Abby was miffed.
She had already decided not to like the Baltimore cop. In general she didn't bother to care about any of the probies or agents temporarily assigned to Gibbs' team. There wasn't much point since none of them but Burley had stuck it out past six months.
But DiNozzo was different, he'd bruised Gibbs' face. He deserved to burn for that.
Though it was interesting that Gibbs seemed fine with having him here. Not particularly irritated or angry or even trying to shed an unwanted partner. Just…normal.
But that was beyond the point, it didn't matter how Gibbs was treating the jerk, she would hate him on principle. You don't damage Gibbs!
On the other hand, it wasn't wise to ignore Gibbs' impression of people. If he was willing to have the detective around, maybe she'd judged him too harshly.
Then there was the video.
Thank god Ducky had already made Gibbs call her before she saw it. Even having talked to him, she felt her stomach contract in terror and her eyes widen like saucers when Gibbs went over the edge.
It was good to see someone who could keep up with Gibbs, who could pull him back from the edge. But it wasn't the first time she'd seen that.
It was the first time she'd ever seen anyone sit next to him, try to take care of him, but only once he was sure no one was looking. Apparently he'd missed the camera, but such things could be excused given the circumstances. Watching him watch over Gibbs was nearly as unbearable as seeing Gibbs fall into the blackness in the first place.
She'd recorded the newsfeed and the crappy-quality video, and rewound and replayed it countless times. The whole thing was amazing – like a superhero team come alive – but oddly it was that end scene she kept pausing, studying.
There was a heavy sadness to the man kneeling in the mucky snow. He should be feeling victorious, but he looked forlorn.
All of those contradictions made her question whether her initial judgment of DiNozzo was wrong. But that's not what had her miffed.
Trying to investigate the man's background, as Gibbs had asked her by signing, was infuriating.
On paper, DiNozzo was a golden child. The only son of a rich, dynastic couple; sent to a posh boarding school where he obviously fit in, good grades, captain of an alarming number of teams, some minor infractions, but just enough to indicate a spirited kid, nothing serious.
Then a scholarship to Ohio State – and why should a freakin' rich kid get a scholarship wasted on him? – and participation in more sports and a frat house. Decent grades. A career-ending injury that apparently spun the Phys Ed major for a loop until he ended up at the Peoria police academy. A year there as a uniform, then a quick promotion to detective in property crimes. A move one year later to Philadelphia for a promotion to an organized crime task force, then a quick stint in vice before transferring over to vice in Baltimore, then moving up the ladder – so far as detectives generally thought – to homicide.
But as she worked backwards through his life, the contradictions just kept piling up.
He had the best solve rate in his current department, but his captain hated him. She got the impression that his fellow detectives respected him, but they carefully worded what they said, and were more at ease relating 'crazy Tony stories' which featured DiNozzo chasing suspects through improbable scenarios, scoring more women than Don Juan and generally pissing off people you weren't supposed to piss off.
His direct supervisor in Baltimore's vice division said DiNozzo was the most promising young detective he'd worked with in his ten years with the department.
She'd expected the same hot/cold reaction from Philadelphia, but from everyone she talked to here she got the runaround. They wouldn't talk about him. Period. Nothing. Seriously bizarre.
From Peoria she got glowing reviews, and more than one request to let DiNozzo know he was always welcome back. They'd make a position for him if they had to.
She was about to switch to college-age research when the Peoria desk sergeant she was speaking to suggested she talk to Christopher Dale, the cop from Long Island who'd recommended DiNozzo to the academy program.
A shiver trilled up her back. This felt like a more promising lead.
Momentarily abandoning Ohio State, she took Dale's number down from the incredibly helpful Peoria sergeant and gave it a try. He answered warmly enough, but became cautious as soon as she mentioned DiNozzo's name.
"Why are you asking about Tony? You a reporter?"
"No sir, I'm calling with NCIS. Just doing some general background information."
"You can call me Chris, ma'am. And what might the Navy cops want with Tony?"
"You can call me Abby, Chris." At least she didn't have to explain what NCIS was for the bazillionth time since taking this job. She fudged her next response, as 'Gibbs told me to' wasn't likely to be a satisfactory answer. "I can't tell you, exactly. But if you guessed…well, I can't stop you from guessing."
He seemed happy enough to play the game. "Did he find buried treasure?"
"Chris! We're not hunting pirates here. Think real work."
"He's not a suspect in anything, is he?"
