Chapter Three
Over the next 2 days, Tony received several calls from that same caller, but ignored them. He wasn't sure what he was going to do and he didn't wish to talk to that person again until he'd figured that out. Besides that, he was still on the fence as to the legitimacy of the demand. On the one hand, the person seemed to know a lot of information about his family to be making this up, but on the other hand, there were also a lot of things about what he'd been told that didn't make sense. While his father was rich, Tony was never privy to how he obtained all his money—though he'd assumed it was from conning others—so it was very possible that his father could've borrowed the money from this organization. But, even if that was true, why would they be targeting Tony? He hadn't so much as called his father nor received a call from his father in almost 15 years, and, even given his status as a federal agent which may have seemed appealing to these people, it didn't make sense that they would seek him out considering his father couldn't care less if they killed Tony. Based on that phone call, they were acting like all of this was on Tony and his father was free from any of the responsibility, which just didn't make sense. By Sunday night, he'd received around eight calls within 2 days, and even if Tony told himself that this whole ordeal wasn't bothering him, his inability to get any sleep told a different story.
The next morning, after a night of fitful sleep, he woke up at 04:00 and, deciding to give up on the idea that he was going to get any quality sleep, he got out of bed and got ready for the day. Before he left his apartment, he glanced at himself in the bathroom mirror. If he was being honest, the dark circles under his eyes all but gave away his lack of sleep that previous night, but, figuring he could make up an excuse rather easily if anybody questioned him about it, he shrugged his shoulders and headed to the office.
It was only a little after 05:00 when he arrived and not even Gibbs had arrived yet. He yawned as he set his stuff down and turned on his computer, eager to get to work to take his mind off of his hellish weekend. After waiting for an hour for anyone else to arrive with no luck, he grabbed his bag and headed to his car, deciding to go question Bill Haywood by himself.
After arriving at the office just before 07:00, Kate stopped at her desk, seeing that McGee had already arrived and was already working at his desk and judging by the empty desk across from her, unsurprisingly, Tony seemed to be running late again.
"Morning, McGee," she greeted him as she sat down.
"Hi, Kate," McGee called back, looking up for the first time since she'd arrived.
Before Kate could say anything else, Gibbs walked in with a fresh cup of coffee in hand. She greeted him, "Hey, Gibbs." He only gave her a curt nod in response, so she continued, "Do you want us to go talk to Bill Haywood, see if he knew if Josh was having an affair?"
"Wait for DiNozzo," Gibbs told her. Then, he said, "McGee, go help Abby."
"Got it, boss," McGee said and headed towards Abby's lab.
"And when exactly does DiNozzo's work day start? Noon?" Kate quipped.
Gibbs looked at her with a hint of a smile, but didn't say anything.
Due to getting stuck in rush hour traffic, Tony didn't arrive at the Haywood residence until 07:30. He knocked on the door and waited for 5 minutes before a woman answered the door, a baby on her hip.
"Hi," she greeted Tony. "Can I help you?"
"Special Agent DiNozzo, NCIS," Tony told her, flashing his badge. "Is Bill Haywood here? I have a few questions for him."
"You're here about Josh," she realized.
"You knew him?" Tony asked.
"Yeah. I mean, I was closer with Andrea, but he was a great guy. Just a tragedy, what happened to him," she said.
"Yeah," Tony agreed. "So is Bill around?"
"He went over to Andrea's house to see if she wanted to come over for breakfast. We didn't want her to be alone right now—not if she doesn't want to be," she explained.
Tony nodded as he started heading across the street. "Thank you," he called back. He knocked on the door and, this time, waited almost 10 minutes before a woman came to answer it.
"Good morning, ma'am," Tony said before she could speak. Like at the previous house, he flashed his badge as he told her, "I'm Special Agent DiNozzo, NCIS. Is Bill Haywood here? I just have a couple questions."
"No," she said. "He lives across the street."
"Yeah," Tony told her. "I just came from there. I was told by some woman that he came over here. But you haven't seen him?"
"You must be talking about his daughter. Um, why don't you wait here for a second," Andrea said, before closing the door.
5 minutes later, the door opened again, and this time a man answered and stepped outside onto the porch with Tony. "Hi, I'm Bill Haywood," he said. "Andrea said you have some questions for me? Is this about Josh?"
"Yeah," Tony said, ignoring the weird exchange he'd just had with Andrea for the time being. "You told the agents that came here Friday that you and Josh were close?"
"Yeah, I loved Josh. It's horrible what happened," Bill told him.
"Well, how close were you? Best friends?" Tony asked.
"Yeah," Bill agreed. "Why?"
Ignoring his question, Tony asked, "Would you say Josh confided in you?"
"I mean, yeah. Like I told the other agent, we hung out and talked all the time. In fact, we'd go on fishing trips every so often and just talk about whatever, you know, away from everyone else. He was very private, so he wouldn't talk about these things unless he was sure no one else could hear him. And he was such a stand up guy; if you told him a secret, no one else was gonna hear about it. I'm never gonna find a better friend than him," Bill said. Then, asked again, "Why?"
"We suspect Josh may have been having an affair. Can you speak to that?" Tony asked.
Bill was quiet for a minute before he said, "Is Josh's personal life that important?"
"Seeing as someone murdered him, everything's important," Tony told him. "Josh's privacy is not our top concern right now—finding his killer is."
