Chapter Eleven
Liar!
Meredith Tate sits at the foot of the bed, Gibbs resumes his position in the chair facing her, the others return to the back bulkhead at the head of the bed, again unseen. She picks up the empty glass from where she'd set it on the floor, looks back left. "May I have some more?"
When the drink is presented, Gibbs pulls her attention forward. "McGee told us about some of the things you put up with. Why did you?"
She tries to answer, finally looks down, finding much of interest in the glass on her lap. "The truth..." She takes a deep breath, eases it out slowly, still can't look up. "The truth is I'm a coward." Blushing with shame, she looks back to Tim. "I'm thinking you noticed that."
He doesn't answer, recalling their first meeting. 'Yes, I know you're a coward' isn't something easily or politely said, not even, or especially, to someone who knows it.
She gives up, turns back to Gibbs, her face red.
"I tried a hundred, a thousand times to stand up to her, but I never could. She's hated me from the day I met her, even before I offered to help with Management, and I could never figure out why. It's like I have this 'hate me' spell that some witch cast on me." Behind her Tony gives Michelle a grin, she replies with a finger. "I tried to square things, impossible. I tried to make friends, impossible. I tried to stand up to her, a million times impossible.
"I think she took the fact that she knew I was afraid and used it to make things worse."
"You stood up to her tonight."
"I finally had a way. I was acting so for the very first time it was a role and I was playing off a script - my script - but I could say what I wanted and she couldn't do a thing about it because I also cast her as the dead body - Von Bombast - and I was going to get a tiny bit of satisfaction and there was nothing she could do about it.
"And then she called me a diseased pussied whore and beat the Hell out of me."
If that's what she considers one punch... well, to her it might as well have been. That's likely how she'll remember it in years to come.
x
"And then what happened?"
"I lost it. I was laying over the table, knew I was too cowardly to face her outside of a script - then I got up and saw the blood on my favorite gown I'd brought out just for the play, on my hand, felt it all over my face and suddenly eleven months just came out of me. I didn't care about the script, I didn't care about my job - all I cared about was ripping her face off and shoving it up her ass!"
An interesting image, and while he's inclined to think she might be a calm and lucid coward, is she also a hot and riled wildcat?
"Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Rip her face?" He hadn't seen any scratches, but Palmer is still doing the autopsy, or such as can be done in the Sick Bay.
"I don't know. I thought I did before she grabbed my wrists, then I felt her blood spray on me."
Gibbs signals to Ziva, sends her out. He wishes her luck in finding something that can substitute for their Evidence Collection Kits aboard this ship.
"I didn't kill her!"
x
He decides a less emotional tack will yield results before he bears down. "How many of you actors are there?"
"Nine." She says it like the count should be obvious and easy.
It is; he knew the answer hours ago and that's what led to the problem he has. Though they had seemingly accounted for all of them: "Yourself, Hannigan, the five at your table, Finch the Maître d', Maxwell, the Detective who gave up his table..."
"That's it."
"Who handled the lights?" They had gone off and on at precise times for specific durations. In his copy of the script everything had been spelled out in the Stage Directions.
"I'm not sure. That wasn't for me to decide. Charlie Maxwell was supposed to arrange it. You'd have to ask him."
x
"Tell us about the knife."
She takes another drink. "Yes. That's what makes no sense."
That's not what he's expecting. "Why not?"
"Because it's not even sharp. It's a theatrical knife, made to look like a steak knife, but it doesn't have an edge or a point. What it does have is a reservoir, which you fill with fake blood. When you draw it across say a throat or a wrist it lets the fake blood out through the dull edge."
Yes, that was the knife found under Hannigan's table, and he'd recognized the device immediately; not that specific style of weapon but the idea. It had been memorably shown to him, heart stoppingly so, years ago by Abby while they were investigating the two women who ran a pay for porn site out of their homes, and one of them had supposedly had her throat slit by such a weapon.
He'll never forget, and it took him a while to forgive, that horrific moment when Abby, proclaiming she could no longer live with NCIS, had snatched up the blade and cut her own throat, rivulets of blood trailing down her neck.
He'd nearly leapt upon her, life saving methods flashing through his mind.
But that's not the knife that interests him.
x
"How many of those knives do you have?"
"What? Just the one, of course. Stern was a budget troll. If it worked, there was no need for a second. Even if it didn't - you have no idea what it was like having to be responsible for props but if something needed repair or replacement and I went for the authorization or the money Stern would torpedo it. It looks good, that's all that's necessary. And since Hannigan listened to Stern, who always considered herself second in command on the days she wasn't first, my hands were tied more often than a bondage model's.
"But I was still 'responsible', so I got picked on whenever something wasn't perfect."
"So you kept track of the fake knife, kept it working, filled, that sort of thing."
