"So, where are we going, Boss?" Tony asked as Gibbs maneuvered the slick streets.
"Veterans Psychiatric Hospital. Dead Marine."
Tony groaned. "Psych hospital? Great. Nothing like a building full of unreliable witnesses with questionable sanity. Here's hoping it's natural causes." Gibbs stole a glance at him but otherwise didn't comment.
Ducky and Palmer arrived at almost the same time as the team did.
"Palmer, did you finally learn to use the GPS?" Tony smirked.
"No, I just knew how to get here."
"Never mind, I don't want to know." Tony grinned at him and then ran to catch up with the team. It took only a few minutes for them to find their way to the room that held the deceased Marine.
"Oh, thank God," they heard a male voice exclaim seconds before an upset-appearing man in a suit rushed over to them. The man's gaze flitted around to each of them before settling on Gibbs. "You're in charge?"
"Special Agent Gibbs. Special Agents DiNozzo, McGee and Bishop," he pointed to each in turn.
The man nodded. "Dr. Robert Morgan. I'm Director of Patient Care here."
Gibbs nodded. "Who is our Marine?"
"Lance Corporal James Park. Nurse found him when she was dispensing medication." He directed them to the room.
"Anyone touch the body?" Tony asked.
"Nurse said she checked for a pulse but didn't touch anything else. I called the police. They called you." Mr. Morgan lowered his voice, his countenance upset. "This is the first time a patient has died while under our care."
Gibbs didn't comment. He turned to his agents and jerked his head toward the room and the three fell into their traditional roles starting the investigation. Tim and Tony, of course, needed no further direction, but ready to guide their probie as needed.
Tim looked around the window. "No entry or exit through the window. Sealed."
"Most hospitals are, McGeek."
McGee rolled his eyes. "Rule 8, DiNozzo."
Tony stopped sketching for a moment. He studied the body in the bed before he resumed his sketching. Tony couldn't see any trauma. The man simply looked asleep, like he would wake up any moment. He didn't look like a dead man. It gave him hope this was natural causes, even though the man in the bed looked far too young to be dead.
Ducky's frown and tutting confirmed Tony's thoughts. "No visible signs of trauma," Ducky murmured.
"He looks asleep," Jimmy said with a smile on his face. "He's just going to wake up any moment now and say, 'Surprise! Just kidding! I'm not dead!'" Four sets of eyes turned to him with a pointed stare. "Right, sorry. He…just looks so peaceful."
"Should we all be so fortunate to die as peacefully." Ducky sighed.
Gibbs entered the room. "What do ya got, Duck?"
"Our unfortunate gentleman here died approximately two hours ago so around 7 to 7:30 a.m. No obvious cause of death so we shall have to look deeper."
Gibbs nodded. Tony watched while they moved the body. "Wait a second, Ducky!" Tony spoke up. "Look at the hairline, near his left ear." Ducky turned his head and brushed Park's hair back where the Marine hair cut had started to grow out. Right at the hairline there was a small, circular, slightly reddened bump. Bishop swooped in and took a photo of it. "Good eye, Anthony. I shall take a closer look at this when we get him home," Ducky promised as he and Jimmy strapped him down to the gurney and wheeled him out.
The room was small so it took almost no time at all to process.
Tony found the nurse who had delivered the patient's medication, Gloria Sanchez, a middle-aged woman with a few streaks of gray in her hair. Her countenance was upset and concerned and she seemed happy to unburden herself when Tony asked her what happened.
"I normally start the medication round at 7:00 but I had to help Monica - she's another nurse here - with another patient. I reached Mr. Park's room at 7:45 and found him dead."
"Did you see anyone enter or leave his room at anytime?"
She shook her head no. "I was in and out of rooms but it would've been difficult for someone to get in here. The main doors are locked. You have to have a badge to scan in and out."
"Any badges come up missing lately?"
She shook her head no. "None that I know of but I only work the overnight shift. I see the day shift when they first get in but I usually leave shortly thereafter so no time to talk."
"Did Mr. Park mention any problems with anyone?"
