Chapter 8. Answers and More Questions
The elevator dinged just before the doors opened. Ziva and Abby came out, Abby holding a bag with her clothes in it. They both made their way to the bull pen, both dropping their bags behind Ziva's desk when they reached it.
Abby fell into Ziva's chair, exhaustion still written all over her face. She laid her head back as Ziva powered up her computer and checked her messages. There was only one, and she slammed the button on the phone just after it started.
Abby smiled. "I hate those too. I mean, how on earth can they know my car warranty is about to expire?"
Ziva chuckled as she signed on to her computer. "They cannot. It is a hook to get you to pick up. I did once and got the young man's name. I had Tim do a search on him and put out an APB on him for extortion of a Federal Agent." Abby chuckled. "After his boss called me to find out why, my home and cell phone were taken off their lists. Apparently, I need to do it again to get my work number off it as well." The venom in her voice would have scared Abby, if it had been directed at her.
Instead she chuckled. "Can you do the same for me?"
Ziva started to nod before she looked up in surprise.
"What is Ziva going to do, Abs," Tony asked as he stood at the separator next to Ziva's desk, taking a sip of coffee.
Ziva sighed. "Tony, you are not Gibbs. You do not have to sneak down on us."
"Sneak 'up', Zi. And I wasn't sneaking. I just happened to walk up when you two were talking." He moved to his own desk, sitting down behind it.
Abby spoke up. "Tony, why am I here? I should be at the hospital, not in Ziva's chair." She turned to the chair's owner. "Which is really comfortable, Ziva. I need to get one of these tailbone pillows for my lab, I think."
Ziva smiled, seeing that Tony had been right about Abby. If she was back in the office, she'd start to come out of her crying fits. Although the fight to get her to leave almost caused her to handcuff the goth woman and drag her kicking and screaming.
"I will take you to the store to purchase one of your own, Abby," Ziva chuckled as she finished checking her e-mail.
Tony smiled at the two women, the two most important women in his life. "Abs, I need you to go over the shovel that Reynolds says he his Carmichael with."
Abby almost exploded. "You brought me here to work on the Carmichael Case?" She stood. "Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, you are no longer one of my favorite people," she stated as she moved toward the elevator. Just before she stepped on, she stuck her tongue out at Tony, who chuckled once the doors closed.
"She does have a point, Tony. It is not like Reynolds is going anywhere anytime soon."
"When she gets down there, she'll also see that Fornell dropped off the evidence from inside Gibbs' car." The elevator dinged and opened again, three men stepping out. "Speak of the devil. Toby. How are you." DiNozzo noticed the man next to him, and more importantly, the state his hands were in. "He's cuffed? Is this my birthday?" DiNozzo shook his head. "No, its not. When's yours? You're getting something really nice. Or is Christmas first? Either way, its an X-Files gift set for you, every season."
DiNozzo finally noticed the third man, hidden behind Fornell. He glared at the Senior FBI Agent. "I take that back, Toby. It's coal in your stocking for this." He finally looked at the third man. "Agent Slacks. Nice to see you again. Not."
"It's Sacks, DiNozzo. And I'm not here of my own volition. But, I'm the one who cuffed Mr. Kort here, so I'm the one who has to stay with him."
"And, since he's still in our custody, and we sent all the evidence to Ms. Scuito, I figured we'd interrogate Kort here, DiNutso."
DiNozzo stood. "Oh, no. You brought him to NCIS, not to the Hoover Building. We'll interrogate him."
"We can decide this in a minute. Sacks, take Mr. Kort down to Interrogation. We'll meet you down there." Sacks nodded and shoved Kort, who had yet to say a word, although his glare directed at DiNozzo spoke volumes. Before they got out of sight, DiNozzo caught Ziva's eyes and nodded his head in their direction. She stood and hurried off to catch up with the two men.
As she left, Tony took a moment to admire her, leering as he did. His mind was caught up in his own thoughts. He didn't notice that his unseeing gaze was aimed very near Special Agent Fornell of the FBI.
Fornell chuckled. "DiNutso, that look may work on David, probably even on McGee, but you're just not my type."
DiNozzo grinned as he gathered up some papers on his desk. "The Director wanted to see us when you got here." Fornell waved his arm, indicating DiNozzo to lead the way.
They climbed the stairs and crossed the catwalk, entering the outer office and not pausing as DiNozzo reached for the door handle. Vance's secretary made as if to stop them, but they were both through the door before he could. "Worse than Gibbs, at least he nods to me," the secretary mumbled under his breath.
As they stepped into the office, DiNozzo made straight for the conference table. Fornell waited until Vance came around his desk and shook his hand before moving to sit next to DiNozzo. Vance took the chair at the other end of the table.
He addressed Fornell first. "I spoke with your director. He has no problem with you and your team being TAD to us until you're ready to turn it over to DiNozzo."
Fornell nodded. "You should know that we've made two arrests. First is Mike Davis. He's the guy driving the truck. He's down in your lock up now. The bill of lading was signed by Trent Kort, who we just brought in. Sacks and David just took him down to Interrogation. I don't know if they're related, or if it's just coincidence, but, and I think I've been around Jethro too long, but I don't believe in coincidences."
DiNozzo chuckled. "Me either." He sat forward. "We know Reynolds didn't kill Carmichael. I've got Abby looking at the shovel Ziva found, and she should have some answers soon. I'll keep you updated. Ducky's piecing together Carmichael's head, to see if there is an injury that would coincide with that."
