A/N: I am so sorry about the almost 2 month delay in this update. I haven't been well lately so it's taken me a while to write this chapter. For this reason, I'm not going to promise that the next chapter will be up sooner, but I do hope to get it up sooner rather than later. I hope you guys are still sticking with me.
Enjoy.
An half hour, a car trip with two armed agents doing their best not to shoot constantly moaning suspect in the back and a couple of icepacks later, the three of them were once again in another small spaced room although it was considerably bigger than the car and a lot more quieter.
Jenkins sat wordlessly on one side of the table, head tilted downwards and staring straight at his hands as they played with the edge of the melting icepack. On the other side of the table was Callen, sitting back in his chair and simply watching him, waiting for him to start speaking. He had a lot of patience when it came to this man. If he had to, he's sit there for the rest of time until he admitted what they needed to head.
Sam stood off to the side behind him. If Callen had to guess, he'd say that his partner was probably leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking as intimidating as he could without even trying. However, if he was, it wasn't having an effect on the man opposite him.
They had only been at the boathouse for 15 minutes, with the past 10 being in that room together. Once they had originally arrived, Sam had hauled Jenkins into the interrogation room after reluctantly accepting the icepack that Callen had thrown at him for the injured man. His health wasn't their top priority, but police brutality was something that was taken seriously, even with agents like themselves who technically didn't exist. Though, he thought as he kept on watching their suspect from his seat, the ice didn't seem to do much for the enlarged, red nose.
The reminder made him subtly clench his fist to see if the lack of pain from before had just been an adrenaline response, happy to find that it was neither swollen nor hurting one bit. He had placed an icepack on it for a total of 2 minutes, which he assumed was the reason behind the slight reddening of the skin, until hearing a car approach and park outside with a greater speed than was necessary or entirely safe. Knowing that there was only one other person on his team who drove like that, Callen had made the educated decision to abandon the soothing treatment for the next room.
Although he had defended himself to Sam, there was no doubt in his mind that Kensi would have clocked on to his agenda from that morning. And if he had waited any longer, he was fairly sure that he wasn't going to enjoy the conversation that he could predict she would want about being in the interrogation room. So he wisely chose to avoid it beforehand and deal with it afterwards rather than the reverse.
Callen snapped back to reality at the smallest sound of scuffling behind him. It was a telltale sign that his partner was getting restless with the waiting. He might have been able to wait for as long as they needed to, but he knew that neither anyone else in that boathouse or most probably the LAPD could. And if he was honest, it wasn't really with the regulations either. Not that anyone really cared about them right then. When their suspect remained the same as before despite the sound, he knew that the game was up.
"Why did you do it, Tommy?" Sam asked levelly, breaking the hanging silence. At the man in question's lack of response, he carried on with a tinge of mocking contempt. "You were pretty talkative earlier. What happened?"
"If you're thinking that staying silent is going to make us doubt that it was you, you're sadly mistaken." Callen added when Jenkins made no sign of paying any attention to what they saying. He gave him a few more seconds before crossing his own arms and shrugging nonchalantly. "I can do this all day."
"You do know that you killed a cop, right? LAPD are dying to speak to you." Sam said dryly, hoping that a bit of familiarity along with a hint of a threat of what was to come would at least get them some kind of acknowledgement.
"Speak up now or you'll have to answer to them. And something tells me that they won't be so kind." Callen tried reasoning with him when he stayed silent, hoping that they would get lucky and the man on the other side would remember any of the many stories that he must have heard about cop killers. "But if you help us out, then we might be able to work something out and let you skip all that."
The silence stretched as Jenkins failed to respond in any means, bringing rise frustration in both of the men. There was nothing there that was truly keeping them from getting the answers that they wanted in their own way except for knowing that 'their own way' would follow with disciplinary charges. And perhaps a severe scolding by Hetty. Or worse; paperwork.
Callen exchanged a look of question with his partner, who simply stood up straighter and neared the table just that bit more. Sam eyed Jenkins with a glare that could probably burn holes through almost anything if it were actually possible to do so, waiting for him to react to human instinct to find the source of the heat. But, not to much of their surprise, he didn't. Instead, Sam nodded towards the folder that Callen had in front of him, indicating to change tactics.
Opening the manila cover slowly, he flipped through the first few papers before finding what he needed. There were 3 photos, enlarged to zoom into the area that it was focused on. He lined them up in the centre of the table, twirling them around so that they faced Jenkins before speaking.
