Chapter 10: Interrogations
A/N: A little shorter this time, and a lot later. IRL is catching up, but this story is not abandoned.
JJ had a routine.
Before every interrogation, she would go to the bathroom. She would fix her makeup, take a few deep breaths, and stare into her own eyes in the mirror. It was a quick routine; too many times, time was of the essence, and she didn't have very long to put on the face and demeanor that she needed to wear in order to pry information from unwilling mouths.
There was an art to interrogation.
Sometimes she had to be the friend, or the confidant. Sometimes she had to be tough, pulling out every single ounce of authority that she had. She had played the seductress, the wife, the mother, and the sister. She was whoever she needed to be in order to charm the suspect, to convince them that she was worth talking to.
Today, she was playing submissive, and it did not suit her at all.
JJ considered herself both strong and flexible. She could bend, when needed, but she had never considered herself broken, no matter what her life and her job threw at her. She did not enjoy the times when she was called upon to be no deeper than her appearance: just a girl, reduced down to blond hair and blue eyes and a shell of femininity that had no more substance than a particularly sexy lamp.
Unfortunately, Brent Trenton was a misogynist, which meant that he would only respond to the same misogyny, and to prove that the interrogator who was actually going to talk to him was a member of the boy's club, Hotch needed a woman to target.
JJ stared into her eyes, and willed herself to project what she needed to. Relax the shoulders, just enough to give out a hint of submission. Remember not to look him in the eye; a truly beaten woman would never dare. Hair down, the better to hide behind. Eyes a little wide, ears perked up, and always, always look to Hotch for direction before moving or speaking. She knew he was as uncomfortable with the charade as she was, but he gave no hint of it as she followed him into interrogation. She held the files that they needed and stood meekly behind him, clutching them to her chest in a pose that screamed submission as clearly as a leash and collar.
Hotch snapped his fingers without looking at her, and she scurried forward to place the predetermined folder in his hand. Hotch laid out five pictures in a neat row.
"Christina Nguyen. Patricia Oswald. Regan Black. Juanita Martinez. Darlene Anderson."
Brent barely glanced at the photos, maintaining a disinterested stare. "What's that got to do with me?" He asked blandly.
Hotch didn't answer, but instead lined up five more photos. These, JJ knew, would be the crime scene shots of the bodies after recovery. They predicted that he would be more interested in these, and they were right. He didn't do anything so obvious as lean forward or really study them, but there was definitely a curiosity in his eyes that was impossible to hide from the seasoned profilers. He had never seen the aftermath of his kills before, and the ultimate degradation of these women was sure to trigger the high of reliving the murders.
He smirked as he leaned back in his chair. "Heard about that on the news."
He was confident. Very confident, in fact, and that worried JJ. They were still processing the evidence back at the scene, but the sheer smugness radiating from him suggested that he had covered his bases, and they already knew he had done good work in removing evidence from the bodies. JJ saw the second that Hotch switched to plan B.
"How long has your wife been a murderer?"
That threw him off course, and the confusion and shock on his face was honest.
"You leave Melody the hell alone." He snapped, defensive. "She's mine, and she doesn't do a damn thing without my say-so. Don't you dare go blaming any of this shit on her."
"We have irrefutable proof of her attempt to murder two federal agents. For that alone, she'll be getting fifteen to twenty, and there's no way out for her. Are you telling me she did that on your say-so?" Hotch was mostly just poking the bear, now, trying to get a reaction that would show him the next direction to take.
"Bullshit!" Brent snapped. "Melody wouldn't hurt a fly!"
"You know." Hotch said in a conversational voice. "Maryland has leash laws. When someone has a dog that behaves badly, it's never the dog's fault. It's the owner's."
"My wife had nothing to do with that." He nodded towards the photos.
"You sound confident." Hotch mused. "Of course, you wouldn't want to be blamed if she got caught. How long have you been trying to keep her more violent tendencies under control?"
"I… what?" He was sputtering now, completely caught off guard. That was what they wanted, and JJ really wished that she was getting to play a more active role in this game.
"I see. I assumed you were the head of your household, but you're not, are you?" Hotch managed to stuff enough condescension into his voice that JJ could practically see it oozing out onto the table. "Another henpecked husband. Tell me, do you wear an apron when you wash the dishes? I'm picturing something frilly, to match your oven mitts."
Brent was a shade of red bordering on purple by this point, and he opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, working himself into an apoplectic fury so intense he couldn't even yell.
