Murder at Cheltenham by DD Agent

I do not own NCIS or any of its characters, or its settings - all belongs to the lovely folks at CBS

So happy you're enjoying this fic! Awesome points to everyone who has read it, put it on alert, favourited it etc, and major awesome points to Miss Jayne, MatteaAM, basket-case1880, HuddyJibbsAddict, 1kiko, LilMissJenny, and Mrs. Elizabeth Gibbs - thank you all so much for the wonderful reviews!

Chapter Three of "Murder at Cheltenham" will be up tomorrow, and for all "Angel of Death" fans - chapter three will be up tonight. Lots of fic! :D Hope you all enjoy!

Chapter Two

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was not having the best day. It had got a heck of a lot worse when a lithe redhead had landed on top of him, and not in a way that he usually liked. He was now in one of the changing rooms at Cheltenham, waiting for said redhead and his only witness to get changed out of the clothes that she had spilled coffee on. Ducky and Robbie had been absolutely no help - once they had stopped laughing they had just headed back to the Navy Yard to do the autopsy.

"Got a spare shirt if you want it," came the voice from behind the door. He'd only seen the woman trying to kill him very briefly before she had headed in search of a change of clothes.

Gibbs looked down at his own shirt, stained with coffee. It was not a good look, and it would just piss him off even more. "Why not?"

A hand reached around the changing room door and handed him a FLETC t-shirt. Taking off his shirt and tie, Gibbs pulled on the clothing. It fitted nice - was probably about three sizes too big for the redhead. Finally the door to the changing room opened and he got another look at her. She had changed into a FLETC training kit, the shorts barely hitting mid thigh.

"I'm sorry about falling on top of you," she apologised, which made Gibbs even angrier.

"Don't apologise, it's a sign of weakness," he growled, causing the redhead's eyebrows to shoot up. He hated probies. "Now, it was Shepard, wasn't it? Shepard, are you going to fill me in on what you've managed to screw up today?"

Jenny smirked, liking this guy a little, even if he seemed determined to hate her. "I screwed up your shirt and mine. If you want a briefing about Sarah and her 'suicide', then talk to me like an actual person instead of some ditzy probie."

Gibbs realised he was in trouble with this one. She had two strikes already against her - she was a probie, and the tree incident. But she was also the one who knew most about what was going on - the FLETC trainers didn't seem to be trying to get actively involved in the investigation, just trying to keep it out of the press.

"I need more coffee. You know a place where I can go?"

"Sure. I'll tell you if you buy me a cup."

Gibbs smirked, but conceded. She took them to a coffee shop just off of the training grounds, where he bought them both a cup of coffee. He then bought her a muffin, hoping to stop her shaking so much. He'd noticed it in the changing room, and thought it might be the fall but then wondered if finding a friend's body had rattled her more than she was letting on. He put all three items on the table with such force that it made her jump. But the reaction was only there for a second before it was gone, and her eyes had turned to stained glass.

"What do you know about the victim?" Gibbs asked, bringing out his pad.

Shepard brushed loose hair behind her ear. "Sarah - Sarah Dane - was one of the trainees doing the last two weeks of the NCIS training course here. She excelled at most of the forensic elements, but suffered in tactical and firearm areas. I wasn't surprised to find her at the shooting range; she has a real problem hitting the target."

Gibbs nodded, writing all this down. "Was she seeing anyone?"

"I heard she was sort of seeing someone at Glynco, but it was only rumours." Jenny reached over for her coffee. Her nose wrinkled at how black it was. "Did you look at the forensic evidence I collected?"

"Yeah, I did." It was good work. She had managed to take a couple of shots of the body still hanging before the idiot trainers had cut her down. She'd even managed to get some samples of the bark where the rope had been so the forensic team could check for any foreign substances. "Thank you for your help, Agent Shepard."

He didn't seem like a man to give praise often, so she smiled as she realised he truly meant that. "What are you going to tell the others? The other trainees?"

