Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
Sunday, 20 December 2015
McGee and Quinn's search of Charlie Fields' apartment had been extremely fruitful. Although his girlfriend, Lori, insisted that Charlie had been at home at the time of the murder, they found enough physical evidence to counter her argument. Or so they hoped. In the bottom of a wardrobe that held the modest collection of Charlie's clothes was a large, black plastic bag. When McGee opened the bag, he found a hooded sweatshirt matching the one Charlie had worn in the surveillance video with drops of what they hoped was blood on the sleeve. There was also a pair of latex gloves, cable ties that had been secured and then cut open, and a paring knife that looked like it belonged to the set that Bonnie's mother owned. It didn't look good for Charlie, but it looked great for Team Gibbs' case. They just had to prove that the blood was Bonnie's, and maybe retrieve some fingerprints that tied Charlie definitively to the evidence.
McGee had delivered the load of evidence to Abby the night before, and she hadn't wasted any time with it. While McGee, Ziva and Quinn had gone home to rest, recharge and check in with their partners, Abby had spent the night in the lab running tests on blood samples and fibers. She had spent hours gently teasing fingerprints from the inside of the latex gloves, pulling them off cable ties and going over every millimeter of the knife. She had even taken swabs from the collar of the sweatshirt in the hope of pulling Charlie's DNA from dried sweat that had been left behind. She was being even more meticulous than she usually was, if that was possible, and Ziva was impressed.
"I doubt we will even have to go to trial on this one," Ziva commented to Abby when she looked around at all the tests that were running. "In the face of such overwhelming evidence, Charlie Fields will surely confess."
Abby looked up from her monitor with a knowing smile. She looked tired, but was still impossibly perky. "I wish that happened in all our cases. I still hate going to court."
"Me too," Ziva agreed.
Quinn, who had accompanied Ziva down to the lab to check on Abby's progress, wandered between the monitors and the machines. "I love it," he said. "There's something so satisfying about arguing with defense lawyers."
"You are the least confrontational guy I've ever known," Abby said to him. "Like, even less than McGee. Why do you enjoy arguing with defense lawyers?"
"Because they're usually slimeballs," Quinn said with a shrug. "I figure it's okay to argue with them."
"Well, I do not think you will get the chance on this case," Ziva said to him. "Abby will have the loose ends wound up by lunchtime."
"Tied up," Quinn corrected, and Ziva scowled. She didn't like it when he corrected her. Even if he was far less obnoxious about it than Tony.
"Don't jinx it," Abby said. "I haven't got anything back yet. But I will. I'll find something to nail him. Any friend of Eddie Hertzog's is a turd just waiting to be put back in jail."
She sent Ziva a look of solidarity, and Ziva returned a quick smile. She had a suspicion that Abby was on her version of the warpath more because of the connection between Bonnie, Eddie and Ziva than anything else. Ziva appreciated the loyalty, but she would rather just focus on Bonnie. She had made it through her brush with Eddie with a concussion, a very sore neck and a couple of scars from the major shoulder reconstruction surgery that followed a few months later. But Bonnie paid the ultimate price. And just when she was making something of her life.
Guilt thrummed through Ziva's chest again, and as the others continued talking she leaned back against the corner of the lab fridge and let her eyes drop to the floor. She drifted off with her thoughts. It wasn't fair that Eddie had played a final hand after they all thought the game was over. And it wasn't fair that he'd been given a cellmate who was apparently so easily coerced into murder. Of course, they still had to prove that was what happened. But Ziva was confident they would. And then they would get Eddie's sentence extended. It was the best possible outcome, and yet Ziva knew it would feel like a hollow victory. They would get justice for Bonnie, but it wouldn't change anything. She would still be dead.
"I think she's overlooking the benefits of the location," Quinn said as he wandered near Ziva again, snapping her out of her thoughts. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a big selling point."
Abby poked her head around the side of her computer monitor, Caf-Pow in hand and a puzzled look on her face. "Silver Spring?" she asked, and Ziva caught on that they had moved on to talking about Quinn's house-hunting adventures with his girlfriend. "What's so great about Silver Spring?" She looked at Ziva. "You didn't think it was that great, did you?"
Ziva shrugged and rejoined the upbeat conversation. "It was fine for a while."