"I told you I was responsible for all the props, and if the Players went in for anything it was props, because you never knew what was in the next script. Two store rooms are full of junk."
"Why that design? I've seen a fake knife before, it didn't look like that."
"Oh. They make all kinds. That matched one of the most common real knife designs, just a plain black handle and blade. There are millions of the real things, plain and simple."
"Did you choose it?"
"Me? No way. They've had it for years."
"What about the knife you had?"
She blinks up at him, confusion plain on her face. "Not me, Judy had it. She was to cut Hannigan's throat, then push it under that table and get back to her seat before the lights came up. Charlie was supposed to find it when he came back from the bar when the Duchess was found dead in her chair, face down on the table."
"I'm not talking about that knife; I'm talking about the one at your feet."
"Yes, I know. It wasn't supposed to be out on the floor, it was–"
"The one that killed Hannigan. It was a real knife and you had it in your hand when you charged her before the lights went out." So said the Bronnes.
"What? No. I - The knife is fake. No edge, it can't cut anything."
"No, it was identical to the fake, but it was real. It killed Hannigan and witnesses put it in your hand."
"What?"
x
"You charged Hannigan with the real knife, slit her throat with it, then dropped it when you got sprayed with her blood."
She jumps to her feet. "Did Not!"
"Sit down."
"NO! I didn't have the knife. When I saw the blood I wanted to get my fingernails into her face and rip it off!"
"Several witnesses say you had the knife in your hand."
"They're liars!" she cries, color high in her face.
"All of them?" He has only the two, but several is more unsettling to the guilty.
"I didn't have a knife! I didn't!"
"Sit down."
"NO!" She stomps her foot, her face deep red now. "I didn't have the knife, I didn't cut her throat, I wanted to rip her face off! THEY'RE LIARS! I DIDN'T DO–!"
Gibbs stands very quickly and she shrieks. The glass flies up from her hand in a spray of water as she runs away along the right side of the bed. She evades Michelle who's hardly much taller than she is. The glass lands upon the carpet by the front door as she huddles into the corner rear beside the Head. "DON'T HURT ME!" she pleads, cowering against the bulkhead, hands up close to her face to protect herself from Gibbs. "DON'T HIT ME! I DIDN'T DO IT! I DIDN'T DO IT!"
As Gibbs and the other agents stare in varied stages of disbelief, Meredith slumps to the floor, weeping, huddled into a tight ball. "Don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me. I didn't do it. I didn't do it! I didn't do it!"
x
Gibbs signals Michelle, who steps closer to the crying woman, but stops and looks back to him.
"Palmer?"
When Tate looks up, tears streaming down her cheeks, Michelle slowly backs away, and Tate turns from her and the huge man. She's trembling, her breath shattered into gasps and sobs, red faced now at being unable to do other than expose her weakness to four strangers.
When Michelle's beside the senior agent she whispers "Sir, this is no act. She may be an actress but this is real. She's absolutely terrified."
"Of getting caught?" He's backed hundreds of suspects into that corner though never so dramatically. That had doubled his suspicion of the actress.
"No, sir. That would be calculated, this is primal. It's not the fear of someone who's backed into a wall, this is... cave type terror. It's like when you stood up she knew you were going to murder her."
Gibbs doesn't say anything, so she slowly advances again to the crying woman. "Meredith? No one's going to hurt you, honey." She kneels down on one knee, extends her hand. "Come on, honey."
The woman gradually fights down the tears, but Michelle can feel her fear. It's not as bad as it had been; that was like the detonation of an emotional torpedo against her hard pressed psychic shield.
"I'm sorry," Meredith whispers.
"It's okay, honey." She holds her hand still, and eventually Tate fights the break well enough to take it, but she clutches Michelle's hand as though it were a lifeline against drowning in her tears. "Let's go inside," she says softly, eyes flicking to the Head door beside them.
She puts a protective arm about the trembling woman's shoulders, helps her to rise, brings her through the door, then snaps the lock sharply for the effect.
x
DiNozzo steps to Gibbs. "She was berserk at the play," he says quietly, unsure how much might pass through the door. "But I'm having a hard time believing she could do the deed and be on her feet when the lights came on."
Gibbs remembers Ziva's report when she'd returned from escorting Tate to her own cabin. 'She was clearly terrified,' the Mossad officer had said, 'when I brought her down to my cabin. Rather than dealing rationally with the seriousness of her situation, she had retreated into shock, disbelief and a detached, confused state. I nearly administered a head slap to jump start her misfiring brain.'
Gibbs had wondered if he had to coin a new rule. 'Acting?' he'd asked.
'If she were that good an actress, she would not be with the Hannigan Players.'
x
Gibbs sees McGee is staring at the Head door, a troubled look on his face. "You got something to say?"
