Chapter Thirteen
Devil in the Dark
When Gibbs raps on the door to Greg Martin's apartment, he and DiNozzo stand well clear of the door. He waits a moment; then raps harder. "NCIS - Open up!" he commands in a loud voice.
They hear the several locks snap off and then the door slowly opens about six inches, wide enough for Sarah Martin to peek through.
"He's not home."
Gibbs steps into the doorway, puts his foot into the opening. "Where is he, Mrs. Martin?" He pushes the door further, she cannot resist his strength and it opens another three inches, allowing them to see her dark and swollen right eye. "What happened to your eye, Mrs. Martin?"
"I - I tripped - and fell."
"Yeah? Whose fist did you fall into?" DiNozzo asks.
Her voice drops to a whisper. "No one's; I - I hit it on the doorknob when I fell."
"You know, when I worked for the Baltimore PD, it was all the same. Do you know how many abusive walls, doors, staircases and pieces of furniture I had to investigate? I used to long for someone, just once, to come up with something original. I never got it." She turns and walks away, unable to face them. They come in, leaving the door open.
"Please, he'll be home soon. You can't be here."
"You're walking kind of funny, Mrs. Martin," DiNozzo 'observes'. "Are you sure that 'door' hit you in the eye?"
"I don't know what you mean." Her quiet voice quivers, she keeps her back turned to them. Gibbs and DiNozzo come to stand on either side of her and neither can miss her tears. Gibbs allows DiNozzo to keep the lead.
"It hurts, doesn't it? To walk, I mean."
"I-."
"He raped you, didn't he? That's why it hurts so much."
"What do you know of rape?" she wants it to come out challenging, it comes out weak instead.
Tony thinks of Clarkston Lakes, of Abby's friend and the other women who had suffered even worse. "More than I want to."
"It's impossible for a husband to rape his wife. The Bible says so."
"Gee, I must have missed that verse," Gibbs tells her.
"I just wasn't – wasn't wet enough. Wasn't good enough. It - it's my fault it hurt. I - I should have been better."
"Did your husband do this because you wouldn't support his claim that God executed Michael Kane?"
"What in Heaven are you doing here?"
They turn, seeing Greg Martin fill the doorway with righteous anger.
x
"We're here to ask you some questions, Mr. Martin," Gibbs tells him, pushing his outrage down. Martin closes the distance between them.
"How dare you enter my home and speak to my wife without my permission?"
Gibbs ignores the proprietary demand, knowing it will only make the man angrier. Angry men often say more than they mean to. "Where were you for the past two hours?"
"At my prayer meeting, not that it's any of your business!"
"A short while ago two young women were assaulted near here."
"And that means something to me?"
Gibbs notes the large ring on his clenched right hand. It's a College ring, inscribed with the name of his school. Gibbs cannot read which one it is at this angle, but he wonders just how many women's DNA and blood traces Abby can lift off it. "Michael Kane's former girlfriend and one of my Agents were both assaulted; beaten."
"Right now, they look kind of like your wife does." DiNozzo interjects. "Have you an explanation for that?"
"It's a husband's right and responsibility to discipline his wife when she gets out of line. I'm doing my duty. The Good Book says 'And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not covenant; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, full of envy, maliciousness, covetousness, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, boasters, proud, despiteful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful; who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them'."
Tony's voice and eyes are equally hard. "That's 'covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy' and 'despiteful, proud, boasters' and Paul was talking about unrighteous men, not giving leave to wife beaters!"
Catching Gibbs' eye, he hopes he will not have to explain this rather distinct knowledge. He doesn't want to sully his jaundiced reputation with too many virtues.
"Well, like I said, I'm doing my duty." DiNozzo might well have not wasted his breath. "And I'm supposed to shed a tear for a Satanic Bitch and some NC-fucking-IS slut?"
Gibbs steps almost nose-to-nose with him. "No, I don't want to hear you cry," he tells him with deadly calm that has been known to make his fellow agents tremble, "I'll settle for hearing you sing."
x
"For instance, your story about Monday night doesn't hold up. Your Pastor Phillips was out sick. You didn't know that, did you?"
