Chapter Two
Burial
Reverend George Donaldson looks from his newspaper to the clock on his desk, then to the desk to his right, surprised to find it's 9:40 and he's still alone. By now his partner should be preparing for her turn to hear 10:00 'Confession'. Even if she intended to go directly into the Church, she'd still have come in long ago.
Saint Mary's, with an older Congregation by average than many of the other Episcopal churches, still uses the older Roman style booths and call the Sacrament by its traditional name, though the younger members have fully adopted the face-to-face format of Reconciliation, this in the Conference room. Either way, there will be several who await the arrival of the priest.
He goes to the door and looks right down the hall. "Ellen?" A moment later Ellen Meyers stands at the door of her office, last on the left. "Have you seen Siobhan?"
"Not this morning, Father."
"Thank you." It's unlike the woman not to exchange a word of greeting in the morning, and certainly long before this. He's said Morning Prayer but has little more to do until noon and might lose track of time; but on the morning she's on call she would not. It's Siobhan's turn to hear Confession, then they'll Concelebrate the Holy Name Day service at noon.
She'd been out at NCIS last night; he wonders how late she'd gotten in. "She can't still be asleep," he mutters. She always has her radio set for 6:00 even if it's not her turn to say Morning Prayer.
He turns about, goes through the door at the end of the hall into the Rectory, past the kitchen and up the stairs to the second floor, walks down the hall, raps on her door.
"Siobhan, you decent?" There's no answer, though he can hear the newscaster's voice on her radio. "Come on, sleepyhead, it's Holy Name Day." He hardly feels he needs to remind her of how much they have to do. There won't be crowds this winter morning, but when has that been relevant? He knocks again. "Siobhan?" 'She can't be asleep', he repeats to himself. He listens carefully, hears nothing but the radio. "Siobhan!"
Something has to be wrong. Normally he would never open the door without her reply, but this feels wrong. He hits the door sharply, one last 'warning', then turns the knob, opens the door and surprise halts him.
x
On the disheveled red comforter lie Siobhan's wrinkled ruby dress and a discarded bra, together with a broken golden chain, a tiny golden cross beside it. The foot of the bed is pushed out over a foot off line. For someone as meticulous as Siobhan, this scene is shockingly messy. Then he sees the broken gold framed glasses that lie at the far edge of the bed and alarming jumps to frightening.
His cell phone is in his hand in an instant. There are two calls he could make, but his years of service in the Corps and Siobhan's ties make the choice a simple one.
xxx
Less than twenty minutes later a blue Dodge Charger slides to a barely controlled stop in inches of snow piled by a plow near the curb in front of the Church, a black and white truck halting almost on its bumper. Donaldson holds the foyer door open as Special Agent Gibbs gets out of the car with two women. Two men get out of the truck and Special Agent Timothy McGee outruns everyone to the door, taking the four steps in one leap. "What happened?"
While the younger Agent's demand borders on frantic, a single word from the team leader, just his name, reins him in. It's to him that Donaldson says; "I went to her room when she didn't come down to the office, knocked and when I opened the door she wasn't there. The bed hadn't been slept in but the room's a mess."
"Take us there."
There are three possible routes; through Hamilton Hall to their left, presently in use for the Senior Nutrition program; through the garden before them or the Cathedral-like church to the right. The best way to cross and not attract attention is through the garden.
Since last night it had snowed nearly four inches, the large rectangular space between Saint Mary's and Hamilton Hall rests under a blanket of virgin white. Theirs are the only footsteps to disturb the path. Then it's a right turn into the corridor, past the offices, Vesting room, Sacristy and other doors to the Rectory door at the end.
Gibbs, in front of the group with the priest, finds the entry to be a short hallway; to their immediate left is an open doorway to a kitchen, the hall before them edges a staircase to terminate in the living room. The staircase that ascends back toward the kitchen, it is at their foot, near the living room door, that Gibbs halts them.
The stairs are uncarpeted, the living room seen through the vacant doorway before them is wall-to-wall shag, the hall they stand in is hardwood. "Is this the only way up and down?" It only seems to be; he takes nothing for granted.
"Yes."
He glances at the other agents. "Preservation protocol, right." Then he addresses the priest, his words not a request. "Step in our footsteps."
"I didn't call," McGee says bitterly, recrimination drowning his voice. "It was late, I thought I was letting her sleep. I waited for her - I didn't call!"
Gibbs, in turning to tell the man 'first things first', catches DiNozzo's eyes. They say this isn't the first time McGee had assaulted himself.
x
He leads the way up and steps as far to the right as possible, not touching the handrail, using only his toes and the balls of his feet on the edge of each step. The cautious entry is intended to preserve any footprints that can be lifted later. He also notes, as he ascends, the well maintained, uncarpeted wood. "When was the last time these steps were cleaned?" With luck, what he sees is recent.
"They're mopped at least once a week," the priest answers from the bottom of the stairs as the agents pass him. It's no surprise to the man that Tim McGee is almost on his boss' heels. He can read in McGee's body language that the distressed agent would have led the charge if not for his chief's caution.
