Chapter 11

Ziva took her assignment very seriously. Not only did it have serious implications for whether or not Tim could have committed murder, something she refused to believe was possible, it also would lead to the actual guilty culprit...and perhaps an explanation for why Tim was being implicated. The first problem was determine just when the gun had gone missing, because they needed to figure out what pool of people could be suspects. If Tim's weapon had gone missing more than six months ago, then it couldn't have been anyone at Soft-Tech and the murder would have to be about something else. ...but what would it be about?

"Agent David, what can I do for you down here? I think you carry enough weapons at a time already. Do you really need another gun?"

Ziva grinned at Arnold Mortensen who was in charge of NCIS storage. He functioned as a kind of security guard/janitor. Storage didn't need a whole lot of attention, but enough that having someone whose job it was to keep track of what was going on in there was important. Arnold knew everything that went in and came out. He'd been at NCIS longer than it had been NCIS. He was old enough to be her grandfather and Ziva enjoyed talking to him. He was a bigger flirt than Tony but much more gentlemanly about it.

"I do not, Arnold."

"Arnie, Ziva. Arnie. One would think that you didn't want to be on familiar terms with me."

Ziva laughed. "I am sorry, Arnie. I am not here for another weapon. ...but I am here about a weapon."

Arnie looked at her speculatively. "A missing weapon, perhaps? Maybe the missing weapon Agent Gibbs called down here about yesterday?"

"Yes. That is the weapon."

"Figures that you'd be down here to throw my one failure in my face," he mock-pouted.

"I am not here to speak of failure, Arnie. I feel that you are the best one to help me solve a problem."

"Flattery."

"Is it working?" Ziva asked with a smile.

"Absolutely. Tell me what you need, Ziva."

"I need to figure out just when the weapon went missing. It is very important for our case. You know everything that happens in here and I think you can remember every piece in storage. Can you tell me when you might have noticed it was gone?"

"We'll need to narrow it down a bit. Let me think. Y'all got your new guns two months ago. So I had lots of old ones I was processing. A bunch of them are going to be sold back to Sig Sauer to see what parts are salvageable and what parts are not. Some might be melted down. Others resold. I kept a list of every serial number that went back to Sig Sauer and which ones stayed here as backups. We can start there. You got the time?"

"This is what I have been told to do. Yes, Arnie. I have a lot of time."

"Excellent!" Arnie said, smiling toothily. "Pull up a chair and let's get her started, Ziva. Maybe we'll have to have lunch together."

Ziva grinned at the obvious suggestion. "I would be honored, Arnie."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Jamie looked at the house. It was a bit rundown but not badly. It was small, the right size for a single woman who might be needing more income.

"Do you think this is going anywhere, Tony?" she asked.

Tony sighed. "I don't know, Jamie. I really don't know. It could make sense, but what Ziva said made a lot of sense, too. Still, let's figure out whether or not it does and then we can move on."

"Right. You want to lead off or should I?"

"I'll let you. You're a woman. She might trust you more than me."

"Or she might respond to your charms. She is single."

"You lead off, Jamie."

"Gotcha, Boss," Jamie said and gave a sarcastic salute before getting out of the car.

They walked to the door and knocked. No one answered.

"Ronna Howard! This is NCIS!" Tony called.

"Around back, maybe?" Jamie suggested.

"Let's look," Tony said, but kept his hand on his gun as they did so. Just in case.

"Ronna Howard!" Jamie called as they reached a wooden gate.

"Who's asking?" The voice was little less than petulant.

"Federal agents. We need to ask you a few questions."

A woman poked her head up over the fence and looked at them.

"Federal agents? From where? And why?"

"NCIS," Tony said. "It's about a murder at Soft-Tech."

"Did someone finally kill the nut?" she asked, with no attempt to disguise her bitterness.

"No," Tony said, not bothering to cover his own irritation at Tim being described as crazy and numerous people wishing he was dead. "Lance Corporal Smythe."

"That's almost as good. Come on back. I don't know why you need to talk to me. I left Soft-Tech weeks ago." She opened the gate and led them into the backyard. It was surprisingly beautiful. There were flowers and vines all over, plus what looked like a small herb garden in one corner.

"This is lovely," Jamie said.

"Thanks. I should have gone into horticulture instead of computers...but there's not much money to be made in growing plants." Ronna sighed and gestured to a couple of chairs. "Have a seat. What do you want to know?"

"You didn't like Lance Corporal Smythe?"

"No one liked Smythe," Ronna said. "He was overbearing, irritating and had no concept of how programming works. If it weren't for Tim being the one dealing with him, I would have said no one deserved to have to work with that guy. ...but Tim was worse."

"How?"

"He lorded his position over us. Hal may have said that he wasn't going to replace any of us with Tim, but it was clearly in the cards. Besides, Tim was scary to work with. You never knew just what he'd do."

"Did he ever give you reason to be afraid of him?"

"He'd been in the looney bin. Did you know that? For months! I heard that it was because he didn't have any control over himself. He never looked like he was completely in control when he was working at Soft-Tech. I don't know why Hal hired him. He might have been a good programmer, but we didn't need someone like him. That's why I left."

