Ghostly Clues

File 6:

It was early for Danny to be at school, though he wasn't there as Fenton. Classes didn't start for another hour. He found it slightly ironic that he could manage to be on school grounds at all hours of the day but still have the worst attendance in the history of the school. The fact was not funny to him. Still, he was here for an important reason and a mental break down of his academic career was not going to get in his way.

Quietly Danny phased through the school walls till he reached the office. He paused for a moment there as he took in the sight of two suited strangers. One of them was a stout man with a bit of a baby face. The other was a strong-jawed woman with wavy brown hair. "NCIS." The Man shook the Principal's hand.

"I'm officer Ziva David and this is Special Agent Timothy McGee." The woman introduced shaking the smaller woman's hand as well.

Special Agent Timothy nodded. "We would like to talk to your students. See if we can't piece together Merry's last day." The male agent said to Principal Ishiyama.

Danny winced. The crime investigators had their hands full. Team Phantom had been covertly investigating students since Merry first went missing. She proved to be one of the hardest people to find info on. He half smiled though as he slipped through the office wall. He was glad to see them around if Merry's disappearance wasn't because of a ghost it would be best if they handled it. This was Amity Park though and Danny doubted the lack of ghostly involvement.

Making his way out back Danny dropped the invisibility and spun as he heard a hissed. "Pssst!" A scrawny teenager of a ghost stepped out of the shadows as he did so.

"Poindexter!" Danny greeted happily holding his arms out. "I see you got my message."

"Yeah, I got it." The ghost rubbed his arm looking highly displeased. "Just so you know I'm not doing this for you." The old-time nerd snapped. "You may have destroyed my tether to the school but in doing so you've freed me. I can view anyplace I choose through any mirror I choose."

"Good. I'm glad." Danny said. Poindexter's face showed a moment of surprise but it was gone so quick Danny wasn't sure he'd really seen anything. "I was hoping though that maybe you've been keeping an eye on the school… have you?"

"Well…" Sidney looked sheepish and hesitated to answer. "Okay, yeah… but only to protect the kids who can't protect themselves!"

"Well, I haven't noticed you causing any trouble so you're not in any. Just, tell me, what you know about Merry. Did she have any friends? Enemies?" Danny rolled his hand. "Where did she spend lunch?"

"I don't know… What good would you knowing all that do you?"

"It might help me find the bully that hurt her." Danny said seriously. "Don't think I forgot my promise either. I know how much you and your friends like your cola."

"Sure beat's egg cream." Poindexter said with a nod. Giving the ghost boy another hesitant gaze he finally sighed. "Okay… Just to let you know I don't see everything… I'm not always looking at this school, but from what I saw Merry didn't have any school friends…"

"None?" Danny asked sounding sad.

"Not that I saw. I could relate honestly… and some people didn't seem to like her much but no one really messed with her."

"Who didn't like her?"

"I don't know. Some of the girls talked- the things they say are almost always cruel but they talked more about your human half than her."

"Okay, so she wasn't a huge topic…" Danny frowned.

"She did spend a lot of time in the library." The gray ghost said. "I'm pretty sure if anyone could be called a friend to her it would be the librarian…"

"Mrs. Logan?" Danny frowned thinking of the uptight woman. "I can't imagine that…"

"You'd be surprised. The librarian is one of the nicest people I've seen pass through Casper High's halls."

"Doesn't really say much." Danny muttered.

Poindexter snorted out a laugh. "Tell me about it."

Danny rubbed the back of his neck feeling a bit awkward. "Well, thank you, Poindexter. I'll bring those soda's to you this Saturday. You've really helped me out… the living don't seem to have a clue as to what happened to her…"

"Well…" Poindexter said as he began to fade out. "Maybe the living had nothing to do with her death."

Danny looked at the empty air sharply. It always threw him when ghost pulled the creepy card like that. That exit made him wonder if Poindexter knew what had happened to Merry.

Rubbing his face he shook his head. If Poindexter knew that, he would have told him. The ghost was odd but he was one of the few Phantom trusted. Danny chuckled to himself at the thought. Old Sidney Poindexter would probably take offense if he knew. Slipping back into the building Danny Phantom set off to take on Danny Fenton's school day.

The day had been full of PA announcements calling students into the office to meet with the "Cops." As the hall's emptied four students met in an empty classroom. "So I did some research on NCIS." Sam said. "Looks like they were upfront with you, Danny. They seem to be kind of like the CSI of the Navy… but the cases they deal with are a lot higher profile than what most CSI see. Not only do they handle suspicious Navy and Marine officer deaths they also help in investigations that could lead to threats in the Navy or even at times to the nation."

