A smug looking man, holding his phone in his outstretched, surrendering, hands.
7:15 AM
They'd been directed to the diner. Gibbs had ordered breakfast. Sarah and Tim only did after being ordered to.
They sweated until the coffee arrived.
"So," Gibbs said, focusing on Sarah. "Why did you turn off your phone?" he said. His tone was even, but this was Gibbs, his tone was almost always even.
"I didn't," Sarah told him. "I didn't realize I had no signal until about," she tried to remember, "Quarter after three. I had just heard the most disturbing laugh I've heard in my life. Worse than Smash Bros's Crazy Hand." She met Gibbs in the eyes. "Don't tell Abby, but Freddy had left the stage. He was the background of the party room. If it wasn't for his glowing eyes, I'd not have been able to see him at all."
Gibbs considered her, then went to his coffee. "That's against federal law," he muttered. "But we wouldn't be able to prove it until tomorrow..."
"I'm serious! I wanted so badly to..." Sarah began.
"I believe you," Gibbs said quietly.
"Oh," Sarah said. "Sorry."
Gibbs smiled his half smile, and glanced at Tim.
"I'd like to think you're friends," Tim said mildly.
Gibbs shrugged and went back to his coffee.
Sarah picked up her backpack from beside her, opened it up, and pulled out the folder. She removed the clip holding it closed, and set it open on the table. Gibbs and Tim looked over with interest.
The first thing was pictures of the restaurant in the daytime, presumably during a kids party. "These rooms don't look right," Sarah said. "Trust me, I've seen enough of them over the past few nights that I'd recognize them."
"You're right," Gibbs agreed. "That's Jeremy Fitzgerald, our bite victim. This must be of the original restaurant."
The waitress had come over with breakfast. She looked at Sarah with a broad smile. "Oh, my son loves to go to Freddy's."
Sarah shrank back slightly, clearly disturbed by the mention of her workplace of fear. "I'm... I'm glad to hear it," she stuttered.
"We've gone there three times since it's opened," she continued, painfully oblivious to Sarah's apprehension. "Do you know they have this special where you get tokens based on your grades? It's been the best motivating tool EVER!" she told them.
Sarah buried herself in pancakes, desperate to not say anything.
"Best picture I ever got in my life was of my son," the waitress continued. "He climbed up on the stage to say hi to Freddy. Got him a yell from one of the servers, but Freddy just looked down at him, bent over to give him a hug. It was adorable."
Sarah looked over at her. It was clear she didn't have the same impression of the incident.
"Ever see anything odd there?" Tim asked, to take the attention away from his sister.
"What? Uhm, well," she said, taken by surprise from this line of inquiry.
"Or smell anything out of place?" Gibbs asked.
"Oh. You know, there was that one time. Was the second time we went there, I think. We had just sat down to eat, when there was this noticeable skip in Freddy's voice. It was like, 'Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza... one tah, tah, tah, two...' and everyone looked up. The animatronics were all staring at one particular pair of people. A man who looked like for all the world like he'd been just caught abusing his daughter."
Gibbs raised a dangerous eyebrow. "Was he?" he asked mildly.
"No. Wasn't the case, he explained that she was partially deaf and had to know to turn her good ear in order to hear him, or anyone else for that matter. At the same time, I caught this scent of god awful meat, was just there for a moment or two before it went away again. Might have just been my imagination, though."
"That is kind of odd," Tim said.
"Anyway, please pass along my son's well wishes to Freddy for me," she told them, and went to serve other customers.
"Yeah," Sarah whispered. "How about I don't if I don't want to end up as his new keyboard player?"
After a few minutes eating, Tim and Gibbs went back to Sarah's folder of information. There were several more pictures, showing parties both from the new restaurant, and the older larger one.
"I thought the note we decoded said that they were the same animatronics," Tim said, frowning. "Those two Freddies do not look alike."
"They were both there," Gibbs explained. "Jeremy said as much, there were new ones and old ones,"
Sarah shuddered. "I've a hard enough time with four of them," she said, having regained some of her composure. They ate in silence for a while. When they finished, Sarah spoke up. "I can't call into the real job two days running," Sarah said. "Not without a Doctor's note. Can I borrow your car again, Tim?"
