SOFT GALE
9:43 am
The agents drove to Norfolk, and once they arrived at the Navy Station they gathered around the dead petty officer laying on the floor. McGee took pictures of the crime scene, Tony was doing the sketches, while Joy and Ziva tried to round up witnesses willing to give their statements.
Tony smirks at McGee every once in a while, and McGee was starting to get pissed off at the behavior of his team mate.
"So…"
"So what?"
Tony pretends he's wiping a fake tear from his eyes, "It is so sad."
McGee looks at his team mate as if he's having a seizure, or as if he finally lost ALL his marbles.
"What, the dead petty officer? You've seen this before."
"No, not him," he waves his hand, dismissing the corpse he's sketching, "the growing pains you must be feeling, knowing that Sarah, oh precious Sarah, is dating one of the Buchanan brothers. It must be terrifying knowing that a male, with a healthy libido, is anywhere close to your precious sister." He puts his hand over his mouth, which opened like an O, and he opened his eyes wide, in a fake mask of surprise.
"Just imagine, McBig Brother, what he might want to do or what he has already done to your little sister?"
McGee stares at Tony, imagining him suffering unspeakable torture and pain, wishing he could punch the smug look off of his face. He closed his eyes for a moment, and used the mental exercises Joy had shown him, that she had been using to deal with stress and with the trauma she had been through.
Funny, regardless how many times he tried to imagine an open field with calm blue skies and soft wind blowing on barley fields, his peaceful mental picture always turned into an area destroyed by an oncoming tornado.
"Hahaha, very funny, Tony." He goes back to taking pictures, and he does his best to ignore his team mate, who wouldn't lose the chance to mess with his head.
Meanwhile, Ziva and Buchanan were collecting witness statements, and weren't having much luck with the forthcoming witnesses. Several frustrating minutes later, and three witnesses, they had report of a man, maybe a woman, tall, average height, maybe fat, running towards Clifton Street and entering in a SUV, maybe dark blue, or would it be black? He was wearing a jumper with a hood covering his head, it was maybe black, probably blue, but definitely wearing jeans.
Ziva smiled thinly at the latest witness, "Thanks for your cooperation." She turns her back on the Good Samaritan and walks alongside Joy back to the crime scene.
"That was a total waste of time," says Joy.
"They aren't really paying attention to the car nor to the suspect, it's very rare we have reliable eyewitnesses." She looks at Buchanan, who had totally healed from her ordeal a couple of months ago.
"So Matthew is officially dating Sarah," says Ziva, giving Buchanan a toothy grin, and Joy smirks at the Israeli. "Since when has this romance been going on?"
"As far as Hope and Temp told me, since they met when I was in the hospital," says Joy, "apparently my brother had no idea what he was getting into when mom sent him to pick McGee's sister at Waverly."
"So your brother believes in love at first sight?"
Buchanan smiles at Ziva, shaking her head in the negative, "he believes in lust at first sight; in his emails he told me he was totally smitten with Sarah as soon as he met her, but he initially thought he had no chance." She shrugs, "she pursued him, gave him the idea she would be open to" she blushes a little, "more engaged activities, and he went for it. Afterwards, he panicked," she laughs whole heartedly, "as he imagined what I or McGee would do to him when we finally find out, and then finally he started imagining what my mom would do to him when she finally finds out."
Ziva is in stitches, she is laughing so hard, "what did he decide to do to avoid certain death by Buchanan women's hands?"
"He told me he proposed…" says Buchanan smiling, and Ziva stops and looks at Joy, astonished.
"No way."
"Well, not marriage, but a more committed relationship, he was tired of the same flirting around with a stranger thing, and he really liked Sarah. So, whenever he's stateside, he stays with her, not on base or in the extra room at Faith's house."
"And how McGee is dealing with it?" Buchanan makes a face, and rolls her eyes at Ziva.
"I see," mutters Ziva.