"Not Silver Spring," Quinn said. "I mean the fact that it's right above a dry cleaner's. Since I started here, I've always got some crap all over my suit that I need to get off."
Ziva thought that over. Most of her clothes could be thrown in the washer without a second thought. But Tony was always picking up or dropping off a suit to be cleaned. When they first started living together she found the number of suits in his closet obscene. Now, she thought it was excellent foresight on his part.
"He has a point," she said to Abby.
"So, why doesn't Yasmin like the place?" Abby asked Quinn.
Quinn scoffed and spread his arms out to make it clear that he felt his girlfriend was being too picky. "There was a cockroach on the floor when we came in," he said. "A little bitty cockroach. And she said no straight away."
"Was it dead?" Abby asked.
"Definitely," Quinn said, nodding firmly. "Because there were, like, a hundred ants eating it."
Ziva wrinkled her nose. "So, aside from the cockroach problem and the ant problem, what was the place like?"
Quinn bobbed his head from side to side as he thought of the best way to describe it. "Renovator's dream."
Ziva and Abby shared a knowing look. Crap hole.
"And have you or Yasmin been dreaming of renovating homes lately?" Ziva asked.
Quinn leaned against the fridge beside her and crossed his arms. He flashed her a charming smile, and Ziva immediately knew she was about to be lied to. "Not me. But Yasmin watches a lot of HGTV. I reckon she'd be great at pulling down walls and installing new floors."
"Keep looking," Ziva advised. "Believe me when I say that living together through a renovation should be avoided at all costs."
Abby snickered over her keyboard. "Oh, yeah. I remember when you and Tony remodeled your kitchen. I thought one of you was going to die."
"I almost did," Ziva reminded her. "He nearly shot me with a nail gun."
Quinn rubbed his chin. "Yeah, DiNozzo doesn't strike me as the type to be handy with the tools."
"He is actually very handy," Ziva told him, quick to defend her partner. "And it was not an accident that he almost shot me with a nail gun. He was aiming for me."
"Ziva," Abby groaned, trying to admonish her. But Ziva stood firm.
"He was!" she insisted. "We had a very heated argument about which shade of white out of about 100 choices was the right shade of white for the kitchen cabinets. We had just ordered this Caesarstone counter top on a whim and it didn't fit in with our original design plans for the cabinets, which Gibbs built for us, so it threw everything out."
Quinn looked at her like he'd just found out she liked to eat worms for lunch. "Oh my God."
"It should not have been a big deal," Ziva said quickly, waving her hands to play down the incident. "But we had already fought for days over which splashback to get. And we had an argument that same morning in the kitchen store showroom about the hardware for the kitchen doors and drawers and I think he was just carrying a lot of frustration."
"Over hardware for drawers?" Quinn asked. "What does that even mean?"
"The handles," Ziva told him, beginning to feel a little embarrassed. "And yes, he almost shot me with a nail gun over paint and handles. Because that is what living through renovations does to you."
"I seriously can't imagine caring that much about handles," Quinn said.
Ziva pointed her finger at him, forgetting her embarrassment. "Everyone says that," she assured him knowingly. "Everyone thinks they don't care about handles. Until they are presented with a hundred different kinds to choose from and they have to pick one that they like and that their partner also likes. Then they discover that they care very much about handles."
"And then someone gets shot with a nail gun," Quinn finished.
Ziva clicked her fingers and nodded.
Quinn blew out a breath. "Well. I think I've learned more about you today than I probably needed to."
"Probably," she agreed.
"But your kitchen's gorgeous," Abby threw in.
Ziva nodded. "Oh, yes. We were very happy with how it turned out. But we will wait to do the bathroom until one of us is out of the country for a month."
Abby grinned, and then spun around when her computer started beeping at her. "Oh, God! What is it, my babies?" she asked the monitor.
Ziva and Quinn were at her back in two seconds flat.
"What did you find?' Ziva asked.
Abby read the information on her monitor before her bright red lips pulled back in a smile. "Good ol' fashioned evidence," she said, and then reached for the phone. "I got him," she said when Gibbs answered, and then hung up without waiting for a response. It was a given that Gibbs would be down on the next elevator.
Ziva's eyes flicked around Abby's monitor as she looked for whatever evidence it was that Abby saw. She didn't see anything she could decipher. "Are you sure?" she asked Abby.
