They step into the house. Gibbs leads the pack. He stops ten feet from the door. They stop dead in their tracks. They look around the living room. Holes in the wall. Broken pictures. Glass shattered on the floor. The carpet stained with blood. A glass coffee table broken into hundreds of pieces. Blood all over. The walls, the couch. On the door. Leading from the living room, into the kitchen. A pathway of destruction leading into the bedroom. Bullet holes in the victim, in the walls, and even in a cabinet.
They survey the scene before them. Tony turns to Gibbs. He shakes his head. He briefly looks at the dead body, on top of what's left of the coffee table. "Where would you like us to start? There isn't even a path."
"We take pictures of everything. There is a lot of glass, so be careful. I don't want a single thing touched until everything is photographed, then we can start processing."
"Who does something like this?" McGee asks.
"Someone with a lot of rage," Ziva answers.
"Someone had a problem with Petty Officer Jonas."
Four hours later they're still processing the crime scene. Ducky has taken the body away for autopsy. Gibbs has dropped off a load of evidence to Abby, to sift through. They're finishing up on the living room when someone knocks on the door. They turn and look. No one was supposed to be there. Who knocked on a door covered in crime scene tape? Gibbs turns around, and pull the door open. A woman stands in front of him.
"Can I help you?"
"I think that I can help you."
"And who are you?"
"Gina Hart. I live next door. I just got home."
"You realize that this is a crime scene?"
"Yes. I assume that means that Grant is dead."
"He was murdered."
"I know who did it."
"You know who did it?"
"Her name is Ashlee Keller."
"Why do you think that she did it?"
"I know she did it."
"You saw her last night?"
"I saw her, and I heard her, screaming at him."
"Screaming about what?"
"I don't know. I couldn't make out what she was saying."
Gibbs pulls out a card, he hands it to her, "If you can think of anything else, let me know."
She nods, and walks away.
"DiNozzo, David..."
"Go find out everything there is to know about Ashlee Keller," DiNozzo answers.
McGee, and Gibbs arrive back at the Navy yard an hour later. When Gibbs comes into the squad room he stops at the plasma. Tony jumps up from their seats, and join him. Tony uses the clicker.
"Ashlee Keller, eighteen, from Alexandria," DiNozzo begins.
"You expect me to believe an eighteen year old girl did this?" Gibbs questions.
"Ziva is picking her up now."
"DiNozzo you think that she is capable of what we saw earlier?"
"I don't know."
"What's the background?"
"I don't know. There isn't much to go on. I know that Ashlee Keller is the same age as Grant Jonas' sister Gabrielle."
"Does she have a criminal record?"
"No."
McGee hangs up the phone, at his desk.
"Boss, Ziva is back. She has Ashlee Keller in interrogation."
Gibbs walks away. He goes into the observation room on the other side of the interrogation room. He looks at Ziva. Then he looks to the girl on the other side of the glass. Petite blonde, with dark circles under her eyes.
"She's yours," Gibbs says.
Ziva looks up at him, in bewilderment. "Are you sure about that?"
"She's going to be more willing to talk to you."
"I don't like pretending to be sympathetic."
"Ziva, go."
She leaves the room. She walks into the interrogation room, and takes a seat, on the other side of the table.
"Do you know why you're here?"
"You told me that Grant Jonas was murdered."
"Yes."
"You have questions for me?" she guesses.
"Yes," Ziva answers.
"You're wasting your time."
"Why?"
"Because I... I killed him."
"You're admitting to killing him?"
"Yes."
"Do you have any idea what you're saying?" Ziva wonders.
"I know what I'm saying. I know what I did."
"Why?"
"I was angry, I was furious. I couldn't take it anymore. I went there, to talk to him."
"To scream at him," Ziva corrects.
"And things just got out of control. I couldn't control myself."
"Why? What did he do to you, to make you so angry?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"You don't know that."