"Ok, let's try something different." He said, tapping at each of the photos that showed the crime scene from the previous day. "See these? This is what you did."
The last word had left his mouth when Callen spotted Jenkins' hands stop fiddling with the icepack and freeze. His head tilted upwards just a fraction of an inch but his eyes scanned the pictures multiple times before shaking his head and going back to the item in his hands.
"Dunno where that is." He muttered impassively. Sam let out an unbelieving scoff at his words.
"A park. Just off Jefferson and 5th." Callen informed him, watching as their suspect swallowed. In the many years that he had been doing this job, if there was something that he had picked up, it was how to read certain people whilst in interrogation. And when they swallowed, it usually meant that he was onto something. Deciding to use it to his advantage, he went for a direct question. "How did you know our agent would be there?"
Silence was what answered once again. Inhaling deeply, Callen crossed his arms once again, doing everything he could do keep his emotions in check. Regardless of the fact that breaking the man's nose wasn't nearly enough for what he had tried to do, and that his failure to cooperate was only stirring the urge to reach over the table and break another bone or ten with his bare hands, he needed to keep the mask of the cool, calculated agent in charge that he was. Usually.
"Any little thing will keep you away from the LAPD right now, Jenkins." He told him in a nonchalance tone. Allowing him a few seconds to speak, or to even offer any kind of motion that would suggest he was interested in answering, Callen glanced over his shoulder at his partner to see what he thought. A small jerk of his head towards the door could only mean one thing, and he nodded. Gathering up the photos once again, he replaced them back into the folder before pushing back his chair and standing up. He saw the sudden movement of Jenkins' head snapping up at his actions, but didn't stop. "Ok. Have it your way."
"I followed her." Jenkins spoke up when Callen was halfway towards the door. Pausing, he suppressed the knowing smirk as he turned back to him.
"No, you didn't." Sam dismissed before he got the chance to, not having moved from his position nor stance. The suspect's attention was no fixed on the two of them for the first time since entering the room.
"I tried to follow her home, but I lost her." He corrected himself with a guilty sigh of being caught out so easily, followed by a half-hearted shrug. "So I staked out a place nearby until I saw her again. Then I followed her."
"And you got a shot in the park?" Callen asked, trying his best to keep the scepticism out of his voice.
"Yes." Jenkins answered in affirmative confidence. The two agents exchanged looks of exasperation arising from not getting anywhere mixed with a silent agreement. They needed a break.
...
"He's lying." Deeks said plainly from where he perched against the centre table to watch the happenings in the other room via the TV in front of him. The screen was now split in half with additional footage streaming live from their HQ where their operational psychologist was also watching.
"Really?" Kensi replied dryly. She sat on the table next to him, legs resting up on a chair and elbows supporting her weight as she leant them on her knees. Although her eyes had been trained intently on the man who had supposedly tried to shoot her the day before, she now let them avert briefly to the floor as she exhaled deeply.
"No-one could have seen her go to the park, then get into position while still remaining as inconspicuous as he had in that small timeframe." He carried on, ignoring her response for the agreement that Nate had supplied.
"I am right here." She scoffed, looking back at the TV with a glare that she had aimed at her partner quickly, though he seemed unfazed. Nate, on the other hand, did not.
"He's right, though. Look at him. He's jittery, anxious." He pointed out in his professional style, and Kensi had to admit that he was right. Jenkins was still fiddling with the edges of the icepack, even as the two men in the room with him left. "Nothing like the guy we saw on the traffic cameras or the surveillance video."
"Alright, so he's lying about what happened." Deeks repeated his original point just as the other two members of their team re-entered the room and approached them, catching the end of their brief conversation.
"Are we certain that it was even him?" Callen asked, directing the question towards the man who was currently standing slightly awkwardly, arms crossed and leaning back rigidly against the table, in the Ops centre.
"It was him." Nate confirmed without hesitation as his posture relaxed into more casual and common body language. "He didn't react to the photo you showed him of the park after the shooting. He ignored the actual events in it and instead focused on the more vague stuff, like the place."
"Which means?" Sam prompted.
"Guilt."
"He tried to kill Kensi, but he feels guilty for killing the cop?"Callen asked incredulously, to which Nate immediately shook his head.
