The photo lab hadn't been busy because there hadn't been any cases that required photo development until early that morning, so Kate was finished long before Tony. She made two cups of coffee and managed to find a relatively fresh doughnut and a somewhat stale bagel and she was just in the process of searching for the container of organic light cream cheese she had left in the fridge a few days before when Tony came into the break room.
"Feeling better?" Kate asked as she accepted defeat and sat down to eat her stale bagel without any topping.
"Cleaner. Not better," Tony said, smiling at the doughnut that was sitting on a plate next to a steaming cup of coffee. "Thanks," he said, sitting down across from her.
"No problem," Kate said. "So, talk. What did I miss?"
"Well, Gibbs got the call at three, spent the next hour waking up Abby, Ducky, McGee, me, and trying to track you down. Once he had passed 'locate Kate' duty to me he gathered everyone up here, left you a note, and we headed out. McGee enjoyed riding in the front seat—apparently he got a pretty serious concussion the last time he was stuck in the back with Gibbs driving the truck."
"Won't be the last, either," Kate said ruefully. She was a little surprised that Tony hadn't used McGee's concussion as a jumping point for incessant mocking, but she didn't say anything about it.
Tony nodded and the continued. "Lieutenant Daniel Brady was found by his mother around two… Stella Brady owns a pig farm up in Virginia and she said that her babies were excessively noisy so she went down to check up on them. Her son was home because he had a week of liberty before shipping out on the USS Seahawk for a six month TOD."
"Was Stella close to her son?" Kate asked.
"From what I got from the pictures all over the house and the things Stella was saying when we got there… well, let's just say that Norman Bates and his mother were estranged compared to these two."
Kate shuddered at what Tony was intimating.
"We got there close to five-thirty and her family doctor had just administered a sedative when we identified ourselves. She barely got the part about her babies out before she passed out. Whatever that doctor gave her was strong stuff," Tony said. "Gibbs is going to get her to come in later."
Kate nodded. "So… how did the Lieutenant die?"
"Ducky said he couldn't be sure without a thorough investigation and even then it might be impossible to tell. All we know is that he was torn apart and that Stella's babies had a heaping helping of Soylent Green last night."
"If it was just last night, though…" Kate trailed off.
"Yep. McGee and I spent the morning corralling pigs into the garage," Tony said. "Abby gets to deal with the… leftovers."
Realizing what that meant, Kate scrunched up her face in disgust. "And the garage is going to smell like pigs and shit for the next god knows how long," she groaned.
"NCIS: come for the adventure, stay for the pig feces," Tony quipped as he ripped his doughnut in half.
Deciding that they didn't have time to waste in the break room, Kate and Tony headed down to the morgue to see what Ducky had come up with so far. He had only managed to find a few stray body parts that hadn't been eaten yet, and was trying to discern if the body had been dismembered post-mortem or if the dismemberment had been the cause of death itself. Kate prayed that the dismemberment had been post-mortem. Even though it meant that they not only had a murder but a mutilation to investigate, it also meant that Lieutenant Daniel Brady hadn't suffered as much as he could have.
"What do you have for us, Ducky?" Tony asked as Kate took her first look at the 'leftovers' that were laid out on the stainless steel slab in the rough approximation of where they would have been had the body come in whole.
"Not much, I'm afraid," Ducky said. "Until young Abigail finishes with those abominable creatures there is very little I can do."
"All dressed up and no one to chop," Tony quipped.
Ducky sighed heavily. "Anthony, I don't know how many times I've told you this, but what I do is more than just 'chopping people up'," the doctor said, a slight hint of anger brought on by exhaustion and frustration edging into his normally eerily pleasant voice.
"He knows, Ducky," Kate said, stepping in before Tony found out exactly how well that bone saw of Ducky's worked. "Tony's just frustrated about having to wait for the rest of the Lieutenant to… arrive." She wrapped her fingers around his arm in a bruising grip, digging the results of her expensive manicure into his skin to help drive her point home. "We're just going to go see if Abby has anything we can act on today," she added as she pulled Tony out of the morgue.