"No. He was a quiet man."
"Why was he here, Ms. Sanchez?"
"Post-traumatic stress disorder. Served in Afghanistan, I think. I don't know all the details of what he went through over there, just that he had terrible nightmares. Sometimes he'd wake up screaming for people to run."
"Did he interact with any of the other patients?"
She nodded. "Group meetings every day. He met with a few of the other PTSD patients. You'd have to talk to Dr. Davis about that though. He runs the PTSD group. I don't know who he spoke to at those meetings, if anyone."
"Any friends here?"
Again, she shook her head no. "He would become agitated with too much conversation. He didn't like to talk about his experiences. That's common. He just wanted peace and quiet."
"What about overnight? Anything unusual happen last night? Anything different?"
"No, nothing. It was very routine."
"You said earlier you had a patient that was agitated? What was wrong with him?"
"I…uh, I don't believe I'm supposed to discuss such things. Patient confidentiality."
Tony smiled the smile that had disarmed more than one witness. "Ma'am, I understand you want to respect your patients' privacy but we're investigating the death that may or may not be natural. We need all the information we can get to figure this out."
"Oh yes, of course. Well, the patient in question has PTSD so he's often on edge."
"His name?"
"Brian Fuller."
Does he know Lance Corporal Park?"
"They attended group meetings together though I don't think they knew each other beyond that."
"What is discussed in the group meetings?"
"I don't attend the meetings. You would have to ask Dr. Davis about that. He runs the group meetings."
"Will do. Did Mr. Fuller leave his room at anytime during the night?"
Gloria shook her head. "Not that I'm aware of. You would need to check with Monica because she responded to him first. I know he hasn't left the room since we calmed him down enough to go back to sleep. Since he has nightmares so often, we try to keep an eye on him."
"When did you finally leave his room?"
"It was a little after 7. As I said, I got a late start dispensing the medications."
Dr. Davis was not much more helpful than Gloria Sanchez. The group meetings were difficult for many of those who had it because while it was a safe place to discuss their traumas, few actually wanted to talk about them. Those who did usually benefited but there were always a few who found it difficult to talk about their experiences. Mr. Fuller had no known connection to James Park other than attendance of the group meetings. Dr. Davis had said that as far as he knew, the two men had had no interactions outside the group meeting and didn't speak to each other in the group meetings.
Tony returned to the room in thought. He hadn't had the sense that Gloria or Dr. Davis had been lying and his gut told him that they probably weren't.
"Hey guys, check this out," Ellie held up a piece of fabric with tweezers. "Park was wearing blue boxer briefs and a blue t-shirt. I can't find anything in here that matches this shade of green." Ellie snapped a couple of photos of it before picking it up and bagging it.
"Find anything else?"
"Nothing. I think we're done here. We have several sets of prints."
"Okay, we need to pull security footage."
"On it," Tim said and left the room.
Tony grabbed the box of evidence. "Come on, Bish, let's…"
Tony never got to finish the sentence because a man's blood-curdling scream echoed down the corridor. Tony tore out of the room ordering Ellie to stay with the evidence. Tony ran toward the source of the scream.
"I knew it! I knew it! They found me! I told you so. I told you so but you wouldn't believe me! Why won't you people ever listen!" The man collapsed to the floor and sobbed.
Tony stopped short of the man in the corridor. He was older with graying hair and straggly beard, unkempt, complete with bed-head and clearly hysterical.
"Mr. Millner," one of the nurses spoke quietly to him. "Mr. Millner!" she repeated a little more loudly to be heard above his wracked sobs.
Instantly, the man was on his feet and backed into his room like prey trying to get away. "Don't let them take me away!" He slammed the door in the nurse's face and they heard something hit the door like the man slumped against it to keep them out.
Tony rolled his eyes. This was like something out of a bad B movie. He looked at the nurse. "Who is that?"
"Kevin Millner. He's been here for a few weeks. He is a paranoid schizophrenic. His wife had him committed after he boarded all the windows and door shut, trapping them inside. He's convinced the government is trying to lock him and his family up."
