Chapter Ten
Drone
The NCIS Agents and FBI Senior Agent Fornell still in a quiet huddle with Lieutenant Jeffrey Carpenter in the kitchen's corner, Gibbs looks to Ziva and tries to ignore the weeping widow behind him. "When we get back compile a list of everyplace in the bi-State area where you can buy a drone and call them. Who bought a drone in the past six months?"
"Personal remote control drones have become popular with more than drug runners and terrorists."
"Try to keep tonight's list down to five hundred."
"Yes, boss."
"McGee, how do you work those things?"
"A control box, a fairly small unit."
"Like the doodad you built to take over Powell's jet pack."
"Yes."
"Can you do it again?"
"First I use a frequency scanner, then–" He halts at Gibbs' glare. "Yes."
"How close would the guy flying it have to be?"
"About five hundred feet, give or take, but he has to be using it when I scan for the signal."
"And then?"
"I'll be able to control it. Most units might hold a lightweight camera, this sounds like a bigger than average one since it also has to mount a gun capable of firing what Abby says it did."
"Beyond that?" A thousand foot diameter circle, a fifth of a mile, covers too much territory.
"If the drone gets out of range of its controller it will follow its last command until it runs out of power. How long depends upon the unit. Could take hours."
x
They already know the drone rose straight up, then set a course east by northeast. If it headed toward its controller, that extends the distance it could travel before it had to be brought down or be lost. "I want to know the maximum distance an operator could be and still keep control. Learn everything there is to learn about this thing. I'll interview the widow." He looks to see where the seated woman sobs inconsolably. "When she calms down.
"David, you and DiNozzo hunt up the neighbors. Shouldn't be too hard to find them." The multitude of Emergency Vehicles crammed into the intersection when they'd arrived had drawn a crowd that had been too large before the agents entered and probably now packs an acre of land.
Ensign Amber Mayfair winds down with the assistance of the uniformed woman before her. He'll come back when she's able to talk. In the meantime he'll leave Jeffrey Carpenter to gather more information they'll share later. He wants to hear what Ducky and his team have learned.
xx
Crossing the living room, now considerably less crowded, he leads Fornell into the bedroom in the rear of the house. He can only partially ope the door when it's blocked half open and ehen he looks in the reason for their presence is too obvious.
William Mayfair lays upon what's left of his back, his head so close to the door that Sammy Sky, obviously positioned for the purpose, caught the door when it swung less than half open and the Agents must enter in single file along the wall.
Mayfair, at first look, is almost split in half, his upper body extends down to the abdomen and resumes at the hips. His body is not separated but his spinal column is all that holds it together. The middle of the body paints the ceiling, far wall and top half of the open window, left and right walls and floor from beyond the middle of the fifteen foot room.
Donald Mallard and Maura Isles crouch on the left and right sides of the body.
"What can you tell us, Duck?" Both Mallard and the woman are Chief Medical Examiners of their respective jurisdictions but even after a month he still hasn't adjusted to the woman he can see only as Kate Todd's honey blonde clone.
"William Mayfair was apparently standing closer to the window, judging by the blood spatter, though I cannot yet say how close. The explosive force landed him back here."
"The hole," Isles says, "and I resist calling it a wound, extends from an inch above his free floating rib, the lowest of the ribs, to his pelvis."
"Not ilium?" he asks with a glance at Sky who protects the door.
Isles looks up to him; her eyes say she's not in the loop, "Not collectively."
"The wound is eleven and one quarter inches wide by nine point eight inches high and eight point six inches deep," Ducky says. "I expect our Miss Sciuto can tell you how much explosive was used."
"He was shot through the window by a drone hovering right outside. I think Stevens' is the same story."
"Then I do not envy you your investigation. No fingerprints, no footprints, nearly silent yet unlimitedly mobile, and the operator need not be anywhere in the vicinity."
xx
When Gibbs returns to the kitchen where Amber Mayfair sits with plainclothes Detective Lieutenant Jeffrey Carpenter and the uniformed Metro Policewoman, everyone else has gone to interview the crowd of curious neighbors. Even though no one may draw close, human nature prevents them from leaving until after the last of the official vehicles depart, so those who stay seeking answers will receive questions instead.
"Ensign Mayfair?" She looks up at him as the policewoman steps back, gives them room but doesn't leave her sight. She no longer weeps hysterically but hovers on the border between cried-out calm and shock. He has to work, while learning as much as he can, to prevent her from crossing over.
He takes out his ID folder and uses his 'I'm a friend' tone. "Special Agent Gibbs." He gives her a moment to absorb this, watches her gather her mind back into the moment. They'd been through the introductions, will do it again if necessary. "Can you tell me what happened?"
"I was... I was gardening, in the back." She indicates with a vague wave her dirt covered jeans and grey shirt. This room, to the side of the living room, faces the front of the house, the bedroom and bath are in the back.
"What happened?"
"I heard something, I- I can't even describe it. It was like a buzz flutter whirr motor kind of thing. I looked up, there was this white thing hovering outside our bedroom window. I heard a sound, like pffft, it shot straight up and there was an explosion, a horrific explosion like an eight inch shell exploding. I ran to the window and Bill–"
There is a line beyond which one can no longer cry, and where the horror is beyond retelling and Amber Mayfair, straining to speak, to force words past a mouth that won't move, has crossed that line.
Gibbs has no doubt that the explosion, even in the enclosed space, wasn't as loud as she'd described it - his team will settle that - but it's the way Mayfair will always remember it.
x
"Ensign, we know that people who have been in Court recently are being targeted." At her sudden hope, he tells her that "We're narrowing down a suspect list. Was your husband in Court recently?"
She nods sharply.