Gibbs shrugged. "That one of their own was murdered, and its likely one of them is a suspect."

Shepard - he didn't want to think of her as Jenny - leaned forward conspiratorially. "Am I a suspect?"

"Until proven otherwise, yes you are."

She grinned brightly, and he found himself smiling in response. There was something about this girl - although a little shaken up she wasn't sobbing in a bathroom stall after finding a body. She was trying to help him solve his case instead. However, until he knew who was definitely behind it all, he couldn't trust her. She was still a suspect, like the rest of them.

"I have an idea, if you're willing to hear it."

"About the case?" Gibbs had packed up his belongings, ready to leave and head back to the training ground. He did have a case to solve, after all.

Shepard tucked more hair behind her ear. "You've got to interview all of them, right?" And involve them in the case somehow. He still didn't know how he was going to do that. So he just nodded. "Well everyone is expecting there to be a final test before we graduate next week. You could tell everyone a murder has happened and ask them to help solve it; while I can leak to everyone it's secretly just a test. I'll say I caught you setting up and was sworn to secrecy or something."

Gibbs cocked an eyebrow. "Why would I do that?"

Because you're the first person in the five months of training I've actually made a connection with? "I don't know my fellow trainees as well as some of the others do. But I do know this. You put people in a room and accuse them of murder; they'll hide things from you. Put a bunch of overachieving students in a room and the possibility of getting an 'A' - they'll tell you everything."

Gibbs stood up, working through Shepard's idea in his head. Was pretty good. She took the coffee and the muffin and stood up too, wrapping her arms around herself.

"I know that whatever you do, when we go back to Cheltenham you've got to treat me like all the others, like suspects or secret suspects. But can you, whatever happens, keep me in the loop? I liked Sarah."

Jenny also wanted to make sure Gibbs got it right. When the trainers had been declaring it a suicide, she had almost hit someone. Just because it appeared a suicide didn't mean it was. Unlike the agents assigned to her father's case, she was determined to catch Sarah's killer.

"I will. We better go back, got a murder enquiry to get started." Gibbs smiled and started moving towards the door. Before he got there, he turned back to her, grabbing a fistful of the t-shirt. "Thanks for the loan."

Shepard smiled at him again. "No problem. Would like it back once you're done with it. I sleep in that."

Gibbs grinned as Shepard left the small coffee shop. She was something alright. But redheaded probies would not help his state of mind, especially not with long legs, rich lips and suggestions of her in bed. Gibbs just shook his head and thought back to the case. There was a murderer at FLETC, and it was up to him to find who it was.

X

"How is Wendy?" Ducky asked over the phone, the sound of Robbie cutting something with a saw in the background.

"Her name is Jenny, Duck. Not Wendy. And she's fine - a little shaken up but she hides it well."

"I know her name is Jenny, Jethro. I was merely making a Peter Pan reference."

Gibbs snorted. He was standing outside the auditorium, watching all the new agents. One of them would be his new partner, one of them he would have to tolerate seeing every day. He watched Shepard sit down in a group of them, kiss one of the agents on the cheek and gesture a few of them over to listen to her. As they'd headed out of the coffee shop, they had agreed to do it her way. If she screwed up, he had his killer. If it worked, then he would find who it was in the group assembled.

"You got a cause of death, Duck?"

"Yes. The girl died of strangulation, but not because of the noose. She was most definitely dead before she was hung up in that tree. There are finger marks around her neck."

"Thanks Ducky. See you soon."

Jethro opened the door to the auditorium and watched as every head swivelled his way. He frowned half heartedly at the wink that Shepard gave him - proving to him that all the people she was surrounded with believed that this was all a game. One of the people in the room, though, was a killer.

"My name is Special Agent Gibbs. I work at NCIS in DC." Several people shifted in their seats, the boy next to Shepard straightened up and puffed out his chest. "I'm investigating the murder of one of your fellow trainees - Sarah Dane. I've already been filled in on the basics by Agent Shepard." The boy frowned and put his arm around Shepard's chair. Jethro grinned. "I'm going to need your help to find whoever killed Sarah."

