Chapter Eleven: Caught on Camera
You could hear a pin drop in the lab.
"Are you sure?" Ducky asked.
"I remember that scar on his temple, very clearly. He didn't give his name as Taylor, though. He said his name was…" Maggie scrunched her eyes shut. "Something that started with M, a couple of syllables. Marriner, no…wait! He said his name was Merriman!"
"This is a game-changer, guys. Like, a really huge game-changer." Abby looked at the screen. "And whoever our dead guy is, it's not Taylor. The shape of the face isn't lining up."
"What else do you remember about him?" McGee asked Maggie.
"He seemed nervous and fidgety for the entire trip. At one point, he was looking over my shoulder as I was…" Maggie paled. "Oh, no."
"What?" the others demanded in unison.
"I was reading a news story on my laptop. About NCIS finding the skeleton."
"We've gotta tell Gibbs." Abby dialed Gibbs's extension and put the call on speakerphone.
"Yeah, Gibbs."
"Gibbs, it's Abby. I'm down in the lab with McGee and Ducky and Ducky's friend Maggie."
"Maggie Clarke?" Gibbs asked. They could hear the other agents suddenly gathering around and asking questions, so Gibbs must have had the call on speakerphone too. "What's going on?"
"We've got something. Something really big." Abby took a deep breath. "Taylor may be still alive. Maggie says she saw him on her train a few days ago."
The voices on the other end raised to shouts. "What? Are you serious?" Gibbs asked.
"Quite serious," Maggie said as she leaned closer to the phone.
"DiNozzo, get Vance. Now," Gibbs ordered. "Meet us up in the squadroom," he said into the phone.
Abby quickly started a cross-check of the skull against the missing persons databases, and hit a few settings so that she could track the database check on her tablet.
Then the four of them headed for the elevator.
"Hold the elevator!" Sanderson came running around the corner just as McGee pressed the button for the bullpen.
"Enter Sandman! You're spending a lot of time down here – got an inkling to be a lab rat?" Abby asked.
"Oh, no, I was just taking care of some stuff," Sanderson said vaguely, watching as the floor numbers ticked by.
The elevator doors opened on the bullpen floor, and Sanderson dashed away toward his desk.
As she hurried after Ducky, Abby and McGee, Maggie cast a gaze over the giant room with its burnt orange walls, rows and rows of cubicles and the giant panel window with its view of the river and the berthed Navy ship.
Gibbs, Tony and Bishop got up and came over to meet them as Vance came down the stairs and Randall jogged over.
"You're kidding. Taylor's back from the dead?" Tony asked. "What did…"
"Introductions first, please," Ducky said firmly, as he started introducing Maggie to each person in turn. "Maggie, may I present Leon Vance, our director. Agent Eleanor Bishop you've met, of course. Agents Anthony DiNozzo…Keisha Randall…and Leroy Jethro Gibbs."
"Nice to meet you at last, Ms. Clarke." Gibbs pulled a chair out from his desk and invited Maggie to sit.
Ducky grabbed a spare chair, wheeled it over and sat down next to her.
Maggie took a deep breath and slowly began retelling the story of her train trip, from seeing the man whose name may not have been Merriman in the Amtrak waiting area in New York, to her arrival at Union Station. As she spoke, the group listened intently, and a few other NCIS personnel wandered over to listen.
"Which train were you on?" Gibbs asked.
"It was…I've got it here somewhere." Maggie fished around in her purse. "Here it is." She pulled out the crumpled confirmation email and handed it to Gibbs.
"Train 2161, March 4," Gibbs said. He began giving rapid-fire orders to the rest of the team. "Bishop, call Amtrak and get a passenger manifest for that train."
"On it, boss," Bishop picked up her phone and started dialing.
"McGee, once we've got the manifest I want you to start checking into our mystery guy's credit card info and driver's license. The works."
McGee gave Gibbs a thumbs up and quickly began typing something.
"DiNozzo, we're going to need security video from the waiting areas at Penn Station and Union Station, from around the time the train left and it arrived."
"Gotcha." Tony grabbed his phone and started dialing as well.
Bishop hung up. "They'll have us the passenger list in half an hour."
It was enough to make Maggie's head spin, watching each one of the agents spring into action.
"Are you all right?" Ducky asked softly.
"I'm fine. I'm just wondering what kind of Pandora's Box I've opened on you," Maggie mused.
"Well, some scholars believe it was a jar rather than…" Ducky caught himself. "Don't worry. You've likely done Jethro and the others a very huge favor."
xNCISx
"Okay, right here," Bishop said, pointing to the PDF of the train manifest. "There's a Herbert Merriman, 56, from Piermont, New York."
"Makes him the right age," Gibbs mused. "Taylor was fifty-three when he went missing. McGee, what've you got?"
