Chapter Six
The Dutch Shepard is excited to be going with me, and I'm glad he's coming. He watches everything that passes with intense interest. Driving down the beltway, traffic is light until I hit the 295 loop outside the Navy Yard. Traffic slows to a crawl and Traver's nose is glued to the window.
"This is a real change from San Diego isn't it, boy?" I ask sarcastically, the driver in the car behind me blares their horn. Traver looks over at me, and I swear he rolls his eyes as if to say, "some people."
"You're going to have a good time with me today." I promise. Pulling out my cell phone, I call the furniture place and remind them that I have still not received my dining room set. They offer to deliver it that afternoon, and I tell them to leave it on the porch. I figure I'll get out my tools and dismantle it to carry it in piece by piece and put it back together. Finally pulling into my brand new parking spot, I get out and let Traver out behind me.
Grabbing his leash, we walk to security and the guards eye the dog.
"You can't take him in there, this is a federal building." one of them says.
"Well, you see… this dog is evidence, and it was too hot to leave him in the evidence bay overnight, so I found him a cool place to stay, and I'm bringing him in to the forensics techs." They narrow their eyes at me. I flash my badge, and they grudgingly wave me through. Their eyes watch my every move as I head to the elevator and go down instead of up. Getting off at the lab floor, I follow the Goth rock down the hall and find Abby asleep on her computer.
I place my hand on her shoulder and she bolts upright.
"Sorry, boss! I just closed my eyes for a sec- Cam!" She trails off when she realizes it's just me. I see her brows knit together, and I hope to avoid a repeat of yesterday.
"Hey, can you do me a favor? I need you to keep an eye on some 'evidence' for me," I hook my fingers around the word 'evidence,' and I watch Abby's eyes follow the leash in my hand down to Traver.
"Awww!" she exclaims and bends down to pet him, "Aren't you just the cutest thing? Where did we get you?"
"Abby, this is Traver. He's my dog, but I haven't gotten him a doggy door yet, and he got left a little too long last night. I'm afraid he's going to make a mess, so I brought him with me and told the guys upstairs that he was evidence so they'd let me bring him in." Abby looks up at me, brows still dark, but less threatening.
"That's cool. Me and Traver'll just hang out down here; he can stay in my office." She cuddles him a little bit, "How cool is this, Traver?" she asks placing one of her pigtails over his head, "We match!"
"I trust you two will be ok?"
"Oh, yeah… go on upstairs." She smiles at the dog.
"Thank you, Abby," I wait for her to look up, eyebrows set in an irritated scrunch, "I owe you big time." The eyebrows finally settle back into a neutral position. I head for the elevator and go straight upstairs.
"Dead marine at Quantico, grab your gear," Gibbs says, striding into the bullpen. I grab my crime scene bag and watch DiNozzo struggle with his. Stepping up, I offer to help.
"Need a hand?" I ask. DiNozzo growls at me and swings the bag onto his right shoulder. Reaching out, he angrily snatches my cup of coffee. I roll my eyes and vow to be the bigger person and let it slide. On the elevator, DiNozzo ignores me. McGee at least attempts to be friendly.
On the first floor, we get out and enter the garage area. At the truck, we're getting ready to load up, and McGee hops into the back with our bags. Crawling up front, DiNozzo puts himself between me and Gibbs before shoving the coffee cup back into my hand.
"I don't know how you two drink that crap," he grouses. I understand he's pissed off about losing his partner, but I'm already tired of the drama queen attitude. Shrugging, I scoot as close to the door as I can and belt myself in. Gibbs squeals the tires a little bit as he takes off, from the back I hear a heavy 'thump'.
"I'm good!" McGee shouts. Gibbs switches lanes to get on the 295, and a second thump follows. No response. I sip my coffee and wait for someone to break the silence.
It's a quiet ride.
We are greeted at the door by an MP who shows us through the kitchen and into a small office/ workout space. Our victim, identified as Lance Corporal Darryl Walker, lies sprawled on a Bowflex exercise machine. The smell of copper and cordite hangs thick in the air. It appears that a single round was fired upwards through his chin, exiting through the back of his head and causing a spray of blood and tissue across the wall and ceiling. A 9mm lays in the floor at the Lance Corporal's right hand.
McGee carefully takes pictures and I sketch while DiNozzo talks to the widow. Gibbs converses with the MPs who were first on the scene. I have worked a number of suicides in my sixteen years in law enforcement, and they are never easy… particularly when a loved one is the one who discovers them. Moving behind the machine to take a measurement, I bend over to place the metal tape along the baseboard.
