Chapter Twelve
Diaries
Gibbs leads Pride into the Autopsy Suite exactly one hour from the moment when he'd turned over the blue diary to Meredith Brody, but he hadn't expected to walk into a Master Class; Ducky, Jimmy, Sammy and Meredith gathered in chairs at the senior ME's desk, all of them intent upon the small volume open in Ducky's hands.
"I thought you had a couple of bodies to Autopsy."
"Oh, Jethro," Ducky remonstrates him, turning back, "one cannot perform a Psychological Autopsy in the same room where a physical one is taking place. The conversations and the recorded observations are much too distracting."
"What about you?" Pride asks Brody.
An hour ago she'd volunteered to help and now she admits "I am in awe of this man. I thought I was doing well because I was passing my class, but Doctor Mallard has plumbed depths I don't think Professor Sondhelm knew existed."
"Oh, please, call me Ducky. And how old is your Professor?"
"About 40."
"Well, there you have it," he says, as though all the other man needs is another three decades to learn his trade.
"I'm interested in what we have here," Gibbs declares.
x
"We have here," Ducky begins in tones that warn his regular listeners that he's revving up a pedantic lecture; Gibbs has learned not to despise them, for in each he goes away having learned something, even if he doesn't fully understand what that may be, "the essence of Lieutenant Saunders' thoughts, hopes, ambitions and dreams from the beginning of the year until the morning of April 23, the day she went missing. Her final entry speaks of little of consequence other than preparations for the weekend which she intended to spend with her boyfriend Jerry Devlin, whom she had not seen in three days. She does note that her parents will, on that evening, take Mr. Saunders' mother out for the evening, leaving her with little to do after work.
"Most of her entries on medical matters deal with the events of the days, whether in the Sewells Point Clinic or with the Aventine Ambulance Service. She was very specific about what she had learned in both venues, essentially recording training notes to which she could refer on later occasions."
Both McGee and David had noted the same in the bullpen, though in considerably simpler language.
"Nothing on her own injuries?" David had found the first entry about the injury in her reading of the previous year's book. The specific cause had been aggravatingly absent, so he'd directed her to look into references to Jerry Devlin for that time.
"Only indirectly. She refers on January 12, 26 and February 9 that she still feels pain in her ribs and arm, but that is the extent of it. She never specified the reason for these complaints."
The appropriate book will be upstairs then. He'll have David work from the back. "What about the boyfriend, Devlin?"
"Her references to him are not only to be termed romantic, but are excessively detailed and imaginative."
The grins Meredith and Samantha share remove any desire to pursue this. "She afraid of him?"
"She does not indicate that she was. However, two days before she disappeared, April 21, she mentions having sustained an injury that limited her work for a projected week's time, but she did not specify what it was or the cause."
"Can you find out?"
"I believe I have, though not directly through this text. There was a marked trauma to her left shoulder and we, that is Doctor Palmer," he clarifies with a glance to the younger man, "found evidence that it had been dislocated. The flesh, though dried, was stained with blood and I estimate the injury took place some 72 hours before her death. That was not a truly debilitating injury. She would, in fact, be able to have the ball joint restored to the rotator cuff. The lingering pain would have limited her movement but she would have healed of most of the painful aftermath within the week. Her diary entries indicate she did not report the injury at the Norfolk Clinic, which explains why she was on duty on the final day she was accounted for."
"Could she have worked?"
"Yes, and the Clinic would have been an excellent resource for such pain medications as she might have needed."
x
"Think Devlin did it?"
"She does not specify the cause of her injury, merely the fact; which, as I said, she withheld from her Command."
"Can you find anything to make you think she was afraid of him?"
"From her entries, I judge their relationship to be prosperous. It is true that his temper is noted several times but she seemed convinced she could wean him from that. Jethro, this diary tells me of a young woman dedicated to her profession beyond the terms of a career. She volunteered weekly with an Ambulance Service because she felt it to be an additional expression of her concern for her fellows. While she garnered considerable satisfaction from her time at Sewells Point, she seemed to have derived greater pride and satisfaction in going out into the Community and applying her skills."
"What skills did she have?" The designation of Physician's Assistant isn't helpful since it applies to everyone except the Chief Physician.
"She was a Licensed Practical Nurse with Certification in Trauma Care."
"Sounds like someone who would have a AED."
"If so, it still leaves us with the same question. If she did have one, who killed her with it?"
