Ziva stood at the airport, tapping her foot. She had, of course, bypassed the security lines with a flash of her badge, but the plane was scheduled to depart in less than twenty minutes and McGee was still not there. "Come on, McGee," she muttered softly.
She briefly wondered if she had enough standing as a federal officer to delay takeoff of the plane until McGee got there. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the number that she knew so well. It rang, and rang, and rang, finally clicking over to voicemail. She hung up and dialed again, but was met with the same result. "You've reached Timothy McGee's phone. I'm not able to answer at the moment, so please leave your name, number, and a brief message, and I will get back to you as soon as possible."
"McGee, where are you? Our plane leaves in less than fifteen minutes! Gibbs is going to be mad if you have to take a later flight…"
"I'm here, I'm here."
Ziva sighed in relief as Tim stopped next to her, his suitcase clacking on the tiled floor behind him. "Could you have cut it any closer? And why did you not answer your phone?" she scolded.
"I'm sorry. I had some trouble parking. And I didn't answer because I was too busy rushing to get here."
She turned and grabbed her bag, which was noticeably smaller than McGee's. "Did you pack everything you needed and then the kitchen door?" she joked as they rushed to the right terminal.
"It's 'sink,'" Tim corrected.
"Why would you pack a sink?"
"Why would you pack a door?"
Ziva shot Tim a dirty look.
"Last call, Boarding Flight eight-oh-nine to Los Angeles," a muffled voice announced over the PA system.
The woman standing at the door to the plane-boarding passengers saw the relief on their faces as they reached her. They held out their tickets breathlessly. She scanned them both and frowned. "I'm sorry; it seems that you cut it too close. Your seats were resold to someone who was here early. You'll have to wait for the next flight."
Ziva's blood boiled. "I am not waiting for another flight," Ziva snapped, "We need to get to California!"
The woman looked a bit taken aback. "I'm sorry Miss, but there's nothing I can do for you."
Ziva opened her mouth to speak, but Tim cut her off, stretching an arm in front of her torso and forcing her back a step. "Are you absolutely certain that there are no other seats available on this flight?" he asked politely and calmly.
She clicked a button on her keyboard and scanned the screen. "Well, it looks like it's your lucky day; there are exactly two seats available…"
"Thank you," Ziva said.
"…in First Class. There's an upgrade charge of four hundred dollars per seat."
Ziva's anger quickly resurfaced. "Four hundred dollars each? You sold our seats to someone else and are then going to make us pay more just to get on the flight we should already be on?" she looked as though she may throttle the woman.
Tim stepped in again, to prevent the bloodshed that would come if he let Ziva handle the situation. "That's fine; you can just put it on my card."
She quickly scanned it, and soon, Tim and Ziva were sitting in First Class, preparing for takeoff. The plane shook slightly as it taxied down the runway; Tim gripped the seat handles for dear life. "Four hundred dollars each," Ziva scoffed. She turned to face McGee, and was surprised to find him looking paler than usual. "What is wrong? Do you wish that we had not just paid eight hundred dollars to get on this flight?"
Tim closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "To be fair, I just paid eight hundred dollars, and the agency is going to pay me back, but that's not it. I don't like airplanes. No, I like airplanes, I just don't like flying in them. Well, the flying isn't really bad, it's the…"
The plane kicked into high gear and they rocketed down the runway. He clenched his jaw, trying to breathe normally, but he knew what was coming. The slight dip as it left the ground churned Tim's stomach and a sudden lurch to the side jerked his hand off the armrest and onto Ziva's hand.
His palms were clammy, his knuckles were pasty white, and his face showed his terror. Ziva could not bring herself to look at him; she was sure that he would prefer that she didn't look either. There was another lurch; Tim tightened his grip on Ziva's hand.
She stared intently forward, not wanting to admit that he was cutting off the circulation to her fingers until after he had begun to calm down.
Tim's frantic breathing slowed as the ride got smoother, and he slackened his grip on her hand, but he did not move. His eyes were still screwed shut as he tried to relax. "You were saying?" Ziva asked gently.
"Turbulence. It's the turbulence I don't like."
Tim's hold on her hand felt a little less awkward than Ziva had imagined, but it was still a little tighter than she could handle. "Do you think you could perhaps stop crushing my fingers?" she tried to say it in the kindest voice possible.
He jerked his hand away; up until that moment, he had not realized that they were touching. His face flushed to a light shade of pink. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"It is alright," she wiggled her fingers, trying to regain feeling, before looking over at him. "You look a little better with some color in your face."
Her comment caused the pink to darken. He cleared his throat and pulled the file out of his carry-on bag. "We should go over this before we get there," he cleared his throat, hoping that thinking about the case would alleviate the awkwardness.
"So, we have a dead man, who just so happens to be Tony's hero, and eight hundred suspects. Shouldn't take more than a week or so," she joked, careful to keep her voice down to avoid probing questions from curious passengers.
Tim scanned a page and then flipped it. "That's probably what Gibbs expects. Nope, not eight hundred suspects…One thousand three hundred fifty one suspects. You forgot the regular staff at the house, extra help hired for the party, the girls that were either working the party or invited to it, and the three girlfriends."
"Three? That seems a bit excessive. Of course Tony's role model would be a polygamist... How old is he?"
"Well, according to him, he's forever twenty-nine, but according to…"
"Not Tony! I was talking about the victim."
A faint blush crept back into McGee's cheeks. "Oh, right. He was eighty-six; about to celebrate his 87th birthday in April."
Ziva had not realized how old Maxwell Howard really was. "Are they certain it was not just old age? No, do not answer that. Gibbs would not send us to California if there was not a need."
"Good new though. Abby found us a good starting point," Tim passed Ziva a photograph, "That was sent to her by the local LEOs. See that guy on the right?" Ziva did see him. He didn't look too out of place to her, except that he was the only one not smiling and looking at the barely dressed woman on the staircase. "The staff didn't recognize him as being on the guest list, so she ran a facial recognition, and got this. Jackson Crawford, age 36, arrested when he was eighteen for car jacking an old lady at a gas station. Did his time, and since his release, he's had one DUI. Not a stellar record, but it could be worse."
"He had been stationed on the ship that just arrived on Tuesday then?"
McGee shook his head. "Nope, he's not in the military."
Ziva looked back down at the photo again, just to make sure. "But he is wearing dress blues. Why would he wear dress blues if he was not in the military?"
"That's why Abby gave us the heads up. Turns out that he had a bit of a fanatic obsession with Ma- the victim," McGee quickly corrected himself. They were refraining from saying the name, just in case curious ears were listening.
"So we will start with Jackson Crawford, and then work our way through the staff. It has been my experience that those are the best positions for overhearing conversation. People will talk in front of you as if you are not there."
"Right, then we can talk to the girlfriends," Ziva glared at McGee out of the corner of her eye, "What? They could give us some valuable insight. Plus, Tony wants that autograph," McGee decided to quit while he was behind, "How can Gibbs expect us to do this? We can't question over a thousand people in an unknown amount of time. We couldn't do that in a month!"
"We will not question that many people, McGee. We tell them to give their information to the local officers, and once it is verified, they can leave. We will speak with only the ones we need to."
McGee passed her the file to look over before they arrived. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "Sounds like a plan to me," he said.
Ziva rifled through the file, but none of the information caught her attention, so she tucked it back into McGee's carry-on bag. He did not stir. She tried to relax as McGee was so that she could ensure that she did not slack off during their investigation. She glanced over at him, and something in the childish innocence of his sleepy state lulled her into a sense of security that soon washed over her whole body. Within minutes, she was asleep.