Slowly looking up from the file he was reading at Kate who was staring across her desk at him, her forehead creased in a confused and questioning frown, Gibbs asked, "Do you want to say something, Kate?"
"Yes, yes I have," she answered, rising from her seat and walking in front of her boss's desk.
Tim looked up, nervously, from the report he was writing and held his breath as he watched his boss pick up his cup of coffee and take a little sip.
"I thought that we never, ever let lawyers get involved…" she began.
"So why did I allow Gannon to lawyer up and get transferred back to Metro?" Gibbs finished her question for her as he placed the cup back down.
Kate nodded as Tim waited to hear Gibbs's answer to the same question he had been wondering about. Why had Gibbs broken one of own rules that he had taught them and expected them to follow?
"We both know that Gannon knows what happen to DiNozzo, probably even knows Tony is being held and by whom and why. He may be drunk, Kate, but he is sober enough not to co-operate and he's not going to break fast under interrogation. But he's cocky, too cocky to tell us what we need to know but we can use that cockiness against him. He believes that we have nothing more on him than a DUI charge and giving police a false name-"
Kate smiled as she realized where Gibbs was headed, "So, by letting him lawyer up and be transferred back to Metro-"
"Where he has been charged with mid-range DUI. He's due to be arraigned first thing in the morning and probably back out on the streets by about ten, which should give us enough time to get a warrant and search his apartment." Looking across at McGee, he added, "While McGee keeps a close tail on him after he's released from jail." Glancing down at his watch, surprised to see how late it was, he looked back up at his two agents and ordered, "Now, both of you get out of here, go home, there's nothing more we can do tonight. I want you back here by six am, sharp."
Picking up his cup of coffee, Gibbs lifted it up to his lips and took another long sip as he watched Kate and Tim grab their bags and head towards the elevator.
Lowering the cup back down, he turned and stared at the desk of his missing senior agent. "We're coming for you, Tony, I promise we are going to find you!" he promised the missing young man before he looked back down at the file McGee had so far managed to gather on their only suspect, John Gannon. The feeling that they had missed something the first time he had read it, niggled at the back of his mind as he began to re-read it.
XXXXXXX
"Come on, Gannon, rise and shine." the officer called, hitting on the holding cell bars with his baton, as he attempted to wake the new prisoner whom, night staff had told him, had been booked and placed in the empty holding cell to sleep it off during the night. "This isn't some sort of holiday resort where you can sleep all day. You're due to go before the judge in just under an hour!" The officer frowned when there was no movement from the man curled up asleep beneath the thin gray blanket on the bunk. Hitting the bars harder, the officer ordered again. "Come on Gannon, I haven't got all day."
Staring at the motionless form on the bunk, the officer felt a cold feeling of dread as he called out for assistance before he pulled out his keys and quickly unlocked the cell.
"What's up, Kenny?" the other officer on holding cell duty asked as he entered the holding cell area and hurried to join his colleague at the cell door.
"I think we've got a dead one." Kenny answered softly, as he pushed open the cell door and cautiously moved across to the bunk before nudging the figure under the blanker with his baton, "Come on Gannon, you better not be playing around with me. This is your last chance."
Grabbing the blanket when there was no response form the man on the bunk, Kenny pulled it back, exposing the very dead body of their prisoner. Gannon's arm was outstretched with a needle sticking into the crock of his arm, a piece of material torn from the edge of the blanket was still wrapped around his bicep, his eyes were wide open.
"Oh damn! Hell, the hell did he manage to smuggle that in?" Simons frowned as he stared at their dead prisoner over Kenny's shoulder
"I don't know but we better let the Sarge know!" Kenny murmured, ignoring the calls from the other prisoners in the adjoining cells who were demanding to know what had happened, as he allowed the blanket to drop back over the body and rushed out of the cell as his partner turned and hurried out to the booking area.
XXXXXXXX
"Did you hear?" Nurse Tomlinson asked Maurice, while pouring coffee into her mug in the staff break room before she went on duty for the day.
"Hear what?" the orderly asked as he added a few lumps of sugar to the steaming brown liquid in front of him.
"John, the idiot, went and got himself picked up for speeding and DUI last night." she told him as she took a small sip of her coffee before grimacing and adding several lumps of sugar and cream before stirring it noisily.
"By the cops?!" Maurice gasped, almost dropping the mug of coffee he'd just picked up.
"Who else would pick him up?! Yes, by the cops!" She walked her mug over to the table, set it down, and picked up a newspaper, looking at the front page as if there was nothing wrong.
"Why you so calm? This is bad, very bad!" Taking a seat at the same table, Maurice wrapped his hands around the coffee mug, not even noticing how hot his hands were getting.
Nurse Tomlinson rolled her eyes and slowly set down the paper. "And just what is so bad about it, besides being down a man to keep our patient under control. You do most of that anyway."
"What...what if they link John to that Navy cop in there? He lifted that cop's wallet when we grabbed him and ya can bet he's been using the cop's credit card. And the cop's always search you when they arrest you! For sure they'll find the wallet and the card on him. Won't be long before they figure it all out and come stormin' in here, guns blazin'!"
"This isn't a western movie, Maurice," Nurse Tomlinson scolded. "Stop being ridiculous. Besides, I'm sure they've already linked John with DiNozzo, seeing as the moron gave them his ID when he was arrested. They didn't buy it for a second, probably because the two don't look anything alike."
"Then he's talked! I know he has! Oh god." Abandoning his coffee cup, the orderly stood up and began pacing the small room.
"He never said a word," Nurse Tomlinson said confidently.
"How you know that?" Maurice stopped pacing long enough to turn and look at her.