"Fine." Hotch stood. "If she's in charge, then I'll take my questions to her." He swept the photos off the table and beckoned imperiously to JJ. They strode out and snapped the door shut, and that was apparently all it took for him to find his voice. "Get the fuck back in here!" Brent howled. "You piece of shit, get back in here and say that to my face!"
They watched from beyond the two-way mirror as he did his best to thrash out of his chair. It was a useless effort, with his hands bolted to the table and his ankles bolted to the floor, but he gave it his best shot, shaking the table to the best of his ability and hurling curses at the empty room.
Rossi had been waiting for them, and looked amused. "A frilly apron, Aaron? Really?"
"Shut up. It's the first feminine thing I thought of."
"I know for a fact you wear an apron when you grill."
"A manly apron."
"You mean the one that says "I like big buns and I cannot lie?"" JJ contributed.
"Neither of you are going to be invited to the next cookout." He warned, with a glint in his eye that suggested the threat wasn't serious.
JJ couldn't help grinning at him. She enjoyed having a boss that she could poke fun at, occasionally, and they shared their own little bond as the only two parents on the team. He gave her that dumb little quirk of the lips that he favored over actually smiling, and they turned back to the mirror to watch Brent's continuing tantrum.
"How long do you think we should leave him?" Rossi asked.
"We'll let him stew for a bit. Working the Melody angle might be our best bet. He's extremely defensive about his control over her, and giving the lab some more time to process the evidence at the home is only going to strengthen our case against him."
"We should watch NCIS's interrogation." JJ suggested. "Playing the two off of each other might help break both our cases."
"I think you're right. And I'm interested in seeing how Agents Gibbs and DiNozzo work."
Hotch couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or not as he watched the interrogation.
Gibbs and DiNozzo were actually very good. He shouldn't have doubted it, after seeing how effectively Gibbs had managed to get under his own skin, but he still wasn't exactly a fan, and might have felt a little better about his dislike if Gibbs had proven himself to be incompetent. Instead they ran through the Mirandas like professionals, then dove in to the good stuff without blinking.
"We have irrefutable eyewitness testimony from two federal agents that you deliberately gave them lethal doses of rat poison. Our lab has confirmed it, and we're currently comparing the formula to the rodenticide on your husband's truck. And you know, what, Melody? I think it's going to be a match."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Her voice quavered, and she was definitely on the verge of tears. Neither Gibbs nor DiNozzo were buying it, and DiNozzo continued talking while Gibbs never took that steady blue-eyed gaze off of her.
"Of course you don't." DiNozzo's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "I suppose that the rat poison just "accidentally" fell into every cheesecake you made for the last three months. Just like you "accidentally" gave it out to customers for free, and "accidentally" murdered five people."
"It's Beth's business." She murmured, sounding the tiniest bit defensive for the first time. "I just work there."
"Oh, that's a load of bullshit!" DiNozzo burst out, slamming a fist on the table and shooting up. His chair crashed down behind him, and Melody flinched at the noise. She huddled down, and Hotch watched a tear drip down her cheek. She still had her eyes trained on her hands, folded demurely on the table even though she wasn't cuffed.
"He's overdoing the anger a little." Rossi critiqued from their spot behind the two-way mirror.
"I doubt it's all faked." JJ argued. "But yeah, he's playing up the bad cop just a hair too much."
"Probably used to being the good guy in interrogation." Hotch agreed. "But she might respond to the overbearing male, with the way her husband acts, and he's closer to the age they need."
DiNozzo paced the room, and Melody sunk a little deeper into herself every time he passed behind her. "You see, what I think is that you were jealous, weren't you Melody? I've seen the pictures, and the people you poisoned were pretty. Pretty, and smart, and successful, with happy lives, and happy families. Now, you, a mediocre trailer-trash girl wasting your life working in a food truck, just couldn't handle seeing that every day, could you?"
She was shaking her head but not speaking, and DiNozzo stood menacingly behind her, close enough that he knew she was aware of her presence. He leaned closer, using the full imposing bulk of his body to crowd her, while still being very careful not to actually touch her. "This." He hissed, "Is my partner." He laid a photo of Agent David inside the triangle of Melody's arms, reaching inside her personal space to force the photo into her field of vision. "She's laying in a hospital, dying, and I want. To. Know. WHY." He roared the last word at her, right in her ear, and she broke down bawling.
"DiNozzo." Gibbs stood and spoke for the first time, grabbing the younger agent by the arm and hauling him back. "Outside." He shoved him lightly in the general direction of the door, and DiNozzo stopped, looking mulish. "Now!"
