Author's note: Many thanks for the reviews and all the "Alerts" and "Favorites"!
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Chapter 2: Twins
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Anthony DiNozzo knew how to charm. And he had put that skill to use at the bank. When Gibbs pulled up to the bank with Ziva and McGee, Tony's one hundred-watt smile told the story. He held up a flash drive and approached the car. "Come on in. Stella's going to let us use their board room. McGee, give me your cap. I promised her an NCIS cap, you know, for helping us." His smile only sparkled more.
McGee glowered.
"You bring your laptop, McGee?"
"Yes, why, did you promise to give her that, too?" he answered testily.
Gibbs handed Tony the warrant for copies of the records showing activity in Danielle's account and the subsequent advance requests for the unusually large cash withdrawals.
Tony delivered the paperwork to the bank manager with a wink before leading the team through the lobby to the spacious board room.
McGee plugged his laptop into the bank's digital projector while Tony lowered the screen.
Tony sat at the big conference table and took control of the wireless mouse. He fast-forwarded to the correct part of the video footage. "Right there in grainy black and white, we see Ms. Danielle Turner, here, yesterday, getting her giant bag full of cold, hard, cash. Stella and the tellers—hey, doesn't that sound like a great name for a band? Anyway—the tellers said Danielle has been wearing the same two outfits for the past several weeks, which is a change in behavior. They also said that her makeup has become very heavy, and that her voice sounds different—like she has a bad cold." He clicked the mouse to show the next clip. "And here she is again, five days ago. She has to come in personally and sign the bank's Large Cash Withdrawal notice every time she wants to take out large amounts of cash."
"Large Cash Withdrawal notice?" Ziva asked. "It is her money, why can she not just come take it out when she chooses?"
"Are you kidding me? They can't just hand over $100,000 any time someone wants their money! The bank's job is to invest money not store it in their vault. That's how they stay in business. And to be honest, Danielle should be investing hers! Has she never heard of TAXES? Anyway, banks need time to get large amounts of cash. It's all spelled out in your demand deposit contract, which, from the sound of things, you never read. They can get it faster here in Leesburg, than in, say, Berryville, because this is a main branch. "
Tony continued to show the security footage clips, working backward until the day Danielle came in to deposit the funds. "She comes in at different times, no discernible pattern. They could require more than just the three days, but since she deposited such a huge amount of money in a savings account, of all things, they waive their seven-day allowance. They want to keep her happy, and they had her sign papers that she was aware of the loss risks of carrying around that kind of cash rather than checks or multiple checks. Stella said they gave the her the standard "fraud alert" form that describes the scams that are popular against people who suddenly come into lots of money, and of course the elderly, which didn't apply to her. Basically, they just want to keep her as a customer, Boss, but cover their butts, too."
Gibbs nodded. The he shook his head. Something was needling him, but he couldn't quite zero in on it. "McGee, bring up that footage of Sergeant Turner from four days ago. That's the last time we have any record of his whereabouts. He withdrew forty dollars from an ATM on base."
"Sure, Boss." McGee switched out flash drives and put the picture on the screen. "Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary here."
Tony stared at the picture, his eyes narrowing as a frown began to form. "Huh. Do you have those earlier pictures of this guy?"
"Sure."
"Let me see them—oldest to newest—will you, McGee?"
"What are you thinking, Tony?" Ziva asked.
"Hang on . . . go back to his first picture of him." Tony walked closer to the plasma screen and pointed at the face. "Look at his face. Carefully."
"Okay . . . ?" McGee responded tentatively.
"We have all seen this picture before, Tony," Ziva added.
"Now two shots ahead," Tony continued, ignoring his co-workers. "See?"
Ziva and McGee each tilted their head slightly.
Gibbs nodded. "Good catch, DiNozzo."
"And now the most recent picture—the one from the ATM on base. Tell me you don't see that!"
Tony turned to face the team. "The guy's face! You don't see itt? He's waxed his eyebrows! A Marine that waxes his eyebrows? Did you ever wax your eyebrows when you were a Marine, Boss?" He looked at Gibbs and quickly looked away, adding, "No, of course you didn't. Never mind."
"What does waxing have to do with the case?" Ziva asked. "Lots of hairy men wax. You of all people should know that."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tony said indignantly. "Italians are supposed to be hairy." He turned to McGee and looked him over appraisingly. "What about you, Mr. McMetrosexual? Do you wax? Now that you've discovered your svelte inner GQ? Nice tie, by the way. Armani?"
