Close Encounters of the Fictional Kind

Chapter 19: Accused Part II

"Is that what I think it is?" Elise asked Tony.

Tony nodded not taking his eyes from the sight of the dark red liquid. "Blood."

Slowly, they moved forward to see the inert body of a blond haired woman in a blue blazer, matching skirt, and pumps lying on the floor in the middle of the pool of blood. Elise's eyes wandered over the scene, but her brain was frozen on the fact that there was indeed a dead body in front of her. Marie on the other hand was staring at a point just to the left of the body. She nudged Elise in the ribs. "Is that what I think it is?" she asked. Elise glanced over to see a blood soaked scarf that looked remarkably like Marie's imitation Doctor Who scarf. "Elise, tell me that's not what I think it is."

"Um, okay… I won't."

"My Doctor Who scarf!" Marie cried out as her head thumped down onto Elise's shoulder.

Elise awkwardly patted Marie's head in an attempt at consolation. The others, having been absorbed by the task of examining the scene, suddenly perked up at Marie's outburst. "This is your scarf?" Gibbs asked her.

"Yes, and its ruined!" she cried.

"McGee," Gibbs turned back to address the light haired man. "Please take Marie and Elise up to interrogation rooms four and five."

Marie suddenly stopped crying. "What? We didn't have anything to do with this!"

Gibbs held up a hand that called for silence. "Even if you didn't, we need a statement from you."

This reassured the girls albeit slightly, and they followed McGee over to the elevator.

Elise POV

Elise shifted uncomfortably on the metal chair. She had been waiting for a whole fifteen minutes already, and was starting to think that she was forgotten. Then the door opened and Gibbs and Ziva came walking into the room.

"Hello Elise," Ziva said, as she sat down next to Gibbs on the other side of the table. "We just need a statement from you, because we were told by Abby that you were with her the whole time. Do you remember seeing anything strange when you were in the Lab or on your tour?"

"No… Marie and I were in Abby's lab and when we left we didn't go that way. We went the other way to go and meet Doctor Mallard and Mr. Palmer. We then went up and saw the other offices, meeting rooms and interrogation rooms before coming back to Tony. Marie was with us the whole time… oh no…"

Elise's head fell into her hands.

"What is it?" Ziva asked.

"Marie's phone rang when we were in Abby's Lab. She went down the other way in the hallway and into a spare room to talk to her friend Rose. She was gone for about ten minutes," Elise said, speaking through her hands.

Ziva and Gibbs looked at each other, and Elise had looked up in time to see the look they gave each other.

"She couldn't kill anyone!" Elise exclaimed. "As much as she is morbid, she could never kill anyone, it would break her. Plus, at the time, the only people that we knew here was Tony and Abby. She was hesitant to come out with me at first because she thought that she would be intruding on my time with my cousin anyway."

"Be that as it may, we are still going to have to take that into consideration when we go talk to Marie," Gibbs said, standing. "Ziva, have her write her statement down and meet me in the hallway."

Marie POV

Marie found herself fidgeting nervously alone in the interrogation room that she was in, thoughts about lawyers, the Winchesters, and her poor scarf running through her head. Her thoughts were so loud that she didn't the poof behind her, or notice the glitter around her until she sneezed.

Marie was up in a flash, glitter twisting around her, and her chair sliding into the wall behind her.

"YOU!" She screamed. " You did this, framing me for murder. Who do you think you are, thinking that this is okay, I COULD GO TO JAIL! FOR SOMETHING I DIDN'T DO!"

"Oh, do calm down," the Goblin King said, as he moved around Marie and the table to the mirror in the other wall. He casualty flicked some hair back into place in his overly poofed mane before turning back to her.

"Calm down! I can't calm down. You keep ruining my life!"

"I'm not ruining it, I am simply making it more interesting," Jareth said, smiling.

"I hate you. Why are you doing this to me? I thought we had a truce until the end of the year, and we still have a few days… are you breaking it? Cause if you are, you are in for a world of pain."

Jareth's smile got even larger, reminding Marie of a dog about to bite. "I haven't broken anything yet, just simply… found a loop hole."

Jareth walked towards the wall opposite of the door and leaned against it.

"A … a loop hole? What loop hole?" Marie asked, moving towards her chair.

"Ah, now, telling you wouldn't be fair…" he paused, as if he was listening to something else not in the room. "Well, this is goodbye for now. Do enjoy your interrogation."

Jareth barely poofed away before Marie had flung her metal chair at him, but it went through the glitter cloud and right into the wall, denting it.

"You pansy ass fae," Marie muttered, slumping on the wall behind her, staring across at herself in the mirror. "First you steal Jack, then drug my tea…"

The door opened and in walked Gibbs and Ziva, confused as to why Marie was leaning on the wall, her chair was across the room and the wall was dented. Her remark about tea didn't help matters.

"Ms. Johnston…" Ziva started to say.

"There is a problem here," Marie exclaimed, "I am being framed for a crime I didn't commit. I was with Elise and Abby the whole time. I didn't murder anyone. I don't know how my scarf ended up in that room… trust me, I wouldn't ruin my scarf killing anyone, it took too long to make."

Marie couldn't decide if the looks she received were ones of disbelief or sympathy… perhaps both.

o O o O o O o

"How did this happen, Marie?" Elise asked her friend who was sitting inside a holding cell. Elise was sitting outside the cell in a hard plastic chair.

Marie, who was sitting on the bench/bed looked up from her musing and gave Elise a glare. "Tea," was all she said.

"Tea? What… OH! No way! He would not do this!"

"Elise, I saw him in my interrogation room. He visited me and I might have reacted badly."

"How badly?"

"I'm in here… does that answer your question?" Marie let out a huff of air. "I couldn't exactly tell Gibbs and Ziva about the pansy, so when I 'refused to cooperate'" Marie made air quotes. "They locked me in here.

"What did he say?" Elise asked after a moment, referring to Jareth.

"He said he was making my life more interesting. When I asked him what about our agreement through the end of the year, he said he'd found a loop hole."

"A loop hole? What kind of loop hole?"

"He didn't say. That was the part where I threw my chair at him."

"You threw your… Is he okay?"

Marie glared at her again. "Didn't even scratch him. He poofed away and then Gibbs and Ziva came in."

"Wow…" Silence settled over them for a moment before Elise spoke again. "Marie…" Marie glanced up again. "I'm not sure how we'll sort this out, but I know you didn't do anything. I just wanted you to know."

Marie didn't say anything, but nodded appreciatively. At that moment, Dinozzo entered the holding area, a set of keys jangling in his hand. He walked straight over to Marie's cell and opened the door. "You're free to go."

"Really?"

"Yeah, they found a tape that shows you were in a different room down in the lab area during the time of the murder."

Marie rose and quickly exited the cell as though afraid that Tony was trying to trick her. However he politely held the door open for her, only closing it once she was out. "So then do you know who did do it?" Elise asked.

"No, we're still reviewing tapes of the entire premises. However there was one interesting thing we found on the tapes."

"What's that?"

"Marie's interrogation tape, there's a part of it right before the boss and Ziva come in where the tape goes blank. There's nothing there… just snow." Elise and Marie looked at each other. They both knew why the tape had blanked out, but there was no way Tony would believe them. Dinozzo didn't pay attention to them though and instead led the way back to the bullpen where there was a flurry of activity. Elise and Marie settled down onto some spare chairs to watch everyone work while they sipped at hot cocoa that had been prepared for them.

o O o O o O o

NCIS (c) Donald P. Bellisario & Don McGill