"Driver's license and info coming up now." McGee tapped a few keys, and a few files came up on the screen. "Says he's an accountant. Credit card statements say he's booked at the Regency."
"That's definitely Taylor," Randall said, gesturing with frustration at the driver's license photo. "How on earth did he slip away like this?"
It was late afternoon when the legal formalities had been taken care of and the security videos arrived from both train stations.
"Okay, here's the footage from Penn." Tony pressed the button on the "clicker."
The video came up on the screen, showing the Amtrak waiting area.
"Maggie, is that you?" Randall asked, pointing to a woman in a green coat on the video.
"Yes, that's me."
"Was Taylor – Merriman – sitting in the waiting area?" Vance asked.
"Yes – that's him there." Maggie pointed to the screen.
"Looks like he's got a walking stick. Did he have a cast on his foot or anything?" Gibbs asked.
"No. I remember one of the red caps asked if he needed help descending to the platform, but he declined."
The passengers in the waiting area headed for the escalator down to the platform.
"Now here's the waiting area at Union Station, just before the train got there," Tony said, bringing up the second video.
"Hey, there's Ducky," Bishop remarked.
The video clearly showed Ducky sitting in the waiting area, pretending to thumb through a magazine while casting frequent glances at the arrivals monitor and his watch.
"Train's just pulling in now," McGee said, looking at the time stamp on the video.
In the video, Ducky stood up, and in the reflection from the monitor, quickly straightened his bow tie and smoothed down his hair.
"Ooooh, smartening yourself up for a special lady there, Duckman?" Tony teased.
Maggie glanced over at Ducky. He was definitely blushing.
"All right, eyes open, people, the train's offloading now," Gibbs said sternly.
The throngs of passengers started to flow through the doorway. "McGee, slow the video down."
Merriman could be seen making his way through the crowd. And then something happened. He came within a few feet of Ducky, and then quickly veered away.
"He recognized you, Duck," Gibbs said.
"You didn't see him?" Vance asked.
Ducky shook his head, now looking very troubled. "I'm afraid that that I was on the lookout for Maggie. And besides, how were we even to know that he would be there?"
"Hindsight's twenty-twenty," Abby shrugged. "Wait – there you are again, Maggie!"
The video showed Ducky waving to Maggie as she made her way through the crowd with her luggage – immediately followed by their exchange of hugs and pecks on the cheek.
Now it was Maggie's turn to blush.
The second camera angle showed Ducky and Maggie walking back into the main station area, and Merriman – or Taylor – watching them from behind a pillar.
"He was watching you. Both of you." Gibbs whirled around. "Duck, have you gotten any threatening phone calls? Seen anyone weird hanging around your house?" he demanded.
"No, of course not!" Ducky said.
"Maggie, has anyone been following you near your hotel?"
"No, not that I've seen."
The videos turned off.
Vance let out a deep sigh. "All right, folks, listen up. Up until now, we've been assuming that Taylor was a crime victim." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I think we need to start taking a different look at him."
There was silence on the bullpen floor as the meaning of Vance's words sank in.
"The embezzlement…" McGee said softly. "He wouldn't let anyone else help with the audits."
"You think Taylor was behind the theft all along?" Tony asked.
"It would explain a lot of things," Gibbs said.
"But the medals – what were the medals going on the dead guy?" Bishop asked.
"Planted, more than likely." Ducky said. "There weren't any clothing fibers caught in the pins, which there would have been if they'd been pinned on, so they were likely resting on top of the body when it was wrapped up. I knew that there was something unusual about them when I was examining the body, but I couldn't put my finger on it."
Abby's tablet beeped. "Hang on, we've got a few possible matches for the skull overlay." Abby tapped on her tablet. "This one looks promising." A few more taps and the information was beamed up onto the flatscreen. "This guy's name is William Downing. Fifty-four, from McLean. Wife reported him missing three years ago…yeah, around the same time Taylor vanished."
"Who did the original investigation?" Gibbs asked.
"McLean PD and Virginia State Police," Abby said.
As Gibbs gave more instructions to the team, Maggie's phone chirped. The caller ID said it was from Julia. Maggie answered the phone and was barely able to get out a hello.
"Maggie, please, you have to come over here now!" Julia said frantically.
Maggie felt the blood drain from her face as she listened to Julia's hysterical story. "Yes…Julia, don't worry, I'll be over as soon as I'm able."
"Maggie?" Ducky asked as Maggie switched off her phone.
"Donnie, I have to get back over to Hourglass. The police are there and Julia's in a terrible state."
"Is everything all right?"
"No." Maggie looked grim. "Julia says that her co-owner's been shot."
xNCISx
Uh-oh, that doesn't sound good.
Stay tuned!