Honestly, Abby wasn't one hundred percent certain why Gibbs had asked her to pry into the detective's life, but he probably wouldn't be working with the younger man if he thought he was a freakin' serial killer. "Nope."
"He job-jumping again?"
"What would give you that impression?" She tried for coy. She'd been working on her coy this week.
"Gee, maybe the fact that the boy can't seem to stick his feet to a particular city for more than two years. Couldn't even during college, he spent two different semesters abroad."
"You knew him in college?"
"Depends, is this a job reference I'm providing?"
"It wouldn't be so surprising, would it? If we were interested in poaching him from Baltimore PD?"
"Hell no. You should steal him. Best asset you could have."
Maybe he had one of the Peoria hearts DiNozzo t-shirts she was pretty sure existed.
"So how come you knew him back in college? Friend of the family?"
"Not really, no. I…ran across Tony when he was eight. Kept tabs on him after that."
"I bet you got to a lot of games at the boarding school since it was so close, but how many did you get to see out in Ohio?"
"Oh, you'd be surprised. Wasn't all that expensive to fly to Ohio back in the day. And man, it was worth it. Ohio State's kind of a sports giant, you know? They don't treat that kind of stuff lightly over there."
She kept him busy talking about games he'd attended in school and college, trying to build up the trust so she could poke further into how a cop could 'run across' an eight-year-old, and how that event could leave such an obviously lasting impression.
The guy sounded like a proud uncle.
"…so then when his knee blew out, he was trying to figure out what the hell he was gonna do. I floated the idea of going to the academy, seeing how it fit. He was surprised. Of all things."
"Because he'd never considered being a cop before?"
"That's what I thought. But no. Said he was surprised I suggested it. Kid's always been hard to read, so I figure despite all that confidence he usually shows, maybe this is one of those rare moments where he actually shows uncertainty, maybe he figures he's not good enough to be a cop, needs to be reassured."
Abby started to ask if that was the case, but Chris, now on his way to getting fully worked up to a rant, cut her off. "No. That's not it either. Well hell, for all I know that's true too, but it's not what he means. He tells me that he thinks I've been watching him all these years, waiting for him to screw up. Like it's my eternal pastime to sit in the damn rain with a newspaper over my head watching him run around the bases, or run around the track, or get the shit beat out of him on the field. Like the only reason I'm going is to see him fail, or wait for him to do something degenerate – that's the word he used, degenerate – so I can put him away."
Holy crap.
"He thinks I'm stalking him as a criminal, and all I've ever wanted is for the kid to let me help him, maybe make some part of his damn life easier."
"So he wasn't the golden boy growing up? His life seems pretty cushy on paper."
"Cushy? Cushy? Yeah, right, lady. You know he…" He cut himself off this time, reining in temper. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Tell me, then. I want to know."
"It's not my story to tell."
"Then tell me just your part of it."
He hesitated.
She took a page out of Gibbs' book and waited silently. It was harder than it looked.
"It's not reflective on his career."
"You've got me thinking all sorts of juvie crimes, Chris. Might be better to just tell me the truth. My imagination can be a scary place."
"No, nothing like that. I met him when his mother died."
Oh, right. The detective's file did indicate that his mother was deceased. "So he was eight when his mom died? That's rough."
"That would be rough on anybody. On this kid – I don't even have the words."
"How did she die?"
"Cancer, that's no secret."
Hmm, that sure indicated that there was a secret to sniff out.
"So you met him at the hospital?" she coaxed.
"No, at the DiNozzo estate."
There was a pause.
"Look, you seem like a nice lady, and I can't keep watch over him forever. Not that he ever let me to begin with. I'll tell you, but I want you to really think hard before you pass this information along to anyone else. If it's really pertinent."
"I promise," she agreed eagerly. That was no hard promise to make. You didn't share information with Gibbs that wouldn't be useful to him anyway, it only annoyed him.
"Tony's mother died at home. His father couldn't take it, I don't know if he loved her so much it was killing him too, or if he just didn't want to be around the mess. But Tony and a part-time nurse were taking care of her."
"When he was just eight?" Poor kid!
"Started at seven. It was no surprised that she died when she did, but for whatever reason the nurse wasn't there then and none of the servants were home except a gardener."
"He was by himself," Abby whispered, more a statement of horror than a question.
"Yes. He was. He tried to reach his father, but couldn't. Then he called the operator and asked for the police."
"The operator? Not 9-1-1?"