"I am a supposed to be looking forward to graduation. I'm supposed to be getting ready to go to college. I should be excited about what my future holds. Because of him, I'm not."
"What do you mean?"
"Grant's sister was my best friend, for as long as I can remember. Grant is four years older. On his sister's fourteenth birthday we had a sleep over. He was getting ready to ship out. Gabby had fallen asleep, and I went into the kitchen for a drink. He was in the living room, and we started talking," she trails off.
"That made you kill him?"
"He left. He served his country. He did his time, and now he has a life. He's free. I am never going to be free."
"What are you talking about?"
"He told me that he was afraid he was going to die. He said that he wanted his last night before he left to be special. He fed me a load of crap, and I bought it. I was too young to know that he was taking advantage of me. Every single day, I wake up, and I wish that I could take that night back. I wish that I could go back in time, and change things, but I can't. I can't change things. I never should have believed him. I am the one who has to deal with all the consequences. He refused to do anything."
"Consequences? What consequences are you talking about?"
Ashlee grabs her bag. She pulls out her wallet, and takes out a picture. She slides it across the table, to Ziva.
"Madison. That is the consequence I am talking about. She was born on my fifteenth birthday. I was supposed to get to go to homecoming, to prom. I was supposed to be on the honor roll, and get scholarships, and go to college. But I can't. I had to give all of that up. And I just got sick of it. I love her, but... I'm still a kid. I just wanted to be a kid. He took that from me. He came back, and all I asked was that he would take her one night a week. Just one. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't even see her. He refused to take a DNA test."
"What happened last night?"
"I went to his house. I was upset, because he convinced his sister, my best friend, that I was lying. That he didn't do anything wrong, that he isn't Madison's father. Gabby is the only friend in the world that I have, and he took that from me too. I just went there to convince him to tell the truth. But he wouldn't. He told me to leave, he called my little girl a bastard, and... I lost it."
"Where did you get the gun?"
"It was his. He had just gotten back from the batting cages. I started hitting things. I started throwing things. I hit him in the shins, and in the knees. He was too shocked to do anything. He reached for the bat, and I grabbed the gun off the coffee table. And I shot him. I shot him, until the magazine was empty."
"How many shots?"
She pauses for a moment, "Six."
"Six?"
"One in the wall. One in his head. One in his shoulder. One in his knee cap. One below the belt. One in the stomach."
"In what order."
"The wall first, just to scare him, but he wasn't. He just laughed. Then the one to below the belt. Followed by the one to the knee. Then the one to the stomach, and then to the shoulder."
"Four shots, he was incapacitated, and you shot him again? He would have bled out."
"I waited. I stood over him for a couple of minutes, as he choked on his own blood. he begged me for his life. But I told him if I couldn't have mine, that he couldn't have his. And I shot him in the head. Right between the eyes."
"Where were you when you shot him, in the head?"
"I was standing over him."
"What else did you do to him?"
"I told you I hit him with a baseball bat. In the shins, the knee, in the jaw, in the nose, in the back."
"And he didn't fight back?"
"He was too drunk to fight back. I started by just breaking the bottles around him."
"Do you realize what you've done?"
"I killed him."
"You are going to spend the rest of your life in prison, for what you did to him. Your child is going to grow up without ever knowing you. I understand that you are young, and you wanted your life back, but this was not the way to do it. Your little girl, is going to grow up, without a mother. What kind of life is she going to have? With her father dead, and her mother in prison?"
"She'll be fine."
"How do you know?"
"My parents will take care of her. They love her. She was my mistake, but she's perfect. My mother, she wouldn't even let me name her. My own daughter, and I wasn't allowed to name her. I went back to school a week after she was born. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. My mother made me, she stayed home with Madison. I never asked for that. I made a mistake, but I wanted the chance to fix it, and no one would give me that chance."
Ziva pushes her chair out. She walks away, she leaves the room. Gibbs comes out of observation, and passes her in the hallway. She makes her way to Abby's lab.