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See part 1 for disclaimer.
Part 5…
"That's strange," Mac noted, quietly to Harm.
Harm just nodded and then they both began to unobtrusively look around. They didn't know if anyone else was present in the house, so they tried to check out the lower floor of the house as covertly as possibly. They needn't have worried, for the butler was gone for a good seven minutes and made plenty of noise on his way back.
"I do apologise," he told them, "but I was in the middle of tending to Colonel Drake. I am Timothy, Colonel Drake's carer and housekeeper."
"Yes," Harm informed Timothy, "My partner and I have been informed of your employer's condition. Admiral Basingstoke told us that you might be able to help us with some of our enquiries."
Timothy nodded his head, "Yes, it really is most terrible, what has happened to Miss Cassandra. I only saw her on the Sunday evening. She was going off to meet her friends…how something like this could happen! The world is a dangerous place, these days."
"Do you know much about Cassandra's friends, Timothy?" Mac spoke up, a tad impatient, "Or the other kids she went to school with. Were there any whom she was having problems with? Teenage squabbles?"
"No," Timothy shook his head, "I don't think so…I didn't know most of her friends by name, she had so many…But there was this one boy who I saw around her, a lot of the time. A very tall boy. I don't recall his name. I think he must have been on the school soccer or football team. I often saw him with a pair of studded sports boots; knotted at the laces and hung around his neck. I didn't like him…He seemed to be awfully interested in Miss Cassie."
"Did he ever seem to be threatening?" Harm had perked to attention when the man had started this line of thought, "Did Cassandra ever seem frightened or intimidated by his attention towards her."
"I couldn't tell," Timothy pondered, "Maybe…but she was such a friendly girl, she never shied away from anyone. I never knew her to utter a cross word to anybody."
"Would Cassandra's father know any of her friends?" Mac asked.
"He probably will," Timothy told them, "But there's no way the colonel could communicate with you. He's very ill. This has all come as such a blow to him. What little function he did still have swiftly left him when the police came to inform us about Miss Cassie, yesterday. You are welcome to accompany me upstairs, to see for yourself. I need to check that he is comfortable."
Harm and Mac nodded, indicating that they would like to meet the colonel, even if he wasn't able to tell them anything. They followed Timothy as he swiftly led them out of the living room, into the lobby of the house and, from there, up a grand staircase leading to the next floor. On the way up the stairs, Harm and Mac purposely held back a bit, so that they could get a look at the numerous photographs, which were lined along the wall, going up the stairs. They realised that they were almost exclusively of young Cassandra Drake, apart for a few who must be her mother, the late Mrs. Drake and of Colonel Drake, her terminally ill father. There were all of the usual photographs of trips to the beach, a school nativity play, ballet recitals and concerts, birthday parties, even a school photograph. But the one that got to Mac the most was depicting the young girl, eight or nine years of age, at some sort of family event. She was surrounded by other children, who all looked to be in states of manic excitement; perhaps it was a Christmas or birthday party. Cassandra Drake, however, was seated on the carpet in the middle of all of this chaos, leaning back on both arms, sedately looking towards the camera as if amused at finding herself the photographer's subject. The little girl's pretty, crystal-blue eyes smiled right out of the photograph. The look of calm serenity on her face caused a lump to form in the back of Mac's throat.
"Colonel Drake's room is just up here," Timothy stated the obvious, clearly to distract Harm and Mac from their perusal of the family photographs. They followed him without any further delay tactics. If they had thought that the rest of the house was orderly, then the master bedroom was absolutely spotless. In fact, the word that sprung to Harm's mind was 'sterile.' When he thought about it, it wasn't really that surprising, seeing as it had been converted into a hospital room to cater to the very specialist needs that Colonel Drake would need. After watching Timothy tend to the ailing, grey-skinned man with an oxygen mask over his face, in the bed, Harm and Mac's attention was attracted to the noise from the wide-screen television facing the bed. They both realised with a start that it was playing home video clips. The colonel, who was now asleep, must have been watching it before their arrival.
"Daddy! Daddy! Watch me!" the little girl shouted, excitedly from the large screen. She slid down a water slide to land with a splash in the pool at the bottom. Harm and Mac heard who they presumed to be the colonel, shouting applause. Cassandra couldn't have been any more than seven or so.
After this, the movie showed a very young Cassandra Drake seated on the carpet of the house's living room, watching cartoons on tv. A female voice called to her from outside the shot;
"Cassie, baby…Come and take this to Daddy for me."