"It wasn't him." He told them. Their confused looks made him carry on before any of them could open their mouth in reply. "No, I mean- It was him. But it wasn't his idea."
"He had a helper?" Deeks concluded somewhat cautiously, looking over at the others as he spoke to see if any of them had any other ideas or agreed.
Something clicked in Kensi's head at his words. She wasn't sure where it came from, most probably another case, but somehow, it all fell into place. At least, it did for her.
"He is the helper." She exclaimed emphatically, claiming the attention of everyone else. The words leaving her mouth lead her to another realisation, one that brought up the frustration from earlier once again. If Jenkins was the helper, then their investigation wouldn't end with him. And neither would her constant paranoia. "He's working for someone."
"Explains why he wouldn't respond to the questions about why he did it. Because he most probably doesn't know." Nate added in hopes to help the team out in getting further with the suspect.
"Alright." Callen nodded before turning back to his partner next to him. "You up for round 2?"
"Can't wait." Sam replied sarcastically, already heading back towards the room that doubled as their interrogation room.
"Wait." Kensi stopped Callen from following, jumping down from the table and taking a couple of steps closer to both him and where the corridor led off to the room with Jenkins. "Maybe he'll answer to me. If he's feeling guilty, he might be more willing with me."
It had been something that he had been expecting from the moment that they had gotten their hands on Jenkins. Even though that had been a little while, he still hadn't come up with an appropriate reason as to why she shouldn't apart from the obvious. But he knew that telling her that she was far too involved would only earn him a cold glare and a demand for a better explanation.
Callen glanced over her shoulder at both Deeks and the TV screen. Sam had already entered the room with Jenkins, whereas Nate was staring straight ahead at him. If he had been in the same room as them, he would have found it pretty unnerving, but his vehement shake of the head only backed up his initial answer to Kensi's request.
"Plan B." He told her dismissively, deciding that trying to offer her an explanation would only waste time and most likely piss her off more so than she already was.
"Callen-" Kensi began in protest, but he began to back away and cut her off before they actually got into it.
"Stay here and watch. Just in case." He said evenly, letting a smile tug at his lips as he pointed to the table behind her. "Have a doughnut."
"I don't want a doughnut." She called after him when he turned to leave in a tone that was close to being petulant.
"Then don't." Callen shrugged off, giving her a smirk over his shoulder before reaching the door behind which was Sam and Jenkins. Kensi rolled her eyes at his actions, not bothering to give him the time or the satisfaction to know that his subtle attempts at trying to put her at ease did in fact work, and instead went back over to where she had sat before to watch the rest of the interrogation.
...
"I told you all I know. Aren't you charging me?" Jenkins exclaimed exasperatedly, and slightly restlessly, as soon as Callen had shut the door behind him. Sam had already clearly started the process without him, though to no avail.
"For someone who just got out, you're pretty eager to be arrested again." The former SEAL asked from the seat that he had now taken, picking up on the suspect's change of tone and actions. Whereas Jenkins had previously remained closed off and secluded from them, he was now leaning forwards onto the table, arms resting openly in front of him. Reading body language came easily for them when they were experts themselves in acting undercover. "Who are you working for?"
"C'mon, don't go all shy on us now." Callen jibed, placing the folder that had been in his hands since he had left the room previously back onto the table and standing at the end of it. At Jenkins' refusal to reply once again, he sighed and crossed his arms, giving up on giving him a chance and instead went straight into it. "We know you didn't do this alone."
"Haven't got the brains for it." Sam added dryly. That only earned them a set jaw and an unemotional stare.
"It's going to be a long sentence. Probably with no parole." He said the words with underlying nonchalance, something that Callen found not too hard to put on. Sighing in irritation when Jenkins failed to respond after a little while, he uncrossed his arms and placed his hands onto the table, leaning in a bit towards the other man so that he could lower his voice. His partner used his stance as a way of intimidation; he used his lack of volume to threaten. "Tell us what we want to know and we can cut you a deal."
"Dammit." He eventually muttered in aggravation. Shaking his head, Jenkins' posture relaxed once again, and his mask slipped to portray the genuine fear they were sure he was feeling. "He said I wouldn't go back to prison."
"Who?" Sam asked immediately, almost barking the question.
"Dan."
"We're going to need a little bit more than that." He scoffed as Callen retreated a couple of steps back. Jenkins held up his hands in surrender, eyes flittering from one to another in clear worry.
