Here's the next chapter for you all. Hope it doesn't suck too badly. I'm leaving for vacation in a few days and won't be able to update next week, so I apologize in advance for that. Thanks for reading!
"Alright, thanks." Tony hung up his desk phone.
"Anything new from the CO?" McGee asked.
"Commanding Officer Wyatt Warner had some good and bad things to say about King and Lopez. Told me they were great soldiers but they'd been acting strange lately. Warner said he'd set those thoughts aside until just now when I told him two of his men were dead. We'll have to go down later and talk to some of their platoon mates."
"Do it now, DiNozzo," Gibbs commanded as he breezed into bullpen. "Take McGee with you."
"What about Ziva, Boss?" Tony asked.
"She's keepin' an eye on the Woodbury boy while his parents head back to pack some things."
"Kid say anything yet?" McGee questioned.
Gibbs shook his head. "Nope. We'll get it though." He sat at his desk and punched the power button on his computer monitor with his thumb. The silver haired team leader always seemed angry when it came to electronics of any kind. "Now go. Stop wastin' time."
DiNozzo and McGee hurriedly snatched up their guns and badges and departed.
Ziva paced the length of the conference room in boredom while Tyler remained immersed in his book. I should be working the case, she thought. Chasing leads. Not up here watching a little boy read.
She halted her pacing and lifted the pitcher of water off the counter by the windowsill. She poured two glasses, moving over to the table to sit down, then slid one glass across the wooden surface until it rested a few inches from Tyler's book. Ziva said nothing, doubting she would be granted with any response. She lifted her own glass to her lips and swallowed half the water in one gulp.
With a sigh, she pushed herself back up, careful of her ribs, and circled around the table. She kneeled down in front of the cabinet against the wall and pulled the doors open, spotting exactly what she was looking for. They kept a few board games in the conference room in case boredom- agents' or guests'- needed to be satiated. They were not overly exciting games, in fact, the Monopoly box had somehow lost half of its paper money reserve at some point. Who would want to steal or dispose of pretend currency, she had no idea. Ziva huffed out another sigh and slid the boxes of Scrabble and Chess out of the cabinet before shutting the doors and returning to her seat.
She still kept one chair between Tyler and herself for fear that, if she got any closer, he would scream again. Ziva placed the games on the table and stared expectantly at the boy out of the corner of her eye. She was hoping he would put down his book to play a game because she was dying of boredom sitting there in the silence.
To Ziva's surprise, Tyler looked up when she set the games down. He stared at them for a moment and Ziva bit her lip, wondering why she was so eager to play a simple board game with this boy. Sure, she liked children, but she had never really dealt with an autistic person before- child or adult. She knew a little about the disorder, like there was a whole spectrum of autism and those with high-functioning autism were actually quite normal despite issues with socializing. Nonetheless, Tyler Woodbury fascinated her for some reason. She wanted to understand the ten year old better.
Ziva watched as Tyler closed his book- still without marking a page- and reached for the Scrabble box hesitantly. He pulled it towards him and removed the lid, then extracted the board, two wooden racks, and the bag of letter pieces. He set these to his right, lining them up meticulously, and then replaced the lid of the box and pushed it forward and to the left, out of the way. Ziva continued to stare as he grabbed the board and unfolded in on the tabletop between them before setting a rack in front of himself and then Ziva. He lifted the silver-grey bag of letters, pulled out exactly seven, and lined them up on his rack neatly.
When he'd finished, Tyler looked up and stared briefly at Ziva before handing her the letter bag and proceeding to wait patiently as she drew out seven of her own tiles and placed them on her rack- granted, not as orderly as Tyler had. She looked back at him when she was done and waited for what he would do next. He returned her gaze for less than a second and then looked at his tiles for just as long before removing six of the seven and spelling out 'unique.' He reached into the bag and removed six more tiles to replace on his rack, then glanced at Ziva expectantly, eyebrows raised.
The former Mossad officer smiled and made her move. 'Cats.' She felt like she was getting somewhere now. Not with the game, of course. She was already losing.
"Tony, why can't you ever let me drive?"
DiNozzo sighed theatrically. "Because, McGoo, I'm the Senior Field Agent. Therefore, I get to drive. Always." He stretched the last word out tauntingly and McGee glared.
"That's stupid. I-"
"Oh, quit your complaining, McWhineypants."
They were at the base where José Lopez and Preston King had been stationed before they were murdered. Tony and Tim were greeted by their CO, Wyatt Warner, who then led them to a common room filled with several men and women in uniform.