"Owe," Tony said, pulling his arm away from Kate's grip. "Back off Catwoman."
"Do I look like the type to run around in a black leather catsuit?" Kate asked. "No, wait," she said, holding her hands up, "I don't want you to answer that. Just stop goading Ducky. Remember, he's the one who collects antique swords and knows how to use them. He's also the only one other than me with a key to your apartment. Are you getting where I'm going with this?"
"Loud and clear, Katie," Tony nodded.
"Don't call me Katie."
Tony frowned. "Why not?"
"Because I haven't been Katie since I was eight years old, okay?" Kate said. Tony backed off, getting the feeling that there was more to the story but not wanting to risk any vital appendages by pushing the issue when Kate was obviously in a bad mood.
They went down to the lab and listened to Abby's latest CD for a little while before turning the volume down and asking the lab tech if she had anything actionable.
"Sorry guys, but until the pigs let the Lieutenant out I can't do anything," Abby said, obviously not at all bothered by the fact that in a few hours she was going to have a pen full of mostly-human-remains-pig-crap in her lab that would need to be analyzed thoroughly, bit by bit.
"I'm sick of waiting for a bunch of bacon wannabes to crap out evidence," Tony groaned as he and Kate headed back up to their desks.
"Well unless you want to talk Gibbs into a slaughter, I think you're gonna have to wait," Kate said gently.
"I tried talking him into in while he made me and McGee sit with the pigs on the ride back from the farm. He said that NCIS would have to pay to replace every head and, well, apparently pigs ain't cheap," Tony said. He leaned back against the wall of the elevator and closed his eyes. "This has been the longest day…" he said, trailing off, not needing to finish the thought.
It was obvious how he felt.
"Why don't you go steal Abby's futon for a while?" Kate suggested.
"Yeah, that'd go over well with Gibbs," Tony said, standing up straight again when the elevator came to a stop on their floor. "Lets go over that file again, see if anything jumps out at us," he suggested.
Kate nodded and they went to her desk. Tony pulled a chair over and they started pouring over the Lieutenant's military, medical, and civilian records.
It was about two hours of nothing but shuffling papers and rereading the same documents she had already memorized when Kate finally gave in to her curiosity. "So, DiNozzo, when am I going to get the play-by-play of your date last night? I know it's coming and I would like to be prepared," Kate said, hoping she sounded casual enough.
"I didn't think you like hearing my stories," Tony said, confused. Kate never asked him anyone more direct than 'how was your night, Tony?', especially if she knew he had plans for the evening.
"I don't live for tales of silicone and IQ's that are smaller than my shoe size, but I got the impression that whatever you had planned for last night was more than your usual booty call and I have to admit I'm a little intrigued."
"And I'm a little sickened," Tony said, shuddering violently. "Kate, before you say one more word, let me just say this. Last night I stayed home, cooked dinner, and spent the evening translating Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy into Italian for my grandmother." Kate looked at him with complete and utter disbelief and he nodded. "Seriously. Not really my idea of a night on the town, and definitely not what you apparently thought I was doing last night, but, yes. My grandmother flew in from Italy yesterday. That's why I was so eager to get out of here. I didn't want to leave her stranded at the airport. She knows enough English to order a glass of wine, which I didn't think would help her find a cab and get to my place."
Kate stood up a little straighter. "I'm sorry, Tony. I just assumed that… well, with your history… I'm really sorry, Tony."
"It's fine," Tony smiled.
"I'd like to meet her, if she's going to be in town for a while," Kate said a little shyly.
"Again, she doesn't speak English," Tony said.
"Di mai di presumere, DiNozzo," Kate said. (Never assume, DiNozzo.)
Tony's eyebrows shot up in surprise. He thought he knew everything there was to know about his partner. But Kate Todd was constantly surprising him. It was one of the things he loved about her.
"She's in town for two weeks. How about we have dinner one night?" Tony suggested.
"Perfect," Kate smiled before going back to work.