Chapter Two
Shortcut
Tim McGee enters the bullpen in a wide arc to his new desk before he notices slim blonde Ellie Bishop seated behind Ziva's old desk rather than staking out the foot path between their facing stations. 'Gibbs must be in,' he thinks as he goes around Tony DiNozzo's former post. The remaining change to the bullpen is Michelle Palmer having moved to his old location where she now faces Gibbs more directly. He wonders if she considers coming around the partition to be an advantage. "Good morning, ladies."
"See," Michelle says to Bishop across the diagonal, her inch wide circled star and cross jewel hanging before her breasts captures the light in her movement, "the eternal optimist."
Ellie grins, a broad hint that he's walked into something. With a woman on either side of him (he doesn't care for that either, Abby would have something to say about karma, he predicts an inevitable disaster in his future) he asks "What, that it's a good morning?"
Michelle turns to him with a devastating smile. "No, that either of us are ladies."
She's enjoying this a bit too much and a look to Ellie Bishop, who he'd early hoped to be a level headed supporter, shows she too is too entertained.
"How go the moves?" is a safer thing. The three of them are involved in this wide ranging project of musical residences, Bishop having come into the District when her recent divorce and shift from the NSA to NCIS settled her as a DC resident, but Michelle picks up first.
"The move is today, Jimmy's stayed home to manage it and I have a bet you're welcome to get in on that he won't remember some night this week to go to Rosemont instead of Georgetown."
"We'll know it if he walks in on Susan Grady," he predicts.
"In her underwear?" she challenges with a leading smile.
"Not going there."
x
"My apartment's shaping up," Ellie says. "I told my three brothers that if they want to crash they have to bring in the things to crash on, so all I had to do was point. It's already livable."
"Can I borrow your brothers?" Michelle asks. She'd cured Jimmy - she'd hoped - of his manic solicitousness over her pregnancy but will not ever raise the issue of moving furniture. Last evening she'd moved one end of the couch away from the wall to sweep behind it and his head had nearly exploded. It took twenty minutes for her to break her confinement on that couch.
"Say the word. I'm dying to farm them out. What about you, Tim?"
"We're partly in, the truck comes for the big things tomorrow morning." He can't believe that it's tomorrow. "Over a week of driving the small things in–"
"Like your record collection." Someone else touch his cherished collection of jazz vinyls? People are lucky he lets them into the same room with them.
"Believe it. Shav's in today, of course, but for a few hours. Sarah is coming in this evening just to help with the final details." He gives the women particular looks, the mini-pause a verbal clue for an easier-when-written segue. "Shav did ask me to ask if and when you want to schedule your House Blessings."
"You mean House Warmings?" Bishop asks. "With so many new places, that party's going to be a major holiday."
"House Blessing," Tim clarifies, "though many schedule it with a house warming, but it's a short ceremony, a blessing of each room dedicating it to a specific purpose; living room, bedroom, kitchen–."
"Bathroom?" she asks with a leading lilt.
"That too."
"Be worth it to hear that. Count me in. Are you doing one?" she asks with as straight a face as she can.
"Cute."
"How about you, Michelle?" she asks. "You schedule yours?"
Michelle turns from the woman to Tim, looking trapped. "Well, Iiiii, that is…."
"Two House Blessings?" he asks, having been prepared to rescue her. He has no doubt that Michelle and her Wiccan friends have their own traditions, as significant to them as the familiar Christian one is to him and his wife as well as Jimmy, though his is Roman if one wants to be specific.
"Oh, yes. Probably one day after the other though the house is big enough and if we did it the same night it'd be a really curious event but I'm not sure how it would go with a lot of the guests or if High Priestess Little or Mother McGee would agree or if there would be any–"
"Why not go upstairs during your break and ask her?" It is sometimes necessary to break her run-ons. She's always had phenomenal lung capacity and he'd once determined - and never did manage - to test how many words she can convey in a single conversational breath.
