Blood Dimmed Tide
An Inspector DiNozzo Story
The blood dimmed tide is loosed
And everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned
The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats
Prologue
The body was found in an ink black alleyway. Porcelain doll eyes and a humorless smile marred the victim's beautiful face. She was dead. Murdered. That face was familiar, too familiar, though, but he couldn't remember who she was. Her identity to him was like a melody of a hit song stuck in his head but he couldn't remember the name of the song. It was there on the edge of his consciousness, but he couldn't quite remember. All he knew was that she was beauty and she was someone he knew.
Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo woke with a start and a muffled cry. He sat up to find he was on an unfamiliar sofa in an apartment that was not his own. His breathing was ragged and he was sweating. It was then that he noticed he was dressed in the pants to his Armani suit and was wearing a white Eton dress shirt. He wouldn't be asleep in these clothes unless he was too drunk or too tired to get undress.
"Tony," he heard a familiar voice say his voice in grey darkness of apartment.
She put on a hallway light, which cast of long shadow of light parting the greyness. He looked over his shoulder at his beauty partner, Special Agent Ziva David. She was wearing sweat pants and a blue NCIS tee shirt. She made her bedclothes look sexy, even though that wasn't her intention. Her black hair was down and wild just as he liked it and her dark brown eyes filled with concern, just as he didn't like it.
"Sorry, I had a nightmare," he said then thought for a second. "How did I get here?"
"Abby, McGee, you and I went drinking after work. You took an allergy pill and after two scotches were goofy," she smiled and sat down beside him. "We agreed that my apartment was closet, so here you are. You know you are too heavy to lug around."
"Sorry about that," he sighed then he stared down at the wood floors of her apartment.
"Bad dream?" she asked.
"Disturbing," he answered.
One word answers from Tony meant trouble. Ziva knew this all too well, just as she knew him all too well. He was her partner, friend, bane of her existence at times, and maybe something much more. She tried not to think how much he meant to her. Before she could ask him what was disturbing about the dream, his smartphone in his pocket started singing Goodbye Charlie.
His sea green eyes looked at her with humor in them and a smile on his lips, "Bobby Darin. It's Gibbs."
"What song and singer am I?" she asked, as he took his smartphone out of his pants' pocket.
"Sinatra. Luck be a lady," he said and his smile grew. "Yeah, Boss."
"Body of a female marine in an apartment in Foggy Bottom. I'll have McGee text you the address," he stated.
"Sure, Boss. I'll call Ziva," Tony said then Gibbs hung up.
Ziva got and exited to her bedroom to get dress leaving Tony alone. He ran his right hand through his sandy brown hair and sighed. That dream hadn't quite left him yet. It still hung around him like a morning fog.
"I guess I should get dressed," he said.
NCIS
The apartment was a luxury modern apartment building, not really the type you'd find a female marine dead. Maybe it was the type of place you'd find a dead ambassador lying dead in the bathtub or one of the beds. Tony was the last to arrive on scene, even though he left Ziva's apartment before her. He went and got himself a coffee and drank it before showing up, since he didn't want Gibbs to think Ziva and he were breaking any of his rules.
"Hey, Boss," he said as walked past a couple of Metro cops and into the luxury three bedroom apartment.
McGee was kneeling beside the body of the marine with a mobile fingerprint scanner, while Ziva took photos. Dr. Jimmy Palmer and his new assistant Angela Santana where waiting to examine the body. Now that Ducky was in semi-retirement, Jimmy was in their new ME. Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs looked over at Tony. His steel blue grey eyes glared at him as he looked over his Senior Field Agent.
"You haven't been home yet, DiNozzo," he stated the ex-marine in his gunny voice.
"Nope," said Tony.
Gibbs looked over Tony's shoulder at a new arrival. Gibbs could tell from the man's uniform and the rank markings on his collar, he was going to be a pain in the ass. Tony thought he almost heard his boss growl.
"Special Agent Leroy Gibbs," the salt and pepper haired man said.
"I'm Gibbs," Gibbs said.
"I'm Commander Vincent Amara of Metro Police," he said. "This apartment belongs to Assistant Secretary of State Jeremy Salt."
"Glad to hear. Now we know who to question," Gibbs snapped.
