Chapter 9
With a 'ding' the elevator doors opened, a haggard looking Tony and Jesse stepped out, by the looks on their faces it was obvious that their journey to the Navy Yard had not been a pleasant one.
"How was I supposed to get any rest when you kept tapping me every time I closed my eyes?" Jesse continued the heated discussion the two of them had been having in the elevator.
"Hey, I was just making sure you was still alive." Tony raised his voice defensively as they headed to Autopsy.
"Wasn't my breathing good enough?"
The doors to Autopsy opened and Dr Donald 'Ducky' Mallard, who was wearing black pants, a blue shirt and red bow tie under a white lab coat turned his attention to the two younger men, "Ah Anthony, and you must be Jesse, it's good to finally put a face to the name."
The two of them shook hands, "It's nice to meet you Dr Mallard."
"Please, call me Ducky," He smiled, "I must say, I was beginning to feel worried, what took you both so long to get here?"
"DiNozzo dragged me all the way to the Hospital because I tripped." Jesse rolled his eyes.
"OK, you didn't trip, you wobbled," Tony turned to Ducky, "He wobbled."
The flight to Washington DC hadn't done Jesse's headache any favours, in fact it was hurting considerably more by the time they got to their destination. When they got off the plane Jesse had felt dizzy, and lost his balance, giving Tony a cause for concern, so despite the young Doctor saying, 'I'm fine really, I just tripped', the Special Agent took Jesse to the Hospital anyway and ignored his protests.
When they got to the Hospital Jesse was given an MRI and CT scan to check for swelling, luckily there was none, but they kept him in for a few hours for observation. To Tony's displeasure, since he drove him to the Hospital Jesse had done nothing but complain.
After they told Ducky what had happened the two of them started to argue again, so Ducky stepped in and changed the subject, "How are you feeling now?"
"I feel a little better." Jesse gave a sheepish smile.
"The Doc said we need to keep an eye on him, and if he starts to feel any worse we should take him back to the Hospital." Tony told Ducky.
"Oh great, I'm never gonna get any rest."
"Au contraire, resting is precisely what you will be doing," Ducky smiled, "Tony you should take our guest up to Abigail Lab, he'll be more comfortable there."
"That's just where I was heading," Tony replied, putting his hand on Jesse's back and leading him towards the door, "Thanks Ducky."
Forensic Scientist, Abby Scuito was pacing her Lab, her worry for Tony building; he was supposed to have arrived back from LA hours ago and even though her gut wasn't as reliable as Gibbs, she couldn't shake the feeling that something 'hinky' had happened. The white Lab coat she was wearing over a black skull T-shirt and Tripp black chain pants was flowing behind her as she walked, her black pigtails bobbing up and down with every step; a pair of Demonia boots, a spiked choker and matching spiked wristbands topped off her gothic style.
When Tony and Jesse finally entered her Lab she literally dove on the Special Agent and hugged him tightly, forcing him to take a step backwards to keep his balance and almost knocking the Caf-Pow out of his hand, "I missed you too Abs." He choked, trying to untangle himself from her grip. Abby left go and looked towards the drink, "This is from Gibbs," Tony smiled, passing her the Caf-Pow, he kissed her cheek, "And that was from McGee."
She smiled, then looked at the Caf-Pow, "Gibbs owes me two of these."
"I know, he says he wants to give you the other one in person," Tony put his hand on Jesse's shoulder, "Hey, Ducky says Dr Travis can crash here."
"You went to see Ducky first?" Abby looked offended, then turned to Jesse as though she had only just noticed he was there, "Oh, hey, I'm Abby," She greeted, sounding a little unsure of him, Jesse just about managed a small weary smile in return, "Sure you can crash here, there's a Futon just through there." She pointed towards the glass doors and Jesse trudged through them, mumbling 'thanks' as he walked past her.
Tony and Abby walked to the other side of the Lab so as not to disturb Jesse, "Hey, did Gibbs give you the low-down on Veronica Martins?"
Abby took a slurp of Caf-Pow and nodded, "I'm not surprised she lied about calling the Hospital," She grinned, "I guess her flatulence diagnosed the trapped wind for her, do you believe her?"