Derailed from her train ride, she does a mental switch of tracks and decides "That'd work too."
x
"So she's here today?" Ellie asks.
He thought he'd said so but decides she's messing with him. He's supposed to be hazing her but has never perfected the art. Where's Tony? "Every Tuesday." He considers amending it to 'almost every' but decides not to get into it.
"You know, I never got to meet her," she steps out around her desk, avoiding Gibbs as he strides in. "While it's quiet I should…."
"Socialize on your own time. Grab your gear," he commands.
"What've we got?" McGee as SFA asks as they hurry to comply. There's been speculation in the past that the boss would leave anyone who wasn't ready behind and no one has ever felt confident enough to test the theory, though many times they'd run to beat the elevator's closing doors. It's a good way, he thinks, of continuing to break the new agent in on the realities of NCIS life.
"Navy Lieutenant Commander, hit and run this morning. Body's already downstairs."
This halts McGee in mid reach for his black windbreaker. "Ducky's having a litter of lizards." Bodies do not get moved until the ME has seen them in situ. People have come to grief by violating this rule. Before the women's time, his too, but ask the Deputy Sheriff Ducky had throw off a cliff.
"Hit and run was after 0300." Over four hours ago. "Metro didn't even find out from the hysterical widow that he was Navy until the City ME was done and the body was in the wagon. McGee, you and Palmer take the scene. Bishop, you're with me."
xxx
McGee, headed north on 6th from O, parks short of the yellow tape that marks the south side of the perimeter comprising the intersection of P and 6th plus 20 feet south on the eastern side of the JFK Recreation Center.
He and Michelle get out, duck under the yellow tape and head north toward a very large blood mark. The entire extended perimeter at the ends of each block has been restricted by four MPDC Officers who block traffic in each direction, and he'd learned nothing of interest from the team screening O. The RMP covering this intersection will be replaced by NCIS Agents, as will the others, but for now a single uniformed officer guards the scene at the northeast corner furthest from the blood trail. She waits there until they reach a point equally distant from the pooled blood, then she starts forward so they arrive together at the six foot wide puddle of viscous fluid. Much of it is maroon base and yellowish serum
The six foot wide puddle of blood has begun to dry from the outermost edges, but much of it is still viscous liquid, the components having only had time to separate into maroon base and yellowish serum.
This would have been a Gamma Shift case, perhaps Rosa Arnell's team (the off-shift is broken into convenient District quarters, not that that means anything) but the call had reached HQ too late and that lucky team is already on their ways to their homes.
They halt at the southern side of this blood pool and a brief exchange of introductions and credentials acquaint them with Officer Erica Caldon.
"Not a lot left to see," the woman says. When she'd first started toward them it had been to turn away intruders but the gold shields clipped to his belt and Palmer's skirt band had proclaimed the intruders to be allies and quite probable relief once the agents take over.
x
She's right. With the body gone, together with the most notable of the evidence, all that remains are the 'leftovers'. He's inclined to think, and has already discussed with Palmer, that the reason they have this case with so little friction from MPDC is that it is, or rather appears on the surface to be, a hit and run.
Of course, MPDC & NCIS have different standards. As with suicides, the agents investigate accidental deaths as homicides unless and until proven otherwise. Even if they did not, L. J. Tibbs – Gibbs – does. He's glad to see there are no Reporters here. Access had been cut off at the four surrounding intersections, and it was by their shields and IDs that they'd been allowed to approach past O Street. The officer they'd spoken with had confirmed that the 'shut down' order had come from Detective Lieutenant Jeffrey Carpenter who, though homicide is not suspected (those have different rules) he had been close to the scene on Night Watch before being called away to deal with an actual homicide. The man, one of the very few Police Officers Gibbs openly calls 'friend', shares a particular trait with the boss; a hearty dislike of the media.
This silencing had been set up before the discovery that the deceased has been Navy.
"What have you seen?" McGee asks.