"I just do. Stop worrying. Everything has been taken care of. John Gannon won't say a word to anyone about anything again. We are just fine." She folded up the paper and laid it back down on the table before taking another casual sip of her coffee and standing up.
The nurse's reassurance sent chills all over Maurice's body as he eyed her closely and asked warily. "Why won't he say a word, Sarah? Huh? How do you know he won't talk? Them cops, they offer deals all the time. First one to talk gets the best deal, and you know John gunna wanna deal to get out of sumthin. Hell, we both know that he'd throw his own momma under the bus to get outta jail."
"Dead men tell no tales, Maurice. Remember that." Nurse Tomlinson said cryptically as she put her mug in the sink and wandered out into the hallway to do her rounds.
XXXXXXX
Stepping around the police photographer as he entered the cell, he ordered Kate to start bagging and tagging any evidence she found before informing the officers that this was now formally an NCIS investigation. He turned and stared at the body, his only link to Tony, who still lying with the needle in his arm on the bunk. "Who found him?"
"I did, Sir." The young officer answered nervously, "I tried to wake him up to have his breakfast and get ready for court but when he didn't move…"
Gibbs nodded as he knelt beside Ducky who was examining the body, "Any idea how long, Duck?"
"Judging by liver temp, Jethro, I would say he's been dead for about seven hours."
Glancing at his watch, Gibbs murmured, "So he died about midnight."
"Give or take an hour. I can give you a firmer time of death after I do the post mortem. As for cause of death," nodding at the needle in the body's arm, Ducky shrugged, "You will have to wait for the drug test results to see if its cocaine of heroin. My bet is heroin, but Abby will be able to confirm that. But I have notice one thing, Jethro, that might interest you." Pointing to two red areas on the arm, he nodded, "See those bruises."
"He was held down and injected?"
"Looks that way but I can tell you more after I do the autopsy." Ducky answered as he rose to his feet and nodded to Gerrard that he could bring in the stretcher to load the body as Gibbs also stood up and stepped back, out of the way.
"I heard about young Anthony." Nodding towards the man now being loaded onto the mortuary stretcher, he added softly, "Please tell me, Jethro, that he wasn't your only lead to finding him."
"He was." Gibbs sighed as he heard McGee call his name.
Patting Gibbs on the back of the shoulder, Ducky reassured him, "I will get the report to you as soon as I can, Jethro."
"Thanks, Duck." Gibbs murmured distractedly as he hurried out of the cell to meet McGee as Tim hurried down the corridor towards him.
"What have we got?" he asked McGee as he reached him, and they began to walk back towards the booking and the way out of the cells.
"Not a lot, Boss. I spoke to the two officers who were assigned guard duty last night in the holding cells. They said they checked the prisoners ever hour and Gannon at first was loud, smug and obnoxious after I brought him back down to the holding cells but on the midnight check, he appeared to have finally settled and was sleeping with the blanket pulled up over his head. Some of the other officers are talking to the other prisoners who were in the holding cells last night, but so far they all claim they saw nothing unusual or anyone enter or leave Gannon's cell."
Gibbs nodded before he told McGee, "Ducky thinks that someone held Gannon down."
"He was murdered?" McGee asked, glancing behind him down the corridor towards the holding cell area.
"That's what we are going to find out and why?"
XXXXXXX
Following the nurse out of the break room, Maurice walked across and stood outside Tony's padded room door, staring through the window at the young Special Agent who was now lying motionless on the floor. All he could think about was how awful this would turn out if the Navy cop died. The boss would be livid because that wasn't in his plan. Yet there DiNozzo laid, barely moving except to cough and shiver. If DiNozzo died it would mean just one thing for Maurice, a one-way trip to prison for kidnapping and murder with no possibility for parole.
Staring through the small window at the lifeless body of Tony DiNozzo, all Maurice could think about was what if John already talked before he was presumably killed? Or worse, what if he ended up the same way as John? He had no doubt that if Nurse Tomlinson had her way, that John was indeed dead. Maurice wasn't sure how she had arranged it, but he was certain that she had, and if she even thought that he was thinking of crossing her that he would be next. And he was in no mood to die, especially for a few thousand bucks. The first one that talks gets the deal, he thought. Even if John had taken a deal and talked, it wasn't doing him any good anymore, and he knew more than John anyway. John didn't even know who was pulling the strings.
"I gotta tell the cops," he whispered to the door just as Nurse Tomlinson crossed the day room and joined him, glancing, disinterestedly, through the window at the sick NCIS agent before she returned her attention back to the orderly. "Don't tell me you got all your work done, Mr. Diamond," she scolded Maurice as he continued to gaze through the small window.
"We gotta get outta this," he said softly, still staring at the door.
"Get out of what exactly?"
"This mess. If he dies, we're in deep. I ain't goin' to jail for some rich guy's crazy revenge." Finally turning to Nurse Tomlinson, he growled, "Or your overkill."
Placing her hands on her hips, she glared at him glared at him, "Excuse me?!"
"You didn't hafta drown him, Sarah. That went too far. The drugs were enough. Now he's gunna die and we're lookin' at doin' life, there ain't no parole for killing a cop, especially a Navy cop. Nah, man. No way. If the boss man wants him so bad, he can finish this himself."
Maurice turned and tried to walk away, but Nurse Tomlinson grabbed his arm tightly. "Just where do you think you're going?"
"The cops!" he whispered loudly. "I'm getting a deal, cus I ain't doin' time for killing no cop just cause some crazy rich dude wants him dead. If you were smart, you'd do the same! You don't owe that maniac a damn thing. Get outta this before someone else dies."
Wiggling out of her grasp, he walked quickly down the hall and out of her sight as she continued to glare at him.