McGee began to blush fiercely. "Fiorio."
"Oooh, my little Timmy is all grown up," Tony bragged.
"I wax," Ziva added, "but not my eyebrows…," she toyed, turning slightly away from Tony.
Tony gave Ziva a provocative sidelong glance. "Really…."
Gibbs smirked again, almost ignoring the flirting. "So what does it mean? We have a Marine with little money waxing, and a rich sister wearing the same clothes every day and carrying around a lot of cash. And we can't reach of either one of them."
Eager for the subject to shift back to the Marine, McGee put the first and last pictures of Sergeant Turner up on the screen together, side by side, for comparison.
Tony scrutinized the two pictures, trying to get into the young man's mind. "Now why would this guy suddenly decide to do this? New girlfriend?" He glanced at McGee, an eyebrow arched. "New boyfriend?"
McGee rolled his eyes. "Maybe he started cross dressing, too, Tony, I don't know. You have more experience with transvestitites than I do."
"Touché, McWitty. And she was a transsexual, not a transvestite." He cringed with the memory of that particular kiss . . . .
After a soft knock on the door, Stella poked her head in the room and entered. "We have those records for you now, Agent DiNozzo," she said with a lilt in her voice. "The original documents are scanned and then sent off site for storage. They would take much longer to obtain, so these are copies of the electronic records we keep on our secure database."
Tony took the CD. "Why, thank you, Miss Burke. The federal government thanks you, too."
She eyeballed Gibbs appreciatively. "Are you going to introduce me to your friends?"
Tony tried not to show his shock at her overt interest in his boss, but he very intentionally introduced McGee and Ziva first, and saved her obvious favorite, Gibbs, for last.
"Ma'am," Gibbs gave her a boyish smile, accompanied by a polite nod.
She stepped across the room and handed Gibbs her card. "If you need any more information, day or night, you give me a call. Cell number is on the back."
Tony and Ziva exchanged a quick look of bemusement while Tony prayed Gibbs couldn't hear his thoughts.
As the bank manager left the room, McGee put the new documents up on the screen. "Here we go. It looks like the funds came from an annuity from Amerity Insurance that terminated on Danielle's twenty-fifth birthday."
"Trust fund," Tony announced knowingly. "Big trust funds from settlements go into supervised bank trust accounts and annuities that terminate at a specific time. So, Danielle had a trust fund and David didn't. I bet that could kick sibling rivalry up a notch."
Gibbs nodded his understanding. "That's why she was in such close contact with that estate lawyer." He turned to his team. "My gut is telling me that when we find the sister, we find the brother. DiNozzo, McGee, finish up here then drive out to Berryville and search Danielle's home. Ziva, you're with me. We're going to go talk with Mr. Goldman and then head to the courthouse if we need to find out more about the settlement, or get more warrants. And DiNozzo, give Ms. Burke your own hat."
Gibbs was already out the door when Tony called after him, "I really think she'd rather have yours!"
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*****NCIS*****
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Tony stood in Danielle Turner's house, staring at the pad of paper by her computer. He picked up his cell phone and dialed Gibbs. "Yeah, Boss," he began, "nothing much here, no sign of a struggle and her car isn't here. Her clothes are, but it looks like all her makeup is gone, which is weird, since she's wearing a lot of makeup in those pictures from the bank. We do have a handwritten note that says, 'Dave - Grandpa's, 4:00 Wednesday,' but there's no date. I don't see any sign of her camera equipment, either. Probably with her or in her car."
McGee stood at the kitchen counter, looking over the stacks of US Mail that he had picked up off the floor under the mail slot in the front door.
"From the amount of snail mail that was piling up, she's hasn't been here for a couple of weeks. Over a dozen newspapers are stacked up on the porch, too. McGee's going to check her computer now."
McGee logged on without difficulty and opened Danielle's internet browser, while Tony continued to talk to Gibbs. "It doesn't look like she uses an online calendar, so that's no help. Hang on, though, McGee's finding some emails from her brother. And emails to her brother. Lots from her lawyer, lots from one Shawna Ballard—whoa—looks like she had a girlfriend, Boss, not a boyfriend. Lots of distressed email from the girlfriend. 'Why won't you answer your phone?' 'Why haven't you written me back?' 'Why are you doing this?' What do you want to bet Shawna sent Danielle a birthday card? Let me do a little dumpster diving." Tony gestured for McGee to check the waste basket by the computer desk.