"You quit?" Tony interjected. "Hal Johnson didn't fire you?"

Ronna glared at Tony. "Technically, he fired me, but I wouldn't have stayed much longer anyway. Tim would have destroyed the company and Hal didn't seem to see it. I got out before it was too late."

"So...you didn't like Tim McGee," Tony said.

"No."

"Would it be safe to say that you held a grudge against him?"

"I guess so."

"And do you consider yourself as good at programming and computer stuff as he is?" Jamie asked, privately enjoying the baiting. She didn't think that Ronna had anything to do with it, but she was abrasive and annoying. Taking her down a peg or two was going to be fun.

"Hey, he's good, but we didn't need him to work on that project. We would have been fine without him."

"So...where were you at 7 a.m. three days ago?"

"In bed. I'm waiting for calls on jobs but I don't have any right now. Why?"

"Alone?" Tony asked.

"Yes. Why?"

"So you have no alibi?"

"Wait, a second! Are you accusing me of killing Smythe? That's way off base! The guy is a prick, but I didn't kill him! Heck, he's built like a brick wall. I'm five-four. Do you really think I could overpower a guy like that? Why not look at McGee? He's the one who couldn't control his anger."

"What do you mean?"

"I heard him on the phone one night about two months ago. Everyone else had gone home. He was mad and I couldn't understand everything he was saying but when he hung up the phone, he kicked his desk and put a dent in it. I told Hal about it the next morning, but of course, he didn't have anything to say about it. Just buried the whole thing."

"That's rather beside the point, Ms. Howard," Tony said.

"Look, I won't pretend that I liked Smythe. I didn't. I don't feel any regret that he's dead. The only thing better would be McGee being dead, but I didn't kill him! Once I left Soft-Tech, I had no reason to kill him! Besides, in the end, I think it did me a favor. I hate programming. I don't want staring at a computer to be my whole life. I am not a murderer. If you want to arrest me, go ahead, but it's not me."

"We're not arresting anyone, Ms. Howard," Jamie said. "We have to check every lead. If you were given the chance to kill Timothy McGee, would you do it?"

"No, although I wouldn't say no to a chance to kick him where it counts if you want to set that up for me. Any other questions?"

"Not right now. Don't leave town, though," Jamie said with a smile.

"Where would I go?" Ronna asked and stood up. "You can let yourselves out."

Tony and Jamie headed back to the sedan.

"There's nothing here but a bitter woman who's been forced to face a possible midlife crisis," Jamie said.

"Yeah. You're probably right. We can check her out, but I think it's a dead end. Man...how in the world did the Probie ever stand working there for a week, let alone six months?"

Jamie looked sideways at Tony. He didn't seem to catch the irony of his question.

"Desperation can drive people to a lot of things, Tony. From what I understand, it's already driven Tim to a lot of things. What else did he have to do without this job? I asked him about his employment history. This is the first long-term job he'd managed to get since he left NCIS. No one else would hire him for more than a couple of weeks at a time, except when one of his friends got him temporary work in his company. Look at what all these people at Soft-Tech are saying. They know about his recent history and they've decided he's crazy and can't be trusted. They can't be the only ones thinking that. Tim is going to face an uphill battle anywhere he goes...and honestly, Tony, I don't think he's up for more than he's tried to do already. He seems way too shaky."

"He's good at what he does, Jamie."

"I'm not saying he isn't, but you know what happened in Interrogation. You know what he's done before. He's not ready for a lot more right now. Even a year later. ...and that's why I don't think he did it."

"Huh?" Tony asked. Sometimes, Jamie would skip a couple of sentences and it was impossible to follow what she meant.

"He needed that job. He still needs that job. He talked about Hal Johnson as if he was almost his savior. There's no way Tim would risk messing that up for the one person who'd expressed any sort of faith in him. Tim doesn't think that anyone will look at him for what he is, only for what he was last year. No matter how bad it got at Soft-Tech, no matter how often he lost his temper, he wouldn't commit murder...not there. ...but Ronna Howard didn't either. So...the question is who did...and why? Because guilty or innocent, Tim is involved. It's too much of a coincidence that his gun was the murder weapon."

She got in the car and Tony quickly followed suit.

"Why didn't you say you thought he was innocent before?"

"I've been waiting for you guys to talk about it like you know yourselves. ...but I don't think you do. I think your conviction is based more on guilt than on anything sound. You don't even have anything circumstantial to support your belief," Jamie said as she put on her seatbelt. "You can't treat this case as a way of expiating whatever guilt you still carry. A man was murdered, Tony. Jerk or not, he was still murdered. A member of the Marine Corps was shot in the head. That is what the case is. If McGee is implicated, then I know why I don't think it's correct...until and unless I'm shown otherwise. Do you know?"

Tony started the car without answering.

"You need to figure that out, Tony. You're not going to do Tim any favors by blindly assuming his innocence. He needs facts, not guilt."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Contented burbling from the backseat made Judith look into the rearview mirror and smile.