"Right, right. I get that." Bill was quiet again until he finally said, "Look, Josh loved Andrea. It's just…he was torn. He'd been with Andrea since high school and, while he still loved her, he met another woman."
"Was it serious?" Tony asked.
"He was thinking of leaving Andrea for her," Bill explained. "I tried my best to talk him out of it though. I guess to no avail."
"You know her name?" Tony wondered.
Bill was silent again before he finally said, "I shouldn't. It's not really my business or my secret to tell…"
Tony sighed, quickly losing his patience with this guy's reluctance to answer his questions. He pulled out his handcuffs as he nonchalantly told Bill, "Well, if you would prefer, I can just arrest you for obstruction of justice."
"Okay, okay! Jeez!" Bill said immediately. Then, he said quietly, "This can't get back to Andrea though."
Tony, not promising anything, said impatiently, "The name?"
"Grace Johansson," Bill finally told him.
"Thank you for your cooperation," Tony told him sarcastically.
Bill wasn't amused as he asked, "Is that it?"
"For now. You have a good day," Tony told him shortly before heading back to his car.
Tony didn't get back to the office until almost 09:30. As soon as he arrived at his desk, Kate told him, "Two and a half hours late, DiNozzo. That's gotta be a record, even for you."
Tony gave her a smile and said, "I wasn't late—"
Before he could finish, Gibbs walked in, saying, "Is that so, DiNozzo? You set your own rules now? You get promoted to Director over the weekend?"
"Of course not, boss. What I meant to say is that I wasn't late because I was in the field," Tony explained.
As he sat down at his desk, Gibbs asked, "Yeah? Doing what?"
"Talking to Haywood," Tony explained, sitting at his own desk. "No one was here when I got in, so I just decided to go alone."
Gibbs gave him a curt nod and then asked, "What'd you find out?"
"He concurs that Josh was having an affair, and gave me her name—Grace Johansson, " Tony said. Then, he paused and looked as if he wanted to say something else but wasn't sure if he should.
Gibbs noticed this and asked, "What, DiNozzo?"
Tony remained silent for a moment, then he admitted, "It just seems a little…"
"A little what?" Gibbs wondered.
"Predictable," Tony explained.
"You don't think he was having an affair?" Kate asked.
"I don't know," Tony said. "But something isn't adding up. There was definitely a weird vibe over there today."
"How so?" Kate asked.
Tony explained, "Well, Bill's daughter answered the door—at least Andrea told me it was his daughter—and she told me Bill was at Andrea's house—"
"Again?" Kate wondered. "He was there when McGee and I went over there too."
Tony nodded and continued, "—but when I went over there, I spoke to Andrea and she told me she hadn't seen Bill. But after I told her his daughter told me he was over there, she closed the door and 5 minutes later, suddenly Bill came to the door. Just seemed a little suspicious."
"So what're you thinking?" Gibbs wondered.
"Maybe Josh wasn't the only one having an affair," Tony said.
"Look into it," Gibbs told him. Then, he turned to Kate and told her, "Find the mistress."
As Kate and Tony worked, Tony's cell phone rang several times, and each time, he checked the number and then proceeded to ignore the call.
After the tenth call, Kate sarcastically asked, "Girlfriend?"
Tony chuckled and then told her, "Uh, no—though I'm sure she wouldn't mind that."
"So you slept with her and now you're avoiding her calls?" Kate surmised.
"Those are the Cliffs Notes, yes," Tony told her as he continued to work.
"You're incorrigible, DiNozzo," Kate said with a shake of her head.
Tony arrived home that night feeling somewhat frustrated. Not only did he keep getting calls all day long from that same caller, but they hadn't gotten anywhere in the case. Kate was unable to locate the mistress—she'd found many Grace Johanssons, but none were the Grace Johansson that Josh Porter was having an affair with. And he wasn't able to find any definitive evidence to prove Andrea and Bill were more than friends. Gibbs instructed Tony and Kate to bring Bill and Andrea into interrogation the next morning and see if they could get one of them to break. But for now, they had no solid evidence.
As soon as he approached his apartment, Tony noticed that his door was ajar. Immediately vigilant, he unholstered his gun before entering.
"I'd drop the weapon if I were you," a man said to him as soon as he walked in. He found himself face to face with five men, each with a gun pointed at him. Tony slowly set his gun on the ground. "Good boy," the man told him. "Now kick it away." Tony did as he was told. "The knife in your belt too." Tony, wondering how the hell he knew about his knife and where he kept it, nonetheless removed the knife and tossed it away. As soon as he did so, four of the five men lowered their guns. "Close the door, Anthony." Once again, Tony followed their instructions.
"Welcome," Tony quipped after he'd closed the door and turned back around. "Can I get you anything? Water? Beer? Chicken pot pie?"
"You've ignored our calls," the man told him, ignoring Tony's flippant comment.
"Can you blame me?" Tony asked.
"We gave you your options, Anthony. What's your choice?" the man asked.
"My choice?" Tony asked.
"Are you going to pay in cash or are you going to retrieve the files we requested?" the man asked patiently.
"Neither," Tony said, getting angry now. "How do I even know this is real—that this isn't some scam?"
"You need incentive?" the man asked. "No problem."
Before Tony could react, the five men were on him—punching him, kicking him. Hard as he tried to fight back, he couldn't take on all five of these large men at once. A few minutes later, it was over and the men left as Tony still laid on the ground in pain.
And a couple seconds after he heard his door slam shut, everything went dark.