I stand and begin to write the measurement when I feel something hit my shoulder. Turning, I find no one even looking in my direction. When I start to kneel again, something else hits me, this time with a wet plop. Without looking, I try to shake it off, feeling a creeping urge to vomit at what I think it might be. When a third something hits me, I finally look up.
In the heat of mid-morning, the tissue on the ceiling is losing its fight with gravity.
Thoroughly disgusted, I take my sketch pad and vacate the room, needing the fresh air to keep from losing my breakfast. I take deep breaths in through my nose to try and stave off the roiling of my stomach. Looking up, I catch DiNozzo staring at me.
"Too many people back there," I say, "I'm overheated." DiNozzo shrugs me off with disinterest and goes back to talking to the wife, Diana. She has a single kleenex that she seems to be intent on twisting to death. I notice that it leaves little white pills on her lap.
Taking a breath, I walk back into the office and use my gloved finger to subtly flick the human tissue off my agency windbreaker. I get back to work, doing a rough sketch of the room. When I am finished twenty minutes later, I return to the sitting area where DiNozzo is questioning the wife.
"He was having an affair," she says in response to a question I'm not privy to.
"With who?"
"Some girl… I don't know her name. I told him that I knew, and that I wanted him to stop seeing her."
"Did he?"
"Yes, about six or seven months ago." McGee steps past me with the Walker's CPU tower. It's bagged and tagged, and he smiles an apologetic smile on his way out the door.
"Where's he going with that?" Diana asks suddenly.
"It's evidence, Diana," DiNozzo says gently, "If there's a reason for your husband's death, it could be a big clue."
"Do you think someone killed him?" she asks, wide-eyed and frightened.
"We don't know yet," he looks at me and back at Diana, "Do you have someone you can stay with?" She nods absentmindedly. McGee comes back in and heads for the office.
"Why don't you grab a couple of things, you can take Agent Hall with you, if you like." She shakes her head.
"I'd like to call my mother, if you don't mind… and get a drink of water." DiNozzo nods and watches her walk into the kitchen through the far archway, avoiding the door of the office.
"Where the hell is Dr. Mallard," I ask. DiNozzo shrugs.
"Who knows? If he let Palmer drive, they could be in Jersey by now." I can't help but smile. A few second of uncomfortable silence stretch into eternity between us. Diana returns and stands between us, looking defeated. She explains that she didn't get a hold of her mother, but that she'll try again later.
Silence returns for several long moments. Gibbs and the MPs join us in the front room. The two Marines exit with paper bags of evidence. As they pass Gibbs turns his gaze on us.
"Not a lot more we can do without Ducky," He says. On the couch, Diana starts to weep.
For long minutes, Gibbs watches how DiNozzo interacts with Diana. He is both comforting and questioning.
Looking up, suddenly, Agent DiNozzo sniffs and asks, "Man! Who beefed?" I look up, nose testing the air. Recognition of the smell hits me instantly.
Natural gas!
"Gas! Get out!" I shove Diana towards DiNozzo. The two of them plunge for the door, Gibbs right behind. I turn for the kitchen where the teakettle has just started to whistle its shrill note on a gas burner. Reaching for the stove, I smell natural gas thick in the air and realize that one knob is turned all the way up with no flame.
Backpedaling instead, I have time to fleeting think, 'oh, shit,' before I turn, kick out the back door and jump off the small deck. Hitting the ground, I roll and scrabble on hands and knees to get as far from the house as I can.
A deafening boom turns my world upside down. Early morning gives way to the surface of the sun for an instant, and I am blown through the rotting wooden privacy fence. For long moments, I lie in the sun, and think about what an idiotic thing I had just done. Blinking, I feel debris start raining down on me. Hot embers and pieces of plastic, some of them formerly appliances, fall none too gently from the sky. In the silence that follows, I roll to my hands and knees and vomit, heaving for several long minutes. Satisfied that I'm alive and in one piece, I spit a final time. 'NCIS was never like this,' I think.
Staggering to my feet, I clamp down on my rising sense of panic before I hear the sweetest sound I could have ever imagined.
"Cam!" Gibbs shouts from the front of the house, "Cameron!"
"Yeah, Boss!" I reply, throat raw and skin tight, I begin to pick my way through the partial crater that was Diana Walker's home, and our crime scene. Carefully skirting the ruins, I make my way to the street. DiNozzo and Diana are looking over the hood of the MCRT truck, which now sports about two hundred dings or so, filled with debris, including a heat-warped spoon buried handle first in the passenger door.
I feel like a cartoon character that's been through a fire, soot black and coughing little smoke rings. Sirens fill the air and people, mostly women, start coming out of houses up and down the street. Behind me, the house smokes and smolders, belching flames and thick, black smoke.