Tony recalculated his next move. Apparently he didn't need to sway Gibbs into working with him. That was unexpected, but should prove beneficial. It would be much easier to get the information he needed now.
But why exactly had the man requested – or demanded – to work with him? It had to have been Gibbs' decision, Mallace would never have assigned him this case.
"You called me Marine last night." Gibbs issued the words as a statement, though they were obviously meant as a question.
"Was I wrong?" Tony stopped in front of the interview room's closed door, careful to keep his expression light.
"No." Gibbs shook his head and took another sip of coffee. "Just wondering where that came from."
"Demeanor, attitude, tone of voice, style of movement…not just anyone can pull off that particular haircut."
Gibbs did not look entirely convinced. "Don't think you've served yourself."
"No." Tony forced down the instant bubble of laughter rippling up his chest at the very thought.
"Parents?"
"No." Less happy with this line of questioning, but his voice stayed light and steady.
"Was pretty dark out last night to be seeing haircuts. So where are you pulling your familiarity of the corps from?"
DiNozzo smiled. "We should go in. They've been waiting for an hour." Opening the door, he led the way into a small interview room where the two rookies were already seated on the far side of the table.
As he did not yet have the particulars of the case, and as he was curious to see the interview stylings of his new Marine acquaintance, Tony took one of the remaining two chairs in the room, wisely remaining quiet.
The patrolmen both looked to Tony first. He returned their silent, pleading looks with a cool gaze and stayed mute.
Gibbs closed the door. Very, very slowly. He drained his coffee in one swig, then tossed the empty cup into the small black trash can by the door's entrance and moved with agonizing lack of speed to take the lone remaining chair, next to Tony. Quietly, he ordered, "Report."
Cameron, the larger of the two, started talking. "It's just like we told Delilla, sir, we got a call last night from a guy that owns a Thai restaurant on our beat. We were right around the corner, so we ran over on foot and found the guy. The dead guy in the ally, not the owner, I mean. They owner stayed inside, he didn't want to stick around the dead guy. But we didn't know he was really dead…" He looked over to his partner for support.
Eglee was more obviously nervous than his partner. Sweat dotted his forehead and his eyes remained downcast. "He was really cold, and kinda stiff, but it was freezing out, and his eyes were closed with little frost flakes on them." His hands darted frantically over his own eyelashes, ineffectively trying to mime the image. "We thought maybe he'd been jumped for cash or something and left there to freeze to death."
Cameron's blond, pasty head bobbed in agreement. "And it was hard to see back there, even with our flashlights. So we called the paramedics and I dragged the guy out to better light."
Eglee's eyes flickered up to briefly brush his so far silent interviewers. "We tried to revive him. Couldn't get a pulse." Tony was rapidly beginning to believe that any brains this team did lay claim to belonged to Eglee, if only because he knew enough to be embarrassed. "We've been called in on a heart attack, and a few car accidents, but the victims were all still alive…" He trailed off.
His partner picked up the thread, "I've heard stories where guys were frozen, but not completely gone, you know? Like freezing 'em preserved 'em. So while Eglee was doing CPR, I stuck him with my EpiPen, hoped it might get his heart going again. But he still didn't move." Cameron looked crushed and confused, as though the victim had deliberately defied letting the duo's ministrations work. He looked to his partner to continue the back-and-forth report. But the smaller, darker man didn't pipe up this time.
Gibbs' glare was a fifth physical presence in the room. He blazed it at the pair of patrolmen without pause. Eglee slipped lower and lower in his chair, his chin falling further and further towards his chest as the stare pulsed at him. The force of it now seemed to be keeping his mouth from opening.
The glare turned to a scowl, and the scowl filled every inch of the room, a pulsing, throbbing, hostile entity. Tony was even starting to feel it, despite knowing it was not intended for him, and despite normally having very little susceptibility to such tactics. He purposefully relaxed the muscles in his lower back and upper arms that he belatedly realized had tensed in reaction to the emotion in the room. He bit back a wince as he realized unconsciously tightening up his muscles had reawakened the aches caused by last night's activities.
It was rare that anyone could get him to tense up like that without him letting it happen.
Interest piqued, he turned his attention to focus more on Gibbs than the cops across the table. Doing so allowed him to watch the explosion as it unfolded.
With little change to his expression, Gibbs slammed the side of his fist down on the table, causing a near-deafening "BOOM" in the small, silent room. Cameron's eyes jerked from his partner back to the agent, and Eglee's head snapped up involuntarily.