Tucker let out a whistle. Then he cleared his throat pulling out his PDA. "I tried to tap into some of their tech, see if we can't keep up with their investigation… but they have some good security. I was only able to get into low-level files." He frowned. "I had to pull back before I was noticed."

"Wait, should you really be hacking government files?" Jazz held up a hand looking slightly upset.

Tucker gave Jazz a dry look. "I've hacked the GIW loads of times."

"But that's for like ghost stuff- and protecting Danny."

"It's cool." Sam said. "This will help us help them."

"Right." Danny nodded. "Okay, what do you have Tuck?"

"Looks like they found Merry in a truck in Washington DC. I wasn't able to open up any info regarding her autopsy…" He shivered; silently thankful. "Also, they met up with her ghost where you told them you saw her-

"Wait, what? What happened?" Danny asked worry coating his voice.

"Nothing." Tucker said not looking up from his screen. "According to the report, she appeared screamed and vanished."

Danny let out a sigh. "Just like with me."

"Apparently they got video but I can't actually access that."

"Wait, video?" Sam asked glancing at Danny.

"Yeah, apparently the bowling alley had a camera in it. Don't really know why, but it caught the whole scene." Tucker glanced at her catching the tone of worry in her voice.

Danny nodded. "It's okay Sam. I didn't transform or anything." He gave her a reassuring smile.

Sam didn't return it. "But you were there- as Phantom?"

"Well, yeah."

"Didn't you tell the NCIS guys that you saw Merry there?"

"Yeah." Danny shrugged. "So?"

"You told them Danny Fenton ran into her?" Sam stressed. "What if they try to corroborate your story? They won't see you at all- but your story will match up perfectly with what happened with Phantom!"

Danny paled. Jazz stood, putting a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay little brother. If they ask, just tell them you work with Phantom and he told you the story. It really struck you and you knew that Phantom couldn't tell them so you did…"

"Well, we don't know if they even looked that far back in the recordings." Tucker said.

Sam nodded pressing her lips together. "No need to get riled up over it now. We'll worry about it if it comes up."

Danny took a deep breath. "Right…"

"So… what do we know?" Jazz asked.

The room was quiet for a moment. Finally, Danny took a breath. "Merry went missing without a trace on the 13th of November. I looked but I couldn't find any obvious signs of ghost connected to her…"

"In fact that night there were no ghost attacks what so ever." Tucker said punching at his PDA. "Unless you failed to tell us about a late night hunt." Tucker gave Danny a pointed look prompting Sam to do the same.

Danny held up his hands. "No. I remember that night." Danny said. "I had an argument with Mom and Dad about my grades. I found it ironic because it was the one night in like 2 months where I wasn't late. I was eager to avoid the whole curfew argument but I got hit with midterm results instead." He let out a hollow laugh.

"I remember that night… probably was a good thing no ghost showed." Jazz said giving her brother a sympathetic look.

Danny shook his head. "This meeting isn't about me."

Jazz rubbed his back and he gave her a half strained smile. Jazz gave him a gentle smile in return and looked to Tucker as she pushed their discussion forward. "Well, we also know she was found in a truck. Do we know how she got into that truck?"

Tucker typed a few things into his PDA. "No. No one knows how yet… but it looks like the truck… yeah. The truck stopped at a shipping yard here in Amity."

"Sounds like a good place to start." Sam said. "Danny?"

Nodding Danny crossed his arms. "You're right. I'll check it out tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Jazz asked. "Why wait?"

Danny shared a glance with Sam and Tucker who shrugged in response. Danny sighed. "I'm going to do some interrogations of my own. See if any of our ghostly friends might have noticed anything odd lately."

"Ghostly friends?" Jazz asked. "Like who?"

"Well, I really will start with friends. I'll ask Pandora and Dora if they've heard anything. Maybe even stop at Frostbites though he doesn't usually get any word from the human world. If I can I'll ask Wulf for help… but mainly I'm just going to do some old fashion bash and ask." With that last statement, Danny put a fist in his palm and smirked.

Jazz sighed shaking her head. "Just be careful, little brother."

Danny gave his signature Ghost Boy grin as the bright rings washed over his body. "Aren't I always?"

"Hardly ever." The three said dryly together.

Danny just laughed as he ghosted through the roof.

Authors notes:
So I've never had an egg cream. They actually sound pretty good… but I like the idea of the ghost in the parallel Ghost Zone Casper High finding cola's to be exotic and exciting. I'm rewatching NCIS because it has been a while. So while I play catch up with that we have the perfect opportunity to find out what's been happening with Team Phantom… plus you guys seemed curious. :)