No other words had been exchanged the rest of the way. As they passed the "Welcome to Mystic Falls" sign, Bella felt her pulse quicken with anxiety. Sometimes she felt quite fortunate that she was this kind of a vampire, and not a cold one like Edward was. It made pretenses so much simpler. It also made passing physical exams possible that were required both at MPD and NCIS hiring. Just allowed her to feel human. Well almost human. Close enough. By the time they had pulled into the parking space at the sheriff's station, Bella had gotten herself and her emotions under control. There wasn't anything to be worried about, she told herself. There was almost zero chance that he had still hung around this town after all this time. It would have risen too much suspicion since he didn't age. Just like Bella didn't age... she wondered briefly how long she had before she had to inevitably leave NCIS. Before they started noticing...
"Hey, Earth to Probie," Tony pulled her out of her reverie with his joking attitude, waving a hand in front of her face. "We are here."
"You realize I have worked with you for three years, right? I'm not a probationary agent anymore," Bella jabbed right back as she got out of the car. "We should check in with the sheriff first and go examine the scene," she said, willing herself to act in control and professional.
"Okay, lead the way," the boys replied in unison.
As they walked up to the sheriff's office and stepped in, the vampire had to realize that nothing had really changed around here. Still the same old brick building with its archway, full on wooden interior. To her initial surprise, the office was almost empty, none of the deputies were around, only Sheriff Donovan. On second thought, they were probably at the crime scene. Bella was a bit taken aback by the fact that Sheriff Forbes was dead – she saw the memorial plaque in the hallway – wondering just what supernatural scheme or plot – which were constantly running in this town – got to her finally. More importantly, how was Caroline holding up? She had adored her mom. Did she manage not to lose her humanity? Matt looked up from his desk, not recognizing her thankfully.
"You must be the agents from NCIS," he greeted them, getting up and coming around his large – yet again wooden – desk. As a vampire you notice these things, everything is stake material.
"That we are, very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. These are my partners, Timothy McGee and Isabella Swan..." he began charmingly, making Bella want to gag, but she was content with just rolling her eyes. He had tried pulling that on her as well on her very first day… only to end up in a choke hold on the floor of the bullpen. Said that her feistiness reminded him of someone, whatever that meant, but he never tried anything since. Never in a million years would Bella have thought that he indiscriminately went charming everyone of interest. Not even just women.
"Wait, Isabella Swan...?" the sheriff looked at her now again, wide-eyed, suddenly with recognition. "Oh my god, how have you been? I didn't know you became an NCIS agent..." he trailed off, looking confused.
"Hi, Matt. Didn't think you would remember me after all this time... Congratulations on the new position," Agent Swan shrugged, hoping very much that the attention would be taken off of her soon. They had a bloody murder to solve for crying out loud. This wasn't a social call.
"How would I not, with everything that's happened back then..."
Bella shot a warning look at him to not to go into the details.
"Well then, let me show you to the body," he was back to business, thank the heavens.
The vampire could only hope that the exchange didn't pique her inquisitive colleagues' interest.
They walked out and across the town square to a more secluded area of the park, cordoned off by the police. The body was just behind a sitting bench, between two magnolia trees. Not very subtle, not even the semblance of attempting to hide it.
The agents ducked under the yellow police tape and started their usual routine, taking pictures of everything and collecting evidence. That's when Ducky and Palmer arrived – with Gibbs right behind them – and did their part of the examinations.
"What can you tell me, Duck?" the senior agent inquired, while he scanned his gaze over the scene, taking in every detail.
"Time of death is approximately between 1 and 2 AM according to the liver temperature, as for the cause of death we would have to examine the body back at the morgue with Mr. Palmer. We can see no evident external damage except for two puncture wounds on the victim's neck," Ducky concluded, pointing to said puncture wounds. "Also there is almost no blood left in the victim, but there is not nearly enough around the body to account for the blood loss."
"Was he killed somewhere else and dumped here?" Tony asked, coming up with his camera to take closer pictures of the external evidence of trauma on the body.
"That is a distinct possibility, although with no blood in his system, cadaveric lividity is unreliable and rigor mortis hadn't fully set in yet before he was moved if he was," Ducky replied curtly, his thoughts obviously elsewhere.
