Chapter 45
Tim was feeling strange. He was waiting for Rachel to come and talk to him again, but his mind was buzzing with thoughts and he wasn't sure he even understood where his thoughts were taking him, but he felt too antsy to stay in this room. He left it and headed for the bullpen where Gibbs' desk was. When he got there, no one was there. He walked over to Gibbs' desk and paced a little. What was it he was wanting?
Then, it came to him, and he wasn't sure how he would manage it.
Suddenly, he noticed a set of keys sitting on Gibbs' desk. He hesitated for a few seconds. He knew he shouldn't, but he felt like he had to.
He took the keys and snuck out of the building.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Fornell walked into the Nebraska SBI headquarters and got directed to Tony's desk. He was still a little put out that this trip was required when all he had wanted at this point was information, but the curiosity was still there.
Unfortunately, no one was at the desk when he got there. He sighed in frustration. This was the moment where he started to really question what he was doing. Every stage of this had been a struggle and he hoped it was worth it.
"Hello, can I help you?"
He turned around, disappointed that the voice was not male. The woman didn't look like she belonged in this space, but he supposed that he didn't know what to expect from people who worked here.
"I'm looking for Agent DiNozzo."
"Oh. He's...out of the office right now. The whole team is, except me. They don't let me out much," she said, grinning.
"I can't see why not," Fornell replied.
"I'm Abby Sciuto. I mostly do forensics."
"Tobias Fornell."
Her eyes widened and then, she seemed almost giddy.
"Oh! You're here! I didn't know you were coming so soon! If I had known, I would have forced Gibbs to stay here to talk to you! Oh, I wish he was here, but he's doing some really important stuff and...and you'll have to wait until they get back."
"Back from where?"
"An interview for a case. It could solve the whole thing, so even though I'm really excited that you're here, I can't interrupt that."
"I understand. When will they be back?"
"I don't know. It depends on how it goes."
Fornell could see that she had other things she could say, but he respected the job being done, so he decided not to push her. Instead, he grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote his name and cell number on it. Then, he gave it to her.
"Please have them call me when they get back. I'll go and find a hotel, catch up on my sleep."
"Okay. I'm sorry that he's not here."
"I'm assuming that it's important. I can wait."
Disappointed, but understanding the situation as best he could, Fornell left the building and found a hotel. Then, he called Diane, let her know that he'd arrived safely, and fell asleep.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
"Are you ready for this?" Tony asked. "What if it doesn't pan out?"
"I won't be in the room," Kate said. "Gibbs will. He'll never know that I'm bothered by it."
"Who? Gibbs or Sheriff Drake?" Tony asked.
Kate smiled a little. "Either one."
Then, the door opened in the interrogation room and Sheriff Drake looked over as Gibbs walked in and sat down. Tony was ready in case Gibbs needed physical backup, although they weren't anticipating that being an issue, but Kate just wanted to see this work out like she thought it would. Gibbs was an extremely skilled investigator, she knew. He would be better at the interview, but part of Kate wanted to be in there, on hand, to see Sheriff Drake cave as she was sure he would, given the right provocation.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
"Stan, Alan is demanding to talk to you," Ned said.
"Demanding?" Stan asked.
"Yeah. He said that he's not going to talk to a peon like me."
Stan rolled his eyes. Even when he was facing serious jail time, Alan didn't seem to realize how bad his situation was.
"All right. He'd be better off talking to you, though. I'm not at all sympathetic to him."
"Neither am I," Ned said. "Anyone who would go after Ducky..."
"Yeah."
Stan took a breath and headed into the jail cell. Since his dad was currently in his own negative situation, Alan didn't have anyone to post bail for him. He was the only one in the jail right now, and they were treating him well, but he was still under arrest.
"Good morning, Alan. What can I do for you?"
"You can let me out of here, Stan," Alan said. "This is ridiculous."
"Ridiculous? Alan, you nearly killed Ducky, and you set his house on fire. You could have killed two people. This isn't ridiculous. This is serious and it's high time you recognized that."