"The operator. My wife was working dispatch that night and heard the call come in. She said it was the politest little kid you ever heard. He didn't want to bother anybody, but his mother had died and he didn't know what to do next. Could someone please send out the appropriate personnel?"
Chris paused again, and Abby put her forehead on the table, closing her eyes as his words gave way to a truly heartbreaking image in her mind.
"He said that, he asked for 'the appropriate personnel,' like a little master. Didn't want to dial 9-1-1 because it wasn't an emergency. She was already dead.
"Half-expected a little sociopath when we showed up, but maybe what we found was worse. Me and my partner Sam, we rolled up and went to the front door. He let us in. Face was all screwed up into some kind of pleasant greeting, like he had to be the perfect little host. Led us up a huge central staircase and down a hallway to her room. If it weren't for the fact that tears were streaming down his face and his arms were crossed with his hands tucked to his body, he would have seemed like a robot. A well-trained robot.
"We get into the room and verify – sure enough, she's gone, and what does he do? He offers us a seat."
Dale devolved into swearing for a moment.
"He doesn't know how to reach his dad quickly, but he's left messages, he tells us. He's been sitting by her bedside since yesterday, heard her breathing change, was afraid she'd die soon. The nurse had told him stories, what to watch for.
"He let the servants go for the day to preserve her dignity. Preserve her dignity! What kind of parents raise an eight-year-old that says shit like that!"
And what kind of servants listened to an eight-year-old when he gave them orders? Or maybe the correct question was what kind of eight-year-old could order people around and be listened to?
"This whole time there are tears just streaming down his face. Snot starting to bubble down, but he's still speaking in a perfectly even tone, his face is still trying to contort itself into something impassive, I guess. We figured he had his hands tucked against himself as some kind of 'don't touch me' sign, or maybe warming them up. From shock, you know?"
She nodded against the cool metal table, though he couldn't see her.
"A little later, after the coroner gets there, Sam notices that the kid's signing papers with his right hand but his left hand never moves. Like he's protecting it. I asked him about it, he said there was an accident, it was hurt. It could wait.
"Best as we could piece together later, the kid slammed his own hand in one of those big mahogany doors on the estate, trying to keep his emotions in check. Slammed his hand in a door to keep his voice level, his mind working. Broke a crazy number of bones in that tiny hand. Surprised it healed so well as it did."
Abby flexed her own hand. Even if they had healed and he had full use, they must ache at times…
Chris added a muttered, "Pretty sure he slammed his left hand so he could still fill out paperwork. Adults wouldn't even think of something like that. How does a damn little kid? He had all the funeral arrangements memorized. His mother'd been very specific about what she wanted, and she made him memorize everything. He set it all up while his father was still in Sweden. Barely made it back for the funeral. The funeral his kid set up." Dale roared the end, then cleared his throat.
"So yeah. I followed Tony's movements. He got left in that huge house largely by himself, then dumped in a boarding school that seemed more like a boot camp run by gun freaks. He never took anything from me, never called me of his own volition once, never lit up when he saw me in the stands. But maybe I was at least a regular fixture. Eventually he stopped looking surprised when I showed up. He returned some of my calls. And when I floated the idea of the police academy – and then yelled at him a bit for assuming I'd spent all that time on him just waiting for him to fuck up – well he actually went. So maybe it meant something."
He grumbled nearly under his breath, "Though it would've have been nice if he'd moved closer, instead of going even further west."
Something about his occasional muttering and grumbling reminded her of Gibbs. Maybe that's why DiNozzo seemed less affected by the scowling mannerisms. Or maybe he still expected everyone to think the worst of him, so he just wasn't disturbed by being confronted with actions that might support that.
She thanked Dale, agreeing that the specifics of this really didn't need to go beyond her.
Hanging up, she found tears rolling down her own cheeks.
That little bastard. She'd make him pay for being so untrusting. She'd make him trust her.
Abby cued the video back up from the start. Suddenly DiNozzo's vigil over Gibbs' prone body seemed even more plaintive.
Was the detective-man broken?
She restarted the video yet again, watched him in action.
Maybe he was. But he wasn't the only one, she thought, looking at Gibbs on screen. And Tony didn't seem to be after anyone to save him, or fix him, or even pay any attention to him. He was self-driven, self-maintained. He didn't need help, exactly.
But maybe a partner. Someone to help out when he did need it, but didn't realize it. Somebody to pull him back over the ledge, even if he didn't expect anyone to.
Sounded like someone else she knew.