Disclaimer. NCIS and CSI are the property of CBS and those folks. They have nothing to to with me and I have nothing to do with them.
A/N: This chapter is mostly just the case. But I'll be catching up with the GSR in the next chapter.
Mark Peterson's Apartment
Washington DC
Tony, Ziva and Sara were walking up to Mark Peterson's building when they heard Gibbs's car tires squeal as he took a turn too fast. They watched as he parked and get out of the car.
"I'm driving back." Said Grissom firmly as he got out of the car, "You're a maniac." They walked towards the apartment building.
"Fancy meeting you here." Tony smiled and Gibbs rolled his eyes.
"What did you find out?" Gibbs asked
"Rebbecca Stanford attended a party at Leon's eight days ago" Sara read from her notes, "She went with her boyfriend, Mark Peterson who was an old college buddy of Leon's."
"According to Miss Standford, Mark was flirting with Leon's girlfriend and they have history of competitive behavior." said DiNozzo.
"Mark Peterson's prints were on the lighter used to crush the oxycotin." said McGee.
"What's he in the system for?" Asked Sara.
"He was arrested a few years ago for beating up his girlfriend." McGee read off of his PDA and Grissom watched Sara for the inevitable reaction. The shift in her energy was almost imperceptible but Grissom moved to stand next to her, wanting to be close to Sara when they saw this man.
"Anyone talk to the girlfriend yet?" Asked Gibbs.
"Um not yet Boss." answered Tony, wincing before the Gibbs's hand made contact with the back of his head.
"On it, Boss." Said Tony.
"Sara, McGee." Said Gibbs, who was watching Sara, carefully, "Go with Tony. Ziva your with me" Grissom prepared for Sara to fight the order, but she simply nodded. Grissom grabbed her hand and squeezed it briefly before the team divided up once more.
Gibbs led the way into the apartment followed by Grissom and Ziva. They arrived at his door and Gibbs knocked loudly. When the door didn't open immediately, Ziva took a turn to knock began pounding loudly until a bleary eyed man came to the door.
"Mark Peterson?" Asked Gibbs, already not liking the man.
"Yeah, who wants to know?" The man asked, angrily
"NCIS." Gibbs flashed his badge and pushed passed the man into his apartment.
"We're were you eight days ago?"
"Why?"
"Answer the question." demanded Ziva, crowding into his personal space.
"I have to check my palm pilot." he answered
"Check it." Said Grissom, narrowing his eyes at the man, "We'll wait."
"Um, I worked until six." answered Mark, looking through his palm pilot. Than I went to a party with my girlfriend."
"You see Leon Metcaf at this party?" asked DiNozzo.
"It was his party." answered Mark, annoyed.
"And Erica Newhouse?" asked Ziva.
"Of course, she is his girlfriend."
"Was." clarified Gibbs, "Metro police pulled Leon's body out of a dumpster six hours ago."
"Oh, god. How?" Mark sat down on his couch. Gibbs's cell phone rang and he answered it. Leaving Grissom and Ziva to question the suspect.
"Talk to me Ducky." He said
"Usually I would lecture you on your phone decorum but considering the circumstances I'll let it slide. I have preliminary autopsy results. And there's something you are going to want to see."
"See you in twenty minutes, Ducky." Gibbs shut his phone, "Ducky's got results for us, we've got to get back to NCIS."
"Anything I can help you with, just let me know." said mark, heading towards the door to let them out.
"Oh we're not done with you yet." Gibbs said entering his personal space, "You're coming with us."
"Am I under arrest?" asked Mark.
"Any reason you should be?" asked Ziva.
"Three federal agents come to my house in the middle of the night and tell me to come with them." said Mark, "What would you think?"
"Actually, he's on loan from the Las Vegas, crime lab." Said Gibbs, pointing to Grissom.
"I see his point though." Grissom mused as he placed his hand on Mark Peterson's back, leading him out the door.
Erica Newhouse's Apartment
Washington DC
Tony banged on the door for the forth time in a row.
"I don't think she's home, Tony." said McGee.
"You want to go back to the office and tell Gibbs that she wasn't home?" said Tony.
"Good point." Said McGee, knocking loudly on the door, "Miss Newhouse!" He called through the door.
