WELL-SCHOOLED IN MURDER
CHAPTER 2
"Uh, boss, we've got a problem," McGee stammered nervously. "This is Janine Michaels, she's a teacher here…"
"Teacher assistant," Janine interrupted.
"A teacher assistant here," McGee acknowledged and continued, "and she says that there's a teacher and 3 disabled students still in the building, in the elevator."
Gibbs turned aside and swore under his breath. "Ok, Ms. Michaels, repeat the story for me," he ordered, turning back. He liked to hear it in the witness' own words. Meanwhile, his three agents gathered and talked softly to each other, McGee telling them the story Janine Michaels had told him.
"Ok. McGee, get the blueprints for this place, we need to know where everything is," murmured Agent Anthony DiNozzo, Special agent Gibbs' second in command. "Ziva, find the custodians, no one knows the place better, they'll be able to tell us if anything's out of the ordinary." The junior agents started off on their assigned duties, and Tony yelled to Ziva, "And bring the principal, too!"
Tony walked over to where Gibbs was still questioning the teacher's assistant, and at his boss' look, told him the assignments he'd handed out.
"Good," Gibbs said. "I'm going to see what's taking so long for the bomb dogs to get here. You get the names of the teacher and the students and their disabilities from Ms. Michaels. When McGee comes back, I want background run on them."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "You thinking it's personal, then?"
"I'm not thinking anything right now, DiNozzo," Gibbs said, starting to walk away. "And get me those names!" he yelled over his shoulder as he left.
Janine rubbed her crossed arms. "Is he always so….?" she stopped, unable to find a word that fit Gibbs' persona.
Tony chuckled as he took out his notebook. "Uh, yeah. Pretty much all the time. You get used to it," he said with a small smile. "Now, can you give me the name of the teacher?"
Janine sniffled, on the verge of tears again. "Yeah, um she's Gracie Lind. She's the teacher in the kindergarten through second grade classroom, where I work." She continued rubbing her arms.
Tony took silent note of the arm rubbing. "Ok, and you said there are how many kids with her?"
"There's three. Um, Kyle Belanger, he's 5, has cerebral palsy so he uses a walker, has braces on his legs, significant cognitive delays, very little speech." Janine wiped her eyes. "Uh, Adina Alvarez, she just turned seven. She's Down's, significant cognitive delays. Her language is garbled, she can be hard to understand when you talk to her." She chuckled. "In fact, Gracie is about the only one who can hold a conversation with Deeny and have any clue what was said."
Tony smiled to put the young woman at ease.
"The last student is Dante Ferragamo, age five. He's got serious global learning delays. He has very little speech, mostly just sounds. He's in a wheelchair cuz he can't walk at all, low muscle tone. Oh, and he has seizures."
Tony looked up quickly. "Seizures? How bad? Does he need anything?"
Janine shook her head. "At this point, we just keep track of the seizure - time of day, how long it lasts, what he was doing at the time the seizure occurred. They've mostly been pretty small, but back at the beginning of the year, he had a really long one, a grand mal, and had to go to the hospital by ambulance." She could see Tony was nervous about that. "But that hasn't happened in several months," she rushed. "Like I said, mostly small ones that last a few minutes. And he usually falls asleep afterward." She was still unconsciously rubbing at her arms.
Finished writing the details in his notebook, Tony pointed at her arms. "Cold?"
Janine startled. "Huh? OH, no, no, I'm fine."
As she dropped her hands to her sides, Tony could see fingerprint bruises on her arms. He stepped closer and took an arm in his hands to look over the bruising. "These are recent….."
"Huh?" Janine was surprised to see the marks. "I guess that's where that officer grabbed me."
Grimacing - he hated any man that used his strength against a woman - he checked them over. "Do they hurt?"
Janine shrugged. "Um, a little, I guess."
"Our medical examiner is on his way, we'll have him take a look, OK?" He smiled at the expression on the young woman's face. "Don't worry, he's a doctor, too. Fixes all of us at NCIS up. Beats a trip to the hospital!"
Just then, the other agents returned. "Tony, got the building blueprints," said McGee, holding them up.
"And the 'maintenance engineers'," Ziva said with some emphasis, "will be over momentarily to go over them with us." Americans are so hung up on job titles, she thought sarcastically. Custodian, maintenance engineer, same thing in her book, but apparently not in theirs. "The principal is still talking with the staff, he too, shall be over shortly."
"Good," Gibbs grunted as he returned. "McGee, DiNozzo has names for you to run. I want background, see if any of them has a connection to the Navy, or a reason someone might want them dead." He saw the witness rubbing her arms, noticed the bruising. "Ziva, take Ms. Michaels over to Ducky, have him take a look at her arms. McGee, get going on those names. DiNozzo, with me."
