Chapter 3

Any relation or alikeness to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The following happenings might rely on actual events, but are altered so that no tracing back nor any identification of the real events are possible. I might have to remind you that this is a purely fictional story with purely fictional characters.

It was two days later when they successfully caught the fourth man invited to the drug testing at the petrol station and another day later they arrested two other marines for being involved into traffic on the USS Chekov. It had been a successful day but when Tony and McGee came back to the NCIS HQ around midday, they knew that something new was going on there.

The new director, newly transferred from NCIS San Diego to Washington, was sitting in Tony's chair and waiting for them.

"Director Pearce," McGee greeted him.

"Agents," he answered to the three of them.

"Something we should know of?" Gibbs asked sceptically.

"Your team looks a bit small. I have been looking for a new agent for your team in the past few days. I am very sorry for the loss of your partner and wife, Agent DiNozzo, but we need to get a new member for your team."

"At least you didn't say 'replacement'," Tony sighed, "who do you have in mind?"

"I have eliminated most of the applicants down to three possible agents. All of them are currently waiting in different interrogation rooms. Gibbs, I want you to make a choice." With those words, he stood up from Tony's chair and walked upstairs. The three agents followed him.

Special Agent Marissa Jones had graduated from Police Academy at the age of 25, then worked at the Mexican border for two years until she was finally promoted to the sexual assaults unit in Sacramento. She had started leading cooperation between police and NCIS there and had waited for a chance to switch to NCIS herself. She was tall, had a little Texan accent, had long, dark brown hair and bluest eyes. But Tony couldn't see these eyes. He could only see someone sitting at the desk that belonged to both Kate and Ziva. And now, someone else was sitting there. Someone who did not belong there.

"Tony, you have to accept that we need a new team member," McGee finally said when Marissa was on an away investigation with Gibbs. Tim came over to Tony with his chair.

"Yes, I do accept that we need someone new. But I do not accept her as a replacement."

"No one can replace Ziva. But remember when you first met Ziva? You thought that she could never be as good as Kate and that you could never become friends. And what now? You had wonderful weeks with Ziva as your wife and she gave you a wonderful baby you now care for."

"You want me to marry Marissa?"

"Tony, sometimes I think Gibbs has hit you a bit too often," McGee answered to the sarcasm with rolling his eyes. Then he rolled back to his desk. "All I'm saying is to give her a chance."

Time passed and although it had seemed impossible at first, Marissa grew into the team and became accepted – at least by McGee who was glad to be called probie now only once in a while. It was a rainy afternoon when the team got called to a murder in the South of Norfolk. The military base was about twelve miles away and the season of shore leave and spring break was on. That meant drunken students mixed with marines and soldiers who had been imprisoned on their ships or in the military bases for far too long. No wonder that the police did overtime. But early this morning, when a bar already opened at nine o'clock, the body of an employee had been found in the restrooms.

The employee was a marine, Lieutenant Jacelyn Mendel, who had worked during her five week holiday in the bar-casino to earn some money for the wedding which she and her fiancée had planned for the coming summer. Now, her body was found on the wet floor, the water mixed with the blood. Her head was in the toilet bowl, her body hanging immobile down on the floor, her clothes on the lower side also wet – it was the toilet water covering the floor.

"She was found around eight thirty by a clerk who is supposed to open the bar and prepare the seats before the first waitresses arrive," a SOCO explained when the NCIS team entered the crime scene. Before entering the restrooms, Tony shot as many photos as possible before entering the actual scene. They put on paper slippers to not accidentally discard any evidence.

"Oh, dear God," Ducky muttered when he saw the body. He waited until McGee had drawn and outline and Marissa and Tony marked all the evidence with black number cards.

"Here's a footprint," McGee mentioned and pointed at the footprint of blood on the left side of the victim.

"He fled out of the window," Marissa said and took photos of the blood-footprint on the window bench.

"Might I now inspect the body?" Ducky asked.

"She's all yours," Tony said and let Ducky and Mr Palmer pass who tried to avoid stepping onto any evidence or into the puddle of blood that nearly covered the whole floor already.

While Ducky inspected the obviously visible injuries, Mr Palmer started putting numbered stickers all over the body to later reconstruct her position. "She has a dark red male on her left shoulder, it looks like a footprint. Tony, would you mind showing me the picture you just shot?"

Tony walked over and noticed, "he stepped with his foot on her to keep her head in the toilet bowl. He probably flushed the toilet to get some information out of her."

"Barkeeper says the safe was opened. About five hundred dollars are missing so far," Gibbs said when he came back from talking to the SOCOs.

"Then this poor lady was tortured for the code to open the safe. But even when she did, the killer wanted to kill her nevertheless, God bless her," Ducky said and the other agents nodded. This theory fitted, but still they needed to search as many proves as possible to either verify or discard their theory.

"Time of death, Ducky?" Gibbs asked, in the same mood he always seemed, whether at a crime scene or not.

Ducky sighed and Mr Palmer already picked up the temperature measure device. The agents turned around and searched for other evidence in the meanwhile. At least a little bit of dignity should be left for the victim. "According to the room temperature and that she was partly covered in cooling water, I'd say her death took place between eleven and two o'clock last night."

"The bar closed already at one," Marissa mentioned.

"And she was the one supposed to lock it. He probably surprised her when she wanted to close the bar," McGee said.

"What about evidence?" Gibbs wanted to know.

"We found a footprint so far. And this was probably a spontaneous robbery with the intention of a murder, he probably didn't plan it. Further evidence such as fingerprints or fibres might be found," Toy answered.

"Then find it," Gibbs ordered and left the room again.