"That's all I know, I swear. He didn't give a last name." He told them, to which Sam sighed heavily.
"What did he look like?"
"Average." Both agents rolled their eyes at his reply, urging Jenkins to sit up straighter and reemphasise his words. "He was! Average height, average weight. Dark hair. Kinda old, though, but he looked good for his age."
"What else?" Callen pushed.
"That's it." Jenkins shrugged with a small frown, watching as the other two stared him down, obviously expecting more of an explanation than he had already offered. "Look, he was the one who directed me to the place opposite the park, alright? He told me exactly where to look and where not to so I wouldn't be seen."
"Why does this Dan want my agent dead?" Called asked him slowly, pronouncing the name of the man supposedly in charge with a hint of sarcasm.
"I don't know! Honest. He- he never told me." He faltered as his voice trailed off slightly.
"So you just agreed to commit murder weeks after getting parole for no reason?" Sam asked rhetorically, his lack of belief in Jenkins' answer clear in everything he said and did.
"What's he got over you, Tommy?" Callen asked, knowing that it was the only other plausible reason as to why he did it. That, or he really did do it for no reason. Jenkins tilted his head downwards once again, although this time it was more out of shame than a reluctance to answer."You want to go back to prison for another 25 years?"
"He was in there with me, alright? It wasn't for long, but he- He liked to make our lives hell. I was only there for his last two weeks inside. But I pissed him off one day, and he said he'd make my life hell out here if I didn't do what he said." Jenkins admitted and looked back at them, pouring out the whole story without a chance for any of the others to jump in. "Then I came out and he found me. Told me to do this one last thing and he'd leave me alone."
"And you agreed." Callen concluded, to which he nodded.
"I'd waited for years to be free again! I didn't want to be looking over my shoulder all the time for something to go wrong because of him." He told them, shrugging and sinking back into his chair almost tiredly in the end. "I didn't have a choice."
"There's always a choice." Sam replied gruffly, standing up now that they had heard everything that they needed to get a conviction. "And you chose prison."
"Have fun looking over your shoulder in there." Callen retorted, picking up the case file once again as they headed out towards the door.
"Wait!" Jenkins stopped them once again, his voice urgent and desperate this time. "You said you'd cut me a deal!"
"We'll see what we can do." He said blankly. "No promises."
...
"Now, he's telling the truth." Nate was saying when they re-entered the main area of the boathouse. Kensi and Deeks were both standing, though whether it was out of anxiety or getting ready to leave, Callen wasn't sure.
"Yeah, we assumed so, too. Doesn't seem clever enough to pull something like this off." Sam replied, reiterating what he had said before to the suspect himself.
"Or lie about it in such detail." Called added, before addressing the other two who had already been in the room. "What did you guys find at his place?"
"Nothing much. Got the hat and scarf he used as disguise. The place was moreorless clean otherwise." Deeks told him apologetically.
"Nothing on his time in jail, or anything to do with a 'Dan'." Kensi supplied after her partner was done, knowing what it was that they really wanted to know. Although they had been expecting it, hearing it left a sinking feeling in both Sam and Callen at the fact that their only lead, and what they had hoped to be the end of the case, had led to many more questions that they had no answers to. At least, no certain answers.
"What are the chances that he actually exists, Doc?" Sam asked the psychologist, who was silently listening in on their conversation. At his question, all four turned to face the TV screen, waiting to see what his professional opinion would be. They might hate being on the receiving end of his psych evaluations and head shrinking, but he was good at what he did and they all knew it.
"The chance that there is a Dan is pretty high. His recollection of his time in prison seemed real. Whether his name is Dan or not, that is debatable." Nate explained in his usual fashion that left the rest of them taking a few seconds to process what he had said. Once they had, the consensus was moreorless the same; confusion. Seeing this, he carried on to simplify. "If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say he was telling the truth. Based on the assumption that the rest of his story is true, too, that is."
The words left them all silent with food for thought. It was a case of 'if' and 'then'. If Jenkins was telling the truth about the rest of his story, then the story about Dan would be true too. At least, his existence might. Callen knew better than to assume that someone was involved simply because of their name being dropped into a conversation, especially during interrogation.
"Right. Deeks, get onto your men and tell them they can have Jenkins." He instructed their liaison officer. "Sam and I'll drop him off."
