Chapter Twelve
Detour

Gibbs has stood up from his couch when the alarm went off at 5:00 and his eyes feel like they should be pried open when his cell phone, on his dining room table, yells for his attention with the theme from 'Dragnet'. It's one of DiNozzo's Easter Eggs; he'd loaded the phone with every number Gibbs could possibly use, which had been a nice though completely wasted gesture. He never uses the Contacts list, prefers to memorize important numbers, and he could have deleted the list but with DiNozzo gone it didn't seem quite right. Therefore he kept the thing, only to discover that his former SFA had booby-trapped the device with distinctive tones for the incoming calls which he gets infrequently. Last week Sheriff Knox from Maryland had come onto his phone with the theme from 'McCloud'. He will be days putting the system right unless he 1: has McGee do a purge and set everything to the basic ringer or 2: throws the unit through a wall.

Today he is leaning toward choice 2.

But when he sees the name displayed on the screen, he's forced to admit DiNozzo's choices are not all bad, though he really needs his first coffee to get through this.

"What've you got, Carp?" he asks, padding toward the kitchen. Yesterday the partner Clifford Scott had called to the phone so it had simply rung, leaving the Easter egg for this morning. 'Thank you, DiNozzo.'

"Lost another one to Nickis," is Metro Homicide Detective Lieutenant Jeffrey Carpenter's frequently used complaint when he and Scott have rolled on a call only to discover it's Navy or Marine related.

x

"Don't have time for another." He's sure Mulvany from Dispatch already has this, or should soon, and is already summoning another Alpha shift SSA, but –

"You have time for this. Homicide took one in Shaw, we're with Harry and Martha Arhyn. Their daughter–."

"Arlene Kingman," he says as he halts half through a reach for the coffee pot. He'd predicted this, rather his gut had, when he'd seen Carpenter's name. Yesterday the parents had called 911.

"Took one in the face at her front door. We'd never made it to the house when we rolled up on the intersection night before last so when we recognized the wife we knew it's your potato. Again."

"Can't drop it." And with that phrasing, Carpenter and his partner must be on the overnight and not pleased to get the mis-pass and to be unable to drop it until Gibbs arrives to formally take it from him. Goodbye coffee. "But we were there yesterday, the parents know to call NCIS."

"Mother said you weren't working fast enough."

"Did she happen to mention Insurance?"

"Matter of fact, she did. You coming?"

"Oh, we're gonna talk."

He slaps the phone closed and wonders how many detours this case is going to have.

At least his favorite diner is on the way. Elaine always has a morning cup prepared when he pulls into the lot.

xxx

Gibbs doesn't wait until his entire team is assembled; Eleanor Bishop is physically the closest until his agents finish their bout of musical residences and so she reaches the address only two minutes after he does. Today is McGee's move but the wife is supervising that so he had better be on time. He and Bishop leave their cars outside the perimeter, bypass the fleet of police and other emergency vehicles and ascend the steps to the house's second floor. The dawn light has touched the building's top floor but he has his extra large so he can face the day.

It's dreadfully difficult to avoid the crime scene; Arlene Kingman's body lays immediately beyond the arc of the inward opening door, her feet closest, her head further toward the fish tank across the room, blood and (somewhat more nauseating before coffee) detritus consisting of solid matter of varying density ranged beyond.

There's a uniformed MPDC officer within the doorway so he lets Bishop sign them both in while he takes a careful step left and makes a wide arc to Detective Lieutenant Jeffrey Carpenter. The tall, sandy haired man is failing the first stages of an equally sandy mustache that makes him look like someone poured shakers of pepper and salt along his lip and the blue suit shows signs of long and hard wear. Carpenter has already used up his catch phrase between them, so he greets him with an open notepad.

"This time, as soon as we saw the place and took the initial statement, such as it is, I called you. We didn't do more than hold the scene."

Gibbs doesn't have to have it defined; they did nothing so they need do nothing. "So give it to me and get some rest."

"Already snoring." He tears out three pages from the scrap notepad, hands them to him and calls a halt to his fellows' work.

Leaving Bishop to hold the door and make sure none of the agents soon to arrive step into the scene before they realize it, he heads through and into the kitchen.

x

Within that sanctum Martha and Harry wait with the last of the uniformed MPDC Officers and her expression when she turns telegraphs that she can't give up her charges quickly enough. Martha Arhyn's greeting is somewhat more vocal.

"See what your futzing around has cost! Not bad enough when our son-in-law dies, you bastards sit on your asses and let our daughter get murdered too!"

Yesterday Harry Arhyn had been a voice of reason and moderation; Gibbs has no illusion this time will be similar. "Just what have you been doing to stop this?"

Gibbs cannot hold this rage against them, but by the same he wishes he'd summoned McGee's wife as well. Normally he would not consider any such thing, but neither parent is going to be able to provide much information in their present state.

"When was the last time you spoke to your daughter?"