Gibbs stood, palms flat on the table, leaning towards the officers. His mouth curled up at the corner, but it was not a smile. His eyes never changed, never deviated. "What was the status of the body when you found it? How was it positioned?"
Neither responded. They looked hypnotized, their eyes never leaving Gibbs' face.
"Where was the victim in relation to the restaurant's back door? Did it look like he'd been dumped out the back door, or came in through the alley?"
Tony sat up in his chair, moving to perch on the edge. He didn't like the direction this was moving in. This NCIS guy was too intense; he was freaking the beat cops out. And his voice was moving into a shout.
If he could just turn the man's attention for a moment, redirect it to himself… "Gibbs," he called quietly.
He was ignored.
"Was any of the 'junk' you tossed aside directly on, against or under the body? Were there any particular odors noticeable near his mouth when you tried resuscitation?"
With a forceful shove that Tony feared indicated an impending complete loss of control, Gibbs shoved the table to the left, where it upended on its side with a startling racket.
"Special Agent Gibbs!" Tony moved to get into the other man's face before he could step nearer to the still-frozen cops. "Outside!"
Gibbs scowled ferociously, but turned on his heel and exited the room.
DiNozzo was hot on his heels. As the door swung shut, he hissed, "What the hell, Gibbs? Why are you wasting our time? You're not going to get information out of them if they're too intimidated to speak. This isn't an interrogation, those kids aren't suspects. They're witnesses. They're awful witnesses, and bad cops." He paused, but Gibbs remained facing away from him, body stiff.
"They're bad cops," Tony repeated, easing to a more normal tone of voice. "Stupid, unthinking. But they meant well. That's not enough, not for a cop, but it's something. They should never have been partnered together. If they'd been with older, more experienced guys, this never would have happened."
"And it never will again."
He had been afraid of this. "So you're planning to get them fired?"
Gibbs finally turned around. Blue eyes merrily dancing, he fired a short grin towards the detective. "Nah. Try to get them reassigned to other guys. But whatever happens, doubt they'll forget to record a scene again."
Oh.
Tony cocked his head to the side, considering the man before him.
Gibbs took a step closer, and squinted his eyes a bit. "What do you mean, wasting our time?"
DiNozzo offered an easy smile. "Just trying to run an efficient investigation."
Gibbs snorted, "Efficient my ass. You're after something."
"Why Gibbs, whatever could you mean?"
"Whatever, DiNozzo. Hate to waste any more of your precious time standing around. Let's go back in there – you can pretend you backed me down. See if you can coax any scene details out of them now."
"You're staying in the room as a reminder of the monster under the bed waiting to eat their toes if they don't remember?"
Gibbs shrugged, and went back into the room.
Tony decided he had better stop skipping entire nights of sleep if he was going to continue working with Gibbs.
Twenty minutes later, they had all the useful information they were going to get from the patrolmen. It wasn't much. They now knew the body had been positioned such that it was more likely dumped via the alley entrance, not the restaurant's. No items were found on top of the body, though it remained unclear what was immediately underneath.
Gibbs and the young detective had fallen into an easy pattern – DiNozzo coaxing, kidding, sometimes biting, sarcastic, but briefly so. Gibbs stayed silent until he felt a quick bolt of pure intimidation would focus wandering minds.
It worked very well.
Still, Gibbs sensed DiNozzo was subtly trying to work the conversation around to some point of particular interest to him. Something about the state of the body. This line of questioning suited his own purposes nicely, so he let it be.
He could tell DiNozzo was frustrated at the end of the meeting, and didn't think it was solely because of the rookies' poor memories. Whatever his silent question was, it hadn't been answered.
As the detective escorted the two cops out of the room, Gibbs pulled out his cell phone and called his own probies.
"Gibbs, we're at the station, waiting for you in the lobby. I've got – "
Gibbs hung up. That was useful, he didn't have to wait for them to arrive per the orders he had been about to issue.
"DiNozzo!" He barked as the man in question reentered the room.
Eyebrow raised, he returned, "Don't expect me to 'sir' you."
Though it was said in a light tone, Gibbs detected an undercurrent of vehement seriousness and again wondered what this kid's ties to the military might be. Letting it go for the moment, he stood and started back towards the station's lobby. "I really don't. Come on, gotta meet up with my people."
"I was wondering where you stashed them."
"They stashed themselves last night. Better have gotten some damn work done." The lead agent's face darkened.
