The next two and half weeks things definitely got more hectic on the home front. They had to get the house ready for the holidays. Maddie took a trip home to Oakland, and rather than stay at the apartment alone, Kelly decided to crash in her childhood room for a couple of weeks. Then, of course, there was the Gibbs patriarch, who was coming down from Stillwater soon as well for a few days.

The house had been decorated to the nines the prior weekend when Emily and Tobias came over for a visit, the ten-year-old getting right into the decorations and Christmas baking with Shannon.

Then yesterday, of course, was his and Shannon's wedding anniversary and he got her a nice gift and after work treated her to dinner and the pair had a little movie night at home, Shannon pulling out a few photo albums for them to look at as well.

It had been a really nice evening; perfect for the two of them.

The next morning, Jethro woke up to a phone call from Gail Walsh, a Deputy District Attorney who had apparently managed to lose a key witness in an upcoming trial.

Knowing that he was more than likely in for a long day, Jethro headed in to work for a rather early meeting with both the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of Defence that couldn't be postponed.

Jethro then briefly met with the Deputy District Attorney before heading down to the squad room to brief his team.

"Got in early," he heard DiNozzo say as he made his way down the stairs. "Had some time to kill. Also, there's a get-well card for Director Vance in there. You can sign it when you get the chance."

"Last time you did an expense report for me," McGee shot back, "you reclassified my meals as livestock feed."

"That was a little childish," DiNozzo said wryly.

"Yeah," McGee agreed, "I was audited."

DiNozzo glanced up from his desk. "I guess that makes us even."

"Great," he chimed in. "Then I don't need to hear about it, whatever it is. Get moving. Missing petty officer."

Ziva shot him a curious look. "There were no hits on the NCIC."

"Has he been missing thirty days?" McGee asked.

"We're not waiting thirty days," Jethro said pointedly, handing Ziva a case file at the same time. "Petty Officer Jerry Neisler."

"Gail Walsh," the lead prosecutor introduced herself. "District Attorney out of Arlington. It's only been a day, but he's a witness in a capital murder trial."

"The only witness," he countered.

"Any idea where he is?" McGee asked.

He gave the younger agent a pointed look.

"Right," McGee said. "That is what we're going to find out."

"He's Navy," Walsh explained, "so I hoped NCIS might be able to help. My department is stretched thin as it is, and... I'm almost out of time. The trial starts in two days. My entire case rests on Jerry's testimony. Without it, the killer will walk."

The accused was Franklin Hayes. Once a private investigator who lost everything, the man mugged a brother and sister in an alley and ended up killing the sister.

First things first. they headed to the home where Petty Officer Neisler was staying following a hunting trip with one of his Navy buddies. Other than a gas purchase on his credit card, the petty officer had disappeared without a trace.

Ziva found a dead, unprocessed turkey in the fridge. So, hunting had gone well. Jethro asked about the trial, and Walsh said it wasn't a mafia-type trial and wouldn't have put the petty officer at risk.

He was rather skeptical about that, however, as he noticed a lot of baseball bats lying around. Even if the petty officer wasn't threatened, the man clearly felt it.

Ziva had determined that the petty officer took a shotgun with him when he left, which definitely made him more than a little concerned. Jethro really wanted to take a look at Walsh's case file at that point.

Jethro was honestly more than a little amused by just how forward Walsh was when the woman started flirting with DiNozzo who immediately turned the redhead down.

"I think I'm just going to stay here," the younger agent said rather than taking the woman up on her offer. "I'm sure... Agent McGee can help you." His Senior Field Agent then eyed him as the Italian started to walk towards the front door. "Baseball bats and a shotgun... That petty officer was worried about something."

Jethro nodded having already come to the exact same conclusion. Wrapping things up on location, he and his team headed back to the Navy Yard.

"Petty Officer Jerry Neisler," DiNozzo stated, having pulled all the information up on the plasma. "Born and raised in Charlottesville."

"He served two tours in Iraq before being reassigned to the States," Ziva added. "His, uh, record is, um, interesting."

He gave the young Israeli a look. "Define interesting."

"Despite good reports from his COs," she explained, "he was repeatedly transferred."

DiNozzo caught his attention. "Administration communications."

"He doesn't play well with others," Jethro said.

"Actually, no," Walsh said, deciding to finally chime in. "It's nothing like that. Jerry's parents were both psychologists and he was an only child."

Ziva eyed the Deputy District Attorney. "Which means what, exactly?"

A look appeared on Walsh's face that he couldn't quite read. "Well, you kind of have to meet him to understand."

"Working on it," he said.

"Along those lines," his Senior Field Agent informed him, "I took the liberty of making a list of possible reasons Neisler lost contact. Number one. Witnesses with a personal relation to the accused are sometimes reluctant to testify."