"Ten minutes after you did," Harry declares, "and a fat lot of good you were."

"Couldn't even tell that that bastard wasn't done killing."

He has no counter that would help. Yesterday their focus had been upon who wanted Lt. Commander Gilbert Kingman dead and the Investigation had covered his Naval activities and who might have a motive, and they'd begun making progress by negatives. Now they have two new questions, each one equally broad: had both Kingmans been targeted or had they, and the driver, each missed the mark and Arlene Kingman had been the true target?

"Investigation's just started."

"What the hell does that mean?" Harry demands.

Perhaps these people have grown used to the entertainment programs where murders are wrapped up in Act Four but unfortunately for them NCIS is not a television show.

Abby is fond of reminding him 'you can't rush science', to which he would reply with his own version - should it be a Rule? - but he can appreciate their distress. It is sad to lose a son-in-law, far worse a daughter.

xx

Despite the fact that he could have directed Bishop at any time to take the task, Gibbs had decided to spend the first encounter with the parents because he wanted her on evidence gathering, so it was with some surprise that he is drawn out to the living room by the inarticulate scream of a soul being dragged down into Hell.

When he pushes through the swinging door with the frosted stained glass decorative window he sees that his entire team has arrived plus Sam Passalino. He's standing framed in the doorway with Special Agent Mary Frederick partially behind him. She had driven the MCR truck from Headquarters and had evidently been put to work on the perimeter.

"I'm sorry, Agent McGee, I couldn't keep him out." Since Passalino tops Frederick by a foot, he can easily picture the encounter. However, Frederick should still have kept him out by any means necessary, even it were to have been calling out the other agents.

Gibbs' crossing of the room to the shocked man and embarrassed agent puts him within inches of Arlene Kingman's feet. "What are you doing here?"

"I, er, came… to…."

"She's not going to work." The man had known this perfectly well yesterday, had no reason to come for their morning commute. He might have been milder in his confrontation, might, but Passalino had given that up when he'd broken in on the crime scene.

"I know. I… came to… to see if she was okay… if she needed anything."

The glare he gives to Frederick says two things: 'take him out of here' and 'I will deal with you later'.

What he says aloud is "Downstairs," and she had better understand that he wants her to hold the shattered man down in the street until he can deal with him.

"Yes, sir." She tugs on his arm and this time Passalino's willing to be directed. Gibbs doesn't lock the door; first, he can't touch it with ungloved hands and second, he intends to put the fear of God so deeply into Frederick that if anyone short of the Deity passes that door she will need His intervention.

x

He scans the large room; McGee and Palmer are at the opposite wall by a hole punched over the extra large aquarium, McGee with the large Crime Scene Camera, Palmer recording on a notepad the details of every exposure. Bishop is marking the locations of every bit of bloody detritus that had fallen behind the woman, placing the numbered triangular yellow signs upon the white shag carpet and Ducky and Jimmy have charge of the body which they crouch on either side of. He knows the photographs have moved from establishing wide shots that spiraled in to the body and now they deal with the fine points while what interests him at the moment is "Duck?"

"The wound, as you can see, pierces the nasion, the intersection of the frontal and the two nasal bones, yet it was delivered at an upward angle so that it appears to have exited in the middle of the parietal bone, though x-rays will provide better detail."

"Killer was shorter than she was," Ellie says.

"Draw no conclusions on that, Agent Bishop," Ducky retorts. "We may say only that the wound indicates an upward angle, therefore the gun may have been at lower than eye level when it was fired. However, since the impact of the bullet would drive the head backward, some portion of that angle may be from the initial impact, giving the illusion of an upward trajectory. We will not be able to confirm nor to refute this until we have done our autopsy. Our job is to determine what the bullet did while it was passing through her. We, however, determine neither from whence it came or to where it went, merely the path it has taken and the specific damage which it did."

x

"Probie?" McGee calls from by the huge, bubbling aquarium, but when no one moves Michelle looks to Bishop.

"He means you, Ellie."

"Oh. I knew that," she says as she comes up between them, conscious of Gibbs' eyes on the back of her head. "Yes?"

"Ducky said that the shot came at an upward angle, yet Arlene Kingman is five foot eight. The bullet hole is five feet, seven inches off the floor and yet it traveled only seven feet. Why is that?"

"Beeee-cause its velocity was slowed by going through two layers of bone."

"But the drop off is an inch and yet even when one of the bullets from our Sigs goes through a skull there would not be such a drop off after seven feet. What does that tell you?" For emphasis he taps beside the hole with his fingernail.

"One of two things."

"Only two?"

"Okay, three or more. It's a small caliber, lesser powered shell or it really was fired from below."

"Let's stick with the first," he says, having noted the entry wound, "What kind of bullet?"

She looks more closely at the hole. She's had plenty of time to study the entry wound. "A .22."

He turns on her, his tone incisive and demanding. "Come on. A .22? Look at that hole. That's larger than a .34, maybe even a .357."