Vance nodded. He turned back to Fornell. "Where are you taking your investigation?"
"At the moment, Director, we're still just questioning witnesses and gathering evidence. Gibbs' car is in your garage along with the truck cab. The trailer is at the FBI, there just wasn't enough room. We're inventorying it, but I can tell you that no weapons were found, only spare parts for vehicles and ships."
DiNozzo perked up. "Hold on a minute. We know that Kort took over the operations after La Grenouille's death. What if Kort was buying from Carmichael?" His eyes shot open and he stood suddenly. "Director, Fornell, can you excuse me for a moment, I need to make a couple of calls."
He walked out the door without waiting for a response, pulling out his phone as he walked. Vance and Fornell just looked at each other. Fornell chuckled. "Glad he's NCIS' problem, not mine." Vance just looked down at the table.
On the catwalk, DiNozzo finished dialing and waited for McGee to pick up.
"Yeah, McGee."
"McGee, what was the name of the back where the money to Carmichael originated?"
"Uh, give me a second to pull that up. Here it is. Credit Guiana. It's a medium sized bank in French Guiana." There was a moment's pause as DiNozzo heard typing. "Wait a minute, the account is owned by La Grenouille. It's the account he used for all North and South American sales."
DiNozzo was making his way to the elevators at a quick pace. "McGee, trace the money back. Look at the account and let me know how many times money left that account and where it went to."
"On it Boss...I mean, Tony," DiNozzo could hear the chagrin in McGee's voice as he grinned.
"How's Gibbs?"
"Docs say they're going to take him off the meds that are keeping him comatose either tonight or tomorrow. Once they do that, they're going to move him to the ICU."
"Great news," DiNozzo said as he stepped off and moved to Abby's lab. "Keep me informed."
In the hospital, McGee heard a click as he started to say, "You got it, Tony." He looked at his phone and shook his head. Just like Gibbs.
DiNozzo entered Abby's lab, standing at the door for a moment trying to figure out what was wrong. He saw Abby, wearing her lab coat, her hair falling around her neck, at her computer, various pieces of data streaming across it. Bert the Hippo was in his customary place, between the monitor Abby was using and the one next to it, sitting dark. To his left, her machines were whirring and spinning, testing whatever tubes she'd placed in them. It took him almost a full minute before he realized what it was.
"Abs," she turned at his voice. "No music?"
"No, Tony. No music until Gibbs can come down here and turn it off himself."
"What do you have?"
"The skin, blood, and hair on the shovel definitely came from Carmichael. I also pulled a small amount of skin epithelials from the handle, and matched them to Reynolds. I'm now running the DNA from Gibbs' car." Her voice caught at the end, making DiNozzo send his heart to his surrogate sister.
At that moment, the computer beeped. As the image came up on the screen, both eyes opened widely. Both spoke in hushed tones.
"Wow. This is the ultimate in hinky."
"Yeah, it is. Check it again for me, Abs."
"You got it, Tony."
DiNozzo started to walk away. He got as far as the door before he was held back by Abby's voice.
"Tony," he turned. "You were right. Me at the hospital was a mess. Here, I can help find out what happened." She smiled. "How did you get so smart?"
DiNozzo let out a bark of laughter. "Learned from the best." He moved to her and kissed her on the cheek. "Good work, Abs." He moved to the door again, but stopped. "Abs, Gibbs would love the pigtails."
Abby smiled and took off her gloves as she gathered up her hair. DiNozzo smiled as he moved out of the doorway and pushed the call button for the elevator.
Abby turned back to her computer, catching sight of a Caff-Pow that hadn't been there before. She, smiling, turned back to where she heard him enter the elevator. "He learned well."
The elevator opened just outside of Autopsy. DiNozzo moved quickly inside. As he cleared the door, he spoke. "What do you have, Ducky?"
"Ah, Anthony. We are almost finished with the jigsaw puzzle that this unfortunate Petty Officer's head became. We should be done with it within the hour, isn't that correct, Mr. Palmer?" Palmer, surprised, looked up and simply nodded. "Yes, we should have answers for you soon, Anthony. I hope we can give you the answer you want, but if not, I will do my best to guess."
DiNozzo chanced a glance at Palmer, who's eyes widened as he took in fully what Ducky just said. If they got the answer he wanted, it came from both of them. If not, it was all on Ducky. Palmer knew that he'd been wise to turn down the job he'd been offered a year ago in Philadelphia, even though it offered more money and opportunity.
"Keep up the good work, Palmer," DiNozzo said as he walked out.
"Now, Jimmy, do you suppose we have enough to figure out where this piece goes, yet?"
DiNozzo left the elevator and walked down the hall to Interrogation. He nodded to Ziva to follow him into Observation, where he came face to face with both Vance and Fornell.
"Agent DiNozzo. You didn't come back, but we figured you'd end up here. What did you find out?"
DiNozzo looked behind him to see Ziva closing the door before he started to brief Vance. He only left out the DNA results, wanting confirmation before he did. Behind him, he heard Ziva make a call for more agents to guard the doors.
After briefing Vance, all four moved to the window. Sacks entered and walked up behind them, whispering that the other agents had arrived to answer Ziva's summons. Vance and Fornell nodded, but DiNozzo and David were both staring at the man on the other side of the glass.
They looked at each other for a moment before Ziva handed her phone to DiNozzo and moved out the door. Moments later, she walked in and sat before Kort. She stared at him a moment before opening her folder.
"Mr. Kort, is this your signature?"