Chapter 10
In Cedar Grove, Sergeant Willard and his wife hear car doors shut right outside their home. Their excitement grows as they hope whoever is out there is coming to their home with good news. They've tried to keep a positive attitude during the whole ordeal of their son mysteriously disappearing, but they know there's a chance whoever is outside has bad news. The wife opens the front door. Her heart literally stops at the sight of her son running up the walkway, toward her.
"Mommy!" Ryan exclaimed with joy.
Mrs. Willard runs out to her son. Sergeant Willard, who heard his son's voice from inside, also runs out of the house. The two of them smother Ryan with hugs and kisses. Gibbs approaches.
"Thank you Agent Gibbs." Mrs. Willard cried.
"You're welcome." Gibbs said with a smile. There's a moment of silence as Gibbs watches the reunion of the family in front of him. "Ryan…" He tries to get his attention. The boy looks to him. "I need to speak with your parents for a minute."
"Go in the house, Ryan." Sergeant Willard said. Ryan walks away. The mother watches Ryan as he walks to the house. The Sergeant also watches, but breaks to look back at Gibbs earlier than the wife. "What is it Agent Gibbs? Was our boy… Did they…" He tries to finish his thought but is unable to.
"No. It was nothing like that." Gibbs assures them that their son wasn't molested.
"Who kidnapped our son?" Mrs. Willard asked as she finally turns her head away from the house because Ryan is now inside.
"The families on Elm Street were into cult rituals."
"The entire street?!" Sergeant Willard exclaimed in surprise.
"Yes, all of them." Gibbs said. "Due to what their parents were involved in, all the children are going to live with relatives. But there's one child who is losing her parents and has no other relatives. So I was wondering if…"
"She can stay here." Sergeant Willard stated as he knew what Gibbs was going to ask of them. "We've always wanted a little girl. And Ryan always wanted a sister."
Gibbs nods as he glad the Willard's have agreed to take in a foster child. He turns and makes a hand motion for the child to come out of the car. The car door opens and the girl steps out. She walks slowly toward the area the three of them are standing. The girl is finally standing next to Gibbs.
"This is Missy." Gibbs introduced her. "She's nine-years-old."
"It's nice to finally meet you, Missy." Mrs. Willard kneels down in order to be face to face with the girl. "I've seen you playing with the other kids around here." She added. "My name's Elizabeth."
"It's nice to meet you too." Missy said.
"I'll contact the department of child services, put in some good words and the two of you can start the paperwork right away." Gibbs said. There's a brief moment of silence. "I'll leave you all to get acquainted." He walks away.
The Willard's, along with Missy, walk into the house. Gibbs gets in his car and goes back to NCIS Headquarters.
At NCIS Headquarters Colonel Morgan and a couple other adults who live on Elm Street in Cedar Grove are all in separate interrogation rooms. The rest of the adults are in jail cells, waiting to be questioned. Only one adult, the man in the red robe, isn't anywhere near NCIS Headquarters as he's in the hospital due to being shot.
Gibbs enters into Interrogation One where Colonel Morgan is waiting. Tony, Ziva and McGee are in the observation room.
"Hello Jethro." Colonel Morgan greeted him while remaining in the chair.
"You may have had the right to call me Jethro a long time ago, but now, you can call me Special Agent Gibbs." Gibbs stated.
"Well Special Agent Gibbs, I want a lawyer."
"You're going to need a damn good one." Gibbs said with confidence. He continues speaking; trying to provoke the Colonel.
Meanwhile, in the observation room, Tony has a confused expression on his face.
"Okay, what exactly happened while I was gone for two hours?" Tony wondered. "Cause I obviously missed something important."
"Ducky was still examining the bones at the time you left." McGee said. "Two of the bones from the 1987 victim had striation marks which Abby matched to a knife owned by Colonel Morgan." He continued. Tony still has a somewhat confused facial expression.
"A long time ago Gibbs was in Colonel Morgan's office begging to get into Cedar Grove…" Ziva begins to say.
"Ha!" Tony laughed. "Gibbs begging… I don't believe that."
"It was before he was deployed to Iraq." McGee said.
"And before the car accident that killed Shannon and nearly killing Kelly…" Ziva added.