"There are no blood trails or drag marks leading to the victim from any direction," McGee pointed out after having photographed and tagged every evidence in the close vicinity. "I have also found the victim's ID, and his fingerprints confirm it, this is Petty Officer James Sheridan."
Listening to their exchange, Bella was frozen in a state of shock. This can't be happening, she thought. How the hell had they ended up at a dead petty officer in Mystic Falls, killed by a vampire nonetheless? And what was Sheriff Donovan thinking! Why had he called NCIS when the hands of supernatural forces were so evident? He was just as inclined to keep this particular secret of the town as anyone else here.
The female agent knew the answer before she even finished her little internal rant. The absence of the petty officer would have been noticed soon enough, and he had probably told somebody that he was coming here. It was more convenient for Matt to report this right away than have to make up excuses later when NCIS came looking on their own. Looked less suspicious. Still, it would have been easier to come up with a cover story. That the petty officer did visit the town but then left, to somewhere unknown.
"Do you know what he was doing here?" the vampire asked the sheriff.
"No. The victim arrived two days ago, got into a verbal altercation at the Grill last night, no one had seen him since until this morning when one of my deputies noticed him lying here. NCIS was called as soon as his Navy ID was discovered," Matt read off his notes that his deputies have provided him with.
Who? Who called NCIS? Agent Swan screamed internally. Apparently not Matt. He didn't seem that enthusiastic about the higher level agency butting into the investigation, though that was a typical enough attitude from local law enforcement agencies.
"Who did he get into a fight with?" Bella questioned further, staying on the topics that she thought were harmless but that still gave the semblance of her doing her job, without giving away anything that she wasn't as clueless as everyone else in NCIS.
"Jeremy Gilbert. Apparently, the victim made a pass at Bonnie Bennett, and his pursuits weren't appreciated," the sheriff replied with a frown.
"We will have to question both of them," Tony interrupted.
"Sure, I will contact them and have them come to the station," he nodded to the agent.
"Was there any physical violence?" the brunette asked Matt, getting back to their topic.
"Not that we know of," Sheriff Donovan shook his head.
"There are no signs of defensive wounds or bruises that would indicate a struggle," Ducky interjected with his findings. Now that was interesting, but not really surprising. He was probably compelled to stay calm and not struggle.
"So he knew his killer or was incapacitated somehow before he was killed?" McGee theorized.
"That would seem like the case, Timothy. Now, Mr. Palmer, help me get the body back to the van," the M.E. called to his assistant and proceeded with placing the victim on the gurney and into the back of their fourgon.
As Bella watched the coroner car pulling away, headed back to the Navy Yard, her mind started racing. She needed to find out what was going on here without tipping NCIS off. How was she going to manage that? They were not dumb. Farthest from it. Some of the best investigators were in Gibbs's team. She really hoped there could be some other explanation for this, but with this town involved... The vampire didn't think anyone died of "natural" causes here in almost a century...
Tony was watching her intently. He had never seen Bella this tense since she had come to work to NCIS. She was usually the epitome of calm, nothing could faze her, not even the most dangerous situations. She actually volunteered for anything risky, never nervous, and always came out of it unscathed. She was considered a prodigy with a bright future ahead of her in law enforcement at MPD when he had been sent to recruit her.
He was shocked when Tim found out that she had actually lived in this town before. Not that she talked about personal stuff too much; she was sort of a mystery. They knew that her father was a police officer in a small town in Washington State, but that was about it. He wondered what it was about this town that made her so anxious.
Unfortunately for him, Bella caught him staring at her with a concerned look.
"Let's get back to work, shall we?" she said, trying to get the attention off of herself. She looked around the crime scene one more time in case anything got missed. After all, she had the sight of a vampire.
Soon enough Bella spotted a small syringe under a nearby bush, hidden almost entirely, no wonder Tim didn't see it earlier.
"Hey look at this!" she called to the others while snapping a few photos then bagging the evidence, almost instantly regretting it. If it weren't for the gloves she was wearing, it would have burned her skin. Luckily this way she only felt a little heat on her fingertips and no one noticed her momentary discomfort. It was a vervain syringe.
