Torres groaned as he slapped the last file down. "I hate paperwork," he moaned.
"So you said," McGee said, not looking up from his computer.
"Six times," Bishop said, still going over her file.
"In th' last hour," Langston said, glancing at something on her screen before writing something down on the paper in front of her.
"That bad?" Torres asked, grinning.
"Yes!" choursed three agents.
"Not as bad as our dead sailor," Gibbs said, coming into the bullpen. "Someone dumped him behind a hospital. Grab your gear."
"Didn't we just finish a case?" Langston asked, grabbing her backpack and new NCIS ball cap.
"Welcome to our world," Bishop said, "where the fun never stops, and the cases never end."
"Sounds like th' tagline t' a bad tv series," Langston said, following her teammates into the elevator.
"Yeah, and this one's called Murder," McGee said.
"Not very original," Langston said.
McGee shrugged. "It's still in pre-production."
"Fair 'nuff," Langston said. A short time later, she was staring at the still partially buried body in a dumpster behind a local hospital. "Hey McGee?"
"Yeah?"
"Think I got a better title for tha' tv series," Langston said as she and Palmer carefully worked to free the victim from its smelly grave.
"Do tell," Bishop said, snapping some photos, trying not to cringe at the smell from the dumpster.
"Deadly Medicine," Langston said.
McGee thought for a moment. "Yeah. I like that."
Palmer just chuckled in amusement.
"What do we got?" Gibbs asked, joining them. He had just finished talking to the cops who had called the body in, and they had nothing of value to offer, other than the fact that once they discovered that the victim was Navy, they called NCIS.
"Driver's license says this is Adam Scotto. Fingerprint scanner says he's Petty Officer Second Class, supposed to be currently stationed on the USS John F. Kennedy, which is supposed to be patrolling near Japan right now," McGee said, holding up the victim's wallet and his portable fingerprint scanner. "Doesn't look like anything's missing, not even his credit cards. No cell phone, though, and so far, no sign of it. Killer may have kept it or destroyed it before or after dumping the body."
"Torres is talking to hospital security, trying to see if their cameras caught anything," Bishop said.
"Got a time of death, Palmer?" Gibbs asked.
"Not until I can get him out of here," Palmer said. "I can tell you this, though; cause of death is likely a blow to the back of the head, based on what I'm seeing."
"An' ouch," Langston said, wincing, handing McGee another garbage bag, trying to get some more room in the bin. "Someone was either really pissed, or that was a real hard hit."
"How come you aren't affected by the smell?" Bishop asked Langston, who grinned at her.
"Talk t' me 'bout smell when you've smelled a dead moose tha's been in the sun fer the last three days, or even a bucket o' fish tha's several days done," Langston said. "Or, iffin ya really wanna push it-"
"No thanks," McGee grumbled, holding his stomach. "I'd like to be able to eat lunch, thanks."
Both Palmer and Langston laughed.
Torres joined them, holding up a flashdrive. "Body was dumped around one a.m. last night," he said. "Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything, not until Housekeeping came by this morning. Cameras and lighting are lousy in this area, so all I can see is a dark car and a dark person dumping a body from the trunk of the car, and the car could be one of dozens of older models. No visible plate. Kasie might have better luck. Oh, and the only thing that was dumped was the body, which means Kasie won't get mad at us for hauling all this garbage back to NCIS."
"Why here?" Gibbs asked, watching as Palmer, Bishop, McGee, and Langston carefully got the body out of the dumpster and onto the waiting plastic sheet on the ground.
"Why not?" Langston asked. "When I was tanglin' wit poachers, it was always places they thought they couldn't be seen or heard, which meant they couldn't be caught. This alley can't be seen from th' streets, lighting is low, bin is easily accessible, fast in an' out. No one th' wiser, until someone finds 'im the next morn."
"Yeah, but a hospital? That pretty much guarantees he'll be found," Palmer said, inserting the liver probe into the victim.
"Maybe someone wanted him to be found," Torres said. "Guilty conscience?"
"Someone's guilty of something, all right; killing this guy," Gibbs said.
"An' the kicker? I ain't seein' nothin' on his hands or arms t' suggest he fought back," Langston said, holding up one of the victim's hands.
"Ambush," Bishop suggested.
"As of between six and eight last night," Palmer said, reading his probe and doing some fast mental calculations.
"Takin' inta account ambient temp?" Langston said. "Been pretty chilly last coupla nights."
"Taking that into account, too," Palmer nodded. "I'll know more when I get him on my table, but cause of death is definitely the blow to the back of the head, because I'm not seeing anything else at the moment." He glanced at Langston. "Your first?"
She shook her head, as she and Palmer worked to load the body on to the stretcher that would take it back to NCIS. "Did a coupla search an' rescues on the waters an' woods. Worst was an overturned boat of teens; five, no lifejackets, an' all but one had high BAC's. She was fifteen, an' visitin' from outta state. Had no business bein' wit those kids, an' was too far from shore to swim without a jacket. Parents didn't notice she was missin', 'cause they were partyin' themselves, until she was found th' next mornin'. Y' could hear th' screamin' up an' down th' whole dock."
Everyone winced.
"All right, wrap it up, get it back to NCIS," Gibbs said. "Let's find out what we know about this guy."