Shepard had been right. They looked a lot more responsive as they thought it was all a test, no one crying or letting grief get in the way - maybe this would work after all. The boy trying to grope Shepard raised his hand.

"Sir, how did Agent Dane die?"

Gibbs growled. "Don't call me sir." He noticed a smirk form on Shepard's lips. "Agent Dane died of a broken neck, caused by the noose around her as she hung from a tree."

"So it was suicide, then?" asked one of the young women on the front row. She appeared eager, but with a hint of guilt. Gibbs made a note to interview her later.

"NCIS investigates all suicides as homicides until the evidence tells them otherwise," Shepard stated from the back, and Gibbs grinned. She was good. Pity she was a redhead, a damn probie and had spilled his coffee when she had fallen on him, otherwise she would have made a good partner.

"Agent Shepard is right. Now, I need to conduct individual interviews with everyone to assess their whereabouts and relationship to Agent Dane. How about we start with the agent who needs to get his rocks off in public?" He pointed to the boy cuddling Shepard. "You. Office. Now."

The boy walked down the stairs and into the office adjacent to the auditorium, smiling at his classmates. Just as Gibbs left to join him, he caught sight of Shepard looking at him funny. She knew that her neck hadn't been broken, at least not by the noose. She looked distressed to be left in a room with several students and a killer, but it quickly faded.

Gibbs went off to go interview her boyfriend.

X

"The name is Agent Jack Chrysler. This afternoon, before the trainers called us in, I was with friends before heading to the shooting range. I didn't know Sarah all that well, but she seemed pleasant."

Gibbs didn't like the guy within ten seconds of meeting him. He was snide, a suck up and Gibbs wanted to bash him in the head with something. He'd been given a registered list of the twenty students that he would have to interview - well nineteen now. Of those nineteen, one of them he had to choose to be his new partner. It certainly wouldn't be this guy.

"Anyone who wasn't accounted for, or who has been acting suspiciously?"

Chrysler coughed, putting a sad mask on his face. "Jenny wasn't around. She left around thirty minutes before we were all called in. I don't know where she was." He reached over and held Gibbs' hand. "But Jenny would never hurt Sarah. They got on well!"

He hoped Shepard had a better sense at investigating then she had taste in boyfriends. Chrysler had just sold her down the river for a better mark. Having got what he needed, he dismissed Chrysler, who hung around in the doorway for a moment longer.

"Agent Gibbs, if you need anything, feel free to ask."

"I won't."

Chrysler exited the room. The next person on the list was the young woman who had asked the question earlier. She looked more like a lawyer than a field agent, but she was definitely over eager. She sat down in front of him, hands trembling.

"Is Sarah really dead?"

"Yes. She's really dead."

The woman - Diana Pescali, didn't seem to believe him. Oh well, if she wasn't the killer she would have nothing to worry about. He asked the same questions, got the same answers as Jack Chrysler. Sarah was nice; they didn't have anything to do with each other - the victim was obviously a loner.

"Anyone you can think of that would hurt Sarah?" Gibbs asked.

Diana didn't even hesitate. "Jenny Shepard."

That was not the name he wanted to hear. "How so?"

Diana shuffled her hands before looking at him dead in the eye, eager to dish the dirt. They were all out for themselves, were not afraid to ruin anyone to get what they wanted. "Jenny is dating Jack Chrysler, have been since we started training. What Jenny doesn't know - or maybe she does - is that when she went to DC for a family occasion, Jack hooked up with Sarah. Everyone knows, apart from Jenny."

Gibbs sighed and excused Diana. Just from the first two interviews, Shepard had means and motive to kill Sarah. She could have been up the tree to disturb evidence, remove something incriminating. She did find the body after all.

As he called the next person in, he caught sight of Jenny Shepard talking to her friends. She caught his eye, and Gibbs cursed inwardly. He had just been starting to like her.