"Yeah," Tony tried to hold back a laugh, "Whose gonna lie about something like that?"
Jesse opened his eyes and looked around at the room, feeling a little disorientated by the unfamiliar surroundings. He stood up from the Futon and started to walk around the empty Lab, "Hello?" He called out, looking at the strange artwork on the wall. The young Doctor had been so exhausted when he'd first entered Abby's Lab that he hadn't even took notice of his surroundings, but now his usual curiosity was back and he couldn't help but touch anything that looked even remotely interesting.
When Abby got back to her Lab she saw him hovering over the Mass Spectrometer, "Hey, don't touch that!"
Jesse almost jumped out of his skin, "I wasn't, I was just looking."
She narrowed her eyes, "I'm a Forensic Scientist, I can prove if you're lying you know."
"OK, I'm sorry." He sighed, giving into her gaze, afraid it might burn a hole right through him. The truth was he hadn't actually touched her precious machine, she'd walked in just before he'd had a chance to see what the buttons did, "Do you need any help with anything?"
"No, anyway, aren't you supposed to be resting?" She looked at the bruise on his temple, "How's your head?"
Jesse gave a sheepish smile, "No worse than before."
"Oh, you're up," Tony said as he entered the Lab, taking a sip of his coffee.
Jesse suddenly felt guilty when he saw the Special Agent approach them, "Yeah, about before, I'm really sorry, I..."
Tony put his hand out, "Hey, you've done nothing to apologise for."
"So, have you heard anything from Gibbs, or McGee or Ziva even?" Abby asked in a rush before Jesse had the chance to say anything further.
"Actually that's what I came down to tell you," Tony smiled, "McGee just called, it seems Dr Sloan's theory was partly right, one of Shelly Samuals' friends, a guy called Mickey Myers is in love with Shelly Samuals, has been since High School, so according to Myers when he found out about the two of you he was so infuriated that she would have an affair with anyone but him that he had to do something about it, so he told Victor Samuals about the affair."
"And then Myers killed him, and tried to kill me too," Jesse suddenly looked very relieved, "So that's it, the murders solved?"
"OK, I think you're getting a little carried away there," Tony stopped him, "So far all we know for certain is that he told Samuals about the two of you, we've got no evidence to prove that he's the murderer, in fact, according to Shelly Samuals, and everyone else Ziva and McGee talked to, no one saw Myers go anywhere near the house on the day of the murder."
"So if Myers didn't go into her house then there's no way he could have planted the gun...unless, he was working with somebody else, but who?" Abby tapped her chin thoughtfully.
Jesse sighed, "And if Myers isn't involved?"
"Then we're back to where we started." Tony answered, "Hey, do you wanna go on that tour now?"
"OK," Jesse grinned, "Hey, do I get a badge?"
The doors to Autopsy opened, "And last but not least we have Autopsy, but you've already been in here, hey Ducky." Tony greeted as the M.E approached.
"Ah, I see you're giving Jesse here the tour," Ducky smiled, "So what do you make of our abode?"
"This place is huge, so much bigger than the Los Angeles Police Department," Jesse replied enthusiastically, "It's got so many machines and gadgets."
"Yes, indeed it has," Ducky laughed, "I received a phone call from Dr Sloan earlier, he wanted to know how you were doing, he's a charming man, he speaks very highly of you, you know."
Jesse gave an embarrassed smile, "Dr Sloan's great."
"Any news on the investigation?"
"No, nothing yet Anthony."
"You know, I think we need to go through this whole case again." Tony said before he started to head towards the door, "Ducky, will you meet us upstairs when you're done here?" He signalled for Jesse to follow him.
"You want my help too?" Jesse looked hopeful.
"Sure," Tony looked back, then took out his cellphone, "I'll phone Abby, we need to look at this case in a new perspective."
Ducky watched as the two of them left, and the Autopsy doors closed behind them, he couldn't help but hope that whatever the 'new perspective' turned out to be, it would finally be the right one.
