Chapter 7 - A Bountiful Harvest of Answers
"Boss, we're bringing Mrs. Younger in for questioning," Tony said as he hung on to the dashboard with one hand. "Ziva, watch out, this isn't NASCAR," he scolded, moving the phone briefly away from his ear. He glanced behind him, where Mrs. Younger had taken on a cold expression of stoicism. McGee didn't seem to notice how Ziva's driving was, however, his attention focused squarely on the deceptively fragile old woman next to him. He couldn't explain it exactly, but he didn't dare take his attention away from her.
"Did you collect any evidence, DiNozzo?" the terse reply came over the phone. Tony nodded, then said, "Yeah, Boss. We've got a few samples for testing."
"Good work," Gibbs said, and Tony shook his head slightly as he heard the line go dead.
Abby, Palmer, and Ducky all looked up as McGee, Tony, and Ziva breezed into the lab. McGee smiled sweetly at Abby as he handed over evidence bags with jars and vials with swabs.
"Oh, please tell us that might keep us from having to test all of this," Jimmy said, nearly desperate.
Abby's eyes grew wide in agreement. "What he said!" she said, gazing longingly at the bag.
"There's a chance that she could have spiked the supplement powder in Heidi's bathroom. That would mean that the stock from the pharmacies is untainted," Tony said, not without a great deal of relief.
"We have what appears to be soil from her bathroom," McGee said to her. "We also have soil samples from Mrs. Younger's flower beds. We have samples of what looks like a wild sweet pea from her garden, and we have glass shards, both from under one of her windows by the said flower bed, and also one we collected from the bathroom."
"I'll get on this right away," Abby gushed, rushing towards her tables with renewed enthusiasm.
"Abigail, may we take a break from this, then, my dear?" Ducky asked sweetly. He glanced at his young assistant, and the two men turned and gazed at Abby with pleading and adoring eyes.
"Yeah, go," she said giddily, waving them away. "With any luck, we may not have to test all of that after all."
Instead of getting out of Dodge, however, the two morgue personnel opted to stay in the lab, to watch Abby run her tests. Tony, Ziva, and McGee stayed as well, waiting patiently, until Tony judged it time for him to leave to question Mrs. Younger.
"That old lady is one seriously twisted twig," he said to Ziva, as they departed the lab together. Ziva turned a warm grin and a wink in Jimmy's direction as she left, prompting the young man to blush a deep shade of crimson, his eyes betraying his bashfulness with a glimmer of something that somehow, miraculously, managed to escape everyone else's notice.
McGee hung back, helping Abby to run the tests.
"Soil looks like a match. I've run a chemical analyses, and the mass spec breakdown matches in both samples. They're from the same place." Abby grinned triumphantly. "Now, that powder, we should have a result soon…"
"So, tell me Ma'am, how well did you know Lieutenant Stanford?" Gibbs asked casually.
"She was a trollup. Had her eyes on my Franky." Mrs. Younger crossed her arms and stared evenly at Gibbs.
Outside, McGee had just joined Ziva and Tony to observe through the one-way glass.
"Um… hasn't her husband been dead since…" Tim started to ask, when Tony replied, without allowing him to finish,
"1991, McGee. Like I said, she's a seriously…" he started, when Tim got his revenge.
"Twisted twig. No kidding?" Tony and Tim shared a look of silent agreement. Ziva simply blinked. Perhaps someday she'd also be able to finish her colleagues sentences for them. In the meantime, she supposed, she'd have to settle for mangling their favourite phrases, just to make sure they were actually listening to her.
The Officer and the two gentlemen returned their attention to the interview in progress on the other side of the glass.
"Ma'am, why would you say that Miss Stanford is a trollup?" Gibbs was having a suspicion that if Mrs. Younger wasn't missing a few bulbs from her string of Christmas lights, she was one clever old woman.
"I admit, my Franky has always had somewhat of a roving eye, and he's quite the catch, but he's never taken it so far as to be unfaithful. But that little… that little… tramp was just determined to make him stray away from me."
"Have you any evidence of this?" Gibbs asked carefully. Mrs. Younger huffed at this.
"Of course I do. Why, the way she parades in front of my house every single morning wearing practically nothing at all. She's obviously a woman of rather loose morals. And when it became clear to her that she couldn't have my husband, she turned her sights on my son."
Outside the room, the three team mates looked at each other.
They had all reviewed the file that McGee and Tony had compiled. Mrs. Younger's son had been killed in Desert Storm, only a few months before his father had passed away at home, in the States. Of the Younger family, only Mrs. Younger and her daughter Melanie remained.
"This woman needs some serious help," Ziva said, shaking her head.
Gibbs, in the meantime, was still attempting to piece together a motive, and was coming dangerously close to it.
"I fixed her, that's what. She was so vain, so full of herself, flaunting that little body all the time in front of my son. So I fixed it. I took the perfect little figure away. She had no idea, either. Such a shameful little whore, she was." Mrs. Younger showed absolutely no signs of remorse, or any sort of emotion at all, for that matter.
Gibbs sat back, thinking. Finally, he closed the file folder in front of him, and stood up. "Mrs. Younger, I'll have one of my people escort you to the hospital. As a part of this investigation, I'm requesting that a full psychiatric examination be carried out. Just to make sure you're feeling okay, of course. You've made some pretty serious admissions here."
"I'm perfectly fine, young man," the old woman stated. She sat up a little straighter, and looked up at Gibbs, staring into his blue eyes, before moving to stand up as well. "Now, if you will kindly excuse me, I have to go home and make dinner for my husband. He doesn't like it when dinner is late. He puts in a full day's work and it's only right that he have a hot meal waiting for him when he gets home."
"I'm afraid I can't let you go home just yet, Ma'am," Gibbs said gently. He turned and looked towards the window, not seeing his team behind the glass, but nevertheless knowing that they were there. He nodded once, and Tony took the cue.
Mrs. Younger looked up, startled, when the door opened, and Tony appeared. "If you'll come with me, Ma'am, we can get this over with quickly." The old woman glared at him, but wisely, didn't argue, as she allowed him to lead her out the door.