"She's not home." McGee, DiNozzo and Sara turned to find Erica's neighbor standing in the hall. Her apartment door open, "I think she's on vacation or something."
"What makes you say that?" asked Sara.
"She hasn't been home for..." The women paused, thinking, "A week at least."
"Did she tell you that she was planning on going out of town."
"No, but she keeps to herself. Nice girl. Quiet. That boyfriend of her always helped me carry my groceries up the stairs. Sweet couple. They remind me of my late husband and I." The women smiled, "When we were young of course."
"Thank you ma'am." Said McGee, "If you see her, can you tell her we need to talk to her." he handed the women his card.
"Naval Criminal investigative Services." the women squinted at the card, "That's certainly a mouthful, she's not in any trouble is she?"
"No ma'am, we just need to talk to her." Sara smiled kindly.
NCIS
Bull Pen
Twenty minutes Later
"Erica Newhouse hasn't been at work in a week." Said Sara, hanging up the phone, "Her boss seems more worried than pissed. He tried to file a missing persons report but apparently metro police laughed him out of the office. Apparently they don't take someone not showing up for work as a sign that they might be missing." Sara looked angry.
"We have to get into her house." Said Tony, grabbing his gear.
"We don't have a warrant an there is no official missing persons report on her yet."
"Abby already took care of that." Said DiNozzo, placing his gun in his holster, "And NCIS doesn't need to wait for a warrant." he walked out the door, followed by McGee and Sara.
Meanwhile in autopsy...
"As you can see." Said Ducky showing Gibbs, Ziva and Grissom the victim's cat scan, "His head struck something hard and sharp, possibly the corner of a table, Abby will be able to tell you what it was exactly, she's already working on it. It caused a subdural hematoma. Eventually he bled to death."
"How long did it take?" asked Grissom, looking at the cat scan.
"A few hours at least." Answered Ducky, "Judging from the clotting, I'd say no more than five."
"He was conscious." Said Grissom, it was a statement, not a question.
"Yes, but certainly altered. He would have had a head ache, dizziness."
"Why didn't he go to a hospital?" Asked Gibbs.
"I don't know. Chances are a craniotomy would have saved his life." Said Ducky sadly. Gibbs turned to leave suddenly.
"Grissom, Ziva."
"Coming Gibbs." Said Ziva as they followed him out.
Erica Newhouse's Apartment
Washington DC
"Barely looks like anyone actually lives here." Said McGee walking around the apartment.
"Probably doesn't." Said Sara, "Judging by the amount of her things at his apartment, she's keeping this place in name only."
"Somethings hinky." Said Tony, looking around the apartment.
"Somethings happened to her." Agreed Sara, nodding. "But this isn't our crime scene. I want to go back to Metcaf's apartment. We missed something." She walked out, leaving the two agents to grabs their things and follow her out quickly.
NCIS Special Agent Leon Metcaf's Apartment
Washington DC.
Sara walked into the apartment, kit in hand, looking around, searching for something she missed. She was sure there was something they had missed as she pulled out her bottle of luminal and began spraying it almost indiscriminately around the apartment.
Tony watched her, unsure. They investigated crime scene but this was different. Sara was a pure scientist in the way that Tony, Ziva, Gibbs or even McGee would never be.
"Got something." Said Sara from the front hall. The luminal exposed what was clearly there primary crime scene in the front hall.
"That's where Leon struck his head." said McGee, stand next to an entry table.
"What does this look like to you?" Asked Tony, looking around the hallway. Thing were becoming clear.
"A fight." Said Sara.
"Fist fight. I'm betting." said Tony, remembering the brawls he had been involved in in college. It was easy for them to get out of hand. All it took was one bad reaction to a punch. One stumble into a table.
"Accident?" Asked McGee.
"Maybe." Said Sara, "With Leon. But that doesn't explain what happened to Erica."
"And it doesn't explain why he didn't go the the hospital when according to Ducky, it took him five hours to bleed out."
NCIS Interrogation
Mark Peterson sat alone in the interrogation room. He looked nervous. Grissom could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he decided how to play it.
"Mark." Gibbs sat down and looked at the man. "Tell me about the party."