"You have someone to clean the place?" Gibbs asks from the top of the stairs.
"Only the first floor; the Sexton and some of the same people in the parish who keep the rest of the buildings in order," Donaldson says as he starts his ascent, his steps as cautious as the others' had been. He can't escape a slash of self-recrimination that he'd thoughtlessly come along these stairs several times already. "I don't let anyone but Siobhan and myself on the second floor."
Gibbs, at the head of the halted line, fixes him with a piercing stare. "These are our private quarters," Donaldson explains, finding himself momentarily falling back to old manners of speech with his fellow Gunnery Sergeant.
"Boss, can we talk about this upstairs?" DiNozzo, between the women and the priest, appeals while perched on the edge of the steps, rear halves of his feet in the air.
x
The corridor they enter at a left turn runs from a window behind them to one before, there are three doors to their left, three right. "How about you, McGee," Gibbs persists as they look down the hardwood path. "Ever been up here?"
Gibbs doesn't like the distress he sees in the man's eyes as McGee turns from looking down the hall. "Never!"
It's clear to Gibbs that the man wants to lead the charge now and with great difficulty holds himself in tight check. Instead of confronting him, he gives Tony a warning glance. Under other circumstances the man might come out with some DiNozzoism regarding his partner's relationship with the woman priest; with the tension high in the air he doesn't want to hear any. Fortunately, Tony seems wise enough to know it. "Which door is hers?" Gibbs asks the priest.
"Middle right."
x
Tim McGee can barely hold himself back. He knows the uselessness of letting his emotions overwhelm rational thought and systematic investigation, but 'damn it, we're going too slow!'
He's frantic, wants to run, to break through everything, find her, solve this now! All he can think of is Shav in deadly danger. It's been only a few hours since they were so happy together, since he'd asked his beloved to marry him! He'd been reeling since last night that she'd said 'yes'. His head had been in the clouds all morning. He'd let her sleep, didn't call. 'Damn it, I should've called! I should've been here! Damn the rules, I should've come up here! She'd said I should come in, she wished I could've come in. I should've stayed and Damn the rules!'
Then that nightmare call. She should be safe. They should be ecstatic, talking secretly to one another on the phone, making a thousand plans. This shouldn't be happening!
He also knows Gibbs will not tolerate anything less than professionalism. Given a reason, he'll bounce him from this case. He can't do that! He can't!
x
They pause outside the second open doorway; the first they'd glanced through in passing, it'd had been the Rector's room. Gibbs stands in front beside Donaldson; McGee and DiNozzo, David and Palmer collected behind them. "This is how you found it?" Gibbs asks.
The room is neat as the proverbial pin, the disturbance therefore more notable. The bed, a twin of the one they'd passed the first room, stretches from the corridor wall to their right away from them to separate the room. The bed is out of line, the lower end pushed over a foot right toward the narrower side of the room.
The wider portion of the room is before them and left, one must go around the bed to the right to reach the closet and dressers. Beside to the right and nearly flush with the doorframe is a night table, upon which is a lamp, upright padded eyeglass holder and clock radio. The latter is tuned to a news station and still on, the droning voice ignored.
On the left side of the room are two more dressers; on the far one near the corner stands a small television with cable unit. At the far wall between two windows is a desk and secretary chair, the most notable thing on the desk is a closed laptop computer. The thin curtains on either side of the desk do not obscure a view of the street.
The black curtains furled to opposite sides of the windows are thick and reach from high above the windows to the floor and, if drawn, would form a fourth wall against the sun. He hopes they don't have to draw them to use Luminal.
Against the far right corner is a bookcase crammed with books. Gibbs had heard from Abby about the priest's library room in her destroyed apartment; he figures O'Mallory had obtained some replacements from book- and yard-sales. Some look new, donations from parishioners?
x
The disorder on the bed is more notable for the overall tidiness of the room. The red comforter is considerably rumpled, testament to a violent struggle. The ruby dress O'Mallory had worn to last night's party lies across the foot of the bed, partially hanging off the edge, a casualty of the struggle. A pale pink bra lies open in the middle of the bed in the midst of the contained chaos, the closures point to the bed's head and foot. The tiny golden cross she'd worn last night lies with a broken chain.
It's the bra that's the most ominous. It's at the proper distance from the glasses and severed chain that lie near the edge of the mattress had each come off her body in the apparent struggle.
The right earpiece of the gold-framed glasses is snapped off; it lies three inches from the lenses, the left side folded over.
One red high-heeled shoe lies in the middle of the room before them; it's not stepped out of, it lies on its side well away from the bed as though thrown to the floor. From where the agents stand in the hall they can see the other red shoe lying on its side near the closet on the opposite side of the bed.
Gibbs looks back, sees the stricken look in McGee's eyes, but he won't say anything if the man can control himself. Instead he turns to the priest at his left. "Please stay out here. DiNozzo."