Greg Martin looks at his wife, his property, his chattel. "What has she told you?"
"I'd rather hear it from you."
"Greg, I can't go on pro–"
Martin moves around Gibbs, draws back his fist. "You stupid Bitch!"
Though she ducks with a scream, the blow never connects as Gibbs blocks the swing, twists him around and brings him face first onto the floor, his arm bent back upward, wrist held in a painful joint lock. Gibbs' other hand about Martin's neck holds him nose down.
"Lemme Go! You're hurting me," he cries, unable to break Gibbs' grip.
"Please, sir, please let him go!" Sarah begs. She tries to grab Gibbs but DiNozzo restrains her hand. She can't fight his strength, but fear of the consequences of this arrest makes her start to cry.
She knows that no matter what they say he did, she's the one who'll pay for it.
x
"You're under arrest," Gibbs tells the impotently struggling man.
"On what charge?" he demands angrily.
"We'll start with attempted assault and work up from there. I'll tack on two counts of suspicion of assault, one suspicion of rape and one of attempted murder. Oh, she's alive. If she IDs you, I'll bump it up all the way to suspicion of murder." He locks cuffs about the man's wrists and hauls him to his feet.
"Please - please let him go!" Sarah begs, reaching out to him, unable to get past DiNozzo.
"This is your lucky day," Gibbs tells the man, barely able to tolerate looking at him.
"Yeah?" Wearing the handcuffs, he doesn't feel very lucky, "how's that?"
Gibbs gathers his shirt at the collar, pulls him close. "I hate men who beat up helpless women - but you've made me so angry," he throw him to Tony, "I'm letting DiNozzo take you in."
DiNozzo, grabbing Martin's arm, is about to assure his boss that there won't be 'too many accidents' on the way, but the sick misery in the crying woman's eyes stops him. Without a word, he pulls Martin out of the apartment, leaving Sarah for Gibbs to console. He decides he has the preferable job.
x
"Agent Gibbs, have you any idea what it will be like when he gets home?" She begs, terrified.
"If he did this, he's not cominghome."
"He didn't do it. I swear! Please let him go!"
"Is there somewhere you can go? Someone you can stay with?"
"No. There's no one for me. No one for me at all."
"What about your 'prayer group'? Do you have any friends there?"
"'And Adam said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'Woman' because she was taken out of Man. Therefore man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.' There's no one for me but him. God help me." She can't keep the damning tears from flowing down her cheeks as she fights not to sob out her fear. "God help me," she begs, imploring aid she doesn't truly believe will come.
xxx
Gibbs and DiNozzo watch Greg Martin through the one-way mirror between Interrogation One and the Monitor Room. Gibbs holds his anger in check. Time spent with a crying, occasionally hysterical woman always sets him in a foul temper and DiNozzo's report is not helping.
The man inside cannot sit still, fidgeting edgily in his seat, his anger visibly brewing. He hadn't been relieved of his handcuffs in the past hour that he had been sitting there, a common practice for the truly violent. When they had put him in, they had removed his ring, pushing a receipt into his shirt pocket. If things go as Gibbs expects, he will not be seeing that large and heavy ring until it turns up as an exhibit at his trial.
And if the report in DiNozzo's hands is any indication, violent does not adequately cover this man.
Of course, neither Agent is overly concerned. They're the wrong sex.
x
"Just keeps getting better," DiNozzo comments sourly.
"Uh huh."
The background check that DiNozzo had been running when the call to arms had come in showed no prior arrests for Greg Martin, but upon adding fingerprints to the parameters, the history of 'George Simmons' came through with all sorts of fascinating reading. "This guy goes all the way back to the 'Free Love' era in Hoboken," he tells Gibbs, reading from the many pages in the file.
"I take it he didn't believe in it."
"You got that right. He was arrested for attacking a hippy couple, June and Aaron Levy; stabbed him and put her in the hospital with three broken ribs. Lucky for him their doctrine of non-violence stretched all the way to prosecution – he got off scot-free on that one.