"Listen, Gibbs…," Amara started to speak again.
Tony closed his eyes. His Boss was about to get into a pissing contest with the local LEOs. Sometimes he thought Gibbs did it just to give him something to do because he always had to deal with the LEOs afterwards.
"Special Agent Gibbs," growled Gibbs.
Before both men could unzip and really start pissing, McGee interrupted them.
"Boss, she's not in the database. I don't think she's a real marine," he said, as he stood up.
Gibbs, Tony, and Amara walked over to the body. Tony looked down at this faux marine. She had dead porcelain doll eyes, a humorless smile on lips, and a red silk tie around neck. Tony felt slightly nauseous. His nightmare had come to life.
"We have to find out who she is then," said Ziva.
"If she's not a marine then we have to find out, not you," said Amara.
"I know who she is," Tony spoke up.
Ziva looked at him with concern, while McGee, Amara, and Gibbs waited for him to continue. He didn't continue.
"Have you slept with her DiNozzo?" asked Gibbs.
"No," he growled. "I saved her life from a serial killer thirteen years ago. Her name is Janet Treanor. She must be twenty-nine years old now or was."
He looked up at Gibbs with dark and angry eyes.
"She's the reason Wendy used to call me her hero cop. The serial killer was nicknamed Valentino. He used to find and seduce girls from the age of sixteen to twenty, drug them, have his way with them for a few days then strangle them with a red silk tie," explained Tony in a voice that either was on the verge of angry or bitterness.
"So, this serial killer must be active again," said Amara.
"No. He's dead. I killed. I found him about to strangle her and shot four times in the chest. She was going to be his fourth victim," said Tony.
"You're Detective Tony DiNozzo, aren't you?" asked Amara.
"Yeah, I am," he said staring at Treanor's dead body.
"Someone must have wanted you to find her, Tony, otherwise why dress her in a marine uniform," McGee said.
Gibbs looked at his SFA. He knew Tony well enough that his agent was already blaming himself for the death of this young woman. It was his nature to blame himself for events outside of his control.
Commander Amara had first heard of DiNozzo was he was a Philly cop and took down the Macaluso Family in an undercover operation. He was under long enough to the Macaluso family to be embrace as family and put in the line of succession for Don. When the Philly Police and FBI finally took the family out, DiNozzo left Philly for Baltimore as a homicide detective. His reputation kept growing until he joined some FED agency then he sort of disappeared off the map. Amara looked at the man in the rumpled Italian suit and thought it was a waste for him to be NCIS. He was a cop not some Navy Fed. In the morning, he needed to do some investigating about DiNozzo with NCIS.
"I guess she belongs to us," said Amara. "I'd like to talk to you Special Agent DiNozzo about this Valentino Killer to see if you can give us some leads."
Tony reached into his pant pocket and took out his wallet. He found one of his NCIS business cards and handed it to Amara.
"Call me when you need to talk to me," he said.
"Thanks, DiNozzo," said Amara then he moved in close to Tony. "I can see this is sickening your stomach. You killed Valentino, so this must be some sick fucking cop cat. This isn't your fault. You can't stop sick bastard from being sick bastards."
"The Thin Blue Line, huh?" said Tony.
"Hey, once a cop, you are forever a cop," said Amara. "It scars you that way."
"Yeah, I know it," said Tony.
Ziva and Gibbs both could sense the beast awakening in DiNozzo. The beast was the Tony who took on the guilt of the world and became obsessed with righting some wrong that he thought was his fault. This was at his most self-destructive; it was also Tony at his most dangerous.
"Okay, pack up. We are out of here," said Gibbs then he looked at Amara. "I'd like to know why she was in the marine uniform other than to draw DiNozzo's attention."
"Sure," said Amara.
Gibbs then turned to speak to Tony, but he was gone already. Ziva packed up the camera bag then she stood up, and looked for Tony too see that he was gone.
"Gibbs, is Tony alright?" she asked him.
Gibbs looked at the empty space which Tony once filled and shook his head.
"He will be. He is resilient if nothing else," said Gibbs.
She wanted to believe him, but something inside of her told her that Tony was not going to be resilient over this one. He just had that look in his eyes, which made her worry about him.