"He hit the roof the first time he saw them together, and when Sarah started posting her 'boyfriend's pictures' on Facebook," Buchanan makes quotation marks with her fingers, "I thought he would have a heart attack." She looks at McGee, who has a surly expression on his face, and Tony, who is grinning from ear to ear and talking non-stop to the younger agent. They can't hear Tony, but whatever he's saying is not making McGee any happier by the moment.
"McGee is very protective of his sister," says Ziva, studying both men talking at a distance.
"He has his own reasons to be," says Joy, and Ziva looks at Buchanan questioningly. But she doesn't elaborate on the answer, "Let's give the bad-close-to-no news to Gibbs." And she starts walking, and Ziva starts following her with a puzzled expression on her face.
"What do you mean by that?" Ziva is looking at Joy, silently demanding an explanation, but Joy ignores the curious looks and walks faster, "not my story to tell, Ziva."
Gibbs studies the dead body, and looks at Ducky, "TOD, Duck?"
Ducky looks at the liver probe, and says, "according to this, approximately three to four hours ago, Jethro." He turns to Jimmy, "help me put him in the bag, we need to get a better look at those bruises on his legs on my table, but I would say that the cause of death is force blunt trauma to the head," he moves the head carefully, showing the bleeding and broken tissue on the wound, "caused by some sort of object being repeatedly hit on his head." Jimmy silently helps the older M.E. to slip the corpse into the body bag, and stands up to collect the stretcher from the van.
"He was beaten to death," says Gibbs.
"Indeed, my friend," says Ducky as he stands up besides Gibbs, "despite my chosen profession, each day that passes I'm more astonished at the frailty of human life and the banality of violence."
Gibbs looks at the two women approaching him, and waits for their reports.
"Our petty officer was ambushed by a tall man, in non descript clothes, as soon as he left his car," Ziva points to the car parked just a block from where they are, "he takes some steps, and he's attacked on his back, and shortly after he's dead."
"Any ideas?" he asks looking at Joy, who shakes her head in the negative.
"The attack seems random, but the intense anger behind the blows suggests our perpetrator knew the victim. We will have to do a background check to start a draft of preliminary profile, but initially, I don't have enough data to start one."
Gibbs looks at the boys, who are taking pictures of the blood spatters and taking the prints off of the car.
"Get McGee and order a full background check done, once you have the family identified, give their address to Ziva and Tony to contact them and inform them of the attack."
"Yes, Boss."
Buchanan's phone rings and she fishes it out of her trouser pocket and answers.
"Buchanan." She smiles when she hears whoever is in the other side of the line.
"Hey Faith," she looks at Gibbs and Ziva, indicating that it's her oldest sister, section chief at the FBI.
"No, I'm not in the Navy Yard, we're in Norfolk, investigating a murder, why?"
Her smile starts to fade, as whatever her sister is telling her shocks her into muteness. She looks briefly at Gibbs, and he can clearly see that there is pain and panic on her eyes. She lowers them briefly, and just grunts in accordance to whatever Faith is speaking to her. She turns towards the boys, and sees Tony taking a hair off of McGee's shoulder, and McGee looking exasperated at his senior agent.
"How long ago was it?"
Another pause. Joy looks at her wristwatch, it was only 9:51 am.
"What's your ETA?"
She gulps, and looks at Ziva and Gibbs, and both can see the pain in her eyes.
"We're on our way, but it will take a while until we arrive back in DC. Keep me posted on any changes of status, if you… specially if you find them."
Pause to hear whatever Faith says.
"Thanks, Faith, love you too." She disconnects, and looks dead serious at Gibbs.
"What's wrong?"
"Sir," Gibbs tenses, as Buchanan only forgets and calls him Sir when things are going straight to hell, "I would like to request immediate dismissal for me and Agent McGee from this case, we are needed back in DC."
Ziva feels tension creeping up her spine, as if someone walked on her grave. Gibbs is glaring at his agent, trying to read the reason behind such a strange request, but besides her apparent turmoil, she is not giving the reason away to him. At least, not now. "Why?"
She looks again at where the boys are talking, looking at the evidence pictures they had just taken. Gibbs can clearly see the pain and despair in her eyes, and her voice chokes when she says, "It's Sarah, sir."
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