"Didn't learn his lesson, though. When the anti-abortion movement started, guess which side he was on?"
"I couldn't begin to," Gibbs says dryly.
"It's a no-brainer, which pretty much describes him. He did 'three to five' for assault on Katherine Moran, who tried to cross the picket line outside a Massachusetts abortion clinic. He kind of settled the question of abortion or not in her case." DiNozzo wants to duck Gibbs' glare. "She miscarried as a result of the beating. It was still too early in the debate for them to settle on the fetus, his lawyer got the 'viability' question kicked out so he got 'Assault and Battery' on the mother.
"While in prison he found God - I didn't know He was missing - and wangled his way out in two years. Unfortunately, he was paroled with the condition that he gets therapy and someone dropped the ball when his therapist moved out of the city eight months in and he was assigned to a Dr. Clara McDougal."
Gibbs is appalled. "You're kidding."
"Broke her jaw in the first session. This time it was San Quentin. Spent two years because the Judge tacked back on the time unspent in the previous sentence. Then Simmons convinced the Parole Board he was a changed man. Went to school while inside, studied Architecture. He continued training on the outside. Barely passed."
"Why am I not surprised?"
"Washington State, thirteen months later; the 'New Age' movement is going full swing and you can find books on the Occult in every bookstore in the country. Mary Harris, an editor for Dell Books, doesn't like his demands that the company stop publishing 'Satanic Bibles'. I can't say I blame her, they're not publishing the 'Satanic Bible'; which is a real book, by the way. She's editing the 'Sally Homemaker' line - figuratively speaking. She has him thrown out of her office, he's waiting for her after work with a sledgehammer. Does a number on her car but can't get her out before the police arrive.
"He gets out on bail and goes back the next day, catches her in the Ladies Room and holds a knife to her throat to keep her quiet while he rapes her. But when he tries to force her out the window, twenty-eighth story. Her screams bring a crowd to the door. That one's thirty-one months. They focused on the attempted murder, nearly a dozen witnesses saw her halfway out the window when they grabbed him.
"When he got out, he was actually quiet for a while. But it didn't last. Philadelphia, he's in a Walden Books, probably stewing over the 'Occult' line, when twenty year old Alyson Kennedy comes up to him and asks him if he can recommend a good book on Witchcraft. Next thing she knows she's down on her back and he's pounding her face in. She has two teeth loosened and he gets fourteen months."
Gibbs cannot believe this outrageous litany, but DiNozzo shows no sign of stopping.
x
"Kingston, Georgia, he's on a beach when he sees Cathy Monet wearing one of those 'pentagrams' as a tattoo on her left breast. He tries to get her to convert, to save her soul, she tells him to get bent. An hour later he's on top of her in the women's changing room trying to remove the tattoo with a bowie knife. Her husband hears her screaming, gets in and beats the sh – the tar out of him. Together they do a number on him, almost change his religion with the bowie knife. He files assault charges on them and it looks like a long court circus but she's too scared to go through with it, thinks he'll come back. Smart woman, considering his history. They drop the charges, he drops his and he walks."
"How many is this?"
He checks the pages. There are more to go. "Six, so far."
"Hell."
"Not far from it. He then joined a movement that made the Fundamentalists of the day look like hippies. He gets into a beef with followers of the 'Earth Mother' movement, he says they're 'Satan's Strumpets'. They didn't take kindly to that.
"It starts out with just words, then some pushing and shoving. The High Priestess 'Star Sapphire', a.k.a. Sally Struthers – no relation – tries to break it up. Before they can pull him off her she's got a broken nose, a fractured arm and he's a guest of California State. It was assault; he was out in eleven months.
"Missouri, eight months later, the 'Temple of Light', a legal storefront church of 'New Age' believers - a.k.a. Witches - blows sky high twenty minutes into their scheduled 'gathering'. He should have studied his target better, though. It was a full moon. You can't see it from the inside so one of them gets the thought that they'll go across the street to a vacant lot to do their ceremony there. All eighteen survive. Property damage only and he cops a plea to arson."