Abby turned to her and crossed her arms over her chest. "When have I ever given you a reason to doubt me?" she asked.
Ziva slunk backwards. "Never," she allowed.
"Right," Abby said with a nod. "I guarantee you'll be sleeping easier tonight."
"She sleeps with a man who tried to shoot her with a nail gun," Quinn pointed out.
Ziva sighed and rubbed her temples. She knew she shouldn't have told Quinn that.
"Tony's a pretty good shot," Abby said thoughtfully. "If he'd really wanted to shoot her, he would have."
"Is that you trying to find the silver lining?" Quinn asked.
"Quinn, I promise you do not need to worry about Tony shooting me," Ziva said tiredly.
"Didn't you say he also broke your toe once when he drove over your foot?"
Ziva turned to face him and put her hands on her hips as she put her unbroken foot down on the conversation. "That was completely my fault. Do not start building an ugly and incorrect version of our relationship in your head." The last thing she wanted right now was people leveling suspicion at the man who was holding her together. Who had always held her together. "You hear the annoying things that I need to complain to someone about, but I do not tell you about when he comes home after working all day and night and makes me breakfast. Or when he talks me down when I have a panic attack. Or when he puts my pajamas in the oven on a cold night to warm them up for me."
"Oh my God," Abby broke in. "He puts your PJs in the oven to warm them up?"
Ziva swallowed down her self-consciousness and nodded. She didn't often share these snippets of her relationship with people. Not even with Abby, whom she had known for ten years. They were private. But also important, she realized, to give her friends—Quinn, in particular—a well-rounded view of who her partner was.
Abby clutched her chest and melted in on herself a little bit. "That is so adorable."
"What's adorable?" Gibbs asked, as he entered the lab with McGee and Tony.
Ziva frowned at the sight of the ex-MCRT team member. "What are you doing here?"
Tony shrugged easily, but she read the anxiety in his eyes. "I was in the neighborhood when Abby sent out the bat signal. Thought I'd take a break from disembodied feet."
"We were just talking about the time you almost shot Ziva with a nail gun," Quinn told him.
"Which is adorable?" McGee asked, puzzled.
Tony swung his head around to look at Ziva. "Which time?"
"Kitchen hardware," she said softly, and with a shrug.
Tony grimaced. "Oh. Yeah, that wasn't a very good day. If we had been married, I would have divorced you."
"Wait, you asked which time?" Quinn cut in. "Implying it happened at least twice?"
"We don't talk about the other time," Tony said tersely.
Ziva rolled her eyes at his attempt to make it sound bigger than it was. "He was loading the nail gun," Ziva told Quinn. "I was standing in front of him. It was an accident."
"Sure it was," Tony said, and then gave Quinn a deliberately guilty look. Ziva shook her head at him. She had no idea why Tony was so determined to make Quinn dislike him. But it seemed to be working.
"Abby?" Gibbs prompted, and the team, plus Tony, refocused on the case.
"There are still more results to come in," Abby began, dampening their expectations just a little. "But I took swabs from the cable ties, gloves and the hoodie that McGee and Quinn found at Charles Fields' house. I got a DNA profile off the spots of blood on them. Guess who it belongs to?"
"Bonnie Stewart," Gibbs said.
Abby grinned and pointed at him. "Ten points for the silver fox in the blue blazer," she said. "Next question: whose DNA did I find on the hoodie?"
"Charlie Fields and Bonnie Stewart's?" Ziva guessed hopefully.
"Ten points to the ninja," Abby said. "The blood on the sleeve of the hoodie is Bonnie's, and the skin cells around the neck and the wrists are Charlie's."
Ziva breathed a relieved sigh and glanced at Tony. He gave her a quick wink, and they shared a brief smile.
"Final question, tie breaker," Abby said. "Whose blood did I find on the gloves?"
"Bonnie's!" Quinn jumped in. "It was Bonnie's."
"Three-way tie," Abby grinned. "I'm still working on lifting fingerprints from the inside of the gloves to match them to Charlie, and the teeny tiny blood sample from the paring knife hasn't thrown up a hit yet. But I will keep working until this is water tight, Gibbs."
Gibbs leaned forward with a proud smile and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Good work, Abs."
"Definitely places the two of them together," McGee said. "But it doesn't prove his motive."
