Headwind
The normal driving time between DC and Norfolk was around three hours and twenty minutes, but in Gibbs' driving it meant only two and a half hours. They left shortly before five, and by dinner time they were parking before the carefully tended lawn of Petty Officer's house.
There were some toys left on the grass before the house, a clear indication of the presence of a child in it. Both agents leave the car and knock at the door, and are received by a beautiful blonde with a short curly hair, with very red eyes.
"Hello?" she says in a tired voice.
"Ma'am, sorry to disturb you at this time of the evening, but we're Agent Gibbs and Agent Buchanan, from NCIS," says Gibbs gently.
"You're here for Lawrence?" she says sadly.
"Yes, ma'am, we would like to ask you some questions," says Buchanan.
She opens the door completely and invites the two agents in.
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
They silently wait until she serves them herbal tea for, while a toddler of no more than three years old plays with plastic action figures from Shrek and Aragorn at their feet. Joy studies the young boy, playing, completely unaware of the tragedy that happened today.
Oh, the innocence of youth…
Lannie sits down, and the baby immediately runs on chubby legs to show his mother his toys. She gives him a tired smile, and pats his head.
"He has no idea what's happened today, he still doesn't understand the concept of death."
"That's the blessing of innocence," says Gibbs, and he looks up as he hears a door shutting violently on the upper floor. The widow sighs tiredly, "I can't say the same thing from Rick, he's taking it very hard. His father had promised that tomorrow he would be there to watch him play in the junior league, but now…" she wipes her face with a paper tissue, "he won't ever watch anything ever again."
Another crash, as something being thrown on the floor is heard. Both Joy and Gibbs look up, towards the stairs, as they hear more noise upstairs.
"I'm sorry, I have to go…" she starts to stand up, but Joy stops her, "no, let me." She stands up, and silently asks Gibbs permission. He nods, and she leaves him alone with the distressed mother of two.
"We're very sorry for your loss, but we have some questions about your husband that you might be able to help us with…" he starts.
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
Joy climbs the stairs to the first floor, and simply follows the noise of the destruction. She gets to a door at the end of the corridor, and knocks.
The noise stops for a moment, then a sullen young voice, "Go away."
She opens a little gap on the door, "sorry, can't do."
She looks inside the bedroom, and sees a sullen little boy, not older than eight, standing amidst the destruction of his bedroom. He had taken the Transformers bed sheets from the bed and the pillowcase from the pillow, and had destroyed the pillow, and soft feathers were floating slowly to the floor. All his books, which some time before had probably being carefully organized in a small bookshelf under the window, were thrown on the floor. Several toys suffered a similar fate.
The bedroom looked like as if a tornado went through it, and right on the middle of it was sitting a sullen little boy, with his face marked with tears.
"Hi," says Joy softly.
"I told you to go away," he repeats, and folds his arms around himself.
"I'm sorry, I don't like seeing little boys in pain," she enters the room, and slowly walks towards him, afraid that he will bolt. He looks at her warily, but doesn't run. She slowly sits by his side, and looks around the room.
"I like the new décor. We could call it the Return of the Fallen."
"Piss off."
"Oh, he has a big mouth, I like that too."
She stays in silence, sitting by his side, just looking at the destruction. He lifts his eyes, and stares at this strange adult, who is not chastising him for destroying his room. She feels his eyes on her, then she looks at him and smiles. It annoys him. He can't take the silence anymore.
"Aren't you going to say that I shouldn't have done this? Aren't you going to reprimand me?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I like what you've done."
He looks at her confused, "you like it? But mom will be mad when she sees it."
"Yeah, then she will order you to put everything back into place, and then after you do it, she will hug you and kiss you and cry with you in her arms, leaving you only confused, but then," he's staring, confused, at this strange adult, "that's what moms do, they get mad, they confuse us, that's part of the job description."
"Who are you?"
"I'm a cop," she says, "a special cop."
"Why are you so special?"
"Because my title says so." He just looks even more confused. She smiles and grabs her badge, and shows it to him.
"Do you know how to read?" he rolls his eyes at her, and then Joy smiles, and points to her badge, "then read it here."
He squints at the small printed letters and reads it slowly, "Special Agent Joy Buchanan."
"That's me," she gets her badge back, and puts it away. The little boy folds his legs and hugs his knees. Joy frowns a little at her aching muscles, but imitates his position.
"My dad died today."
"I know, that's why we're here today." He looks up at her with tear filled eyes, "me and my boss we're investigating it, and I promise you, we won't rest until we find out why someone decided to hurt him."
A small tear runs down his grubby face, and he wipes it, leaving more dirt on his face, "are you going to arrest me?" he whispers.
Joy frowns, "Why should I? Besides having really bad taste in interior décor, what could you possibly have done that would make me arrest you?"
Little Rick leans towards her, "Dad died because of me." He whispers.
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
After not finding out anything new from the widow, Gibbs stands up to take his leave. Joy at that moment comes down the stairs with a little boy, approximately eight years old of age. She has her hand on his shoulders, and she guides him to the living room. There are traces of tears on the little boy's face, but besides sadness, he can't see any of the anger he expected to see.