"I noticed it too, boss, when we first met. She was desperate for help and too scared to ask. She about talked herself out of asking if not for Shav, then tried to run away rather than ask. I don't see her able to plan an elaborate murder overnight with the changes in the lights, go through with it and, as Tony said, be on her feet at the end."
x
The door opens to admit Ziva, who carries a handful of small plastic bags suitable for sandwiches and some small red plastic swords used for maintaining said food. She looks about the room for her subject, Gibbs points to the Head door.
He then checks his watch. "I want to meet at the Crime Scene at midnight, all of us, Palmer, Benoit," he glances to McGee, "and your wife too."
There's no time to ask the purpose of this extended conference because the Head door opens and Michelle leads Meredith out. "You okay?" Gibbs asks.
"Yes." She meets each of their eyes in a fast pan. "I'm sorry–"
"Then–"
"but that was the last question I'm answering. I want that Lawyer."
Gibbs looks to Michelle, but in her frank expression he sees that she hadn't influenced this decision. She knows better than to make a difficult situation worse, and she's had Rule Number 13 drummed into her even more heavily than the others have. "All right," he says to Meredith and starts to lead the exodus again.
Ziva approaches her. "I need to collect samples from your fingernails."
"I said–"
"I shall ask you no questions," she says, putting her bundle down on a dresser top, "I shall collect this evidence and leave." She will also take all her possessions and officially move upstairs, then pack and transfer Tate's from Coral 44.
"Why?"
It's Michelle who answers. "Meredith, you're accused of slitting her throat with a knife. You say you tried to rip her face off. You can do only one or the other, so if we find skin cells under your nails it's pretty hard to hold a knife."
"Palmer," is all Gibbs says. An Investigator should not give the image of showing favoritism.
"Fine," Tate says, extending her left hand.
"Meredith?"
"Tim, I really, really appreciate everything you did for me but I'm not going to answer your questions either."
"No question." He fishes about in his pockets. "I noticed you didn't eat any of that dinner." He pulls a packet of mints out, shrugs and admits "I know it's nothing, but you can order Room Service if you want." He tosses her the packet left handed toward her right side; she reaches across her body with her left hand and snatches it from the air.
"Guess I..." She shrugs, a helpless gesture. "Thank you."
x
At the signal to the guarding crewman whose sole duty is to make sure the woman receives what she needs but that she stays inside, the agents file out.
Gibbs leads his team down the passageway past two sets of cabin doors, then turns on McGee. "What was that about?"
"Boss, I noticed something about her yesterday, when I was reading her handwritten notes on the play. I didn't take much notice then, it didn't matter, but she's left handed."
"I got that, McGee."
"Well, when she got hit, she put her hand to her face and got blood all over it. If she did have a knife in her hand it would have to have been in her right hand, but she fell on her own place setting, so her utensils would have been reversed. A person's natural reaction would be to grab with the dominant hand as she just did. Yet if she was holding the knife with her already bloody hand, it would have been too slippery to get a good grip on it to slit Hannigan's throat.
"She also told me earlier she doesn't eat before a performance, even at a dinner theater. And though when she fell everything on the table got messed up, I looked at the table before they cleaned it; everything was a mess but she was having Fettuccine Alfredo." Most of that had wound up on her chest.
"So?" Tony counters.
Gibbs considers the man is lucky he's out of immediate reach. "When was the last time you were served pasta with a steak knife?"
"Well, my second Boarding School wasn't one of the - Shutting up now, boss."
x
It doesn't last. "But sorry, McCompass, I hate to burst your bubble - it was a good theory, but she had the blood on her right hand."
"No, Agent DiNozzo," Michelle counters, "it was her left."
She hands Gibbs her cell phone.
The image displayed is from the Crime Scene in the moments of confusion following the murder. Palmer had snapped several pictures and in the one she displays Tate is in the once white, now blood sprayed gown, her face smeared with blood, her right arm held by Gibbs.
The palm of her left hand is red.
"Okay, so I was wrong," Tony grants. "Carrie had the knife in her right hand."
"Where'd she get it?"
"From one of the other Players."
"The woman on her left," Tim says, "was eating Chicken Marsalia, the man on her right was having Rump Roast."
"Ah HAH."
"However his knife was still at his place."
"And the Captain says they don't even use that kind of knife," Gibbs says.
"They don't?" Michelle asks.
"Well," DiNozzo says with a 'you couldn't tell us that earlier?' look, "we only have the word of the Property Mistress that there's only one knife. Suppose she got an identical one on the sly."
"Special Agent Gibbs? I don't believe them," Michelle declares.
"Who?"
"The Bronnes. I didn't see a knife. Did any of us see a knife?" No one volunteers. "We were ten to twenty feet away with unobstructed views other than by Hannigan and the Bronnes saw one from over forty feet away between two other actors? I don't think so."
"For the moment, since we have too many knives on the floor, we'll assume she did."
"But–"
He's had enough. "Conference in twenty seven minutes."