"What about the deal?" Deeks asked somewhat hesitantly. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to even approach the idea with the LAPD, nor if he wanted Jenkins to have the opportunity to serve less than he deserved.
"You really think anything we say is going to help?" Sam answered his question with a sardonic one of his own, raising is eyebrow at the other man.
They all knew the answer to that. Had it been the other way around, with Jenkins aiming for the officer and getting one of their agents instead, there was no way any of them would listen to any kind of plead for a deal. Though, Callen reckoned, had it been one off their team, he was pretty sure he wouldn't make it far enough to ask for a deal.
"Guess not." Deeks murmured before heading off to the small cordoned off space to his left to make the phone call.
"Did you guys find anything at his other place?" Kensi asked once he had disappeared.
"Other than him? Nothing." Sam told her with a single shouldered shrug before returning back to the other room where Jenkins waited to take him over to the precinct for the LAPD to deal with.
"Great. We're back to where we were yesterday." Kensi sighed tiredly as she watched Sam leave, avoiding eye contact with anyone else for as long as she could. There was no doubt that if she didn't get a hold of herself soon, someone was going to see just how much this was affecting her, regardless of her attempts to hide it.
"Let's head back to Ops. We'll go over everything we have again and see if we can find this 'Dan'." Callen suggested, snapping her out of her mind.
"Yeah." She agreed mindlessly, doing her best to act as normal as she could when she looked over at him with a small smile before averting her eyes to watch as Sam guided Jenkins out into the room that they were currently in. He bypassed them effortlessly, heading straight for the exit without even a struggle. She couldn't help but stare at the man who had tried and come so close to killing her, even for a few seconds.
"We're not back to where we were yesterday, Kens." Callen claimed her attention once again, and she was sure that it was timed perfectly to keep her from contemplating the man that had just left. She didn't know what it was that he thought she might do, but she had felt him near her almost instinctively on guard just in case. The thought made her smirk, though very wryly.
"Sure feels like it." She remarked.
"We'll follow Jenkins back over the past few weeks and see if we can find this guy, alright?" He explained to her before going around her to exit the boathouse too. Taking that as an invitation to follow, Kensi threw a look over her shoulder to see if Deeks was almost done, glad that he seemed to be nearing the end of his conversation.
"I know. I was just hoping that it would be an open and shut case." She admitted with a sarcastic scoff as they left their secret beachside shop. "That I could forget about it already."
"Yeah, me too." Callen told her, dropping his voice to a softer tone that she was only use to in personal conversations and settings. Although Sam had already led Jenkins to his car, he walked with Kensi over to hers, keeping in step with her as he pulled out his shades to put them on. But it didn't matter what he tried, because he knew that she would see right through his act of casualness to his more protective nature."Keep your eyes open. He might still be after you even if his shooter is with us."
"Yes, G, I'm aware of the danger that I'm currently oh-so-hopelessly in." Kensi retorted in a sarcastic, saccharine tone, accompanied by a roll of the eyes. He hadn't expected anything less, but he saw right through her light-hearted act, too. "You don't have to remind me what to do."
"Just because you're aware doesn't mean you'll act like it." Callen smirked, earning himself a half-hearted glare and a small shove, making him laugh. Kensi merely shook her head as they reached the car. "Hey, I speak from experience!"
"How's the hand?" She rebuked as she turned to face him, both challenging his own actions when in danger and taking the conversation away from herself.
"Fine. It's not like I've never hit anyone before." He replied, holding up the hand in the space between them to show her as he flexed his fingers before making a fist.
"See, why do you get to hit him and I don't?" She asked, frowning lightly as she gazed over to the car on the other side of the tiny parking lot where Sam waited in the car with the man in question.
"Because I got there first." Callen teased, to which she returned her eyes back to him with another unimpressed glare. His smirk forced her to hide her own, pushing him away with a hand to his shoulder before turning around to open the door to her car. "Tell you what; you can hit the next one."
"Deal." Kensi readily agreed, climbing into the driver's seat as he began to head over to the other car. "I'll see you back at Ops."
"Wait for Deeks." He called back at her before she got to shut her door. There was no doubt that he could take her mind of the case and reassure her that things would be ok unlike anyone else, but he could also annoy her with the littlest things unlike anyone else, too. Winding down her window, she waited until he drove past to offer her wordless response of a single finger even as she did as he had said.
...
