Chapter Twenty-six
Somewhere a phone shrills, and a voice answers it. Low tones ensue, and I begin to drift off again.
"Grab your gear," Gibbs barks, "Metro PD found Dave Wheat."
"Where?" I ask, groggily.
"In the alley outside a Capitol Heights bar. Detective says it looks like he got mugged. No wallet, no cash." Across the bullpen, I hear Tony stir.
"You want us to go pick him up?"
"I'm not saying it to hear myself talk, DiNozzo."
I haul myself out of the floor reluctantly. We grab our badges and hit the road.
With the adrenaline rush of possibly breaking the case, Tony and I scramble to get to the precinct. When we arrive, DiNozzo works the room like he's one of them. I go and get Dave released into NCIS' custody. As the cop unlocks the drunk tank so we can leave, I realize Dave's nowhere to be seen amidst the fifteen or so guys milling around in the cell. And when I do see him, I wish I hadn't.
He appears to be completely passed out on the toilet. I look at the cop and he shrugs.
"I've seen worse." a couple of occupants drag Dave off the toilet and pass him slowly through the door. I settle his arm around my shoulders and thank the cop. Our progress is slow, Dave moves like Bernie Lomax… but I figure Bernie probably smelled better. Dave reeks of sweat, alcohol, stale cigarettes, and vomit. I try to limit the number of deep breaths I draw… but Dave is heavy, and I can't hold my breath long.
Rounding the corner in the squad room, I find DiNozzo chatting up a cute blonde with a very obvious engagement ring.
"Excuse the interruption, Tony, but are you gonna give me a hand or do you want me to just Weekend At Bernie's him?" Dave chooses that moment to announce his hangover in a spectacular fashion.
Fortunately for DiNozzo, Dave's unbelievable projectile vomit falls short of where Tony stands at the front desk. I, however, am lucky enough to be between them. It takes me a split second to realize that from my cap to my thigh I am wearing what had, until seconds ago, been the contents of our guy's stomach.
When the shock wears off, my gorge rises, I can't help myself. I start screeching. Just syllables, no real words other than the occasional 'f' word, and a couple of speculations on Dave's parentage. As Dave slurs and drunkenly apologizes to me, for a split second, I smell something strange… it doesn't smell like alcohol or vomit… but the scent is familiar. The thought flees, as Dave vomits a second time all over my shoes.
"God dammit!" I shriek, turning to Tony, "DiNozzo, I'm not riding back to NCIS with him unless we can put him in a bio-hazard suit that he can puke in to his heart's content!"
"You're not riding back to NCIS with me until you wipe some of the vomit off," he flicks at my windbreaker with a tissue. I grab him by the front of the shirt and haul him inches from my face.
"I will kill you." I hiss.
"I'll make him ride in the back," Tony whispers, trying not to smell me.
"Behind you, DiNozzo… behind you."
Forty minutes later, we enter the bullpen, neither of us touching any part of ourselves that we don't have to.
"It was already all over you…" Tony starts.
"He threw up on me twice at the precinct and twice in the car. You owe me big time." I counter, dropping my bag at my desk.
"What the hell for? He threw up on me while I was driving," Tony gingerly slips out of his shirt and turns it carefully inside out. I pull my jacket off and roll it into a ball. I pull my hat off, wincing as it pulls my hair. McGee watches in horror and fascination.
"Good job you two," Gibbs says, rounding the corner, "hit the showers and clean up."
"And?" Tony perks up.
"And get your ass back up here, DiNozzo! Triple Homicide… missing baby… missing suspect… you connecting the dots here?"
"I was never big on those as a kid," Tony says under his breath and Gibbs clips him across the back of the head with a manila folder. Scrutinizing the folder for a moment, Gibbs curls his lip and flicks it before opening it and handing McGee a piece of paper. He looks back to Tony and me and motions us away, "Shower… go!"
Twenty minutes later, we are back upstairs. Tony seems to have had an extra set of clothing. I had been forced to borrow from Ducky. I twist my still wet hair up in a bun and shove a pencil through it to make it stay.
"Sober him up before we start questioning him. Take him to the garage and hose him down if you have to," Gibbs says, watching Dave through the observation room window.
Dave Wheat nurses an ice pack on his head where someone hit him, staring drunkenly around the room. For long moments he sits quietly, if sullenly.
Suddenly, he leans over the trash can, sides violently heaving. I have sympathy for him, a wife murdered just hours ago and a baby missing, possibly dying. I'd have probably hit the bottle, too.
I tug at the collar of my loaner jumpsuit. I make a mental note to add a go bag to the trunk of my car. I'd rather not be caught in an autopsy jumpsuit again. The material scratches against my bare skin, and chafes my still tender neck.
My discomfort is compounded by the scrubbing I went through in the shower, my face bleeds from a few of the nicks sustained in the blast at the Winters home. I make a mental note to charge Dave interest for vomiting on me. Since DiNozzo and I picked him up, we gift McGee with the task of cleaning Dave up and getting him sober.
Misery loves company.