"I hoped you could tell me that."
"Unfortunately, for all the detail placed in this book on many subjects, the amorous ones being rather too detailed, there is no hint that she felt threatened or even apprehensive about anyone in her life."
x
The reviews he and Pride had done of the Case File and their own notes indicated that if she had died at home, as is now proven to be the case, there had been no red flags. No neighbor had seen anything amiss, interviews with her co-workers in Norfolk had given no clues about stress or danger, and though the boyfriend's prints had been all over the house from doorknob to her bedroom, his alibi had at that time been unbroken. Several family members had vouched that Devlin had been at home for the entire evening, and that had been for a traditional Game Night which included both immediate family and relatives. Granted they could have been covering, but each had been interviewed separately and frequently. On no occasion could their stories be made to slip.
More detailed checks from previously mentioned door knob throughout the house had given no indication that anyone had been on the property whose identification and bona fides had not been satisfactorily verified. Interviews with the household staff, neighbors and friends had hinted there were no strangers noticed in the area around the time of Annette's disappearance, and it had seemed then as though at the time the woman had disappeared she had been home alone, though the brother had reported he had been asleep and hadn't seen her there.
Gibbs signals to Pride that they should return to the Bullpen, but before he goes he waves Brody to join them.
xxx
Tony is about to get onto the elevator from the Lobby to Operations on the third floor but when the door opens he finds his path blocked by a familiar figure. "Well, if it isn't Doctor Kate's sister." He's the only one who addresses Rachel Cranston so informally, and the Psychiatrist allows it as useful insight into his nature, no matter what mistaken impression it might give to any hearers. "What brings you into our bailiwick?"
"Don't you already know?"
"Now how could I possibly kn– Oh, no."
"Jennifer Shepherd called me this morning, something about 'make up exams'. She said you and the other members of your team would know all about them."
"We do." He sees a stacking of the deck, with Director Shepherd's hands on the cards. The team, as well as Abby and the Autopsy Gremlin, had failed their Annual Psych Evaluations, meaning they cannot work as Agents until that critical matter is rectified. It had led them to be aboard the Pacific Princess on what was intended to be a relaxation cruise, a chance to unwind and get their heads back on so they could retake and pass the Evaluations. No one could have predicted what had happened instead.
Now they're back in DC, at work on a Saturday late afternoon, still Suspended and not allowed to work a case except that the other eleven teams are swamped and the Saunders case had figuratively fallen into their laps, the follow up on Gibbs' Investigation from twenty one years ago.
They're not bending the rules by being here on the job, they're completely shattering them.
And here, playing her hand in a stacked deck, is the one Psychiatrist they can relate to – within reason. At least, if there is little comfort, there's trust.
x
"So, what does that make you think?" Rachel asks.
"Oh, no," he counters with a grin, "you're not launching into me first thing. If I'm to be plied for my secrets, I want to be wined and dined first."
"We could see about some dinner, but the whining is definitely going to be all from you."
"Have I ever told you how much alike you and your sister are?"
"Often. Usually when you're trying to distract me. Hasn't worked yet."
"I know what the Director has in mind; a cushy interview and the good Evaluation is practically a 'gimme'."
"Oh, no. I'm not going to go easy on any of you. I can't. And what I expect from you is definitely the gimme."
xxx
When Gibbs returns to the bullpen with Pride and Brody after the very unsatisfying conclusion to the most recent thread in the investigation he's pleased to see Palmer and David at their desks but "Where's DiNozzo?"
"He is in the Conference Room with Doctor Cranston," Ziva reports.
"We don't have time for that today. Could've used her to do some real work. You find out about those bones?" When Ducky had found references to the injuries giving Saunders pain in early January, he'd called ahead to have Ziva read last year's diary from the end.
"I read from New Year's Eve back to Labor Day but all I found was in October, where she complained she wasn't allowed to work because her rib and arm were hurt. She doesn't mention how she was injured, only that from the second week of October until after Thanksgiving she was sidelined. I'm working my way back into the summer."
"First grab your gear. You too, Palmer."
"Where are we going?" Ziva asks, pulling out the drawer that contains her shield and Sig.
"You, Palmer and Brody are going to interview Debbie Devlin." He'd already seen the wife about the abuse the woman was allegedly suffering at the hands of her husband. If this is true, even though they can't take action without a complaint through NCIS - very unlikely - they can use any verification of violence to tie it to the discoveries Ducky and his team are making on or in Saunders.