The little girl got up and wandered over to couch, where the now-late Mrs. Drake was sitting. The woman looked fragile and Harm and Mac assumed that she was already ill at this stage. They had never found out what it was that the woman had succumb to. Perhaps they should, but would it really help with the investigation? Probably not...The child took the book from her mother, but dropped it, so bent over to retrieve the cumbersome, heavy object. Mac could see that little Cassie was still in diapers in this clip, so judged her to be between one and two years old. When the child had retrieved the book and carefully rearranged the pages right again, she toddled over towards the video camera. A masculine arm reached into the shot, taking the book from Cassie's hands and they heard Colonel Drake thank her.
"Thank you, darlin'. What would Daddy do without his good little girl, huh?"
Cassandra smiled shyly and then wandered back to her cartoon.
Next, they were watching a trip to the zoo in which the little girl was having her picture taken with a huge snake. She showed no revulsion at all as the heavy creature was draped around her and actually actively sought contact with it, holding the snake around its neck. (AN: do snakes have a neck? Where their neck would be, if the rest of them didn't also look like a neck! LOL!) After her picture was taken, she lifted the snake to her face then kissed it squarely between the eyes.
"Bye-bye, snakey…" she bid the creature, as her Father's loud laugh bellowed in the background.
Then, Cassandra's father was videotaping her running down the side of a lush, green hill. Mac thought that they must have been on a picnic, somewhere in the countryside. Cassandra was only about three or so and there was no sign of her mother, so the recording probably wasn't that long after the woman's death. The little girl was dressed in a little blue and white sun-dress, paired with white, lacy socks, white patent-leather shoes while her short blond hair was in pig-tails. As the child frolicked about, unaware, her father followed her every step, the shot sometimes going out of focus. But every time the focus was adjusted and the image became clear again, it served to show the two JAG officers just how beautiful this child was; how carefree she looked, unconcerned, despite the tragedy she had already been exposed to in her short life. And the injustice that was yet to come.
Harm and Mac only got a short look at the next clip on the video. It was a gymnastics competition that Cassandra was taking part in. The little girl, about nine or so, was in the corner of the floor arena closest to the camera, looking away to the opposite corner. She was dressed in a little purple leotard, which sparkled with sequins and her hair was pulled back into tight, gelled braids, which glinted with the glitter-spray that had been sprayed in. The music for her floor routine wafted about faintly in the background, but the excited hum of the crowd masked most of it. It built up to a crescendo then a barrage of calls came from the crowd in the spectator's stand and Cassandra's team-mates who were lined up along benches beside the floor arena.
"Go Cassie!" they shouted, excitedly, "Woo-hoo! Go Cassie!"
With only a second more of focus, little Cassandra took off across the vast expanse of floor in a run. The camera panned expertly along with her as she launched into an impressive tumble, a full lay-out, terminating with a somersault. The way the video camera was able to anticipate her every movement told Harm and Mac that Cassie's father knew her routine just as well as she did, knowing just how each skill was timed and how high each skill was carried out.
"I'm afraid Colonel Drake is fast asleep," Timothy spoke up quietly, as he muted then switched off the television, "Perhaps, if you'd be kind enough to leave a number where you can be reached, I can talk to the master in his own time and then inform you of anything he is able to tell me…I don't think that there is much he'll be able to tell me, though. He's barely able to swallow on his own, at this stage."
Harm and Mac nodded, silently, Harm taking out one of his business cards and handing it to the man.
"It's the bottom number which we can be reached at; the cellphone number. The Colonel and I were called here from out of town to investigate, so that is the only number we have, at the moment. Anytime you need to get hold of us, just give us a call."
Timothy nodded, from where he was adjusting the settings of the machine delivering the Colonel's intravenous medication and started to move away to show them out.
"That's okay," Mac halted him, "We can find the way out okay, ourselves. Just continue going about your duties."
The old man looked relieved and thanked them, before wheeling around a tray of sterile utensils. Harm and Mac didn't hang around any longer, making their way back towards the staircase.
"Well," Mac commented, "I guess, in a way, he's too out of it to suffer much over the death of his only child."
Harm nodded in agreement, adding, "And, in a way, it's better that she isn't here watching him waste away…"
Just as Harm said this, Mac's head shot around, towards the rooms at the far end of the hallway ahead of them.
Harm didn't notice that Mac had stopped until he reached the top of the stairs and she was no longer beside him. Looking back, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up when he saw Mac not too far behind him, standing stock-still, gazing intently further down the long hallway.
"Mac," he spoke up, beginning to get creeped-out, "What is it?"
It took a second, but eventually, she snapped to and looked back to him.
"Huh? Oh, nothing…just thought I saw…never mind."
With no further fuss, she caught up with him and from the look on her face, Harm would have never guessed that she'd even had the weird moment at all…If he hadn't have happened to have seen it with his own eyes. He went back to looking at the photos lining the wall, a step in front of Mac, while she turned her head back and gave a little smile, looking back in the direction she had come.
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