The little boy looks up to Buchanan, as if asking for approval to his actions, and she nods, and he approaches his mother, who is sitting in the sofa with the toddler in her lap, slowly.
"Mom," he says. He sends a nervous glance to Gibbs, but he looks back to his mother, and nervously rolls on the balls of his feet.
"Yes, Rick."
"I messed up my room, mom," his mother smiles between her tears, and opens her arms. The little boy runs to her arms, and crawls on her lap, not pushing his little brother away, and cries on her neck, "oh, mom, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"It's ok, baby, we'll be fine," she mutters against his hair, "we'll fix it, you can sleep with me tonight, ok?"
"Can I?"
"Sure," she looks up, and sees the female agent looking at the scene with tears in her eyes. Thank you, she mouths silently. She just nods, looks at her boss, and makes a sign to leave.
Gibbs nods to the widow, and the agents silently leave her with her babies.
Gibbs notices that Buchanan is deep in thought, and she stops in front of the car and supports her six on it. She frowns deeply, and folds her arms.
"What?" he asks.
"As a profiler and investigator," she says softly, "you are trained to expect the unexpected, to read the minimum signs of a lie or a tenseness of a muscle or reaction that might give you an indication that the person is hiding something."
She turns to Gibbs, "unless my skills are becoming rusty, I haven't detected any untruth in her reactions, her grief and pain are real." Gibbs studies her face, as she glances back at the petty officer's house.
"I also didn't detect any lie, but she has no idea about her husband's job, nor what he did in the Navy. She also doesn't know anything about the deposits in his bank accounts."
Joy smiles, "well, you just asked the wrong source," she opens her jacket, and brings out several little booklets carefully wrapped in plastic, all of them in an evidence bag. Gibbs looks at them, confused, and glares at his agent. She smiles at his ignorance.
"Comics, Boss."
He glares angrily at his agent, and she smiles, "Petty Officer Veseley was a Comic Collector, he has several top of the line first editions," she shows the carefully protected treasures to him, "Batman, Superman, Spiderman, all in pristine condition," she looks up at Gibbs, and he still looks confused at her.
"Boss, my father had a first edition Superman, with just a small rip on the third page, and he sold it for thirty five thousand dollars." Gibbs eyes become huge, and he stares at the things in his hands, then back at his agent, "yes, they are worth a lot of money, in the right circles."
"Apparently, his son Rick found his secret stash and took some to his school, to read it and to show to his friends. His father went ballistic, and screamed at the little boy, who in turn told him that he wished he would drop dead, as his egoistical father didn't want to share his comics." She shrugs, "two days later, his father is dead, and the little boy is in panic, thinking he caused his father's death. He took me directly to his father's stash, a false trapdoor behind a cupboard." She gets the delicate booklets from Gibbs' hands, and puts them back inside her jacket, and zipped it up, protecting them.
"Is it motive enough to kill him?"
Joy shrugs, "It's possible, but highly improbable, as only someone in certain circles would be aware of the real value of these, most people would act exactly as you did, as if it was just trash. Rick told me that his father was slowly selling his collection, and whenever he sold one he would buy a car or take the whole family on a fancy vacation," she shrugs, "besides, the people who collect these things are …" she smiles faintly, thinking about their own resident geek, "well, geeks and nerds, and I hardly imagine McGee killing someone just for a first edition Spiderman, regardless of its monetary value."
Gibbs supports his six on the car, and watches the lights coming on in the houses of the base. "So we got nothing."
"We got nothing," both stay in silence for a moment, looking at the road ahead.
"You were good with the kid," Gibbs says softly, and Joy just smiles.
"You would make a good mother someday," he says, and frowns when that swipes away the smile on her face. She doesn't meet his eyes, and stands up and goes to the passenger seat, "we have a long trip ahead of us, we should get going."
He keeps frowning at her, and goes around the car and takes the driver's seat. He doesn't start the car though.
"What?"
He sees Joy fidgeting in her seat, putting the comics in evidence bags in her backpack, to be processed later.
"Buchanan," he growls, and he's surprised at the pain in her eyes when she finally looks at him.
"I can't." she says softly.
"Can't what?"
"I can't have children," she says softly, and lowers her eyes to her lap.
Gibbs turns in his seat, and stares ahead for a moment.
"Does McGee…"
"Yes, he knows." She sighs deeply, "it was one of the first things I ever told him, when we met," she glances at Gibbs, "they had to take away one of my ovaries, and the other is barely working. With the amount of hormones I'm constantly on, just to control the endometriosis symptoms," she lowers her voice, "nothing short of a miracle would make me conceive."
"Does your family know?"
"Please," she turns to Gibbs, "don't you think they would have said something?"
Gibbs studies his agent for a moment, and turns back to the road, and starts the engine of the car. He freezes his hand over the gear lever, when he hears her softly saying:
"Please, don't tell my dad, it would break his heart."
Gibbs stays silent for a moment, but then mutters, "I won't."
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