"Which party?" He asked. Gibbs fought the urge to throw the man against the wall.
"NCIS special agent Leon Metcaf's party." Said Gibbs.
"It was just a party." he answered, sharply. Gibbs stared at him. Grissom watched in amazement as the man began to crumble before his very eyes. Ziva had entered the room and stood against the wall watching.
"Just a party?" Ziva asked, not moving from her spot against the wall.
"Take us through the evening." Said Gibbs.
"Becky and I showed up around nine. There were already at least fifty people there. Leon was in a good mood."
"Introduce you to his girlfriend?"
"Yeah." Mark sighed, deeply.
"How long have the two of you been friends?"
"Me and Leon?" He answered, "Since the first day of college. We were roommates." He smiled at the memory.
"And yet you killed him." Said Ziva.
"I didn't... It was just a stupid fight..."
"It was an accident." supplied Gibbs, reading an e-mail from Tony off of his PDA.
"Yes." Mark seemed relieved that it was coming out into the open, "Just a fist fight. We've had a million of them. He hit his head but he said he was fine."
"He wasn't fine." Said Gibbs watching him carefully, "He was dying." Mark began crying into his hands.
"I went back the next day." Said Mark, "He didn't come to the door. I used the key he gave me for emergencies. He was laying on the couch. I thought he was sleeping at first.
"Why did you dump the body? Why didn't you just call the police?" Asked Ziva, as always not surprised by the depravity of the human soul.
"Because it was my fault. I begged him not to go to the hospital. I told him he was fine." He cried harder, "I have a record. I don't want to go to jail."
"Well I'm not sure how well that's going to work out for you." Ziva smirked at him.
"Where is Erica." Asked Sara, bursting in through the interrogation door. Grissom still stood behind the glass, watching the scene, knowing enough to not get in Sara's way when she had that look in her eye. Gibbs, unfortunately was not aware of this fact.
"Sara." Gibbs looked at her, "We are handling this."
"Erica Newhouse is missing." Sara looked at Mark and walked towards him
"You're a handful." Mark said, looking at her with some level of amusement.
"You don't know a handful." Said Ziva, standing next to Sara as their arms were crossed and they stared at Mark.
"We found the blood Mark, it wasn't Leon's." Sara studied the man who appeared to be growing nervous, "Where is she."
"You really don't want to make us ask twice." Said Ziva. Gibbs smiled to himself, leaving the two angry women to handle Mark Peterson. Serves him right for smacking around his girlfriends, thought Gibbs.
An House Later
Mark Peterson's Apartment
At first, Grissom had been reluctant to allow Sara to go on what they all still hoped was a rescue and not a recovery mission. He felt as though the situration hit too close to home for Sara. In truth, it had hit to close to home for Grissom. But Sara had insistsed and Grissom didn't want her to go without him. Together, the team set out to find Erica.
After twenty minutes alone with Ziva and Sara, Mark Peterson had finally admitted that he had Erica in his basement. She was tied up in his basement. He didn't know what to do with her. He couldn't bring himself to kill her but since she had witnessed the fight, he felt as though he couldn't let her go either.
"Tony, McGee, clear the upstairs. Ziva and I will take the basement." He turned to Sara, "You stay here until we clear the building, you got that?"
"Got it boss." she said sarcastically. The team had the building clear in moments.
Sara was in the room only seconds after the NCIS agents had cleared it. Erica was in an abandoned wood working shop in the corner of the basement. She was handcuffed to an old pipe.
"Ziva!" Yelled Gibbs, get those cuffs off of her. Tony call an ambulance." Ziva got cuffs off of her in under a minute. It was Sara who help the girls hand while they waited for the ambulance. Grissom who stood by her side the entire time.
Erica Newhouse was dehydrated and had obviously been roughed up over the last week but apart from that she was in remarkably good physical health. Sara sat by her bed until the girls parent's arrived. She gave her the name of her own therapist in DC. She shared her own experience in the desert with her.
When Sara walked out of the hospital the next day, her confidence had returned. The slight swagger in her walk that Grissom loved so much was back. That's my girl, Grissom thought as he watched her, that's my girl.
TBC
Thank you for to all those who reviewed. Really motivated me to finish and post this chapter.