"I didn't kill anyone. I wasn't aiming for Ducky."
"Let me lay this out for you, Alan. See if it can penetrate your thick skull. You are under arrest for arson, attempted murder, and assault. Because the arson was with the intent to harm another person, that could be a life sentence if you're convicted. For attempted murder, you could be looking at another life sentence. At the least, you'll be spending at least ten years in prison if you're convicted. The assault charge is the least serious and even that could have you spending a few years in prison. This is not a game. This is serious. This is your life, Alan. You tried to take the lives of two other people and the fact that you didn't succeed isn't going to change your situation much."
"But I didn't kill anyone!"
"You don't only get punished for killing people, you know. There's a whole criminal code out there. What makes this even worse is that you did it out of some misplaced sense of offense because your father tried to kill me."
"He wouldn't do that!" Alan said. "I can guess that you got mixed up because of your head injury, but the freak was going to get my father arrested!"
"Your father got himself arrested, Alan. Your father didn't only try to kill me. He also attacked Tim McGee. In addition, he's under arrest for stalking."
"Stalking? Stalking who? Tim? That is ridiculous. Dad hates Tim. Always has."
"No. Not Tim. Mary."
For the first time, Alan seemed surprised.
"Why would my dad be stalking Mary? He told me to stay away from her."
"Well, he didn't listen to his own advice. Not only was he stalking her, he was taking photos of her. Hundreds of photos. We have them." Stan hesitated. He didn't want to completely tear Sheriff Drake down in front of his son, but Alan needed to see what reality was. "And your father was paying Margaret McGee for sex. He was buying her and when she ended it, he took photos of her, too. Again, we have evidence, multiple sources...including photos your dad took. You've probably thrown your life away for a man who, even if he isn't guilty of murder, is guilty of a lot of things. He already ruined his own life. Now, you seem to be trying to follow in his footsteps. If you want to have a chance to do something besides see how long you last in a prison, you might want to start reconsidering the choices you've made."
Alan seemed to be in a bit of shock. Stan stood up.
"The short answer is no, you're not getting out of here. Not anytime soon. Get comfortable with the bars."
Then, he strode out.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Gibbs sat down across from Sheriff Drake. He still had that distasteful expression on his face. He hated that he was being subject to the law, not necessarily because he was innocent. He just didn't think he should be.
"Good morning, Sheriff Drake."
"What do you want? I have the right to counsel if I'm going to be interrogated."
"There may be an interrogation, but at the moment, there's not. I'm here for a different reason."
"Oh? And what's that?"
"I have a warrant for a body search. Waist up only. All that's required is that you remove your shirt and allow a visual examination."
There it was, just for a second. If Gibbs hadn't been watching for it, he would have missed it. There was a flicker in Sheriff Drake's eye that told Gibbs he really didn't want to have this search performed. In reality, from Gibbs' perspective, the search was no longer necessary, but legally, of course, that flicker wasn't enough.
"Why?"
"Well, it turns out that you shared some information with Tim McGee about Mary's murder that we need to verify."
Sheriff Drake's expression was confused. He probably didn't even remember what he'd said.
"You described Mary Fields' attempt to defend herself from her murderer with some interesting details that we'd like to check out. Please remove your shirt."
Sheriff Drake didn't move.
"You know how this works, Sheriff Drake. The warrant requires your cooperation. We can force you to remove your shirt, but the warrant will be executed, whether voluntarily or by force."
Sheriff Drake sighed and unbuttoned his shirt. He removed it and then took off the undershirt.
Gibbs raised his eyebrow.
"Those are some pretty nasty scratches on your chest, Sheriff Drake. Human fingernails can be very dirty places. If you don't get a scratch treated right away, it can become infected...as these obviously have."
There weren't a lot of them, but they were very obviously scratches from fingernails. Gibbs could see that Mary had fought back as much as she could. It just hadn't been enough. With Sheriff Drake's reluctant cooperation, he documented the scratches and then sat down again.
