Chapter Three
Mercurial
When Ziva returns to Apartment 9J, the first thing Gibbs wants to know is "Where's Sky?"
"She lawyered out."
"Lawyered up," DiNozzo corrects, large pad in hand, pausing in his sketching of the scene.
Since Gibbs, Ducky and Detective Lieutenant Carpenter are here surrounding Karen Huston's body, Ziva will let her glare say the words. 'If you are still counting on your luck tonight, you will not correct me.'
"Up, out, I did not have enough to hold her so she went to the elevator."
Gibbs is before her, his voice low and deadly. "Tell me you didn't let a material witness walk out on you."
"Please give me credit for more sense. I called McGee, he intercepted her before she could board the elevator. When I looked, she was too happy about the reunion to be in a hurry to leave. He is not mentioning Hugh-ston's murder."
"So?"
"So as long as he does not, she will doubtless continue to talk to him. She does not want to talk to the police without a lawyer, and in her eyes I am now 'the police'."
Detective Jeff Carpenter barks a humorless laugh. "Unfortunately, not wanting to talk to the police isn't a felony. If it were, most of the world would be behind bars."
"At least most of D.C."
He nods, granting the point. "I'm going to talk to her now."
"No," Gibbs counters, "I want Ducky to take her. She worked for him. He's got the best chance of opening her up."
Carpenter doesn't like it, he'd throw that plan out if it didn't make some sense. "Fine, just be sure she stays in town," he points to Huston's wound, "because unless you've found something, all I have on her is being short."
Ziva steps up. "That and the fact that she is taking her friend - sorry, her 'roommate's' - death far too easily. Five minutes of tears she turns off is not grief, so far as I am concerned."
Ducky stands up from beside Huston's body, angry. "You of all people should understand–"
"What I understand is that she–"
"HEY!" Gibbs' sharp voice silences the acrimonious debate. "Evidence. When we have that, it won't matter what the girl expresses or doesn't. Ziva, take the Luminol and see what you can get outside." In the light he knows she won't get much, they should wait until they can have Maintenance turn off the hall lights, but resources and time are both too limited. They can't cut off access to the hallway. She will check the opposite wall and door. "Ducky, what do you have?"
"At the moment," the man hates to state the obvious, "two women killed by the same bullet. I can do little more until Mr. Palmer and I get the bodies back."
"Then do it. Take Sky with you."
"Jethro–"
"I didn't mean to assist. I want her in Interrogation One when I get back."
"I know that. I was referring to her riding beside me with her friend's dead body in the back."
"Just what she needs to shake her up." Ducky turns to look down at Huston's body. "Maybe it'll wipe the smile off her face."
Ducky turns back but Gibbs ignores the glare.
x
"You know her, LeeJay," Carpenter says to Gibbs. "What's your take on her?"
Gibbs wants to play this close to the vest for now. "My take?"
"She turned off the waterworks pretty damn fast, but she was happy to see us. Really happy. She was going to let us in, changed her mind, then acted surprised and got sobby when she saw the body. She turned it off three minutes later. To me, that's acting."
"To me as well," Ziva's voice filters in from the hall.
"But is she that good an actress?"
"She's a musician," Gibbs tells him. "Plays violin."
"She is a twenty-two year old young lady," Ducky says, stepping nearly between them, "studying medicine preparatory to becoming a Doctor and, in time, a Medical Examiner; while supporting herself as fifth violin with the Washington Renaissance Orchestra."
"You taking on another assistant, Ducky?" the trench-coated detective asks, impressed by the man's sharpness. It can't be easy to have a friend suspected of murder, or is he reacting to his own unvoiced doubts?
"We have discussed it," Ducky admits. "When she graduates this spring with a Doctorate in Medicine she would move on to the additional required training. That includes a one year Medical Internship followed by four years of Pathology Residency, but it would not be inappropriate for her to supplement that with on-the-job practical experience. Whether that is at NCIS is something she would have to apply for and it will hardly be immediate."
"But you'd support her." Carpenter wants to know just how far the man would go in backing his friend. He notes Gibbs is just as interested in the answer.
"Yes. I grant you the budget is too tight to allow a second Assistant and she would have to be certified before she could even apply; but yes, if she did one day apply, I would give her a good recommendation."
x
This says a lot to Gibbs, not just personally but for her presumed competence on a Crime Scene. He'd been satisfied with her performance during the three weeks in which she'd substituted for Palmer during the man's honeymoon in Hawaii. She may have been a Crime Scene Newbie, but he hadn't seen any gross mistakes. Of course, Ducky would never mention any others.
But Carpenter still can't let go of her mercurial behavior. "She didn't seem broken up over her friend. She got over it pretty damn fast."
"Not really;" Ducky maintains, "that is just an indication of her normal temperament."
Gibbs gives the detective a quick nod of confirmation. Her 'normal temperament' had been a formidable challenge for him during their infrequent and, fortunately, brief encounters. Though he frequently relegates Palmer to the background when dealing with Ducky, it was harder to think of Sky as a hat rack.
"Do tell," Carpenter urges.
"If people's dispositions can be described as 'sunny'," Ducky tells the taller man, "then hers would most strongly resemble a supernova. I was, in fact, at one time considering checking to be certain her disposition was not enhanced by some form of, shall we say, chemical assistance, but such was not the case."
DiNozzo looks up from his sketch pad. "I gotta've heard you discreetly talk her into giving Abby a urine sample."
"As I indicated, it was not necessary." Ducky cuts DiNozzo out of his attention. "No, Miss Sky comes by her joie de vivre quite naturally, I assure you. I believe Abby once described her as being 'hard wired for ecstasy'."