McGee spotted the bruises on Janine's arms as she walked past him. "Crosswalk duty is too good for him," he growled under his breath. Tony looked at him.
"Huh?" Tony asked.
"The officer that did that to her. Nelson, his name is. Warned him he'd be doing crosswalk duty if he didn't let Ms. Michaels through the line." Tom scowled. "I was just thinking that crosswalk duty would be too good for him."
Like Tim, Tony stared at the officer in question. At another yell from Gibbs, Tony began to walk away, still keeping an eye on that officer. "Later?" he asked quietly.
Tim smirked evilly. "Oh yeah." He then began doing background searches on the names of the people in the elevator.
Tony was just walking up as Gibbs was wondering - rather loudly - to the SWAT Commander where the bomb squad and dogs were.
"You have to understand, Agent Gibbs, these guys are like SWAT. We're from all over the area. It takes a while for us to get together, especially the guys with the dogs."
Gibbs got in the commander's face. "You tell that to the three little kids and the teacher stuck in that elevator," he snarled quietly. Tony looked on with a small grin. He loved to see the Gibbs Glare at work. Just then, Ziva hurried up with Janine Michaels.
"Gibbs….." Ziva began.
"It's her," Janine said breathlessly, waving her cell phone. "Gracie, in the elevator."
The agents all turned to her. Gibbs motioned for Janine to take the call. "Put it on speaker, I'll need to talk to her."
"Hey Gracie," Janine said. "NCIS is here and…."
"Ms. Lind, I'm Agent Gibbs with NCIS…"
"Good for you," came the sarcastic reply from the other end of the line. "But can you put Janine back on, please? It's kind of an emergency."
The agents all had various expressions of shock on their faces. Did this woman just give Gibbs the brush off? "Did she just….?" Tony whispered in awe to McGee, who was also stunned, mouth hanging open.
"Uh huh," Tim answered softly. They could see the anger boiling in their boss's face.
"I'm right here, Gracie," Janine rushed, hoping to smooth the way.
"Need you to write this down," Gracie said over the line. "1:37 to 1:41, petite, rigor, myself and two classmates present, and he was stuck in an elevator at the time," she rattled off sarcastically as Janine struggled to find a pen and paper. Not finding any paper, she wrote the information down on her hand.
"Dante just had a seizure," Janine explained quietly to Gibbs. "This is how we keep track of them." In a regular tone, she said to Gracie, "got it. How is he now?"
"Still a little stiff," came the reply. "He grabbed my sleeve when it started, and he still can't release. But I think he's about ready to fall asleep."
"Ms. Lind, Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS," Gibbs said evenly, trying not to sound pissed off. After all, it was kind of an emergency.
"Yeah, sorry about that, Agent Gibbs, but I don't have anyplace to write that info down, and I wanted to get it down before I forgot it," Gracie said over the line.
"Not a problem." There was a snort behind him, and Gibbs turned and gave Tony The Glare. Tony cleared his throat and straightened up, having been caught. "Other than the seizure, how are you all doing?"
"Well," came the almost pleading voice, "we'd be doing a lot better if you could turn off the alarm. It echoes something fierce in here. That's what brought on the seizure."
Gibbs motioned for McGee to go get that request taken care of, and McGee took off at a run. "We're working on that right now. Anything else?"
" 'ee-ta?" came a little girl's voice, followed by a small chuckle. "No, Deeny, they can't bring us pizza." To Gibbs, Gracie said, "Just get us out of here ASAP."
The adults laughed at the pizza comment. "Just hang tight, ok, Gracie? We're going as fast as we can," said Gibbs. "And just maybe there'll be pizza here when you guys get out," he said with a smile. Everyone chuckled at the cheer that went up from the kids in the elevator. "Ok, I'm going to go see what's going on. Keep the line open, ok?"
"Awwww gee, so I can't play Words With Friends?" Came the sarcastic reply. Gibbs shut the phone and handed it back to Janine.
"Let me know if she calls back." He turned and began walking away, his own cell phone to his ear. "Tobias, need a favor…."
***PHOOF***
A/N - Kind of a hastily thrown together chapter. Sorry about that, but wanted to get something out to keep my head in the game. Hope ya'll liked it! And whether or not you did, c'mon and hit that REVIEW button for li'l ol' me, wouldja' please?
A/N 2 - Thanks to all who alerted and favorited! You put a smile on my face. But it was my one review last chapter that made me want to dance with joy! But I didn't want to scare anyone, so I didn't.
A/N 3 - I have no claim to anything even remotely related to NCIS, CBS, or any of their affiliates. I just admire them so much, so I'm borrowing. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!
*****REVIEW PLEASE!*****