"We should send it to Abby, maybe this was used to incapacitate the petty officer. There could still be trace amounts of the substance in it, and maybe even fingerprints of the killer if we are lucky," DiNozzo remarked hopefully. So far there wasn't much they could go on in the case.
The female agent already knew that wasn't the case. Vervain wouldn't have any effects on humans, at least that they would be able to detect, but would render a vampire unable to compel them. Given that there was no sign of struggle, she was inclined to rule out that the petty officer had used it on himself. She very much doubted there would be an entry wound for that syringe anywhere on the Sheridan's body. Her primary concern was that if it was at the crime scene, then either the victim or someone else who was here around the time of the murder knew about vampires. Well, the latter wouldn't be so surprising, but the former option was troubling. She handed the bag to Tony.
"If you are finished here, head back to the station and question our suspects," Gibbs called out to them.
Now, this would be a compelling interrogation. Quite literally if Bella got her way.
Jeremy and Bonnie came to the sheriff's station with Matt about an hour later. Tony handled the questioning since Bella knew them personally from the time she had lived here. He started with Jeremy.
"So tell us what happened last night at the Mystic Grill," Tony started off in his usual calm manner. No need to intimidate the person of interest right away. The rest of the team watched on the other side of the one-way glass.
"It was a usual night, me and my girlfriend, Bonnie, went out for drinks and to play pool. Until a guy came up to Bonnie and started harassing her. She told the guy she wasn't interested, when he didn't listen, I told the same with a little more force. We had a few heated words, he left," he summarized the events of the night.
"When was this?" the agent asked for specifics.
"Around 9:45, 10 PM maybe," Jeremy told him. Bella hoped very much that he could go through this questioning without lying but also not giving away too much.
"Is this the guy?" he showed Jeremy the picture of the dead petty officer.
"Yes. But he was very much alive when he left the grill…" the boy looked up, unfazed. Maybe a bit too calmly. There wasn't even a hint of surprise on his face. Witnessing so much death did make you numb a bit, the vampire had to admit.
"So haven't seen him since your little battle of words?" Tony made him clarify, his tone getting a bit testy.
"No. I haven't seen him since," the Gilbert boy affirmed.
"You don't seem too surprised about his fate."
Damn, Bella thought. He had caught onto that too.
"This is a small town, pretty much everybody knows already that they found a dead guy in the town square. I had no idea that it was the same guy that had bothered Bonnie," Jeremy replied instantly, keeping his cool. There wasn't even a hint of body language that would have suggested lying.
"Anything else you can tell us about that night? Did the victim say anything? Where he was headed, or what he was doing in this town?" DiNozzo asked finally. Good, Bella nodded internally. That went well.
"Not really, he was kind of out of it, desperate even, but didn't really say anything, just kept pestering Bonnie to go to his table and have a chat with him."
Tony finished up pretty quickly as they didn't have anything linking him to the scene to suspect him. DiNozzo did tell him not to leave town in case they had more questions. Bella didn't really think this was Jeremy's doing but also had the feeling that he probably knew more than he let on which meant supernatural involvement. She wondered if the petty officer's advances towards Bonnie were not the romantic kind, but he was looking for a witch. For what possible reason would he need a witch? The vampire decided to try and catch Jeremy later to get more information in private. This case was just getting better and better.
While she was busy in thought Tony came out of the "interrogation room" – really it was more like a little office, nothing like what they had at NCIS headquarters – he looked at her with concern again.
"What?" Bella asked with annoyance.
"I don't know. You just seem off since we came here. Is everything alright?" DiNozzo replied with a question of his own as he leaned against the wall in the small room adjacent to the interrogation room.
"Bad memories that's all. Nothing for you to worry about," she huffed. She hated when people wanted to dig into her past. Gibbs wordlessly regarded the exchange.
"Okay, you know where to find me in case you want to talk to someone," he offered sincerely. Since when did Tony care about her? He usually just teased her and got on her nerves with his movie references… What has gotten into him suddenly? Bella very much hoped that this would not be a problem.
Bonnie's questioning didn't give them any new information compared to Jeremy's, which didn't surprise the vampire, but something was up for sure.
Gibbs sent Tim to Norfolk to search the petty officer's apartment and laptop, ask around his office and colleagues at the Naval Station, hopefully, able to discover something that might turn other possible suspects up.