Back at NCIS, the team started digging. McGee and Bishop dug through Petty Officer Scotto's digital presence, including his bank accounts and phone, while Torres contacted his commanding officer, and Langston went through his service file.
"Okay, iffin' I'm readin' this right, Petty Officer Scotto was part o' the flight deck crew, handlin' cargo. Good evaluations, wit' one senior officer describin' him as th' steady type, th' one that could be relied upon t' git the job done, but was currently unsure of th' direction he wanted t' go," Langston said.
"When did he join the Navy?" Gibbs asked.
"Looks like as soon as he could, an' I think I know why; file says he was a foster kid," Langston said. "Bounced around th' states quite a bit, startin' from when he was a wee nipper, 'till he was aged outta th' system."
"Bank account is showing he bought gas at a gas station a couple miles out of DC, around three pm yesterday," Bishop said, "which fits in with him renting a car on his credit card two days ago, which I'm about to put a BOLO out on. And he bought some stuff from a hardware store, about eighty bucks worth. I'll call the store, find out what he bought."
"And the Agent Afloat wants a word with us in MTAC," Torres said, hanging up his phone. "Seems Petty Officer Scotto gave him something just before he left, and said he was to look at if he was informed of his disappearance or demise."
"Langston, you and me. Torres, find out where he was staying, and when he got into town," Gibbs said, getting up from his desk and heading upstairs. Langston followed him, grabbing her notebook and pen.
As they headed upstairs, Gibbs said, "Show me your notebook." Langston handed him her notebook, and he flipped through it. He nodded, satisfied. "Good; your handwriting's legible."
"Good t' know. Agent Afloat?"
"Same as what we do here, except on a ship, usually the larger ones. The John F. Kennedy has over four thousand crew members and is over a thousand feet long, capable of holding up to eighty, or more, combat aircraft, she's a city on the water and one of the newest ones, christened in 2019," Gibbs explained, leaning forward to get scanned by the MTAC's retinal scanner.
"Wow. So, would she still be undergoing her sea trials? Read somewhere those can take years."
Gibbs nodded. "They can." Inside the dimly lit MTAC room, where a man with dark blonde hair was waiting for them on the main viewer, looking like he was seated in an office of some kind, with grey walls.
"Special Agent Gibbs," he said. "This is Special Agent Langston. You spoke with Special Agent Torres about Petty Officer Scotto?"
"Special Agent Willis, and yeah, I did," the agent said. "Just before he left, he gave me a sealed envelope and said that if something happened to him, if I got word about him, I was to open up the envelope immediately and read the letter."
"What'd the letter say?" Gibbs asked.
"It was a confession of sorts, about a murder Petty Officer Scotto supposedly witnessed when he was about seven," Willis said. "He says he was living with a woman he only knew as Mrs. Wentworth, and she was the meanest, ugliest foster mother he ever knew, next to her husband, Mr. Wentworth. Said he couldn't remember how long he stayed with them, only that it felt like forever. During that time, there was a little girl he knew as Amanda, and from the way he describes her, it's possible she was a Downs Syndrome kid. One day, the little girl disappeared."
"Did Petty Officer Scotto know why or how?" Gibbs asked.
"That's the punchline," Willis said. "He claimed he saw Mrs. Wentworth hit Amanada, that she went down and didn't get up again, and that later that night, he saw Mr. Wentworth and one of the other foster boys, another big bully by the name of Tommy, going into the woods behind the house, carrying a bundle that was about the same size as Amanda, and that after that night, Amanda was never seen again. If any of the kids dared to ask about Amanda, the Wentworths would use physical violence or threats and intimidation against the kids."
"What do you make of that?" Gibbs asked.
Willis sighed. "It sounds like something right out of a bad mystery novel, but the timing…" He shook his head. "Petty Officer Scotto wrote that he tried to forget about what happened to Amanda, but recently it had started weighing on him, and that was why he suddenly decided he had to go back. He wrote that he had to make a wrong, right, and find Amanda. And now you guys are telling me he's dead not even two days later. I don't know about you, but something stinks."
"Agreed. Send me a copy of that letter," Gibbs said.
"There should be records of this Wentworth couple," Langston said. "I can try an' find 'em, see if I can find th' house. Maybe someone wanted Amanda t' stay buried, an' when Petty Officer Scotto threatened t' dig her up, someone took 'im out."
"Do it," Gibbs said. "It's the best lead we have right now. What was he like, Willis?"
"I didn't know him that well, but he struck me as a good kid, and from what he wrote, he was one of the lucky ones. He referenced Tommy again, and said that the last time he saw the guy, he'd been arrested twice before he was eighteen, for assault charges."
"Wow," Langston said. "If he's in th' system, I should be able t' find 'im. Could be a potential suspect, 'specially if Petty Officer Scotto was determined t' find Amanda, which means he could've reached out t' this Tommy, tryna git 'im t' do the right thing."
"And someone took objection to that," Willis said. "That's what I'm thinking. Okay, well, I'll send you guys a copy of that letter, and send you everything I can find in his bunk."
"Much appreciated," Langston said. Gibbs nodded, and Willis signed off. "Betcha a Bud those files ain't gonna be digitalized, which means we're gonna be upta our eyebrows in paper files."
Gibbs smirked. "Make the call and get started. Find Tommy and the Wentworths."
"Gittin'."