"On it, boss," Tony assures them, steps past and into the room, carrying a large camera and a tall stack of yellow broken triangle number signs. He'll shoot the room with a multitude of light filters, take distant and close shots from every angle and log each shot on the microcassette recorder in his shirt pocket.
x
"You don't think she's...?" Donaldson can't contain his apprehension a moment longer.
"If she were dead, she'd be here." He will not say, to either Donaldson or McGee, that this is meaningless. She could very well be dead, her body taken, hidden - or worse.
However, until he knows definitely, this case will be treated as a kidnapping.
"Of course," the priest admits; his anxiety unabated.
"When was the last time you saw her?"
"Last evening, about 8:30, in the living room. She was watching a movie, waiting for Agent McGee to pick her up. The party was just beginning."
"She didn't go to the party?" She'd been at NCIS, but did she skip everything here?
Donaldson shakes his head. "People were starting to arrive, the scheduled time was nine. Siobhan didn't want to go in dressed as she was; she prefers to keep her professional and private lives separate."
"You were in uniform?"
It might be an odd way of asking, but the two Gunnies understand one another. Donaldson wears, then and now, the traditional black suit and shirt with squared tab of white at his throat. O'Mallory's uniform is the less traditional pale blue shirt over black pants and her white collar is an attachment to the shirt and completely encircles her throat. In summer, her variation is short sleeves and a skirt. Including last night, Gibbs can count on one hand the number of times he's seen her dressed differently.
He points to the broken glasses at the far edge of the bed. "Are those her only pair?"
Donaldson hesitates, apparently trying to remember. "I think she keeps an old set in her desk drawer downstairs. Once her lens got scratched; she had to wear the old pair while she waited for it to be replaced. Those," he nods toward the broken pair, "are the only ones she wears."
"Glasses have springs on the earpieces; you can bend them out about thirty degrees. Takes some force to snap them."
"There's blood on the broken earpiece, the edge of the frame and the comforter, boss," DiNozzo reports from inside the room as he snaps close shots with the large camera from several angles. It will take several minutes more for his sweep to be finished.
"Any more?"
"None that I can see. Red's not the best color."
"Palmer, break out the Luminal." Michelle kneels down, opens the black evidence bag she carried up and pulls out a can. "McGee, where did you drop her off? Out front?" When the answer is silence, he turns to the younger man who stares into the bedroom, his anxious thoughts plain upon his face. "McGee!"
"Err, sorry boss. No, in the parking lot out back." He cocks his head slightly toward the window at the other end of the hall.
Gibbs reads in the man's clenched fists, in the fire that burns in his eyes, what he is thinking. He decides to give the man one chance, due to his relationship with O'Mallory, but that was it. "Keep your head on straight, McGee. I'll only tell you once."
"Got it, boss."
DiNozzo, hearing this from inside the room, decides McGee should get an Oscar for the restraint in his voice.
x
Gibbs gives McGee a sharp look of warning and then goes to the window, glancing through the last door in line, unsurprised to find the bathroom. Behind him, he hears the droning voice of the news announcer cease as DiNozzo turns off the radio, the better to hear the conversation in the hallway. "Come here, McGee," Gibbs directs from the closed window.
Down below they can see the snow covered lot. The far gate is wide open, the bars have cut furrows in the snow. There are twelve cars in the lot, nine have dug diverging tracks into the once virgin white, and many foot paths lead back out the gate. None approach the Rectory door below them.
There are two cars near the Rectory door that are both snow covered and show no trails, visible from their sides as a blue Corolla and a green Ford Fiesta, while a white van prominently labeled 'St. Mary the Virgin Nutrition Program' stands a third of the way across the open expanse. "How many cars were down there when you were here?"
McGee thinks intently, tries to visualize the scene, but he'd been more attentive to what was going on inside his car rather than outside it. "I'm not sure."
"Be sure!"
x
Gibbs understands the man's consternation; he supposes he wouldn't have anticipated the fact could become important either. He also knows that if a car had been used in abducting O'Mallory, that would have been very shortly after the snow had begun to fall and the trail will be indistinguishable now. "Think about it, McGee. Think hard."
"I am."
"Trace your path."
"We came in, I drove around that way," he points out the path he'd taken around the lot, "so the passenger door would be by the steps." There's no trail to mark the man's route. "She went up the steps, I drove straight to the gate, she ran after me and we stood for a few minutes by the gate. Then we walked back, she went up the steps, I drove out, locked the gate and left."
"Why did she run after you?"
"Err…" McGee recalls Siobhan's admonition about secrecy until they're ready, "it's personal, boss."
"McGee, this is an investigation. Nothing's personal."
"Boss, the point is that it'd only been snowing for a little while; there was barely a half inch of snow on the ground, maybe not that much. You can't see any of our tracks," he points to the few steps that lead into the Rectory, "you can't even see her footprints." There are, in fact, no prints at all; nothing approaches the Rectory to disturb the smooth white blanket of snow.
"The snowfall last night," Ziva announces from near the bedroom door behind them, "was four point two inches, according to the NWS. The main body of the storm lasted from three o'clock until it ended at approximately eight forty five."
Their evidence is well buried.