"Hey!" Abby cried in protest. "Way to rain on the parade, McGee."
"It's good news," McGee told her quickly. "Excellent news. And we can build a case on it. But it would help if we could prove why he killed her."
"Then let's go talk to him again, McGee," Gibbs said, and led the way out of the room. McGee and Quinn picked up some evidence bags from Abby's desk before following him, and Ziva took two steps before diverting to stand in front of Tony.
"Halfway there," he said to her, but his optimism over closing the case soon was evident on his face.
Ziva nodded, and shot a quick, shy look over at Abby before putting her hand on his cheek and lifting herself onto her tip-toes to give him a brief kiss. "I love you," she whispered to him, just needing him to know that right now.
Tony looked surprised by her public(ish) display of affection, and she understood why. They'd always tried to keep this side of their relationship private, even if it wasn't a secret that they were together. In fact, after two years together Ziva wasn't sure that Abby had even seen her and Tony do anything more than hug. But he didn't seem to mind that she had broken with tradition. He just smiled in that way he did when she had managed to make him happy, and that made her happy all over again.
He tugged gently at the ends of her ponytail in lieu of another kiss. "Love you, too," he returned, and let go of her as she stepped back and then threw a smile at Abby.
"Good work, Abby," she said, and then quickly left the room to join the others.
…
They had to wait for Charlie Fields' lawyer to arrive before Gibbs and McGee could present him with Abby's physical evidence. While they'd waited, Ziva had lobbied to be the one to get to join Gibbs in the interrogation room. But a firm 'no', followed up by looks ranging from exasperated to pissed off eventually made her give up and accept that she would have to watch the interview from behind the two-way mirror. Quinn stood beside her, hands resting casually in his pockets, as Gibbs, McGee, Fields and his lawyer, a tall and square-jawed man named Mike Costas entered the interrogation room. McGee waited until everyone else had taken their seats, and then slowly and very deliberately laid the evidence bags containing the cable ties, gloves, hoodie and paring knife out on the desk. Once that was done, he took a seat in the back corner of the room.
"Hey, Charlie," Gibbs began amiably.
Charlie, hunched over in his seat again and looking as humble and meek as possible, nodded at Gibbs in response. "Sir."
"Remember the last time we talked, I told you about those really smart forensic people we have working for us?"
Charlie swallowed and nodded. "Yes, sir."
"And I think you know that we got a warrant to search your girlfriend, Lori's, place."
"Please get to the point, Agent Gibbs," Costas requested, semi-politely.
Gibbs touched each evidence bag in turn. "My team found some interesting things at Lori's house," Gibbs said. "Cable ties, like the kind our medical examiner thinks were used to bind Bonnie Stewart's wrists and ankles to her dining chair. A paring knife, like the kind our ME thinks was used to slash Bonnie's arms and shoulders before she was strangled to death. Bloodied latex gloves. And a bloodstained hooded sweatshirt." He paused, and Ziva watched Charlie as he tried to avoid looking at the items in front of him. "Lori says these things don't belong to her and she's never seen them before," Gibbs told Charlie.
"We had our really smart forensic people go over them," McGee said from the corner. "They found Bonnie Stewart's blood all over them, as well as your DNA on the sweatshirt."
"And since you told us last time that you've never met Bonnie, we're understandably curious over how these items, which could have been used during her murder, and which have her DNA all over them, ended up in your possession," Gibbs said.
Charlie let out a deep sigh, and his shoulders rolled in on him. He shook his head as he stared down at his cuffed hands. "Sir, I—"
"I'd like a few moments alone with my client," Costas cut in before Charlie could say anything to incriminate himself.
Gibbs nodded knowingly. "I figured," he said, and he and McGee got to their feet. "We'll be right outside."
Quinn turned to Ziva as the AV technician behind them cut the sound into the viewing room. "Well, he's about to spill his guts," he stated.
Ziva watched Costas talking animatedly with Fields, who sat with his head bowed and shoulders slumped. It bothered her that this man who seemed so genuinely remorseful for his actions now was the same man who had tied Bonnie Stewart up, slashed her all over, and then put his hands around her neck and choked the life out of her. Ziva lifted her hand to her throat as that afternoon in Tony's apartment came back to her again, but she swallowed and shook her head, dislodging the memory for now.
"I hope so," she said thinly.