"If you say so," Carpenter grants, still dubious. "I do remember her at the Sollecito house."
He can't remember the last time he'd seen anyone, Newbie or otherwise, so happy to be at a Crime Scene - even though in her enthusiasm she'd spotted a vital clue that more experienced eyes had missed because they were more experienced. Sometimes Newbies have their place, even though Carpenter wishes that place was in Detroit.
"Sammy has always been a young woman particularly in touch with her emotions," Ducky insists, annoyed at the course this speculation is taking. "After the catharsis of grief, her normal state started to reassert itself. I assure you, there is nothing sinister about it."
Carpenter doesn't hide how unconvinced he is.
xx
Ziva reenters the apartment, a spray bottle of Luminol in one hand and digital camera in the other. "I found a void pattern 7 feet high by 3 wide in the far wall." This doesn't please anyone. Tiny droplets little more than mist had traveled across the hall, imprinting themselves on the opposite wall and door. From the size, the body that blocked the high velocity microdrops could have been small and very close or large and further back from the door.
They must, for now, make do with inconclusives.
"What about on the floor?"
"Insufficient traces. If you were looking for footprint exclusions, there were none."
Carpenter looks to Gibbs. "Was she wearing high heels?"
"Sneakers," Ziva says, sounding like she hates to provide anything that will support the girl but she will not sabotage an Investigation.
"Did you see any blood on Sky when you talked to her?" Gibbs asks Ziva. He hadn't, but at that time he'd met her in the hall he hadn't been looking for any.
"No, but she could have washed and changed her clothes."
He doubts she'd come into the apartment to change. That shot would have been deafening, would have called to at least some potential witness. Her screams had opened doors up and down the hall. Further, the blood that spattered and flowed in the apartment makes walking difficult for the careful investigators.
It's too much of a stretch for him to believe she could have the foresight to change clothes, come out and appear to be coming in (which would require her to leave the floor and come up again by elevator) in time to be seen arriving at the door by people she couldn't be certain were coming.
It's possible Sky had a change of clothes secreted somewhere. She certainly didn't come in here, nervous and rushed, to change out of blood-spattered clothes. As a future doctor intending to make a career as a Forensic Pathologist, she's too well trained to make that many blunders.
There are too many questions, and the purpose of an Investigation is to answer questions, not create a whole basket full of new ones.
xx
While at the elevators at the base of the 'U' of hallways that run the lengths of the floor, dividing it into four sets of apartments, Tim McGee had obtained Sky's permission to test her for gunshot residue. He'd brought her outside apartment 9F, the secondary crime scene down the right hand corridor, while he went in and retrieved the kit.
It had been a bit of a balancing act, this bringing her outside the apartment of the grieving husband, but he didn't want to lose her at the elevator. He could have instructed the guarding Metro Officer to detain her, but he'd prefer to work pleasantly with her. When he'd gotten Ziva's urgent call he'd just caught her in time. Only the long wait for the elevator's arrival had helped him catch her. However, he has no cause to hold her and must depend upon her delight at their reunion to help convince her to cooperate with him.
But she'd hugged him with the same enthusiasm she manifested on other, 'normal' occasions, and if he didn't know there'd been a woman found in her apartment, he'd think this was a casual encounter.
He wishes he knew her better. Is this Sammy when shaken by grief, or...? He simply doesn't know how to gauge her.
x
"Seems a bit strange," Sammy says while he swabs the sleeves of her coat and her hands with long handled cotton swabs. "When I worked with Ducky I had access to all the scenes." When Tim doesn't answer, she continues. "I guess things change fast." He still doesn't answer, just continues swabbing, seemingly ignoring her nostalgic fishing. "Will you say something?"
"Something."
It almost restores her good humor. He puts the long swabs into four tubes, each of which has a half inch of clear liquid inside. He seals and shakes the vials. "Sammy, things aren't the same. You worked with us. Now–"
"I'm your suspect," she says, her tone guarded.
"Not mine," he holds up the tubes with their colorless liquid. "No blue. Test's negative."
"Could've told you that. Oh, right, I did."
"Show, don't tell."
"Now can I–?"
"No." He hates to shoot her hope down, but "You know better."
"But I'm– that is I have–"
"If you had a badge you still couldn't work this case."
x
He feels a momentary stab of conscience but refuses to think of Shav. It was just a month ago when he'd worked a case he had no official business being involved in. His partners had bent the rules into warped pretzels to let him help in the search for the kidnapped priest.
Just the brief thought is enough to remind him, with a pang of longing, that he's supposed to be with his beloved right this minute. Further, he has no idea how much longer into the evening this will take. Probably most of it, blast the luck. He's pleased to see Sammy again, her ecstatic hug had been fervent, sincere and spirit-boosting, but she's not Shav. Okay, he saw his lovely, adorable fiancé yesterday, and two days before that, and the day before that - and every day for the whole month of January but blast it, that doesn't count!
x
But this is different, isn't it? He brings himself back to the present, seeing Sammy's face before him and not Shav's. "And don't ask Gibbs."
"He's already pissed off with me."
"He's not 'pissed off'," he corrects. Not having seen the man, he can't be sure, but he suspects that, with the case so unexpectedly reuniting them with a friend, "he's concerned."
"Agent Gibbs is often... concerned."
"Yes, yes he is. What about you? Your friend dead–"
"She's not my–!" She bites back the flare; it's too late. She continues, resigned, the revelation already made. "Well, she's not my friend anymore."
"Because she's dead?"
The look she casts up at him is as hard as her tone, and both are alien to his image of her. "She stabbed me long before someone shot her."
Tim looks for the telltale elevations of treated wounds past her open coat but finds none. He suspects, however, that he'll learn about those wounds soon enough.