She shakes her head and her tone is definite. "No, not a .34 or anything larger, there would be far less drop off. The bullet was blunted by going through her skull, so it punched through in a wider area. There's a saying, 'a high calibur bullet goes in like a dime and comes out like a cash register.'"

"Hm! I'll have to use that. And I think you're right. And when we pry it out of the wall we'll find it is a .22."

"Oh no no no, this one you're not catching me on. I may be an Intelligence Analyst but I have enough intelligence to know you do not pry a bullet out of the wall, you cut a hole," she describes a surrounding circle, "out of the wall, take it with us and Abby gets it out and analyzes the lands and grooves."

"And the drill to make that hole?"

"Issssss in the truck. Which I shall get. Right now."

"Hop to it, Probie."

x

When she carefully slips past the body and out the door Michelle looks up to her partner. "You enjoyed that - too much."

"One of the responsibilities of a Senior Field Agent is to train the other members of the team."

"I thought you didn't like 'Probie'."

"Being on the receiving end for a decade, not so much. Saying it, now that's different."

She is still quite mad at him, he's not her favorite partner right now, which directs most of her sharpness. She'd told Jimmy nothing of their disagreement of yesterday morning, the pleasures of unpacking and organizing her new house (her new house, how wonderful that sounds!) overwhelming all else. But this morning she is with McGee again and has more reasons to be annoyed, and the unresolved tensions of yesterday hang heavily upon her. "There are some lessons from Special Agent DiNozzo that shouldn't be learned."

"What does that mean?"

"She won't be a Probationary Agent forever and you're a married man." This one is enough to halt even those who had been actively ignoring the banter, particularly her own husband.

"What does that have to – ?"

"You may like having two women under you but it's not always such a good position."

The hurried return of said Probationary Agent halts this part of the conversation but Michelle hopes she's made her warning clear. If not, the man before her deserves everything he gets. She is glad that, after so long, she's been able to leave the sobriquet of 'probette' behind.

"Okay," Gibbs cuts in from behind her, "does someone have it in for both Kingmans, one of them or is Arlene Kingman an inconvenient witness? Talk to me."

Five seconds of dead silence.

"I meant now."

xx

Twenty minutes later Gibbs steps outside, leaving McGee in charge of the indoor investigation.

Harry and Martha Arhyn had not been pleased when the sound of the large bore drill brought them from the kitchen and far less so at the two inch wide hole drilled over the fish tank. The drill is a long hollow bore and when Tim checks the end of the plug the drill has removed the entire thickness of the dry wall and yet the end is not broken; the bullet is within. Mrs. Arhyn had been incensed that the so-called 'investigators' had decided to do a change of career into carpentry or, more accurately, house wrecking.

Gibbs has introduced Bishop to the next phase of her training until their work was finished. It will not be the end of Bishop's labors with the bereaved parents, for she will have to join them in their own home to collect such properties related to the Kingmans as may or may not be relevant, and he considers the experience useful training for the woman to grow into a well rounded NCIS Agent or else a resumed CIA Intelligence Analyst.

At the garage entrance where Agent Mary Frederick has detained Sam Passalino the man has barely recovered. By the time Gibbs reaches the bottom of the steps Passalino wipes his eyes and seems ready with an intelligible answer.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to check on Arlene. I had some time before work." He checks his watch. If he had been counting upon keeping his improved 'on time' record, Gibbs thinks he can kiss it goodbye. Man's own fault.

"You didn't call?"

"I called, but she's a heavy sleeper and I figured she might even have taken sleeping pills."

"She does that?"

The man trembles on the verge of a break. Though he doesn't cry he most evidently had, but for the moment his control holds much like a dam overflowing its spillways.

"Does she?"

"I don't know. She never mentioned having trouble sleeping."

"Never?" According to Passalino they have traveled forth and back between homes and work for nearly a year since the Transit strike. That is a lot of time to talk.

"Not that she ever mentioned."

"Other than Tuesday night."

"I guess so."

x

"Where were you that night?" Criminals often return to the scene to, by their presence, establish an alibi or to gather information and though not a suspect he has returned. Additionally, Elly Bishop had asked the same establishing question so he should say

"At home. Asleep."

"Alone?"

"I haven't slept alone in fourteen years."

Well, his answer to Bishop had been 'I'm married' but Gibbs hopes it means the same thing. He won't pursue it further because he doesn't want the man picking a sense that he is a potential subject. He doesn't want Passalino to realize the conversation is being compared to one he'd had with the friendly woman, not until he's had the chance to corroborate or to refute what has already been said. Plus, the hunt for persons of interest has recently begun and had netted two subjects that Gibbs has reasons to doubt.

If he is going to look at the deaths of Gilbert and Arlene Kingman as being related, he needs someone with links to and motives for killing both.

And he still has no proof to dispute the theory that Gilbert's was the accidental death and Arlene, having taken a bullet to the face, was the intended victim.