"My men, line up," Warner called. Eight men and three women moved over to them and lined up obediently. "I assembled the people that worked closest with King and Lopez for you, Agents," Warner explained.
Tony nodded. "Thank you, Colonel." Warner left and Tony and McGee began their interviews. Over the next forty-five minutes they talked to the Marines that were closest to King and Lopez and received hardly any information that was pertinent to the case.
There were various comments, all centering on how both were good guys and great Marines and no, there anyone they knew of that might want to hurt them. Some of the men and women were obviously closer to the victims than others.
"Lopez was a cool guy, from what I'd seen of him. I didn't really know him on a deep level," one woman, a Janet Coleman, had said.
Another soldier, a large-muscled man named Geoffrey Hulkin, had told Tony, "Oh, yeah, Peekay was a helluva guy." He sniffled, surprising the very special agent. "We were pretty damn close, not as close as him and José though. Gosh, I'm gonna miss that kid." Then Hulkin had teared up, further shocking DiNozzo, and the agent had let him leave to collect himself after being informed that there was nobody that hated 'Peekay,' a nickname which Preston King had picked up largely because of his initials.
Tony and McGee reconvened after the interviews and made their way back to the Charger, feeling as though they were leaving with less than they come and knowing that this fact would by no means be pleasing to Gibbs.
Tyler was beating her by 103 points and Ziva was beginning to wonder if the young boy had memorized the dictionary. He had used some words she knew she never would have put together with the given tiles. It was the simple words that were easy to see.
"I don't like DiNozzo." His voice startled Ziva. It was the first time she had heard him make any noise that wasn't a scream.
She raised her eyebrows, unsure what to say to keep him talking. Finally she settled with, "Oh?"
Tyler nodded slowly, as if contemplating something. "Yes. He smells weird like the fragrance department at the mall. I do not like the fragrance department. Or the mall. There are too many people there and sometimes they try to talk to you." He was silent again as he placed three more tiles on the board.
"Yes," Ziva began, amused. "DiNozzo does often wear an excess amount of cologne."
Ziva remained surprised as Tyler spoke again, though this time on a completely different subject.
"Do you have a dog?"
"No, I don't"
"Do you like dogs?"
"Yes"
"I like dogs too because they can't talk so they can't say mean things and they are furry and like to lick you. I don't have a dog. I have a lizard. He is a bearded dragon and his name is Tangent because I like trigonometry and tangents are a part of trigonometry. I got Tangent when I was seven years and two months old and my mom says it is to teach me responsibility but I already know what responsibility is. Responsibility is the state or fact of being answerable or accountable for something within one's power but I don't think that Tangent knows this because he is a lizard and lizards do not speak or understand English so I do not understand why my mom thinks he will teach me responsibility."
It sounded like a definition straight from the dictionary to Ziva. It probably was. This was the most she had heard him speak so far and she found that she was enjoying listening to what the boy had to say.
"I see," she said. She set her last tile, an 'S,' on the board, officially ending the game with her at 112 points behind the ten year old beside her. Tyler smiled and swept the tiles from the board back into the bag. He shook the bag and removed seven new tiles before handing the bag to Ziva again.
Ziva, completely fine with playing another game, accepted it and collected her starting tiles. She had not expected what Tyler said next.
"He was bald and ugly."
Thinking she had somehow missed something, Ziva asked, "What?"
"And he had two black guns. And they had big plastic bags of money and white sugar. I like sugar."
Oh, Ziva realized excitedly, Tyler was talking about the marines' killer. "The bald man hurt the soldiers, Tyler?" she questioned hopefully.
Tyler nodded. "Yes, the men wearing uniforms." Then he made a gun with each hand and pointed them toward the wall opposite. "He shot one." Tyler jerked his left hand back, like a recoiling gun. "He said 'Give me the money.' 'Put the guns down!' 'I will kill you right here. Give me the money, NOW.' 'Forget it. You killed him! This was supposed to be quick and easy. Tell your boss to forget it. Deal's off, understand?'" He spoke the words as though he was reading them from a book or a script. "The other one was leaving with the money and the sugar. He shot that one." Tyler jerked his right hand back this time. "They are dead. The bald man left with the guns. He was sweaty. Then the man with the dog came. Then the police." He looked at Ziva. "Then you."
Ziva smiled. "Thank you, Tyler. This information you shared with me will be very helpful. You just helped us catch a bad man."
"Yes." Tyler appeared to be finished with Scrabble. He reached for his book and opened it to the exact spot he had left off on and did not speak anymore.
Ziva cleaned up the games and returned them to the cabinet. She strode to the other end of the room. She had to call Gibbs.