DiNozzo went, slamming the door behind him, and entered into the observation room a few seconds later. He looked remarkably composed, all of the earlier anger gone, and Hotch knew they had been right.
Inside, Gibbs passed Melody his handkerchief and gave her a minute to compose herself.
"Your good cop, bad cop is a little different from what I'm used to." Rossi commented idly.
"Yeah, well. Any girl that latches on to a creep like Brent is going to have serious daddy issues, and I'm too suave to pull off "fatherly"." DiNozzo replied. "Gibbs has the hair to play the part, and don't you ever, ever tell him I said that. If we need to push her, I can go back in, but for now we're going to try giving her a shoulder to cry on."
Inside, Gibbs had moved his chair around to an intimate distance. He was hovering on the edge of her personal space, as DiNozzo had done, but there was no air of intimidation about him. His body language spoke of comfort, and Melody did not pull away when he gently gathered his hands between her own.
"I'm sorry about that, Mrs. Trenton." He said, softly, and Hotch marveled at his control. If he had been in there, with JJ or Emily laying in the hospital, he wasn't sure that he would have been able to stomach this kind of pretense. She looked up, finally, watery brown eyes meeting blue. "You've had a very long day." He added. "Can I get you anything? Water, coffee?"
She shook her head again, but her body language was relaxing. They knew it had been a risk, forcing her back in her shell to start, but Gibbs was pretty sure he could draw her back out again. "Alright. If you change your mind, just let me know. Now, I know you don't want to talk about this, but we think it's important. Can you tell me about your husband?"
Startled, she looked up. "Trent?" She asked. "Why? What about him?"
"Anything you want to tell me. How about we start when you met?"
"You… want to know how we got together?"
"I want you to feel safe here. It's obvious you love him very much, so I thought it might be something you'd like telling me about."
"Um. Well. We met in high school." She smiled, and Hotch racked one more tally up for Gibbs' score. "He most the most handsome boy in school, and he was actually interested in me! I was in the drama club, and he auditioned for our production of Grease just do he could spend more time with me. He was such a romantic back then. We didn't have a lot of money, but he took me out on picnics up at the lake, or fishing under the stars on his dad's boat. He even proposed to me out there, the same day I found out I was pregnant with Trey. He's a good man, Officer. I know he has a little bit of a temper, but it's not bad when he doesn't drink, and he really does love me."
"That's good, Mrs. Trenton, that's real good. Your son is how old?"
"He's twelve."
"What's he like?"
"Smart. He's so smart. I've been putting by a little each year so he can go to community college. I'm hoping he'll get a scholarship, but even if he doesn't, he's going to get everything that Brent and I never got to have."
And on it went. Gibbs was gentle with his prying, never giving her any hard questions, and steering her to softer subjects when it seemed like she would clam up. It wasn't a confession, not anything close, but they were building the all-important rapport that would lead her to consider Gibbs a confidante.
It was always amazing, Hotch would think, watching the psychology of humans and their need for social interaction. Even in an FBI interrogation room, with the cliché eggshell walls and two-way mirror, in every American's ingrained picture of a hostile environment, this woman was still falling for the oldest trick in the book. The vast majority of confessions weren't gained through intimidation and violence, no matter what the media portrayed. They were gained by making a human connection, then turning that connection back on the unsub.
Gibbs chatted with Melody for the better part of an hour, and by the end, Hotch suspected that she would have sold her soul to see him give her that little smile. He stood up and left with the offer of food and sodas all around, and entered the observation room with a sour look on his face.
Tony was ready with a hot cup of coffee, which Gibbs damn near snatched out of his hands. Hotch suspected that it had more to do with anger than a desire for caffeine.
"DiNozzo. Report."
"McGee's doing well. Ziva's…not, but is currently stable. Abby's confirmed that the husband's rodenticide is an exact match for the sticks Ziva had. Ducky has gotten access to a dozen of the relevant medical files so far, but has only just started going through them. Evidence has been delivered to NCIS and is processing."
"Hotchner. What's the status on your latest body?"
"Christina Nguyen? She was brought to the ME about twelve hours ago. We've only got the preliminary report so far."
"Get me an update on that."
"Agent Gibbs, I feel that this would be a good time that we're working with you. Not under you."
"Well, then, work with me on this, Agent Hotchner. If Nguyen was raped like you think she was, I'm betting that Melody in there will see that as a betrayal of his vows. She sells him down the road, he turns on her, and we've both got our cases."
"That's…very reasonable."
"Not my first day on the job, Hotchner."
