Chapter Ten
Frail as an Ewok
"What've you got?" is an unrehearsed duet from Gibbs and Pride to their agents, the latter's team occupying two desks adjacent to and on the other side of the partition from Gibbs' and Ziva's desks. They stand to be part of the conversation which DiNozzo leads.
"Ziva, Chris and I are about to present the warrant for the Ambulance Service for their records. I want to check out the older members of the team who were there when she was."
The parents and grandmother are dead and he doesn't hold high hopes for many of the old timers, who probably left the Service when they got too old to volunteer any longer. He'll lay odds that a significant portion of them moved.
"Ducky's team," such a strange thought, "all think she was killed by a defibrillator, probably tortured. I want to know if she had one in the house or if the killer brought it with him."
"Shape of those burns, we can't rule out simple separated and frayed wires plugged into a 120 outlet."
"We're not ruling out anything."
x
McGee reports that his trip with Michelle and Meredith, while not saying that it hadn't been an entirely unpleasant six hours in the car with two beautiful women, had been a bust in the wrong sense. "According to the records, which you probably read back in the day, Lieutenant Saunders had a good career at Norfolk, was well liked the way a beautiful and personable woman would be–"
"Are you sensing a male chauvinist viewpoint?" Brody asks David from over the partition.
"McGee does not know how to be a male chauvinist."
"His wife would slap something else beside his head," DiNozzo assures them.
"But," McGee continues his report, "no one we spoke to who was at the Clinic at the time, a grand total of two people, could remember any reason anyone might have had to kill her. She seemed to fit in well, no outstanding tensions, at least none they remembered."
"Remembering is the real issue here," Pride says, not quite able to mask the frustration which is common to all Cold Cases. "There doesn't seem to be anyone left who's emotionally involved other than the nine year old brother."
"And the hot headed boyfriend," Gibbs counters, "who twenty one years ago had several witnesses who put him at home, and no forensic evidence to contradict that."
"You didn't have Abby back then," DiNozzo points out.
"She's going over everything in the files, but the physical evidence went to Annapolis. It'll be here this afternoon."
xxx
Siobhan McGee drives onto the Navy Yard and then to the south end but, though she could use the underground garage, she intends only to stay a few minutes, enough to pick up some papers before heading on to Saint Mary the Virgin. She hasn't been there in nine days, not since Timmy's unexpected announcement cleared the way for her to take a week off, but now on this Saturday morning she does have to get back to work. It takes more to prepare for a Sunday morning than the average person realizes.
Additionally she's still working to prepare her schedule, and to child-proof the apartment for six year old Bridget's week long visit next week. That event had been scheduled for October, not the first week in August, but since her older sister Lenore had called with the change of schedule, relaxed preparation has been changed to fast track rush, with a week lost because of that enforced Suspension Cruise.
She'd called Ducky yesterday afternoon to see if there was anything she could do on this latest case of her husband's, but as the woman they're working on was a Methodist, she had passed the word on to her associate John Grant, who will come in today to offer Last Rites. She has only to pick up her papers and go.
She opens the door of her green Fiesta and immediately regrets doing so, for she's opened an oven door and has no choice but to step into it and cook. She considers closing the door again but the building's only across the street from the lot. She'll traverse the short distance, but she won't to enjoy it.
Crossing the lot and street, thinking about the air conditioned lobby – 96 in the shade today - she reaches the walkway headed by the large NCIS sign when she hears a voice from behind her yell her name. She turns, surprised to find Sammy Sky, clad in her short sleeved blue scrubs, running after her on her pink cross tied ballet slippers.
"Slow down," she says when the smaller woman catches her. "It's way too hot to run."
"Oh God, are you right!" She nearly collapses on the sign but jumps away, her forearms burnt on the sunlit metal. "Darn it!" She rubs her bare forearms and Siobhan suspects 'darn it' isn't what the woman had been thinking. "I'm on a break because Ducky and I are going to start on another body, one from Rosa Arnell's team while Jimmy finishes on the mummified corpse we found and you don't give a darn about that."