"Arson?" Gibbs cannot believe this. "Who the hell did he have for a lawyer, Clarence Darrow?"
x
"He gets out in a year, rejoins the movement, but since the 'Earth Mother' incident and the 'Temple of Light' bombing, they've reconsidered their position - he plays too rough. They've become too mellow for his taste, so he starts a splinter group that tries to put out 'Satan's Fire' one way or another. He does a lot of talking about 'defilers' and 'unbelievers' who are seeping into God's world.
"He'd have kept them together if he hadn't thrown in the part about 'all women needing to be punished' for all the evil of the world since Eve. Even the most radical of his followers balked at that. You don't keep a group when you advocate half of them 'taking out' the other half if they don't live up to the Bible's teachings; particularly those in the 'Gospel According to Simmons'. So he moves again.
"He went his own way for a while, moved out of state again and for a while he was a good boy; until he heard about this nun, Sister Mary Francis of the Sisters of Notre Dame, who was having a crisis of Faith, was considering leaving her Order to take up a secular life and he decided God Called him to put the 'fear of God' into her."
"And?" He doesn't want to know.
"Five counts of rape, two of sodomy, kidnapping, ADW. She spent four months in a hospital, the Roman Church raised holy he– heaven and he did four years in Attica."
"Unbelievable."
"Gets better."
"It can't get better!"
"When he got out, again he was quiet for a while, then Tiffany, a nude - sorry, 'exotic' table dancer - in Dade County, Florida took exception to his breaking the 'no touch' rule and had him kicked out. Seems 'discreet' touching doesn't always cross the line but insertions do. Next night he's waiting for her when she gets off shift. That's the last anyone sees of her for nearly two months.
"He took her to a cabin in the woods and by the time they tracked her down, 'Stockholm Syndrome' was working on her full force and she refused to prosecute. She could barely crawl, he'd raped her so many times she needs reconstructive surgery, but she was broken by him and wouldn't accuse him. The prosecution falls apart and the case gets tossed.
"A couple of weeks later they're living together; he changes his name legally and they get married."
"Don't tell me."
"Sarah Neuhaus, a.k.a. 'Tiffany' becomes Sarah Martin. They move to Washington and he doesn't have to look for anyone to pound on anymore."
x
"Absolutely incredible." Gibbs had come to believe he had reached the very bottom of the scum bucket long ago, but this guy is a whole new species.
"You want me to take this one, Boss?" he asks hopefully, not believing it.
"Not a prayer, DiNozzo. You let me know when there's word on Wood and Lee." He takes the file out of the man's hand. "I'm going to enjoy this."
x
When he opens the door to the hallway, Ducky is on the other side. "Oh, Jethro, they told me you were down here."
"I'm just getting started," Gibbs tells him, surprised to see the man in person. He had expected a phone call. Ducky reads his expression correctly, steps into the room, closes the door. In the dim light, his face is drawn.
"I wanted to give you my preliminary report in person. Miss Wood was still in surgery when I left, they expect it will be another hour at least." Gibbs looks at his watch; it's twenty five to ten. "The rape test came back positive. I managed to obtain a semen specimen, which I have stored in Abby's lab. I considered asking her to come in, but I felt the morning would be sufficient, unless you think otherwise."
"Gotta call her in, Duck; this is too important." Now that the end is in sight, he wants everything in line by morning. He intends to hand the Director a 'fait accompli' for breakfast.
"That was my conclusion as well," he admits. "Miss Wood's injuries are extensive but are not life threatening. She has a compound fracture of her right ulna, a fracture of her left tibia, two fractured ribs on her left side and one on her right and a fractured right wrist. I'm afraid she was beaten by an 'expert'."
"Well, don't worry, Ducky," DiNozzo assures him, "we have the 'expert' right over there."
"Yes, so I see." He looks the man over. "This is one Interrogation I would love to sit in on."
"Be my guest," Gibbs offers.