"Don't they have medications for that?"
"Yes, but he refuses to take them. He says that's the government's way to keep him under their heel. He tries to escape every other day. Poor man. Seeing you here is just going to make his treatment more difficult."
"Has he shown tendencies toward violence?"
"Only toward himself. He has not struck out at anyone else."
"I'd like to talk to him."
The nurse's jaw dropped. "You did just see him now, right? He's far too agitated. Trying to talk to him will only make him worse."
"He might know something we don't."
"You will have to ask Dr. Morgan but he's not going to let you."
It took some convincing to both the nurse and Dr. Morgan but Tony was finally granted permission to speak with Mr. Millner. By then, he had calmed down some only to visibly appear apprehensive as soon as the nurse and Tony stepped into the room.
"No, no, no! He's one of them!" The man curled in on himself in the corner of the room.
"Mr. Millner?" Tony spoke softly. "My name is Tony. May I speak to you for a moment?"
"Go away! You're one of them. I won't let you take me!"
Tony held his hands up in an expression of surrender. "No, Mr. Millner. I'm not here to take you anywhere. I was hoping you might be able to help me."
"I will never help you take someone else. Get out!"
"Mr. Millner, I'm from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The only people we 'take' are bad people who commit crimes. No one else. As far as I know, you haven't committed any crimes but I was hoping you might be able to help me figure out if someone did." He squatted down to be at eye level with the man and adopted a humble posture. "Sir, I just want to keep good people safe from bad people but I need help in order to do that." Tony soothing tone of voice seemed to calm the agitated man some. Doubt flashed across his face. "Please, Mr. Millner? You're obviously a very intelligent person and I thought you could help…that you would want to help. My job is to protect good people from bad people."
"You-you think there's a bad person here?"
"I don't know but I was hoping you could help me figure out if there was."
Tony felt his momentary hopefulness fade as the man's countenance change as doubt flooded his face and then contort back to panic. "You're tricking me! NO! Go away! Go away! Go away!" He covered his head with his arms as though it would prevent him from being seen and Tony's shoulders sagged and he stood up to leave. As Tony turned toward the door to leave the man alone, he got the surprise of his morning as he found himself knocked off balance as Mr. Millner launched himself at Tony and Tony felt the full weight of the muscled man launched at him. He stumbled backward and crashed into the wall, knocking a painting off of it. In almost an instant, two orderlies and two nurses pulled the man off of Tony and administered a sedative as the man wailed.
Tony remained against the wall for a moment, momentarily stunned by the unexpected attack. Once he caught his breath, he straightened, took a deep breath and quietly but quickly left the room in order to not further agitate.
Gibbs stood outside the door, his arms folded, watching Tony's every move.
Tony looked at Gibbs, gave a self-deprecating smile. "Well, that went well." Tony brushed himself off.
"You alright?" Gibbs looked him over with a critical eye.
"I'm fine, Boss. Hoped he might have seen something or heard something that could help us figure out what happened to Park."
"Get the names of all the patients and employees and see if any of them have any outside connection with Park. They're not going to let us talk to any other patients after this."
Tony felt a twinge of guilt over that fact being his fault but he had been so sure that Millner might've had a clue about what might've happened to Park. He counted it as a win that Gibbs hadn't head slapped him for being a dumbass. Maybe Gibbs had agreed and thought it was worth a try. For a moment he thought he was going to be able to talk to the man. Chalking it up as a good attempt, he requested and received the lists before going back to Park's room to find Bishop again speaking with Dr. Morgan. He took one last once over of the room to be sure Bishop didn't miss anything but his probie was nothing if not a perfectionist and as far as he could see, she had even moved the bedside table to check under it for evidence.
"Where's McGee?"
"Haven't seen him since he went to get the security footage."
Tony nodded and called McGee who said he was almost done.
Gibbs appeared as Tony and Ellie exited the room. "We done here then, Boss?" Tony felt twitchy all over, just ready to get out of there.
Gibbs nodded. "As soon as McGee gets the security tapes."