"I care about all of your Charges. But I am wondering what would inspire you to do a sprint like that in this heat wave." She reaches into her purse and pulls out a handkerchief trimmed at the edges in lace and hands it to the grateful woman. Despite her light clothing, that exertion had left Sammy with a sheen of perspiration that threatens to become a wash.
"I saw you get out of your car. I needed to catch you before you got inside. I need to talk to you." She collapse-leans against the large NCIS sign, resting her hip against the unlit edge before returning the kerchief. "But you're right, I shouldn't have run. I'm just a frail little girl."
"Frail. You're as frail as an Ewok."
Her high laugh causes several passing men and women to turn to her and she forces the merriment down. She spends a few moments leaning on the sign and recovering her scorching breath while Siobhan waits to learn what was so urgent.
"Perhaps if we went up to my office?"
"I think that'd be a really good idea," she pants.
xx
The trip is short, the air conditioned corridors a welcome relief and when they reach the fourth floor office Sammy's glad of the privacy. She has never been here but what she sees isn't what she'd expected. Truthfully she hadn't known what to expect, but the single couch on the long right wall, three filing cabinets lining the left wall, desk with black Executive chair facing the far wall and only a single crucifix with the figure's arms reaching forward instead of being nailed to the gibbet doesn't meet any inchoate mental image she'd formed.
When the door is closed Sammy turns and looks up to the taller woman. "Mother McGee?"
The change of address is notable. "Yes?"
"If I ask you a question, would you tell me the truth?"
Siobhan's first reaction is offense but she pushes it down. "Of course." Well, maybe not as far down as she'd thought. She tries again, gives the young woman a pleasant face.
"Please, don't be mad," Sammy pleads. "It's just that I've spoken to Tina and Melanie and Rosa and Susan and Rachael and Jean and Linda and Carla and Patti and Lynn and Lisa and Abby and... and it doesn't help." Siobhan had allowed her face to show her thought at that impressive list. "And Michelle talks about always and past lives, that she's known and loved Jimmy in over a dozen incarnations and Abby has rules that get fulfilled or she won't go forward and everyone who was with Ziva is dead, you know?"
She's not sure. "Perhaps you should ask your question."
"How long did it take for you and Tim?"
x
This sounds like it's going to encroach into the personal. Deeply into it. "For me and Tim to what?"
"For you to know he was the One."
"Ah. Abby told me on the cruise that you're seeing someone."
"Not just someone." Siobhan can hear the young woman's enthusiasm rev up. "His name is Bill - William Marsters. He's an artist I met a bit before you all went on vacation, while you guys were all working on that drone thingy. I met him right out front at that sign that tried to burn my arms off. He was here because they wanted him to do a portrait of the Yard Captain, not a picture but a real portrait. We didn't just hit it off, I'm ca-razy about him and he is about me. Or was and will be again when he gets used to my autopsies. That's why I wan– need to know."
"Is he the one."
"I don't mean the one, the really special guy. How did – when did you know that Tim was THE One, the very one, the ab-so-lute-ly one and ONLY One for you? How long did it take?"
Siobhan looks past her to the wall, to the crucifix affixed over her desk, and offers a brief prayer for wisdom, for the right words. She has to give a fair answer if she's to advise this young woman at all, but she's never been sure she'd ever contemplated this thing objectively. It wasn't something that happened, she believes it was always there. Finally she looks down into the pale blue eyes staring so longingly into hers. "Forty-five minutes."
"COME ON!" she begs, uncharacteristic tears invading the corners of those eyes. "I'm Serious!"
"So am I." She opens her hand toward the couch and when Sammy does sit down she steps past, pulls out the black leather chair from behind the desk, turns it about and sits down, leans back into the chair, looks back to a day never forgotten. "It was Bethesda High School, our Junior year. The school bordered a huge park so taking Break Time there, especially in the Fall or Spring, was popular. It was Indian Summer then, just turned October I think. One afternoon between classes I was sitting out on the grass on the edge of the woods with a writing pad. In those days I was the one who had the dream to write the next Great American Novel. I was thinking, staring off into the trees, trying to sort out some particularly thorny plot point I don't even remember when this utterly Nerdy kid came along and asked if he could sit down on the grass with me. Well, it was a huge lawn and no one ever asked, they just did, and he struck up a conversation. For the life of me I could never tell you what it was about, neither probably could he, but by the next Class I knew."
