Chapter 3
"Neighbors are saying they heard nothing, saw nothing, except a light in the living room being turned off around nine last night," Gibbs said, as they regrouped. "Called him a nice old man with plenty of adventure tales to tell." Mac was in Gibbs' car, out of earshot but not out of sight.
"The back door was picked, which is probably how the killer got in," Bishop said.
"Prints?" Gibbs asked.
"Did what I could but I doubt Kasie will get a match to anyone," Bishop said. "I'm thinking gloves. Couldn't even find foot prints outside."
"Hard drive was wiped clean. I might be able to recover something but I'll have to take it back to NCIS," McGee said.
"Any sign of this book he was supposedly writing?" Gibbs asked.
"I found a receipt for a courier that picked up two packages yesterday," McGee said. "Might be the manuscript. I'll call them and see if someone knows what was delivered and where."
"According to Nurse Mackenzie, Admiral Kent was supposed to be in bed by about eight-thirty or so, but would sometimes stay up later," Torres said. "She would come in around eight-thirty in the morning, let herself in with the key to the front door, make them a cup of coffee, and then help him get up, get dressed, and have breakfast."
"Palmer?" Gibbs asked.
Palmer looked up from his preparation of transport of the body, with Torres helping. "Liver temp says some time around midnight, likely after eight-thirty."
"Which fits with what Nurse Mackenzie says," Torres said. "According to her, she leaves around three-thirty and the evening shift nurse takes over until bedtime at eight-thirty."
"Preliminary looks are saying cause of death was a broken neck, but I don't see any bruises or scrapes to suggest he fell down the stairs," Palmer said. "I'll know more when I get him on my table. Poor old guy. To have survived years of being a SEAL, only to be murdered at home."
"Anything missing, other than a book?" Gibbs asked.
"Not according to Nurse Mackenzie," Torres said. "Didn't even look like his safe had been touched."
"How did she know?" Gibbs asked.
"From what she says, the safe required a step ladder to reach, which she and I had to use in order to reach it, and the admiral could no longer do that himself. One day he wanted to show her something in the safe, so he trusted her with the combination about a month ago. Because of her habit of remembering numbers, she was able to remember the combination," Torres said. "There was some pretty valuable stuff in there, like a bunch of challenge coins, a silver-plated gun, and some jewelry Nurse Mackenzie said belonged to the admiral's deceased wife. Oh, and a whole bunch of papers we may need to go through."
"Do so," Gibbs said.
"Doing so," Torres said. "One other weird thing; Nurse Mackenzie and I found Admiral Kent's slippers under his desk, in the living room. With his nice robe and pyjamas, he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would try and go upstairs barefoot. Nurse Mackenzie said he usually wore them in the evening."
"Are they the kind that can come off easily?" Bishop asked.
"Yeah; no back heel," Torres said. "I'm guessing that desk is where he died. The chair was put back just a little too neatly for an old guy who could only shuffle, at best."
"What's upstairs?" Gibbs asked.
"Three more bedrooms, only one that had a bed. Doesn't look like they're being used for anything, other than storage. Oh, and stairs to the attic," Torres said. "Took a peak but nothing really stood out, other than a heck of a lot of dust. Don't think that's been cleaned out since Admiral Kent moved here."
"One thing we might want to ask Nurse Mackenzie about, boss," McGee said. He handed Gibbs a framed photo of Admiral Kent and Mac. Both were in fancy dress, with the admiral in his old Navy blue dress uniform, and Mac wearing a long sleeve long dark blue velvet dress, her hair and face done up, looking classically simple yet elegant. She even had a corsage on one shoulder. The photo suggested they had attended some kind of formal event together but there was nothing in the photo to suggest what that was. Admiral Kent looked proud and Mac seemed to be smiling and blushing. "If Nurse Mackenzie was just Admiral Kent's nurse, then what's with this?"
"A whole lotta questions," Gibbs said.
Later, back at NCIS:
"What do we got?" Gibbs asked, striding into the bullpen. McGee was in Kasie's lab, trying to salvage the memory from Admiral Kent's computer.
