out on a limb and say gunshot. As to which one of these two, I won't be able to say until we get her back." replied Ducky, pointing to the two bullet holes in the Petty Officer's chest.
"What about the other one, on her forehead?" asked Gibbs.
"That one was delivered postmortem, otherwise the blood pooling would be much greater. Yes, most likely the shooter was making sure he had finished the job."
"So this was a professional hit." said Gibbs.
"It is certainly looking that way, isn't it? But I wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet." Ducky replied. McGee stood up from beside the body where he had been positively matching the body to the sole owner of the house.
"Finger prints confirm that the victim is Deborah Crenshaw, Navy Petty officer, lives alone, works for a military company that is developing new technology for the Navy. Spotless service record, but there is a restraining order. Her co-worker claimed that she was snooping around, she had been seen outside of his house many times. He never got a judge to sign off on it, though."
"Name?" Asked Gibbs
"Jonathan Paisley." said McGee.
"Start with him-" Gibbs began but was stopped by Ziva calling.
"GIBBS! I THINK I FOUND SOMETHING!" Quick as a fox, Gibbs went to go see what's up. DiNozzo was waiting for him at the door.
"We went to check out the study and we found something interesting." Gibbs walked in and was met with the biggest bulletin board he had even seen. It was cluttered with pictures and post-its. Most of the pictures had a sort of "stakeout" look to them, and almost all of them had a common figure in them. According to the post-its, it was Jonathan Paisley.
"Maybe that judge should have signed off on that restraining order after all," McGee mused.
"Maybe we should think about this a different way." Ziva said. They were back in the squadroom and were brainstorming motive for murder. "It appears that Petty Officer Crenshaw was stalking Paisley. Former lover? Maybe she was hoping for them to be come a couple...? UNLESS she wasn't stalking him, she was investigating him!" Ziva suddenly exclaimed.
"That's a good point." McGee said. "Her notes indicate that she thought Paisley was involved in some kind of crime. The reports from Stranzen Military Research Company, or SMRC, which is the company Petty Officer Crenshaw works for, had been suspicious that someone was leaking info about the Navy from inside Stranzen. Maybe Petty Officer Crenshaw became suspicious that it was Paisley. But why not go to the police?"
"She probably wanted to confirm her suspicions before she cried bear" Ziva theorized.
"You mean cried wolf," Tony corrected.
"What is the difference? They are both deadly animals!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air.
"On average, only one American gets killed by a bear each year, Ziva" McGee told her.
"Whatever."
"So what do we know?" asked McGee. "We have a Petty Officer who was either stalking or investigating her co-worker." McGee puts a military photo on the plasma of a nerdy-looking woman in big, thick glasses. The name under it reads Deborah Lynn Crenshaw. He puts up another picture, this one of a civilian man. He was balding at the top and his hair was starting to turn gray. They recognized him from the photos on Crenshaw's bulletin board. His name says Jonathan Robert Paisley. McGee continues. "We know that he was suspicious of her and her intentions. They both worked at Stranzen, a company developing and researching new technology for the Navy. There is a leak in the company that is leaking military secrets. We think that maybe Crenshaw thought that the leak was Paisley, so that was the reason she was following him and snooping around into his private life. Then Crenshaw is shot in her backyard at two in the morning in a style that suggests professional hit."
"If this is the case then we need to speak to Paisley now." Tony says, heading for his phone.
"Wait," Ziva demands. "If we alert him now we loose the chance of taking down whoever he is feeding the information to."
"C'mon, Ziva, don't make this more complicated than it really is."
"Ziva's right" Gibbs said, looking up from his desk. Tony started. He had forgotten that Gibbs was even there.
"Jeez, boss, what are you, anti-Tony?" Tony complained. Gibbs ignored him.
"We need to send someone in undercover."
"I'll do it." offered Tony.
"If we were to do it, someone would need to be hired. The best way to do that is to pretty much duplicate the Petty Officer's personality type. Her record shows that she was well liked by her superiors. Since she is dead, her bosses will most likely want to replace her as close as possible. We need a woman." Three heads turned in unison to look at Ziva. As much as she tried to hide it, she cracked a smile. But it slowly disappeared when she realized what Gibbs expected her to do. She was going undercover as a geek again. Uh-oh.
A/N: Please please please leave a review! Reviews are love3