"Yes," McGee said, clearly trying to bait DiNozzo. "Yes, kind of like... you know. Kind of like Robert De Niro in Sleepers."

"Yes," Ziva said, joining in. "The movie, Tony."

"Number two," DiNozzo said, ignoring the pair. "Someone is threatening the witness."

"Well, why wouldn't Jerry call me?" Walsh asked.

Jethro gave a little shrug of the shoulders. "Maybe he can't."

"Okay," she said with a note of exasperation. "This is everything that we have on the murder trial." DiNozzo grabbed the evidence box for her and put it on Jethro's desk. "The killer's name is Samuel Hayes, but he doesn't exactly have a lot of friends that would go to bat for him. His wife is dead, and his daughter's a ward of the state."

Ziva and McGee both muttered something to each other under their breath.

"McGee," he inquired, "do you have something?"

"Uh, well, I was just..." McGee stammered. "I was saying how it's also possible that the, um, disappearance has nothing to do with the trial at all. Or... does."

"Uh," Walsh said, "how do you want to divide things up? My investigators can handle the Bolos and check the hospitals?"

He nodded in the affirmative. "We'll trace the petty officer's prior movements. Starting with his hunting trip. Go."

"Okay," Ziva said.

As his team got to work, Jethro made his way down to autopsy for what was the most awkward autopsy report he'd had in, well, years.

Both Ducky and Palmer were in autopsy busy planning Ducky's Facebook back because apparently, Ducky had to keep up with the trends in order to be an effective profiler. He hated how much sense that actually made. Still, Jethro wasn't about to join Facebook any time soon. His daughter was on it all the time though, so he was at least able to follow their conversation.

That wasn't the weird part. No, that came when he realized Ducky and Palmer were so bored that they'd autopsied a stuffed turkey…. The COD was a shotgun blast to the breastbone. But the yellow and tan tail feathers apparently didn't match any of the indigenous turkeys. It was a Rio Grande turkey. So, their petty officer, having been ordered to not leave the state during the trial by his CO, clearly hunted in a place with non-indigenous turkeys.

His visit to Abby's lab wasn't any less weird either, the young woman enthusiastically doing a Turkey Trot to some music when he walked in. She was, however, able to find out where their turkey came from.

Hoping to close this case sooner rather than later, Jethro grabbed Ziva and headed out to canvas the hunting grounds with her.

"If I never see another dead turkey again," Ziva said, "it will be too soon."

"Well," he quipped, "you're gonna see one Christmas day."

"That is different," she replied with a soft chuckle. "That I am looking forward to."

"Uh-huh," he said, giving the young Israeli an amused look. "And always good to have you, Ziver." He then caught the attention of two hunters that were standing a few feet away. "Hey, excuse me." He pulled out their ID photo. "NCIS. You seen this guy?"

"No," one of the men said.

"No," he repeated before turning toward another hunter. "How about you?"

"No," the second hunter said.

He shot Ziva a look expression his own increasing irritation.

"We have been to three parks already," she stated. "The lead was thin enough, to begin with. Perhaps Abby's sending us on a wild..." Just then a hunter walked by her with yet another dead turkey. "Oh," she said exasperatedly "Never mind."

Jethro glanced around the park and spotted a young man coming out of one of the tents set up for the hunters working the park. "He's here"

"How do you know?" she inquired.

He didn't have much of a chance to explain as all of a sudden there was yelling.

"Hey!" one of the hunters said, pulling a gun out. "Don't move! Found him!"

"Don't shoot," the petty officer pled. "I won't testify. I promise."

"NCIS," he said, showing the man his badge. "Nobody's gonna kill you."

"Oh," Neisler said, "Thank God."

"We got it from here," he told the hunter who'd stopped Neisler.

"When I saw you flashing my photo," the pretty officer said. "She's got the eyes of a killer. And you with that suit on? Figured I was dead." He thought that we were mafia? Huh. Well, can't really blame the guy.

"Somebody threatening you?" Ziva questioned. "Is that why you're running?"

"I got these badly worded e-mails warning me not to testify," the petty officer stated by way of explanation. "Said if I told anyone, they'd kill me. So I decided to lay low until the trial. Stayed at a buddy's. But they found me. The second warning said they weren't hugged enough as a child." Neisler pulled out a DVD from his pocket that was labelled 'Play me.' That was a little unsettling. "Then I got this."

Ziva got a call at that point from Walsh, but Petty Officer Neisler thought she was in on it since nobody else knew where the man was staying. Taking Ziva's cellphone, Jethro opted to play along for the time being. Answering the call, he said that they still hadn't found their missing petty officer. He wanted more answers before he told her.

Yes, he was definitely in for a long day.