Chapter Ten: Where in the world is Timothy McGee?
McGee and Abby had gone straight up to Abby's lab to work on something, leaving Tony, Ziva, and Gibbs with the little Israeli girl, who-it turned out-didn't speak a lick of English, forcing Ziva into the role of translator. Ziva took the little girl to a conference room upstairs while Tony started investigating the girl's uncle. It turned out that her aunt had gone missing too, which further confused the situation. The case felt more like an international issue than a naval one, much like the La Grenouille case. Tony cringed at the memory of his shattered relationship with Jeanne.
McGee chose that moment to return to the bull-pen, filling Tony with guilt. However, his stay was short lived, as Vance called him upstairs, much to Gibbs' chagrin.
A few moments later, Gibbs took Tony away to go investigate the house where the little girl had witnessed the murder of the navy lieutenant.
A fifteen minute drive later, the two were met with the grizzly, bloody mess that was the house of Lieutenant Adi Shalit and his wife, Ora. The lieutenant's body was mangled beyond recognition, and Ducky said that they would need to do a DNA test, just to be sure that it was Lieutenant Shalit.
The place was a mess, which Ducky, once he and Palmer had finally arrived, claimed indicated a crime of passion, but the fact that his wife had been abducted muddied up the waters quite a bit.
After several minutes of searching, Tony found a knife in the kitchen sink that seemed to have been hastily rinsed off. Hoping that the knife would still have a print, Tony bagged and tagged it, along with several samplings of blood from different parts of the room, hoping to find some of the killers DNA along with the Lieutenants. Once all the photographs were taken and the evidence was bagged and tagged, Gibbs and Tony left, leaving Ducky and Palmer to navigate the bloody, mangled corpse.
Back at the agency, Gibbs took the evidence down to Abby while Tony went up to do a sketch of the crime scene. Gibbs exited the elevator fifteen minutes later while Tony was going through pictures on the plasma, trying to figure out what had happened.
When Gibbs appeared over Tony's shoulder, the younger agent clicked a button to go back to the beginning of the slide show. "It looks like the bad guy was let into the house, and after some sort of argument here," an image of the kitchen "they got into a physical confrontation. The neighbors confirmed that there were two males yelling and fighting in the house-one of which was definitely the lieutenant. The perp than took this knife" he clicked a button "out of the block and assaulted Shalit. They moved into the room where we found Shalit's body." A picture of the living room. "That is where Shalit was killed. But it doesn't make sense. If there was just a fight, how is there so much damage to the body? And how did Shalit fight him off so long unarmed?"
Gibbs nodded. "Good question, DiNozzo. Why don't you find me an answer?"
"On it, boss."
"And where the hell is McGee?" Gibbs added, annoyed.
"Last I saw he was called up by the director," Tony responded, fighting the urge to say 'Good question, Gibbs. Why don't you find me an answer?'
Gibbs stormed up to the director's office as Tony started making phone calls. After the fifth fruitless call, Tony went up to Ziva to ask the girl about what had happened.
It turned out that the Shalit was the one who had used the knife in the sink, which made absolutely no sense. The girl said the other man had a switchblade and a gun and had shot her uncle after slicing him up, but Tony hadn't found and shell casings at the crime scene. He furrowed his brow and walked down to see Ducky, thinking he might have the answer.
Ducky had little more to tell Tony. His autopsy was as yet incomplete, but he confirmed that Shalit had been shot. Tony rode the elevator back up to the bull-pen and started shuffling through the crime scene photos again. Gibbs reentered the bull-pen alone, saying nothing about McGee. "What have you got, DiNozzo?"
"Not much more, boss," Tony began hesitantly. "The girl says that the lieutenant was the one using the kitchen knife, and that the other guy also had a gun. Ducky confirmed. She and Ziva are talking to an artist now. I don't get, though. Why wash off the knife? It doesn't make sense."
"It does if he was trying to get rid of the DNA evidence. The lieutenant must have got him," Gibbs contradicted.
Tony nodded. "I guess, but where's the blood trail to the car? Where's the shell casing? For that matter, where's the wife? It just isn't adding up."
"Go back and look for them, DiNozzo. Don't come back until you have both, or at least an explanation."
"On it, boss." Tony grabbed his gear and headed down the elevator to his car.
Outside the house, Tony spent an entire hour looking for some sort of blood trail, to no avail. He finally gave up and went inside to look at the shell casing.
Which, it seemed, was also nowhere to be found. Tony finally saw something-after an hour and a half of looking-that saved him. There was a blood splatter on the side of the room, near the stairs, where the lieutenant must have been shot. There, amidst the blood, was a copper colored shell casing and a spot of blood that Tony chose to take a sample from.
Re-exiting the house Tony noticed that the red flowers in front of the house were slightly trampled. The trampling was parallel to the front of the house, and he found the blood out front of the neighbor's house and took several samples or that, as well as whatever he could find from the flower patch. He photographed all of it, including the skid marks in the neighbor's driveway.
That particular neighbor had been out of town for the last week, and would remain out of town for another yet. However, he was the closest with the late lieutenant, and Tony had tried calling his cell several times but got no answer. He groaned in mild frustration before driving back to work and presenting Abby with the evidence. Abby gave him a hug and told him to send McGee down to help her with the lieutenant's computer. Tony grinned at her and then went upstairs to find McGee.
Tony didn't see McGee up there, and so asked Gibbs, "Hey, where's McGee? Ab-"
Gibbs glared up at him. "McGee's busy helping Vance. You can do whatever needs to be done yourself, DiNozzo."
"Right, boss." Tony went to make another phone call as Gibbs went down to see Abby and Ducky.
He was once again sent straight to voicemail on the neighbor's cell.
"Mr. Thomas, this is Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo from NCIS again. I am calling regaurding an ongoing investigation. You need to call me back as soon as you get this. You can just call back to this number." Tony hung up again and growled in frustration.
He went back to researching the lieutenant's regiment for another hour, before going up to visit Ziva and the child again. Sarah-that was the girl's name-said the neighbors came over Saturday for poker night. She didn't have any more information on the missing neighbor.
Tony went back down to the bull-pen, and asked Gibbs if he could pick him up anything for dinner. And Gibbs, predictably, said that no one was going to eat until they found the lieutenants wife. After a good dope-slap, Tony went back to calling anyone who ever met the lieutenant or his wife. Nothing.
An hour had passed, no information was forth coming, and Gibbs had disappeared to see Abby again. Tony finally threw a copy of Deep Six and yelled, "Where the fuck are you, McGee? I can't do all this computer stuff!"
His only response was a snicker from someone in another cubical. He threw a paper wad in that general direction, but judging by the resounding laughter, he didn't think he'd hit the culprit.