McGee glared at Tony as he began to pick through the papers in the trash, glad that he was wearing rubber gloves. "Here it is! Shawna Ballard." He showed the envelope to Tony, who pointedly avoided touching it, even with gloves.
"Got an address for you, Boss. 16524 Edgewater Avenue, Denver, Colorado. McGee can probably get us a phone number, right, McGee?"
McGee nodded and returned to the computer. "I'll forward all this to Abby."
"Learn anything from the lawyer?" Tony asked.
"Yeah," Gibbs answered. "You were right about the money being from a trust. And this case just got a lot more complicated. Danielle is David's identical twin."
"I'm sorry, Boss, we must have a bad connection. I thought you just said that Danielle was David's identical twin. Last time I checked, oh. . . oh. . . , wow. . . , another transsexual?" Tony asked. "So maybe she's not a lesbian. What would he . . . she . . . be? Besides confused."
"What she is, DiNozzo, is a genetic match to David. Danielle was born Daniel Elias Turner, identical twin to David. Daniel sustained a crush injury to the groin at the age of 18 months in a freak accident when in the care of a nanny by the name of Consuela Cabrera. She's Venezuelan. Got sent back there after the incident. Listen, DiNozzo, I'm going to hand the phone over to Ziva. She'll fill you in."
Ziva took the phone. "Daniel survived, obviously, but he suffered severe and irreparable damage. The parents had to decide whether to raise Daniel as a traumatically neutered boy until he might be old enough for reconstructive surgery and male hormones, or raise him as a seemingly normal girl. They decided on the latter, agreeing with the developmental psychiatrist serving on the treatment team to never let either child know as they were growing up that now-Danielle had ever been male. Clearly, these were all very difficult decisions. Highly controversial, so it was all done very secretively."
"What'd you find out about that trust? Was that a settlement from a lawsuit?" Tony asked.
"According to Danielle's lawyer and court documents from 1990, the incident was settled out of court with Amerity Insurance Company, who insured the firm who hired and later fired Cabrera after the 1989 accident. There was $40,000 put in a court-supervised bank trust account here in Leesburg. The much larger amount, over a million dollars for damages, was put in that annuity until Danielle reached the age of twenty-five. Nobody could touch the money in the trust without written court approval until the trust terminated on Danielle's twenty-fifth birthday. The lawyer said the trust money was earmarked for her initial medical and surgical costs, her hormone therapy to begin at age twelve, and her reconstructive surgery to be completed after Danielle turned eighteen, which was when her parents planned to tell her about her birth origins."
"But her pictures, Ziva. She looks so . . . so feminine. Well, not the most recent pictures, but everyone can have a bad hair day—or week. Especially if you're a chick-slash-dude with no, you know—working plumbing."
"Do not be an idiot, Tony. Sexuality is not just from the waist down."
"Mine is." Tony countered, glancing briefly toward his belt.
"She never went through male adolescence because her body didn't produce any male hormones. She is smaller, shorter, and has very female proportions."
Tony shuddered. "If they were going to go through all the surgeries and hormone therapy, why not just keep him a boy? I don't understand why they would do this."
"I do not think these issues were as public twenty-five years ago, even in America. I am sure the parents thought it was the best decision at the time. It is tragic."
Tony continued. "And why the hell would David be waxing his eyebrows? We've got a guy made into a woman, who's looking more manly. And he's a guy who's looking more feminine. It's crazy!"
"I am giving the phone back to Gibbs. Be careful, Tony, this case keeps changing."
"Hey Boss," Tony began when Gibbs got back on the phone. "Was the nanny's name seriously, Consuela, from Venezuela?"
"DiNozzo—" Gibbs growled.
"McGee and I are going to head out to the grandparents' farm farther down Highway 7 and take a look around when we've wrapped up here since that note mentions going there with David."
"Alright, if you're heading out to the farm, I'll have Ziva give this Shawna Ballard a call. I want to go talk to the local cops, and we'll be showing both David's and Danielle's pictures around the area near the bank—see if anyone around here has seen them. You keep me posted." He snapped his phone shut.