The Interrogation
All characters, etc. of NCIS belong to Bellisarius Productions, CBS and Paramount Television; I'm just playing with them for a little while and I promise to put them back where they belong unharmed.
NCIS Special Agent Tony DiNozzo opened the door to interrogation room one's observation room and joined Mossad Liaison Officer Ziva David. "Has Gibbs started in on this one yet?" he asked.
"Not yet; he's just getting set up. I do not think he will be able to crack this one. I've known Mordechai all his life and he is completely inscrutable," Ziva replied. "His kind pretty much are."
Indeed, Mordechai was truly unreadable. He simply sat there across the table from Gibbs and stared at him. No fear, no smug assurance, just a stare. At last, Gibbs finished his set-up and was ready to see how long it would take the famed Gibbs stare to work its magic on this suspect.
"Are you ready to talk yet?" Gibbs asked. Mordechai did not reply.
"All the evidence points directly to you. You had motive, opportunity, means… and your prints are all over the crime scene. Why not save us all some time and simply confess?" Again, no response from the suspect, just that mile-long stare. Gibbs fell silent, staring back.
The door to the observation room opened again, this time admitting McGee and Abby. "Ducky's on his way," Abby said; "I knew he wouldn't want to miss this one, so I told him about it." No sooner had Abby finished when Ducky entered. When he looked thru the window into the interrogation room, he let out a low whistle. "Well, well, I do believe Jethro has indeed met his match in this one. I've never known of one breaking using conventional interrogation methods. The question here is how long will Gibbs last?" They settled back to watch.
Fifteen minutes later, the staring match was still going on. The victim's mother wondered if indeed the famed Gibbs magic could break this case, or if she would never know for sure if Mordechai was indeed the guilty party. Even tho the victim was not navy or marine connected, things were slow and Gibbs had agreed to interrogate the suspect as a favour to Ziva, as the victim and family were her neighbours. Ziva had connections to Mordechai as well; she had in fact told Gibbs that while Mordechai was most likely the perpetrator, there was no way even Gibbs could get a confession out of him.
After an hour and a half of total silence and staring, Gibbs stood up. "Looks like Ziva was right; this is going nowhere. You'll never admit to it, will you?" With that, he left the interrogation room, joining the rest of the team in observation. "All right, Ziva, you can take him back into custody. I'm very sorry, Mrs Perkins, but we'll never know for sure if Mordechai was responsible for the death of your parakeet."
Meanwhile, in the interrogation room, Mordechai had settled his tail round himself, folded his front paws underneath, closed his eyes and smiled that inscrutable cat smile before Ziva came in to put her cat back into his carrier and take him home.