"Not a lot," she emphasizes. "Blood and bits of torn clothes - he was knocked out of his left shoe - bits of glass that look to be from a windshield. I found no headlight glass, looks like the car caught the vic full on."
That the agents can see from the trail beyond her. Blood spatter begins at the far north, left side of the intersection and grows to larger fields of denser spatter to end as a full puddle where the body had come to rest south of the intersection.
Unfortunately, no tread is visible. He meets Michelle's eyes and sees the same thought: the driver didn't hit the brakes either before or after the impact.
x
"The car was going south on 6th, hit him on the left side and blasted him out of that crosswalk and past this one to end up here, fourteen feet south on the south crosswalk, head north 42 degrees relative to 6th. Our CSU has photos and I'm told the physical evidence collected before Detectives found out he was Navy will be sent to your CSIs."
They'll be sent to Forensic Scientist Abby Sciuto but there's no need to go into that.
"Driver never slowed down," Michelle interprets.
"See this too often," Caldon says. "Driver panics, cuts out."
"In which case," Michelle says, "we should see acceleration marks."
"Maybe."
McGee, considering the officer's conclusions unwarranted, scans the street. It's a long unbroken path. He turns to his partner, more interested in a test than a conclusion. Ever since becoming SFA he's found he does a lot of tests of both women. Should he stop? Later. "How fast do you figure the car was going?"
Palmer takes in the scene. "Spatter, more a splash from the initial impact, starts a few feet into the intersection. Lieutenant Commander Kingman stepped off that curb," she points to the north west corner, "came to rest way over here." She indicates the drying puddle before them, yards beyond the closer crosswalk. "Fifty to sixty miles per hour."
"Works for me."
He turns to the policewoman, but Caldon anticipates the question. "I came on at 6, body was already gone. We're holding four square blocks and inconveniencing the whole neighborhood until you got here. Now you're inconveniencing the neighborhood," she says with a wry smile.
"Sorry."
"Well, don't let it happen again."
x
It will be quite some time before NCIS' CSU, which should be here by now, releases the scene to traffic. He's known scenes to be held for most of a day, but he's also known sites that were released in less time and because some of those releases had turned out to be premature, evidence had been missed and cases had been lost. One of SSA Rosemary Hauss' cases last year when she had succumbed to mounting pressure from Police, neighborhood and all else had later become the stuff of legend. She at least had not compensated later by holding scenes past their times; she'd relearned balance. "What did your CSU get?"
Caldon looks at the too-wide bloodstain. There are several smaller marks commencing from the middle of P Street toward the southern side of the box, culminating in a large volume south of the crosswalk. "Something like three plus liters of blood."
They obviously had not. Though samples had been taken from several spots, it is the cumulative volume which had been estimated. The average adult male body of the size he'd determined from the records holds about six and an eighth liters. Ducky can tell them how much blood Gil Kingman had, possibly to the deciliter, but for now all they need to know is that half of Kingman's blood is spread out on the ground before them, starting at the intersection but accumulating here. It hints at the possibility that Kingman survived for at least a few moments after coming to rest.
x
Michelle crouches down and uses a long cotton tipped swab to absorb some of the blood and secure it into an evidence tube, part of her mind on her Rule 3: 'When it looks like you'll have an easy day, pack a toothbrush'. "Lieutenant Commander Kingman was an experienced Seaman, used to having the fast reflexes needed for combat situations," she muses, then looks up to him, "yet he didn't evade the vehicle. Abby should be able to get something from this that may tell us why."
McGee signals Caldon to withdraw back to the RMP, then crouches beside Michelle and pitches his voice low. "If Kingman lived for even a few moments,"
"As he'd've had to to get this much exsanguination,"
He doesn't remark that she's been hanging around Jimmy for too long, "is it possible that you could, you know, get something?"
Facing the blood, she turns only her eyes. Caldon is out of range so she speaks normally. "I can get something."
"What?"