She felt Quinn staring at her, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. So she wasn't surprised a moment later when he addressed the AV technician in the room with them.
"Hey, buddy? Can you give us a few minutes?"
"Sure," the tech said, and left the room.
Ziva took a steady breath and turned her back on Fields and Costas to lean against the mirror. She crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow at Quinn. "Are you going to ask?"
Quinn took his hands out of his pockets to hold them out in a shrug. "I know you have boundaries, and I don't want to cross them. You said that you were fine with this case. Insisted pretty adamantly, in fact. And I believe you. But there's something you're all not telling me."
For more than a few moments, Ziva considered keeping it that way. It was one thing that the people who had been there knew what happened. But Gibbs hadn't even been given the story until a few days ago, and while her reasons for keeping it from her second father had a lot to do with not wanting to feed his guilt over what had happened over the summer of 2013, she had also kept it from him because she didn't want him to look at her like a victim. And she didn't want Quinn to look at her like a victim. Because she wasn't. Eddie Hertzog had picked on her because she was a woman, that was clear. If he'd encountered Tony or McGee in the apartment that afternoon, Ziva doubted he would have physically attacked them. She knew that her gender made Eddie's reaction to her unique, and it irritated the hell out of her. But she was not one of his victims. She refused to be. And she could not stand it if her partner started thinking of her that way.
And yet, she wondered if she wasn't giving Quinn enough credit. He'd been working with the team for 18 months now, and he'd never made a single comment with a chauvinistic bent. He had never done anything to make her feel like he didn't think she deserved to be where she was, or that she wasn't capable of doing her job just as well, or better, than the other agents around her. He had been entirely supportive, trustworthy and kind since the day she had met him. Because of that, he had become part of her family. She didn't deny the fact any other day, only when it suited her to forget it. It was repeat behavior for her. The type that had caused the most difficulty in her relationships with the rest of the team over the years. If she wanted to avoid the same problems with Quinn, she had to fight her natural instinct to clam up.
"Okay," she finally said. "It is no big deal. But back in 2013 when me, Tony and McGee worked Bonnie's case, Eddie Hertzog attacked me."
Quinn's eyebrows lifted. "Oh, shit," he said with surprise. "What happened?"
"We were keeping Bonnie and her friend Kavita at Tony's place," she told him. "Like a safe house while we gathered enough evidence to prove that Eddie was stalking her. Eddie followed me there. Bonnie was gone, and Eddie got mad that I couldn't tell him where she was. He came at me, we fought, he got the upper hand."
Quinn leaned against the mirror beside her. He frowned as he tried to work it out. "How'd that happen? Did you forget to take your proton energy pill that day?"
Ziva didn't quite understand the reference, but got the gist of what he was saying. "My arm was in a sling from a previous injury," she said. "And he was…very angry."
Quinn nodded like that make sense.
"In the end, his attack on me made it easier to prosecute him for stalking Bonnie," Ziva said, focusing on the good that came out of it before crashing down to the bad. "Unfortunately, that didn't seem to help her in the long run."
Quinn inclined his head towards her while keeping an appropriate distance. "Yeah, but this isn't your fault, Ziva," he said, picking up on what everyone else had in the last few days. "If you're right, and I'm beginning to think you are, this is about Eddie Hertzog's delusions and ego."
Ziva nodded slowly, tiredly, with resignation. "I know. But I feel responsible for her."
"I get that," Quinn said. "But you can't protect everyone until they die of natural causes."
The comment harkened back to comments Tony and Gibbs had both made since they caught this case, and Ziva could only nod. She knew that. But she still couldn't help feeling the way she did.
The door to the viewing room opened again and the AV tech came back in. He pointed towards the interrogation room.
"They're starting up again," he told them.
Ziva and Quinn turned around to see Gibbs and McGee returning to the room, and a moment later the AV tech brought the sound back into the viewing room. As they all sat down and got ready for round two, Quinn gently smacked Ziva's shoulder.
"Hey," he said, drawing her gaze. "Thanks for telling me."
Ziva nodded, and was relieved to feel at peace over her decision to do so. "I do not wish for it to be common knowledge," she told him, but Quinn was already nodding.
"It's in the vault," he assured her.
"On my advice, Mr Fields is ready to discuss his knowledge of the event in question," Costas was saying in the interrogation room, and Ziva and Quinn returned their attention to the interview. "I would like you to remember his assistance when you speak with the prosecution."