Her brother nodded, putting his keys on the table.
Gibbs picked up the check without even discussing it, as the waitress brought him his second cup to go.
"You're with me then, McGee," he said.
8:00 AM, 98 hours missing
Pages of names and phone numbers had been put on each of the agent's desks as they wandered in.
"Ah! McGee," Tony said. "You're early!"
"Because we've got work to do," Gibbs said.
"And good morning to you, Boss."
Gibbs dropped papers on each of the agent's desks. "This is each and every person who's worked night guard at Freddy Fazbear's. We're calling ALL of them. I want to know what they went through, if any of them went missing. I want everything on all of them."
"Every boathouse and outhouse to be searched. Got it Boss. Been a while since I saw you this animated."
"Because Michael Schmidt is still MISSING!" he told him.
"Starting with the one from the old Day shift," Tim said.
12:30 PM
"Mr. Sinclair is no longer at this address?" Bishop asked. "Do you have a forwarding one?"
...
"Yes, this NCIS. Naval Criminal Investigation Service. Is this Peter Wilcox?" Tim said, "We'd like to ask about Freddy Fazbear's..."
...
"I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Grant... when did John go missing?" Tony asked.
...
"Two large, one all cheese, one cheese and Pepperoni," Bishop ordered. Lunch was to be brought in today.
2:00 PM
Tony hung up his last call, then pulled up what he'd found to go over it.
Sensing a lull in the conversation in the office, Gibbs looked up from his own work. "What have we got?" he demanded.
"Meet Oscar Reynolds," McGee started. "Day shift guard across from Jeremy. Moved to Oregon as part of taking what he called a 'Real Job' after Freddy Fazbears Family Restaurant. Was mostly cordial, said he got visits from Private Detectives every so often. Said he didn't meet Jeremy until after the accident. Had a touch of survivor's guilt – he'd had to call in for a few days after being hospitalized with appendicitis."
McGee continued. "Other than that, he'd had no complaints about working there. He confirmed that there were two sets of the main animatronics, the new ones: 'The Toys', and the decommissioned older models which were being held for parts. The toys had a few more glitches, but they were being worked on, slowly but surely."
A new face popped up on the plasma. "Missing guard #1, John Grant," Tony said. A brown haired man with light hazel eyes looked back at them. "Sophomore at American University. Was marked as a drop out about a week after he started working. Missing persons case referred to the FBI by his parents at the end of the semester. Personal computer had been wiped clean before the FBI got to it."
"Missing guard #2. Lois Whitehall," Bishop added, adding his face to the plasma. 25 year old out of Olney. Lived on his own. Noticed missing by his landlord a few weeks after his employment by way of unpaid rent. Never actually reported missing, apparently it looked like he'd packed up and left." Bishop sounded annoyed. "Tried to find next of kin, couldn't actually do it. I'll keep working on it."
"Which brings me to missing guard #3, Bryan Grant. No relation to John," Tony added quickly. "Lived in Poolesville, reported missing by his wife after she came back from a week away. They'd needed some extra money for house repairs. Had a history of depression, police investigated, but had no leads."
Gibbs said nothing, studying the plasma. "McGee, look up Kevin Richardson. Son of the owner."
Tim obliged after a few minutes of searching, found Kevin Richardson, and added his driver's license to the collection on the plasma. There was silence around the bullpen as they stared at the similarity of all four of them. The three agents pulled all of the guards, running through them for hair color, eye colors, and facial features. They didn't all meet the pattern... but a good majority of them did.
"This will get us a warrant," Gibbs stated.
4:30
They'd been granted three warrants. One of them had been for Ms. Richardson's home, the ostensible owner. One for Freddy Fazbear's itself, just for completeness's sake. The one they were choosing to execute was for Kevin's abode.
Kevin Richardson's home was a red brick middle class house in Rockville. one of the ones that were probably around fifty years old, just old enough to be torn down the next time it changed owners, but otherwise in good condition. There with a well manicured lawn, a few trees, and a driveway, currently serving as home to an NCIS Van.