"Schoolgirl crush?"
"Ahhh - no. No, it was the real thing. I was madly, passionately, heels-over-head in love with Timothy no-middle-initial McGee, and within a few days he caught up. Girls mature so much faster than boys, you know." Sammy grins. "Well, one day in late October we were back in that park, sitting on the grass and he was trying to teach me math. I really needed Saint Jude back then because I was a hopeless cause if ever there was one. Well, I'd had enough of math I couldn't get, so I leaned over and kissed him."
"Just like that?"
"You should've seen his face."
"I can imagine."
"Well, we were in love. I'd said it first, he said he was in love with me, and it was the real thing, our relationship that is, not just out of control male hormones." She considers. "No, I take that back, there were male hormones... and female hormones... and not a lot of control going on. And yes, I was a girly-girl; I'll be the first to admit it. I had a notebook I covered page after page of with versions of my 'Mrs.' signature. I was a Cheerleader whose boyfriend came to every game and through all our Junior and Senior years I don't think he ever got a clue as to what a 'Down' or a 'Scrimmage' were," Sammy giggles and she too smiles at the fond memory, "He joined the Squad, then one of the very few boys to do so, had a Letter sweater and everything. I saw through it, of course. Among other maneuvers, he loved to catch us coming off the pyramid, but I was his favorite one to catch. He got in a lot of practice being naughty about it."
"I'll bet."
"Those uniform micro skirts still covered a multitude of sins." Sammy giggles. "For two years we were..." She considers, there really is only one word to describe those years. "Heavenly."
x
"And then?" Sammy can virtually see them walking down the aisle as teens, but she knows – having been at their wedding – that the reality was far different. Very far.
"He went to Maryland and I went to New York City."
"Oh, No!"
"And I cried my eyes out for months because we were separated, the love of my life was gone and it was over."
"But if you and he separated..."
Siobhan leans back in the black leather chair. "You see, Sammy, I believe that, like any father, our Father wants the very best for us that there could possibly be. So He showed us each other, gave us two mind-boggling years together, then sent us away until we were ready. I couldn't have become the person I am had I stayed in Virginia, neither could he if he hadn't gone off to become Tim McGee, Agent Extraordinaire and Bestselling Author."
Sammy grins. No, the woman doesn't think much of her husband, does she?
"So we were given fifteen years to grow up and become ourselves, then He put us back together. That was two years ago and it's been an utterly insane ride that led all the way up to March and today."
"I don't think I could stand fifteen years," she says, trying to convey the pain and longing to a woman who's experienced the same. "I want Bill now."
x
Siobhan sits forward, lowers her voice, makes Sammy listen. "Sammy, I firmly believe that, if you allow Him to - and it always comes down to your allowing Him to - He will bring you to that One Special Person who will complete you as you will him. If that's William, great. If not, he's out there, somewhere. And if this that you have with him is wrong then nothing either of you can do can make it right, but if he is the One, then nothing anyone can do can prevent it."
"But how will I know?"
She sits back, an image of confidence. "You'll know. What are you, 23?"
"August 26th. He'll be 24 in two weeks, sixteen days ahead of mine."
"You have time. But you, young lady, come with a lot of facets."
"You mean bisexual submissive who's probably too experimental for her own good and who spends entirely too much time with anonymous partners at 'Taiwan On' and 'Sodom and Gomorrah', the two liveliest BDSM Clubs in DC – though S&M's not my thing, I just like being tied up and – well... not intercourse since I met Bill but things just a little short – who slices people up by day and plays Orchestral violin by night?"
Put like that it's more than enough, but with this young woman "That's a start."
"We met here, right out by the NCIS sign, me in my scrubs like this, and he came to my playing in a performance of Franz Liszt's most popular works the other night. It ended with my favorite, Les Preludes, which if you've ever seen 'Flash Gordon'; the real one, not the 1980 nonsense; you know that a lot of the music for those Saturday morning serials came straight from the classics."