"You want leniency?" Gibbs asked, incredulous. "Mr Fields slashed and strangled a women to death with his bare hands. What kind of leniency does that deserve?"
"His willingness to cooperate should count for something," Costas argued.
Gibbs sighed, and then crossed his legs casually. He was sending the message that he was still in control here, despite was he was about to say. "We'll talk to the prosecution," he said, not making any promises but giving the impression that he was trying to be reasonable. "Mr Fields, please tell us what you know about the death of NCIS Probationary Agent Bonnie Stewart."
Charlie looked at his lawyer nervously, then met Gibbs' eyes. "I killed her, sir," he stated.
Ziva knew he had done it, but the fact that he was so suddenly upfront about it made her inhale sharply.
Gibbs nodded. "Okay," he said evenly. "Take me through that day."
"I went to her house on Tuesday afternoon and knocked on her door," Charlie said softly. "When she opened the door I told her that I was collecting money for the local church and asked if she could spare a few dollars."
"Piece of crap," Quinn muttered as Ziva let out a grunt of disgust.
"I don't thinks she believed me," Charlie went on, "but she turned around and I just came inside and grabbed her. Took her by surprise. Wrapped my arms around hers and lifted her up, and carried her to the back of the house."
Ziva crossed her arms tightly over her chest. She had heard stories like this a hundred times, and they always made her sick and angry. But this time, it was just worse.
"She tried to kick me. Head butt me. But I got her to the kitchen, and I grabbed a knife that was on the counter there and held it to her throat. And she stopped struggling." Charlie paused and took a breath. "I got her into one of the chairs, and I pressed the knife up against her throat." He touched the hollow of his throat. "And I told her if she fought me then I'd kill her."
"So you hadn't decided at that point whether you were going to kill her?" Gibbs asked.
Charlie shrugged. "Yes, sir. But I just didn't want her to fight. I just wanted her to think I was going to rob her and then leave."
"Was she compliant then?" Gibbs asked.
Say she fought you, Ziva begged in her head. Say she struggled and fought so hard that you were going to back out.
But Charlie nodded. "Pretty much. She made a grab for the knife when I tried to tie one of her legs to the chair, so I cut her across her arm."
"Which arm?" Gibbs asked.
"I don't know," Charlie said. "I don't know. But she kind of pulled back like she was surprised, so I tied her leg to the chair, and then her other one."
"How did you tie her?" McGee asked.
Charlie pointed at one of the evidence bags. "With those," he said. "I got them from the hardware store near Lori's house."
"So you got her legs tied," Gibbs said calmly. "Then what?"
"She took a swing at me," Charlie said. "Pretty good shot, too. But I'm used to taking much worse than that, and it bugged me. So I stabbed her in the shoulder, and I left the knife there until I had her arms tied, you know? Then I just started cutting her up a bit."
"Why?" Gibbs asked, his tone making it clear that he really didn't understand.
It seemed that Charlie didn't either. Or he did, but he wasn't saying. "I don't know, sir. I just did."
"You just cut up a woman who you'd never met."
Charlie looked down at his hands again. "Yes, sir."
"That's pretty unusual," Gibbs told him. Charlie wasn't forthcoming with an answer, so Gibbs prompted him to go on. "So you cut her up."
"Yes."
"And what was she doing?"
"Cryin'," Charlie said. "Telling me to stop. Tryin' to make a deal. Tryin' to reason with me."
"But you didn't listen?"
Charlie thought about that for a moment. "Yeah. I did. After a while. That's why I cut her free."
In the viewing room, Ziva and Quinn looked at each other. This was the part Ziva was interested in. She wanted to know how Bonnie had gotten from being tied up in the dining room to strangled under the Christmas tree. Blood had pooled beneath Bonnie's body on the carpet, which suggested that her heart was still beating and pumping blood from her wounds as she lay in the living room. So that was probably where she had been strangled. But it was unlikely that she would have been able to free herself from the cable ties that kept her in the dining chair. Only her killer, Charlie, could have freed her. But why?
"You had second thoughts," Gibbs stated.