"Oh…" Tony said as things are starting to make a little more sense to him now.
"While Gibbs was in Colonel Morgan's office, there was a knife on the shelf behind him. The murder weapon was in plain sight all those years." McGee said.
"From the marks on the bone, Abby was able to show Gibbs a 3-D model of what the knife looked like." Ziva added.
"So Gibbs recognized it." McGee said.
"Gibbs contacted Colonel Morgan's daughter. He knew her somehow." Ziva stated. "The daughter still lives with Colonel Morgan so Gibbs was invited into the house. No search warrant was needed because Colonel Morgan gave her the knife as a present a long time ago. It's an antique from the 1600's and she always liked it." She continued. "The Colonel moved out of Cedar Grove in 1994. The son took over the home. So it's the son who lives in Cedar Grove. The son is also the man who was wearing the red robe."
"Gibbs pushed an arrest warrant for Colonel Morgan with the legal department…" McGee begins to say.
"Apparently, a lot can happen in two hours." Tony said.
"Like you and Jamie having sex." Ziva stated.
"Is that what you think I did in the two hours?"
"Yes." McGee answered.
Tony smacks McGee on the back of the head.
"You shouldn't assume anything, Probie." Tony said. "In the two hours I was gone, me and Jamie didn't have sex."
"And we're supposed to believe you?" Ziva asked.
"It's the truth." Tony said. He notices the expression on their faces as they still don't believe him. "The two of you can think what you want… But me and Jamie didn't have sex."
"Yeah… Right…" McGee said sarcastically.
"Oh sure, of course not." Ziva said in a sarcastic tone of voice even though she knows Tony is telling the truth.
Inside the interrogation room, Gibbs has been continuing to talk in hopes of provoking the Colonel.
"My son is an idiot!" Colonel Morgan stands up and slams his hand onto the table. "I told him what to do and how to handle the sacrifice! If he only did as he was told and abducted a troubled teen than NCIS would've never found out and it would've been labeled as a runaway like the other three!"
"I forgot to mention this really isn't your son's fault." Gibbs said.
"What?" Colonel Morgan is confused. He sits back down.
"But before you clam-up and not speak anymore, I want you to meet somebody." Gibbs walks to the door. The door opens. A leash is handed to Gibbs. The dog walks into the room with him. The dog sits next to Gibbs. "When this case first started I had a feeling the child didn't runaway. I had a feeling the three missing teenagers over the course of Cedar Grove's history were also not runaways. But I couldn't quite put my finger on it at the time."
"What the hell does a dog have to do with any of this?"
"We were coming up empty on everything. No evidence… Nothing." Gibbs said. "This dog… His name is Scraps, by the way… Is what screwed you. It wasn't a person who broke this case. It was a dog. You wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for the dog. Scraps gave us everything we needed in order to reach this point." He continued. "You got beat by a dog, Colonel."
There's a brief moment of silence.
"The majority of marines living in Cedar Grove have been deployed to Iraq earlier today." Colonel Morgan stated. "Cedar Grove marines are going to start dying because of what you done. My family founded the community…"
"And were worshipers of an ancient cult who sacrificed a youngster every twenty years for the protection of whatever stupid higher power you all believed in. Your family has had the families of Elm Street brainwashed for decades. Followers of your family's cult beliefs and killing innocent children!" Gibbs said.
"It was a sacrifice to keep our people, our community protected."
"A long time ago, I came into your office and practically begged to get into Cedar Grove…" Gibbs begins to say.
"If you were in Cedar Grove your family wouldn't be dead, Special Agent Gibbs."
"That's where you're wrong. Though my wife Shannon is dead… My daughter Kelly survived." Gibbs said. He pauses for a couple seconds. "I don't know why I ever thought there was anything my family needed in Cedar Grove. Why I thought we had to be there is beyond me… But I was wrong about one thing. It's not a place which protects you… It's the faith in your loved ones. At the time I didn't realize it."
"Either way, the blood of the Cedar Grove marines is on your hands, Special Agent Gibbs." Colonel Morgan stated. "You doomed them all."
"All I did was save the life of an innocent child."
Gibbs opens the door to the room. He and Scraps leave the interrogation room. The team is left to sort through the mess of multiple suspects for a couple hours.