"Oh yes." She'd seen 'Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe' as one film at the Memorial Day Convention and had recognized the music, though broken up into appropriate backgrounds for scenes rather than as a complete concert. "So you share some of the same tastes?"
"Yes. And I discussed that whole sex thing with him. He's fine with it."
"'Fine'." She pauses, searches for the right words to cut through to the younger woman but that won't lose her. "Sammy, it's been my experience that many men would be 'fine' with having a woman who obeys his commands, lets him tie her up and control her, especially if she's fine with bringing another woman into the mix. But what does that grow into?"
"It's not like that," she says, eyes narrowed, a definite edge in her tone.
"Great. Glad to hear it."
x
Siobhan waits a measured fifteen count, then "Shall I take it that he does tie you up?"
"Err, no, he doesn't. I want to keep that aspect separate from our relationship. I know what you're going to say, Abby says it too often, that I'm cutting half my life - my sex life - out and not even finding out if he'd be good with it beyond talk. But Bill - I want to keep our sex very vanilla." She looks away, unable to keep Siobhan's eyes. "I so rarely do vanilla."
"How is that going?"
"I think I'm right. Abby says I'm crazy, that I can't keep the woman I am bottled up because I think he won't take it other than as talk, but I'm right and she's wrong. I'm going to be vanilla with Bill... and flavored elsewhere but no sex. I am not cheating on Bill."
"Abby thinks you're not being yourself?" She knows the young woman less than she should. But even if Samantha isn't officially a member of Enkiss she's so frequently an adjunct to Ducky's team that she might as well be official. Government. Well, she doesn't have an actual file on the woman she can consult, but Samantha and Abby live together since the time the Apprentice Pathologist had been accused of murder - the uncomfortable subject and plot of Timmy's next book she won't read in advance due to the many changes from reality - so she'll defer to Abby's judgment.
"I can hack it. It's no one else's business."
"Whatever you think best. I'm not going to advise you on that unless you ask me to." Sammy turns back. "I'm just saying take your time in this relationship."
"How much time?"
"That's for you. Timmy and I took nineteen years from meeting to wedding, and believe me there were a lot of ecstasies, heartaches, fulfillments, agonies and tears along with the joys. No one can shield anyone from them, there'll be a lot of tears mingled with the laughs. But remember, you also have good friends who care about you. Don't shut us out."
"I won't." Sammy pushes off the couch, takes a step away toward the door. "Thank you." She starts to leave but the Priest's upraised hand halts her.
"Now," she says, pointing to the couch, "sit back down and tell me what it is that you've avoided telling me."
"What makes you think I've been avoiding telling you something."
"Well, I've never claimed to have a direct line to God, but He didn't make me stupid either. If joy were electricity, you normally go around like someone who refuses to pull her finger out of the socket," Sammy grins at the appropriateness of the image, "but joy has been the only emotion you haven't expressed since we started talking about William."
She sits back down. "I've got to be less predictable."
"I hope not, I've only recently gotten a reasonable line on you. Now what's wrong?"
x
Sammy seems as though she'd keep the secret, but finally gives up. "We were on a date Thursday night; Bill wanted to see this Mansion that just opened up to the public, thought he could find some artistic inspiration. A friend of his was invited but couldn't go so gave him the invitation. He invited me, I invited Abby since I hadn't seen her for a week and the three of us found Annette Saunders."
Siobhan holds her silence, makes the girl fill it. "He freaked. Not one of those bounce-off-the-walls freak outs, a quiet one. He knew I'm an ME, or rather working to be one, that'll take years more for my License but it's like he knew it but only in his head. He was presented with the very real reality of what I am – and though we talk, now it's not... exactly the same."
"How do you feel about that?"
"Scared. I'm scared that he found out, or may find out, something about me that'll drive him away."
"Do you believe that?"
She sighs heavily, slumps forward. "I don't know."
.
*/*/*/*/*/*/*
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Author's Note: To hear a bit of the concert Sammy told Siobhan about, look up Les Preludes by Franz Lidst.