"Now, I have some questions for you. If you'd like your lawyer to be present, we'll wait. You have the right to counsel, as you said." He stood up. "I'll call your lawyer. You can put your shirt back on."
Gibbs walked out of the room and back to where Tony and Kate were watching.
"I called his lawyer, Boss," Tony said.
"Good. You stay out here," Gibbs said, looking at Kate, specifically.
"Of course, Gibbs." There was a pause. She was warring with herself, but then, she chanced a smile. "I was right."
Gibbs debated whether or not to give her the validation she was silently asking for.
"Yeah, you were. He's our killer."
Then, he headed back to make sure that the pictures turned out. There was no way that he was going to lose that. The best part was that there had been no physical contact, even. Visual examination had been enough. He couldn't claim anything inappropriate had occurred.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Rachel looked around the entire building before heading to Abby's lab to see if Tim was there.
"Abby!" she shouted over the music.
Abby appeared out of nowhere, grinning gleefully.
"Guess what, Rachel! Tobias Fornell showed up! Gibbs is doing the interrogation of that scum bucket, Sheriff Drake, and I had to tell him to come back later, but he's here! In Lincoln! He came! Isn't that cool?"
"Did you tell him about Tim?"
"No. Gibbs didn't want Tim to know about it until he'd figured out what this guy actually wants."
"Good. Have you seen Tim at all this morning?"
"No. I didn't think I could keep it a secret if I was talking to him. I know he came with Gibbs, though."
"He's not in the conference room, and I haven't been able to find him anywhere in the building."
Abby furrowed her brow.
"Where could he be?"
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
After a few minutes, he returned to the interrogation room and found that Sheriff Drake's lawyer had arrived.
"Good morning," Gibbs said. "I assume that Sheriff Drake has shared the results of the warrant?"
"Yes, he has. May I see the warrant?"
Gibbs easily slid the warrant across the table and watched as the lawyer read it. There was nothing wrong with it.
"You have questions for my client?"
"Yes."
"Go ahead."
"Thank you. Where did those scratches come from, Sheriff Drake?"
Sheriff Drake said nothing.
"Here's the problem. You never mentioned that you went to the river while Mary was there."
"I didn't," Sheriff Drake said.
"Funny, but someone saw you going to the river, just shortly before Mary was killed."
"Who?"
"Henry Swenson. He lives right by the road that goes to the river. He saw you on the day Mary was killed, near the time she was killed. He saw you drive to the river. Why did you go to the river that evening, Sheriff Drake? The one place that you were seen was where Mary was killed. So what were you doing there?"
There was a long silence. Then, Sheriff Drake got ready to lie. He wasn't very good at it. He'd probably never had to worry about it before.
"I wasn't there. Henry is paranoid. He was always asking me to check on kids playing pranks."
"Deputy Burley doesn't seem to think so. In fact, he places you at the crime scene at the time of the murder. If you weren't there, where were you?"
"Patrolling Hazard. That's my job," Sheriff Drake said, sounding more confident.
"Only you weren't," Gibbs said. "No one saw you anywhere in town after seven-thirty, but you weren't at the station. Henry Swenson saw you going to the river at eight. You were acting strangely when you came back. You didn't answer any calls from dispatch and there were a couple."
"I was busy."
"Doing what? Killing Mary?"
"There's no evidence of that," Sheriff Drake's lawyer said. "Everything you've presented is circumstantial."
"Maybe. But it's piling up. Besides the fact that you were stalking Mary, we know that she was afraid of you."
"And how do you know that?"
Gibbs pulled out Mary's diary and began to read.
"But besides that, there's Sheriff Drake. The way he looked at me tonight gave me the chills. It was like he thought I'd betrayed him, just like Tim thought I had. He was yelling at Alan and Alan was ignoring him, but then... Then, he looked at me and got quiet. When he saw the scarf, I swear that he almost exploded. But he didn't say a word to me. Alan was done with me, too; so I just walked away, left them bickering and I came home.