"Four-star Admiral Thomas Kent, retired, a well-decorated SEAL, with plenty of missions, and plenty of medals, under his belt," Torres said, bringing up a file on the plasma, showing a proud man with white hair, in a Navy dress uniform, with a wide ribbon board, his stars counting four. "He was receiving in-home care by St. Michaels Home Care, and Mackenzie Wilbur was his primary day nurse, had been for about eight months."
"Why her?" Gibbs asked.
"From what I understand, she was one of the few he managed to get along with, to the point he personally requested her as his primary," Bishop said. "Because St. Michaels is funded by the Navy, they didn't dare say no."
"Rank has its privileges," Gibbs said.
"Didn't hurt that Mackenzie didn't seem to mind. There were two other rotating nurses, Sarah Bell and Jackson Wiseman, who looked in on him in the evenings," Bishop said. "Mackenzie is in one of the conference rooms, and Sarah and Jackson are coming in."
"Family?" Gibbs asked.
"Wife Megan died last year, natural causes. Only son Jonathan died about four years ago, vehicle accident, leaving behind his second wife, April, and a son, Lieutenant Thomas Kent, also a Navy SEAL, current stationed overseas," Torres said, bringing up a file photo of a handsome man, with pale blue eyes and dark hair, in a Navy dress uniform.
"We saw a lot of photos of him in the house," Bishop said.
"Jonathan's first wife?" Gibbs asked.
"Anna Kent died in 1994, when Lieutenant Kent was about eight. Death certificate says Leukemia, specifically Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, or ALL," Torres said. "It's fast and fatal if left untreated. Jonathan married April about two years later."
"What about Mac?" Gibbs asked.
"Mackenzie Wilbur, registered LPN, graduated in 2008, first job was Bethesda, where records say she was housekeeper there for about three years before. How she got into home care, I don't know, but when I spoke to her supervisor and coworkers on the phone, they had nothing but praise for her," Bishop said.
"Her name was originally Mackenzington," Gibbs said.
"Yeah, I know," Bishop said, "because when I was running her, I noticed her housekeeping name and her nursing name were slightly different, so I checked. Just before she graduated, she had her name legally changed, shortening her first name and changing her middle name from Adian to Amy. The court house worker I spoke to, a friend of mine, said she remembered Mackenzie. The reason she changed her name was so it would fit on her name badge. That, and she hated it."
Gibbs chuckled. "Yeah, she tried to bribe me into not telling anyone else about her full name, once I got it out of her. Those were very good bourbon cookies."
"How did you meet her?" Torres asked.
"Wound up in hospital in 2006, she was the housekeeper for the unit during my stay, and we got chatting," Gibbs said. "Ran into her again a few years later, found out she'd achieved her dream of nursing, and she helped us out with a case, because one of her patients was one of our suspects. Told her I owed her a favour."
"And she just called it in," Torres said.
Gibbs' cell rang. "Yeah, Gibbs," he said.
"Sorry to bother you, but I just got a weird phone call," Mac said.
"Be right there," he said. He hung up. "Mac just got a weird phone call. See if there's any connection between Mac and the admiral other than nursing, and if not, find me a suspect." He headed for the conference room.
"Could this have anything to do with that book Mac said Admiral Kent was writing?" Bishop asked.
"Won't know until we get a copy of the manuscript," Torres said.
"Which we may have just gotten," Gibbs said, coming back to his desk, Mac in tow. "A bike courier just dropped off a package for Mac at St. Michaels, and it's from Admiral Kent. One of Mac's coworkers says the package feels like a thick sheaf of papers."
"The manuscript," Bishop guessed, watching as Gibbs grabbed his gun and coat.
"That would be my guess," Gibbs said, heading for the elevator with Mac.
"Smart man," Torres said to Bishop. "He sent a hard copy of the book to the one person he trusted."
"Let's just hope that book can tell us why someone thought it was worth killing a helpless old man over," Bishop said.