Gibbs and Bishop had raced to the back of the house, just in case Kevin decided to pull a runner. McGee and Tony had gone to the front door and rang the doorbell. There was no answer. After a few minutes, Tony rang it again. Still no answer.
"Going to pick it," Tony said. The warrant didn't require the owner's presence after all. After a about a minute, the lock clicked open, and Tony and McGee went room by room clearing the building of any potential hostiles. However, there was nothing living in the house, not even pets or plants.
Neither, to the agents disappointment, did they find any dead things. If Kevin was the one who'd caused the disappearance of now four missing Fazbear's guards, direct evidence of this was not to be found here.
They found a desktop computer to be seized for Abby's perusal, and, in the closet, a purple hoodie, a match for the one seen infiltrating Mike's apartment complex.
"We're going to need another stakeout. We need to find this man tonight," Gibbs said. "Bishop? Tony? You stay with the house. I'll be back with a car." He turned to McGee, "Need you make two calls. First, call Abby, I absolutely need her to stay late tonight."
"She's not going to like that," McGee replied. "It's bowling night."
"Tell her the alternative is to see Freddy Fazbear convicted of murder."
"Might work," McGee conceded as they climbed back in the van. He thought he knew the other person he needed to call, and it was one he really didn't want to make, even more than making Abby miss bowling.
"You'll also need to call your sister. We need her to play night guard at Freddy's again. I know she's scared, and it might be for good reason. But if we leave Freddy's unguarded, I think we'll lose whatever evidence might be left there. Even when we catch Kevin, there's a chance he has an accomplice."
McGee groaned. The worst part was, it made sense. "Can I have permission to share our progress on the case, so she knows how vital this is?" he asked.
"Absolutely," Gibbs said. "Tell her NCIS will cover her car repair if she doesn't get paid."
"Great," said Tim dryly.
6:00 PM
To Tim's surprise, his sister was on board with spending one more night at Freddy's. "For a few extra dollars? Not on your life. But, if it helps to catch a serial killer?" she told him, "I... I just can't say no. I had a nap at work today, and I had a dream. Dreamed of four kids, sitting around a birthday table, each wearing a mask of one of Freddy's characters. Even my dreams are starting to be about that place."
There was a pause. Tim wasn't sure to say to a non-sequitur like that. "You feeling OK?" he asked.
"I think so. Was thinking about what we learned at breakfast. Was thinking how easy it would be for someone to get a costume like a Freddy Fazbear, or a Bonnie Bunny, and do unspeakable things. Partially because it's already happened." There was a pause at the other end of the line. "Because it's children, right?"
"Gibbs would think so," Tim told her.
"Good, Good..."
"Are you sure, Sarah, you're sounding punch drunk."
"Confident," she said irritably, relaxing Tim somewhat. "I'll make sure nobody enters or leaves."
"Get some sleep – some real sleep – before you start."
Another pause, Sarah was probably going to snap at him again. "Good advice, Timothy. As soon as Gibbs has his man, get me out of there, please," she said finally.
That was also good advice.
11:30 PM
McGee and Gibbs had taken Dinozzo and Bishops position waiting for the return of Kevin Richardson. He was an actual suspect now, fingerprints on the hoodie had matched the ones taken from Mike's apartment.
Tim was acutely aware his sister's shift started half an hour ago. According to what she said, she wasn't in danger yet, but if Kevin wasn't here soon... Tim couldn't shake the feeling something awful was about to happen.
"Heads up, McGee,"
A bright red Ford Explorer had pulled into the driveway. The ignition was turned off, and a man stepped out. Gibbs glanced at his agent, and they both nodded. They got out of the car together, approaching the man cautiously.
"Kevin Richardson? NCIS," said Gibbs authoritatively, "Hands up!"
Kevin turned around, a smart phone in his hand. He held his hands clearly in front of him, but clearly manipulating his phone.
"I said hands up!" Gibbs ordered.
"I'm just calling my lawyer. Mrs. McDonald, I'm going to need you to meet me at NCIS as soon as possible," he told the phone.
Then he put his hands up, the phone still on speaker.