I feel used. I feel hurt. I feel alone. And I'm scared. I'm scared of Sheriff Drake. Maybe I should say something to someone. I just don't know who. Maybe Ned would listen to me. I haven't talked to him since high school, though. I don't know.
I just need someone on my side."
Gibbs looked up...and saw that it was time to start pushing. This was the moment that Kate had wanted to have. Start pushing at what Sheriff Drake saw as his rights and what he felt belonged to him.
"Mary hated you. She was disgusted by your attention. She was afraid of you. How many times did she say no? And all that time, it was Tim she cared about. She allowed your son to have sex with her just to protect Tim. She cared about Tim more than she could ever care about you. She would hug Tim and spend time with him. All you could ever do was look. Tim was the one who could touch her. She chose Tim over you...just like his mother did. In the end, Sheriff Drake, you're nothing. Tim is the one that people care about. You're just left to leer at them from a distance because that's as close as they want you to be and even that is too close. Tim is the one that..."
"They did not!" Sheriff Drake suddenly shouted, the words exploding out of him. "That slut just didn't want to work for what I gave her! I gave her money! And in the end, she spit in my face! She's lucky that all I did was take a few pictures! I could have made her life miserable."
"Sounds like you already did. Just like Mary," Gibbs said, ignoring the sputtering protests of Sheriff Drake's lawyer.
"She was a little tramp just like his mother! Always playing up and asking for the attention and then acting like she didn't want it. She even had sex with my son just to get in my face about it! She needed to be taught a lesson!"
"And so you killed her?"
"She deserved it! After everything she did to me, she didn't deserve to live!"
"And what did she do to you?" Gibbs asked.
"She chose him over me!"
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Mary was standing on the bank, looking out at the river.
When he approached, she looked back, almost hopeful, but when she saw it was Sheriff Drake, her face fell.
"What do you want, Sheriff Drake?"
"What are you doing here?" he asked, walking closer to her.
She took a step back.
"It's none of your business. I don't want to talk to you and I don't have to."
She started to walk by him, but he grabbed her arm.
"Don't touch me. Let me go."
He spun her around and pulled her close to him.
"Let me go!" she said.
"I don't think so. Not this time."
He grabbed hold of the scarf around her neck. He recognized it as Tim's.
That was it.
"You will not choose him over me."
He pulled the scarf tight around her neck. She began to beat at him, trying to get him to let her go. She scratched at his chest, struggling, but she wasn't strong enough. He pulled it as tight as he could and jerked it. She spasmed once and then sagged in his grip. He kept the pressure until he was sure she was dead.
Then, he looked at the river. If the currents ran right, she'd be carried right out of town. If not, she'd still be hidden for long enough.
He dragged her over and threw her into the river. She sunk down just below the surface and began floating downstream. He couldn't afford to stay here watching. Very few people came here, but he didn't want to chance it.
He got into his car and headed along the road, making the longer loop back to Hazard.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
There was a moment of silence as the lawyer and Gibbs both registered what Sheriff Drake had just said. His lawyer's eyes widened just a bit. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing really came out. He wasn't sure how to get around this.
Gibbs didn't give him a chance to.
"I'm sure that the courts will be very interested in hearing about that, Sheriff Drake. We will be adding murder to the list of charges and I'm sure your lawyer will be happy to explain how that will work after he hears from the DA. I have no more questions."
Gibbs stood up and headed for the door.
"Wait," Sheriff Drake said. "What is this?"
Gibbs turned back for just a moment.
"You just confessed to murder, Sheriff Drake. That, along with the fact that you had means, motive and opportunity, will make prosecution much easier, I'm sure."
Then, he walked out, ignoring Sheriff Drake's outraged protests behind him.
He walked over to where Tony and Kate were standing. Tony looked satisfied. Kate was vacillating between fury and satisfaction.
They both looked at him.
"We got him," Gibbs said, simply.