"Unfortunately, my story of woe is only half told. In addition to all this, her mandible - her lower jaw - is fractured, as is the joint on the left side of her face. She will need dental work to restore three teeth, but her jaw must be wired shut for several weeks until the bones knit. I fear that, if you are seeking more testimony from her, it is presently out of the question. It will be quite some time before she will be able to speak." He sighs sadly. "I understand she makes her living on a telephone 'Help Line'."
"Yeah," Gibbs' tone is as grim.
"The assailant," he continues, wishing he were done, "in addition to carving two large circles enclosing downward pointing stars about her breasts, took the additional sadistic step of literally rubbing salt into the wounds. There had been some in a bowl on the table, similar to what was on Petty Officer Kane's. The cuts were fairly deep and, due to the time before I got there, the probability is quite high that she will carry scars."
Silence smothers the room. Gibbs, looking through the thick glass at the monster caged in the next room and resolves that he will pay for this as well.
x
"How's the Probette?" DiNozzo asks, trying to break the grim silence. He hopes Ducky will have some good news.
He is relieved when Ducky's manner brightens - slightly. "Agent Lee's," he stresses, the extent of his annoyance he will show when all he feels otherwise is a bone deep weariness, more of soul than body, "injuries are extensive but not as severe - not life threatening, that is. She suffered seven bruised ribs which she will be feeling the effects of for about two weeks or so and which may cause deep breathing to be quite uncomfortable. But though she bears the marks of considerable abuse, particularly to her face; she is fortunate that her assailant was concerned with escape more than, or as well as, abuse. When he'd thought she'd lost consciousness, he departed." He sighs heavily.
"However–"
"I hate 'howevers', Ducky," Gibbs tells him. He particularly detests 'howevers' when they impinge upon the welfare of his people.
"However, he slammed her head rather hard into a brick wall at least six or seven times. You saw the blood on the wall." They had. "Her doctor and I are equally concerned about this. Until he has ruled out a concussion, she will remain in the hospital overnight for observation. Whether or not she will be fit to return to duty in the morning is a question to be left until then.
"I have directed Mr. Palmer to return home, but he is quite concerned about her and I do believe the dear boy intends to refuse my suggestion."
"Is that all?" Between the outrageous history of their prisoner and this infuriating and worrying litany, he hopes his friend's answer will be 'yes'.
"I think that is more than enough."
xx
When Gibbs walks into the Interrogation Room he is very happy that the encounter is being recorded. He has never laid a hand on a prisoner, particularly a restrained one, but this man comes the closest anyone ever has to tempting him to break that rule. The fact that the interview is being recorded will help.
"What the HELL took you so long?" Greg Martin demands.
Yes, it will help.
He slaps the large file down upon the metal table, long practice making it sound like a gunshot in the small room, sits down and looks at the monster.
"Whatryoulookin'at?"
Gibbs' eyes are perhaps the deadliest his prisoner had ever seen. "George Simmons; an eleven time loser who's about to take the ultimate fall."
Simmons/Martin doesn't even blink. Gibbs will give him a credit for that. It's the only one he is going to get.
"There are more charges against you," he tells him with deceptive mildness, "than against anyone who has been in that chair in a long, long time."
"I supposed to be impressed?"
"Impressed? No. Scared? That's coming."
"Do your worst."
"Assault, grand theft, attempted murder, rape, murder … I don't even need your rap sheet to bury you. That's just icing on the cake."
"What you talkin' about? Maybe I slap my - my wife around when she deserves it; which is most, no; all of the time - but I didn't do none of that stuff."
"Megan Wood was not only beaten and raped, she had two pentagrams carved into her breasts."
"Yeah, so what?"
"'The Seal of Satan, carved upon the bodies of his unholy worshipers,' That's what you said in our first 'interview'."
The mouth can lie, so can the hand, but what he sees in the monster's eyes is far more revealing as the color drains from 'Martin's' face. "I didn't think you'd remember that," he mutters, finally sensing doom. But then he rallies, glares at Gibbs, dares him to do his worst. Regardless of everything, he has the Power of God on his side – and this sinner will never beat him!
Gibbs smile grows very slowly.
This is going to be fun.