"Fair enough. JJ?"
"I'll head over to the ME and get the updated report."
"DiNozzo, go with her." Gibbs shot him a look, and DiNozzo understood the unspoken instruction. The ME's office was in the same medical plaza as the hospital, and he was to get an in-person report from Ducky while they were close. He also knew that fresh coffee would be required, and probably some sandwiches, too. They had been running for almost twenty-four hours by this point, and Tony had no doubt in his mind that they'd be camping out at FBI Quantico until the confession finally shook loose.
Luckily for the federal agents, but not so luckily for Christina Nguyen, there were intact semen samples that the ME had managed to extract. DiNozzo took possession of the carefully packaged swabs himself, signing for custody of the evidence and placing it protectively in the inner pocket of his jacket. It gave him the heebie-jeebies, carrying a rapist's sperm next to his heart, but this was one of the most important pieces of evidence in the case, and he was a much more efficient courier service than anyone else. A forensic tech back at the FBI building had already swabbed and entered both of the Trentons' DNA samples into the national database and forwarded their gene profile to Abby personally, and he would have the little package in her hands less than two hours later.
After, of course, he took the time to visit his team.
Agent Jareau didn't even blink when he steered the government issue SUV into the law enforcement parking area in font of the hospital, and got out when he did, clearly intent on being the FBI's representative of good will.
He led the way first to the ICU, where they shamelessly flashed their badges to get around the hospital's one-visitor policy. Inside they found Ducky, sitting next to Ziva's too-still form with a pile of medical files stacked on the table next to him.
JJ had planned to introduce herself, make small talk, and generally be a good FBI liaison, but instead she found herself captivated by the emotions playing across Agent DiNozzo's face.
For his part, it was all Tony could do to keep breathing. That tube hadn't been down Ziva's throat last time he was here, with the straps and buckles and wires holding her to the bed, and the tubes to her, and the machines to the tubes, and…
It was almost too much. Too much like Lieutenant Alvarez, too much like his mother on her deathbed, too much like his own personal hellhole of blue lights and shallow breaths and the sad smiles of a dead woman walking.
"Ducky…" He started, then stopped, because what the hell could he say that would encompass this?
"She fell into a coma about forty minutes ago, Anthony." Ducky replied softly. "But it's not as bad as it sounds."
"Not as…Ducky, what the hell could possibly sound worse than that?!"
They both knew the answer to that, but Ducky was quick to turn off the thought and focus on the present. "It was expected, with anti-coagulant poisoning. I'm sorry I didn't have the chance to warn you. Think of it as Ziva's body trying to protect itself. By shutting down all the non-essential functions, it can focus on healing the worst of the damage without distractions."
"But… a coma."
"I know. It's very hard to see her like this. But her prognosis is actually fairly good, considering the circumstances. The organ failure has slowed considerably, and the treatment appears to be working."
"Then… she isn't going to…I mean… ow long will she be like this?"
His voice was the tiniest bit rough, and JJ had to resist the urge to put a hand on his shoulder. They weren't really close enough for that kind of comforting, and she suspected that he was the kind of guy who didn't do sympathy very well.
"I would not be surprised if she remained unconscious for a few days." Ducky answered. "The vast majority of the healing will not be visible to the naked eye. Please believe me when I tell you that I'm monitoring her closely, and that the doctors here are providing excellent care. You know I care for her too, Anthony."
DiNozzo nodded, apparently not trusting himself to speak. He took a few seconds to compose himself. "Send us the info from the files when you get through them, Ducky." He said. "I want Trenton nailed to the wall so hard she ends up with her own religion."
They made a quick visit to McGee's room, where they found him playing cards with Palmer. Tony passed on the relevant updates, and could admit quietly to himself that Palmer's nod of confirmation about Ducky's prognosis made him feel a little better. Ducky was kind, loyal, and generous to a fault, but Palmer was a slight socially awkward, dense little gremlin, no matter how much Tony liked him. If Ducky had been fudging the truth or misleading Tony to make him feel better, Palmer would have blurted it out without a second thought. He might have a bedside manner best suited to corpses, but he was also smart as a whip and particularly well versed in pathology. Tony trusted him, and it was reassuring to know that both of them were treating Ziva's coma like a routine part of a recovery route. They didn't stay long; the lab samples were too important to sit around for long, and Tony knew that there was a time limit before Gibbs would turn from a grumpy bastard to an angry bastard. He treated himself and Agent Jareau to some spectacularly bad vending machine snack, and they went off to meet Abby.