"Are you happy to see Uncle Tim again, Chris?" she asked.

Chris gave a peculiar goo...which seemed to be his way of greeting Tim. He only made the sound when Tim was around; so they assumed that it was Chris' way of saying Tim. He wasn't saying anything beyond making sounds that sounded vaguely like Mama and Dada. It might just be wishful thinking. They had asked Matt's mother whether this was something they should worry about and she had given a long list of all Matt's brothers and sisters and when they had started talking...with the conclusion being that Chris would talk when he was ready to talk.

"Well, we're almost there! Just around this corner and..." Judith's smile faltered a bit when she saw Tim sitting on Ducky's front steps. He looked dejected, but when she tapped on the horn as she approached, he looked up and smiled at her. He wasn't looking very good, but his smile was real and his pleasure at seeing friends was genuine. She rolled down the window.

"Tim, do you have anything here?"

He shook his head. "No, we'll have to go to my place, but it should be okay."

"I'm not worried, not with Jethro here to protect us."

Tim smiled and led Jethro around to the back.

"Get on in, Jethro. No jumping onto the seat."

Jethro hopped into the back and settled comfortably down in the luggage area. Tim patted him and then got in front. Judith smiled kindly at him and she saw Tim's expression twist for just a moment before he looked back at Chris.

"Hey, Chris, how's it going?"

Again, that peculiar goo and Chris started wiggling excitedly.

"You haven't been over often enough, Tim. I think Chris misses you."

"I'm surprised he remembers me from visit to visit."

"Well, you know our son. He's a genius in the making."

Tim shook his head. "You don't want a genius. You just want a normal happy kid."

Judith cupped her hand under Tim's chin for a moment. "You can be happy and smart, Tim. ...and you're someone I admire; so no putting yourself down because we both know I have great taste."

Tim smiled and turned forward as she put the car back in gear. It was a Suburban, normally a size that they didn't need, but for moving a large German shepherd or other items, it was nice having the space. ...and they could afford it.

Judith could see that something was really bothering Tim right now, more than anything for months. It was hard to see, but she didn't say anything. Whatever was going on, Tim deserved to have to say it only once, rather than to her and then to Matt later on. She had called Matt after Tim had requested to stay, and he had wanted to skip out on his meetings but knew he couldn't.

The trip to Tim's apartment was uneventful and, although she'd never say anything to Tim, she was always a bit nervous driving into this area. Nothing had ever happened to her, but she knew it had to Tim and knowing how dangerous the neighborhood could be made her more than a little edgy.

"Do you want to come up or do you just want to wait?"

"We'll wait."

Tim nodded and jumped out. He closed the doors and she locked them instantly. Tim smiled at her and then ran into his building. She knew he'd be quick.

"Well, Christopher, take a look. You may never see this neighborhood again. ...and I hope you don't. I wish I could get Tim out of here."

Chris just laughed and hit the window a few times. Judith watched one car pull in ahead of her and a man get out. He headed into the building across the street and she shook her head at her paranoia. Tim was back out in under five minutes, carrying a couple of bags. He knocked on the back door and she disengaged the locks. He tossed them in and then got back into the front seat.

"I think that's my record for packing," he said with a slight smile.

"Off we go!" she said, and then clapped a little, prompting Chris to clap as well. "Yea!"

Tim laughed. "I love hearing you talk on a one-year-old level."

"You're not hearing any baby talk from me. But he likes it. See?"

Chris raised his arms over his head. Tim laughed and did the same, making funny faces until Chris started laughing again.

"He really likes you, Tim."

"I don't know why."

"Because you pay attention to him. He likes the attention. We're going to start looking to adopt another, maybe when he gets to be two or three. He should have at least one sibling."

"It's nice having siblings," Tim said softly.

"Are you all right, Tim?" Judith asked.

"No."

"I won't make you talk about it until Matt gets home, but is there anything we can do for you?"

"Not really, just letting me stay at your place will help. I...I'm having trouble. Lance Corporal Smythe was murdered three days ago...and NCIS is investigating."

"Oh." That made a lot of sense. "Bad?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. We'll save the rest of it for tonight, but Tim, I'm glad you called me for help."

"I promised you I would...but Ducky was the one who told me to do it."

"Well, Ducky is smart."

Tim smiled. "Yeah, he is. I really appreciate it."

"Any time, Tim. Any time...and you can stay for as long as you want to."

"I'm going to have the nightmares again, Judith," Tim said, staring out the windshield. "I did last night. I haven't screamed for a long time, but I did last night."

Judith winced sympathetically. "I'm sorry, Tim. That doesn't change anything. We'll just make sure that Chris' nursery door is closed overnight. I'm not worried."

"Maybe you should be."

"I'm not. I will never be worried about you doing something wrong."

"I have. Everyone does."

"That's true, and I won't worry about it any more than I worry about Matt doing something wrong. Of course, he will, but I'm not worried about it being serious."

"Thanks," Tim whispered.

The rest of the ride up to Maryland was quiet, but Judith was more glad than ever that Tim was asking for help. He obviously needed it.