Still not facing him, she examines the bloody swab in the plastic tube. "Red and white corpuscles, platelets, plas-"
"No, I mean… you know."
She sighs. "Tim, I know you want a successful First Case, that you'd love a streak, but you are asking me to give you an inadmissible-in-Court shortcut."
"Uh, no. I'm not."
"You're not? Good."
"I'm just think if you can do something that can reveal… this… thing…." He trails off under her steady stare. She's been studying Gibbs and practicing in the bedroom with her 'Transition mirror'.
"I'm disappointed in you, Tim. I'm so disappointed that I can't say it."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I." She touches with a fingertip the inch wide sterling silver pendant that hangs between her breasts, the Circled Star of her Wiccan faith conjoined with the Cross within the pentagon, the sign of her Christian (Episcopalian) half. It had been an Engagement gift from Jimmy and she offers a flashing prayer to Minerva, goddess of Wisdom and Arete, goddess of Patience. "But –."
"Can you?"
Maybe he has hope, imagines solving this even before Gibbs finishes his first interview. She can appreciate that as much as she hates it. She lets him watch as she makes the decision. "I can't tell you the past, but looking into this blood I can tell you the future."
"The future?"
"The future."
A long breath. "Ohhhhhh - kay. Not what I expected, but go ahead."
"You really want it, Tim? You want me to call upon Blood Magic, one of the most powerful forms of magic, having to do with Life, Essence and all else." She stares more deeply into his eyes, tries to convey what he may possibly never be able to understand, but he meets her stare for stare.
"Okay, you're my S.F.A. so I must, even though it's not admissible." Still crouched before the pool, she puts away the testing supplies and sample, closes the black case, takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Okay, better or worse, here goes."
x
She stares into the widest part of the pool, her breath quiet, her body very still, then after a half minute she turns her head slowly and looks at him.
"Did you see anything?"
"Yes, Tim, I did."
"Incredible. What?"
"You and I are going to sleep together."
"What?"
"I said you and I are going to sleep together. Soon. And neither my husband nor your wife are going to like it."
"How can that be?"
"Because when Gibbs finds out about this he'll give us both such head whacks that we'll be unconscious for a week!" She clutches the sample case, rises and stalks back to the car.
xx
There being nothing more for Erika Caldon to do here, McGee exchanges contact information with her and lifts the yellow cordon tape for her RMP to depart. When he turns, Michelle is again within the perimeter and she steps up to him.
"Tim, I have prayed to the Goddess, asked her to give me some words to say to you but I have none that will do."
"I'm sorry. I was stupid. I was fascinated by a possibility. I'm sorry."
"'Fascinated by a possibility.' 'Stupid.' You know, if that didn't so typify you I might be mad at that alone. But we've talked so much for so many months that I have to think you've never heard anything I said."
"I did."
"No. Please, no. I have to believe you never heard me, that like Special Agent DiNozzo you didn't believe me."
"I don't under–."
She presses her clenched fists to her temples as though to hold together her fragmenting skull and deep pain fills her face; frustration, anger and sadness. He must wait until it passes and she looks up to him. "Did-you-remember," she asks with overwhelmed patience, "that-I-told-you," real anger slips through her mask, "that-I-took-an-OATH-that I would Never use my Wiccan talents as a shortcut to the solution of a Case?"
"I forgot."
"You forgot. You forgot."
She can't know she's echoing Shav from last night, but he knows he'll pay far worse for this mental slip. "I'm sorry."
Long silence.
Painful silence."
"Give me your hand," she says without tone.
"What?"
"Give me… your damned hand."
He's not sure if it's safe, only that it's less dangerous to comply.
She clasps his hand in hers. "I forgive you," she intones formally and releases him before the last syllable dies, "because I must."
"What?"
"'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us'. If I don't forgive you I've asked the Goddess umpteen times not to forgive me either the next time I trespass. So I am really trying my very best to mean it. But you and I, very soon, are going to have a very long, very serious, talk."