"He... got into a fight... with one of the neighbors, back while I was deployed. Guy sued us for assault, damages. The Hearing was yesterday. The judge said Guy didn't prove his case. Dismissed it." Suddenly she's at his throat. "Did he do it? Did Guy kill my Bill!"
Gibbs manages to press her back to the chair, breaking Rule Number 46 to 'never touch a crying woman', but he signals the Policewoman who'd striven to keep Mayfair calm back in.
"We don't think so, but I do want to talk to him. Who is he?"
"Guy Sanders. He lives next door, number 638."
Gibbs expects that the man is in the crowd outside, but he'll talk to him when the mob disperses, not before. A next door neighbor who has an interest in this couple might have seen something.
xx
It takes much too long for that dispersal. The body has been prepared and transported to NCIS, the Emergency Vehicles have departed and the Police have to press the separation of the curious from the unchanging exterior of the house before Gibbs and his team step outside with the still bereaved widow, who is placed in Ziva's discomforted care. Gibbs and DiNozzo turn their attention to number 638.
In the time it takes them to traverse one walkway to the sidewalk, cross to the next property and start up the flagstones the blue door opens and a middle aged man, wearing tee shirt and jeans, steps out into the afternoon furnace and closes the door quite firmly behind him.
"Guy Sanders?" Gibbs asks.
"That's far enough." They've come about two thirds of the way to the door, yet at this moment have no reason not to halt. "Who wants to know?"
The dexterous display of shield and IDs has long ago become automatic. They watch hands and feet and face as Gibbs completes the introduction.
"What do Navy cops have to do with this?"
"Widow's a Naval officer."
He shrugs, an 'I-don't-care' gesture. "What do you want?"
"Just to ask a few questions."
"I didn't do anything, I don't know anything, I'm not saying anything. That should about cover it."
"You're not a suspect, Mr. Sanders." He hopes this is true, but they'll come back if he's wrong. However, he'd prefer to discuss this at a range of less than 10 feet with very likely too many curious neighbors. They may have gone home, but homes have open windows in the humid July heat. "We want to ask if you saw or heard anything today."
"Didn't see anything. Didn't hear anything. Now we're done. Goodbye."
"Just one more thing."
"What, Falk?"
Tony grins. "That's good. Peter Falk. Columbo." He turns to and sees he's getting nowhere with Gibbs. "'Just one more thing'," he says in an atrocious gravelly imitation.
The glare makes it very clear he should try no more.
x
"You had a fight with Mr. Mayfair," Gibbs asks when he has his deputy back on the job.
"So? I didn't kill him."
"Care to tell us what it was about?" They watch him consider more stonewalling, but then decide the issue is a matter of record. "Blasts his stereo every night while the neighborhood's trying to sleep. I went to talk him into not being a jerk. We mixed it up on the lawn. You want more, call my Lawyer." He turns and reenters the house, snaps the bolt loudly enough to be heard at the sidewalk.
Gibbs and DiNozzo return to the yellow and black Hemi, now the only remaining 'official' vehicle on the sparsely parked street, but though the younger man walks around the car Gibbs pauses, hand on the roof.
"It doesn't fit."
"What doesn't?"
"The other bombings: ADW, Grand Theft, Burglary, Drugs, the whole list across the board, then Disturbing the Peace and a dust-up on the lawn?"
"Maybe it was a slow day for acquittals?"
"Try again. When we get back, tell me what Mayfair's been doing and narrow down that list."
Tony doesn't admit he hasn't started it yet.
xxx
"Hey, McGiga, I need a favor."
"What is it, Tony?" Gibbs and Ziva are away from their desks, Ziva with Ensign Mayfair in the Conference Room and Gibbs has gone to consult with Abby, thence to Autopsy, so he's sure of two things: it involves computers and it's going to be expensive, either in money or head slaps, probably both.
"Gibbs wants me to review the Security tapes of all the Court Houses where our vics were tried, to see if there's a common person."
"And you need some warrants. No problem." Of course there'll be a problem, and he's certain this isn't it simply because it isn't a problem. Normally Warrant Affidavits fall to Michelle as the team's Lawyer, but she won't be back on duty until the 30th and it's actually a Probie Duty, last one aboard gets the drudge jobs until he or she is lucky enough to pass them on. But with a five person team, a record for NCIS not met since the NIS days of the 'Fed Five', this isn't likely except in the most unpleasant of events. Besides, anyone could do this, including the scheming Agent.
Not everyone, however, can do whatever DiNozzo has in mind.
x
"No, I won't do the main entrances for five buildings to see if I can find a match out of four thousand people, especially when the most common matches are going to be Lawyers."
"Rule number 13 with a vengeance."
Tony leaves his desk, comes across to figuratively trap him within the cubicle. "I need the in-room footage of the courtrooms where these five guys had their cases."
"Good luck. Main entrance cameras are overt; everyone knows they're being filmed anyway so only a few hotheads quibble. The Courtroom cameras that point toward the viewers are hidden, pinhole units with fiber optic feeds and if you ask for them they'll probably deny the cameras exist."
"Which is why I need you to work your magic."
"Michelle's the Witch, Tony."
"Palmer's also got a big mouth. She'd rat herself out to Gibbs the moment he walked into the room, if she could even do this."
"Maybe in the old days, not now." Since this had become a team of five, more often than not Tony and Ziva are partnered in the field while he's partnered with Michelle, so he feels obligated to stand up for her.
"Either way, I need you to back door those records."
"Hack into the upper level Security of at least five Court rooms so you can save yourself a couple hundred hours of surveillance footage? Risk having the DOJ come down on us, to say nothing of Gibbs? What possible incentive could you offer for that?"
Tony leans in, lowers his voice and gives Tim the one incentive he can never turn down. "This guy's killing one 'not guilty' guy a day. How many more days are in a couple hundred hours?"