Neither man even considered that given the time Gibbs' agents had left the scene, it would have been perfectly logical for a normal person to have just gotten out of bed.
Thankfully for all involved, the agents had been up and working for several hours already.
"Gibbs, we got Collins' records from the school," Greene offered, and passed over a file.
"Got the crime scene photos developed, and a preliminary report drafted up," Wagner chimed in, passing his own file.
They both looked at him for praise. He ignored them.
Turning to DiNozzo, he started to make curt introductions, then realized he was only mostly certain their names were Wagner and Greene.
In his phone he just had them entered as #1 and #2.
"Boys, this is Detective DiNozzo with Baltimore PD. He'll be working the case with us. DiNozzo, probies." Even with his attention already buried in the vic's school records, he still caught the grin the damn detective shot at him. Did he suspect Gibbs' wasn't sure of his own people's names? Impossible…
Besides, there were far more important names to remember. Victims, suspects, persons of interest. No reason to waste the brain space on those two.
DiNozzo stepped forward to greet the two men. "Anthony DiNozzo, Homicide. And you are?"
The slightly older, slightly more senior of the two spoke up first, "Tyler Greene. Been on Gibbs' team ten weeks."
Ha, see! Greene. Gibbs snorted and continued reading the file.
"Rich Wadusky. Been on Gibbs' team for two and a half weeks."
Wadusky? Gibbs spared a look for the newer newbie. He didn't know anyone named Wadusky.
Come to think of it, this Wadusky guy didn't look all that familiar. Was Wagner the last guy? What happened to him?
Thoroughly annoyed now, he returned to scanning the report, holding it further from his face. His eyes were just tired from the fight last night. He damn well didn't need glasses. Screw what Ducky said.
DiNozzo continued to chat with the probies. Gibbs kept one ear on their conversation, hoping the detective would steer the conversation towards whatever he'd been trying to learn since the night before.
Grunting, he spoke aloud, "This record's pretty thin. You talk to any of his instructors, friends, people he knew on campus?"
Both shook their head in the negative. Greene elaborated, "Weren't sure you'd want us to. We can drive over there and do the interviews today." He looked hopeful.
Gibbs couldn't bring himself to trust them not to miss something important. "Go back to HQ." Greene's face fell. "I'll send you a list of names to run. Check in with Ducky and Abby, see if they have anything or need anything. Run Collins' financials and phone records."
"Yes, boss," they chorused morosely, and immediately turned to leave.
DiNozzo watched them trudge back towards the parking lot with a thoughtful expression underneath his continued annoying smile. "Do your people always come in matched sets like that?"
Gibbs considered. The two did have the same dark coloring, same height, similar features. He hadn't noticed before. "Last couple of agents were a tall guy and a short gal."
"Did you trust them any more than you trust these two?"
Half-shrugging, Gibbs grudgingly admitted, "Guy was okay."
The detective waited, as though expecting more details. Gibbs turned back to the file.
"Strange that they introduced themselves in how many weeks they'd survived you." That shit-eating grin was back on the kid's face, the same one he pulled last night when Gibbs' first saw his badge glint in the streetlight and called him on it.
It was supremely irritating.
Gibbs leveled a long, serious look at his temporary partner. The exhausted, battered, barely able to speak DiNozzo of overnight hours had seemed more tolerable. Had he made a mistake in who he chose to work with?
The detective's gaze steadily matched Gibbs' own.
Traffic in the station house – especially near the entrance, where they were standing – had picked up considerably. People walked around them in a slow stream. Someone clapped Tony on the shoulder in greeting; a uniformed officer called hello to him from across the room. Two teenage girls were wailing about their parents being called. A junkie in an oversized navy coat darted glances at everyone. A man in a dirty pink gorilla suit was brought in and handcuffed to a chair.
Gibbs saw this and more out of the periphery of his eyesight as he continued his visual investigation of DiNozzo's character. But the man's expression had gone blank, unreadable. A handy ability in their line of work. He continued to meet Gibbs' eyes with a patient stillness he had not seemed capable of mere moments before.
This wasn't getting them anywhere. Gibbs thrust the files into DiNozzo's hands, and was rewarded with a brief glimpse of greedy need. Yeah, the kid wanted to know something alright. He didn't tear open the file, but did pull it in firmly to his side. "You going to the academy by yourself?"
"I'll drive, you can read the files in the car."
The drive there would provide another interesting little test of the detective's character.