Charlie nodded slowly, and for the first time he looked like he was about to cry. "Yes," he said softly. "I was going to let her go and leave. I cut her free, but then she kneed me in the balls and ran down the hallway. It pissed me off, and I went after her. She was standing in the hallway, looking around for something, and I just grabbed her again and dragged her into the living room. Got on top of her and I just decided that I had to kill her after all. So I grabbed her neck and I squeezed. Kept squeezing." He paused, and looked off into the distance as he thought about the attack. "It took so long," he finally said. "I was so tired by the end of it. On TV it's over so fast, but it took a really long time for her to die."
Ziva forced herself to take a long, even breath. The back of her eyes stung and her heart hurt with sympathy for Bonnie. She knew what it was like to be in her position. She knew how long it took, even as you panicked for every second you survived. She knew how bittersweet, how terrifying, how relieving that final moment was before you passed out. She wondered if, at the very end, Bonnie had thanked God for the mercy, or cursed herself for the defeat.
"Then what did you do?" Gibbs asked.
"Went back to the kitchen. Picked up the cable ties and the knife, and I just left."
Gibbs nodded slowly, and then let the silence drag out for much longer than was comfortable. "You've left a lot of gaps, Charlie. I don't think you're telling me the whole truth."
"I told you what happened," Charlie said.
Gibbs leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. "But you didn't tell me why Bonnie. Why choose her? Why call her house if you'd never met her before, and then go over there with the intent to kill her?"
"I don't know," Charlie said.
"Did your cellmate, Eddie Hertzog, put you up to it?"
"No."
"Did you hear him talking about her on the inside, and just decide that you were going to take care of her for your ol' pal?"
"Maybe. I don't know."
"Maybe?" Gibbs pressed. "You killed a woman, Charlie, in a very intimate way. And you're not clear on what made you do it?"
"I just did it!" Charlie insisted.
"How'd you know where to find her?" McGee asked.
"I looked her up," Charlie said. "I went online and looked her up."
"Doesn't make any sense," Gibbs argued.
Costas reached his hand out in a stop gesture. "Agent Gibbs, my client has told you what he knows."
"Not all of it," Gibbs said. "You think it's better for him if he cops to doing this all on his own without any outside influence?" He redirected his questions to Charlie. "It doesn't take anyone smarter than me to see what happened here, Charlie. Your pal Eddie asked you to do this. I don't know how he managed to convince you, but he told you who Bonnie was and how to find her. He told you to take out the woman who he's been obsessed with for two years, who rebuffed him and got him sent to jail. And you did it. For Eddie."
Charlie shook his head firmly, and started looking a lot more agitated. "No, sir. Eddie had nothing to do with this."
"You just decided to track down and kill his ex-girlfriend for no other reason than you knew she existed?" McGee asked.
"I guess so," Charlie spat at him. "I guess I'm just a bad guy."
"Yeah," McGee agreed. "I guess you really are."
…
Half an hour later, Gibbs and McGee joined Ziva and Quinn up in the bullpen. Charlie Fields had been formally charged with murder, and another two agents were taking him to be processed. But the team wasn't breaking out the champagne just yet.
"He's not going to give up Hertzog," McGee said as the team stood in a circle between their desks. "There's some prison gang code or whatever in play here."
"So what do we do?" Quinn asked. "Try to build a case against Hertzog? Let it go?"
"We are not letting it go," Ziva said firmly. She looked at Gibbs. "I want to talk to Hertzog. If Charlie won't give him up, maybe we can trick him into giving himself up."
Gibbs looked wary, but continued her thought anyway. "Tell him Charlie folded," he said. "Tease a reaction out of him."
Ziva nodded quickly. "Exactly. We need to rattle him. Trust me, he does not like being rattled, or beaten. And who better to do it?"
Gibbs stared at her as he thought it over, and Ziva tried her hardest not to look too pleading. She knew he wouldn't agree if he couldn't trust her to put her personal feelings aside, so she deployed her best poker face and waited him out. Finally, he sighed and gave her the nod she'd been wanting for the last few days.
"Okay," he said. "Call the warden and set it up. But you're going to take McGee with you."
Ziva had no problem with that. After Charlie's confession, she thought it might be better for her career and Eddie's health if there was someone else there to be her boundary.
I know interest is definitely waning again, but thanks so much to those of you still reading. There are three chapters to go after this one, and I promise there will be a satisfying ending for you in thanks for sticking around. You guys are tops.