Tony, Jesse, Ducky and Abby, or 'Team DiNozzo' as Tony had dubbed them were standing in front of the plasma, on the screen were the photographs of the six possible suspects, Dylan Sanders, Carl Sanders and Julie Sanders were in a line on the top, whilst Jerry Sanders, Emily Sanders and Mickey Myers were in a line on the bottom. Dylan and Emily were both the spitting image of their Father Jerry, only Dylan had their Mothers, Julie Sanders, fair hair.
"OK people," Tony pointed the remote at the screen, clicking on the first photograph and enlarging the image, "Dylan Sanders, what do we know?"
"Well we know he's got a temper, he proved that by the way he spoke to Amanda," Jesse spoke up, "And he was late to work on the day of the murder, but that's not unusual, Shelly used to talk about how she was surprised that his boss 'Hank' was so patient with him, apparently he was fired from the two previous jobs he'd had for constantly oversleeping."
"OK, we'll put him on the 'maybe' pile," Tony moved away the photograph of Dylan, leaving them with the five remaining suspects, he pointed the remote towards Carl Sanders, "Next, we have..."
Abby grabbed the remote, leaving Tony to stare at his now empty hand, "We can eliminate these two," She took away the photographs of Shelly's Aunt and Uncle, "Their alibi checks out, I pulled up CCTV pictures from the Bank they said they we're in at the time of the murder, it looked like they were arguing with the Bank clerk." She then clicked on the photograph of Emily Sanders, "And her alibi checked out too, she was at work at the time of the murder."
"Great," He tried to take the remote back off Abby but she clicked on the photograph for him, the Special Agent frowned and mumbled a 'thanks' before continuing, "So now we have Carl Sanders."
"Carl and Shelly are very close, in fact he even stayed in LA when their parents moved to New Jersey about five years ago, just so he could stay and look out for his older sister," Jesse told them, then added somewhat solemnly, "I guess with Victor Samuals being away so much he felt it was still his responsibility to look out for her."
Ducky gave him a sympathetic look, "Carl Sanders was apparently home alone at the time of the murder, although as far as I'm aware there is no one who can verify that."
"OK, so that's another one for the 'maybe' pile." Abby took away Carl's photograph, leaving Mickey Myers on the screen.
"Myers has gotta be a 'maybe', right?" Jesse asked, everybody agreed so he was placed on the 'maybe' pile.
"Abs?" Abby placed the remote into Tony's opened hand, he pulled up the three remaining suspects, "So that cuts the suspects down to half."
"Now we need to determine which of our remaining suspects had a motive to murder the Petty Officer, attempt to murder Jesse, and frame Mrs Samuals." Ducky looked intently at the screen.
"Myers, it's gotta be," Jesse pointed to Mickey Myers' photograph, the man had short dark hair and a chinstrap beard, although it was so thin it looked more like stubble, "He hates me and Victor Samuals for being involved with the woman he loves, and he wants to get Shelly back for the rejection."
"A very good theory my dear boy, but there is still the matter of the murder weapon."
"Ducky's right, if Myers is the murderer then he must have been working with somebody else, which leads us all the way back to square one again," Abby sighed, "Anyone of them could have planted the murder weapon, well, maybe not her Aunt and Uncle, because they say they didn't even know about Jesse, but even if that's true it still leaves us with three people who could have been working with Myers." She scrunched up her face in deep thought, "That's if Myers is even the killer, we still don't know if they've found any evidence to suggest he was even involved, so no evidence means no case."
Tony added Emily Sanders photograph back into the mix, "OK, so I guess we've gotta determine which of these four had a motive."
The four of them spent a good hour on the Mickey Myers theory, trying to decide which of the three remaining suspects had the biggest motive to help Myers with the murder. The fact that the three of them didn't seem to have anything against Shelly, Jesse or Victor Samuals made it all the more difficult. The phone call they received from Gibbs however, informing them that Mickey Myers had a foolproof alibi put a stop to the theory that Myers was the murderer, which allowed Emily Sanders to be removed from the list of suspects once again, leaving them with two seemingly unlikely suspects, Dylan Sanders and Carl Sanders.
Tony, Jesse and Abby were now huddled around a monitor in her Lab, watching Movies Tony had brought from home, the only light in the room was coming from the glare of the monitor.