"When it started and under what circumstances?" Brody confirms.
"That'll do for a start."
"Should we wait for Doctor Cranston?" Michelle asks, only to decide from Gibbs' stare what a bad idea that had been.
xxx
The light green Devlin home is shaded in the late afternoon, all the blinds and curtains closed though the broiling sun sets behind it rather than through the front windows as the three women approach. Meredith Brody wishes they could have dispensed with the white on black lettered caps but at least they don't have to cook in the somewhat intimidating jackets. If they're here to present a friendly, supportive face to a woman who is quite probably suffering physical abuse at the hands of her husband, the man who is supposed to support and protect her, the last thing they should do is to present an official enforcement front.
She takes off the black cap, holding it down at her side by the rear band and immediately feels cooler, 97 degrees instead of 99, even if she must now contend with the setting sun above the house shining into her eyes until she gets close enough to get the protection of the slanted roof. The other women follow suit.
She misses the Louisiana breezes. While the thermometer does hit the same numbers, New Orleans heat rarely tries to crawl into her tee shirt with her. She'd have dispensed with a bra as Michelle evidently has, except Dwayne would bring it up later.
She pauses at the raised stone platform, as does Michelle to allow Ziva, as ranking agent, to approach and knock upon the door.
x
It takes three determined tries on door and bell before the lock clicks off from the inside and the door opens to the three inch limit of the chain. It allows only half a face and one eye to show through. "What do you want?"
"Mrs. Devlin?" Ziva asks. Michelle and Meredith flank her a pace behind, trying to appear non-threatening yet quite prepared for any surprise move on the apprehensive woman's part.
Ziva's question is a courtesy only. The woman is in her mid-twenties as opposed to her mid-forties husband, might stand at five nine if she stood up straight and she looks out at them with brown eyes drowning in suspicion. They had no doubt about her identity, she's a near perfect match for her Driver's License photo except for the suspicion that pervades her expression.
"Who're you?"
There are disadvantages to removing their identifying caps but Ziva has her shield and IDs ready for display. "Naval Criminal Investigative Service." She introduces herself and her team. "We would like to ask you some questions."
"What do you want?"
She does experience a certain disjointed communication sometimes when she restricts herself to English, but she does not enjoy it. "To ask you some questions."
"What about?"
"May we come in?"
The consideration is considerably longer than she usually encounters, but eventually the young woman does step back, partially closes the door, slides aside the chain bolt and admits them.
"For a minute."
"Thank you."
x
Debbie Devlin wears a long sleeved housecoat that covers her from closed neck to knees, but as she walks into the living room the agents see her movements are careful and controlled, slow and precise, except that she imperfectly compensates for pain in her right hip. She eases herself onto the couch and her three visitors take seats about her without seeming to surround her.
"What do you want?" she repeats to Ziva.
"We are investigating a case in which your husband, Jerome Devlin, is a Material Witness."
"You're the ones who went to him yesterday?"
"Not us personally, but other Special Agents."
"About a woman who disappeared over twenty years ago? Why are you bothering us? We had nothing to do with that."
They don't doubt her innocence, considering that Debbie had been less than 4 years old when Saunders had died. But her husband had been 25, had a well noted temper and had been dating Saunders, whose diaries and work records note several yet-to-be-explained injuries.
"As I said, your husband was a witness to that crime."
"My husband didn't 'witness' anything. We have nothing to do with this. If this is all you're interested in, then I think you should leave now."
Michelle takes a quarter step forward. "Does he hurt you?"
x
The unexpected question catches Debbie short and a wealth of information flashes in her face long before she can say "No! What are you talking about?"
"Mrs. Devlin, I know pain and I can see it in you. You're compensating for being hurt and you don't have to be. If you're being hurt, we can help."
"I don't need any help. I'm fine. My husband does not hurt me. Now Get Out."
"Mrs. Devlin, we can help," Meredith offers. "You're obviously in great pain. Let us help you."
"I don't need any help."
"I can see the bruises," Ziva declares. Debbie clutches the front of her house dress to her chest.
"You can't see anything," she says sharply, but her tone says she knows the denial is worthless.
"Did he do that to you? Is he abusing you?"
"No. My husband does not abuse me. Now get the hell out of here before I call the police and tell them you hurt me!"
xx
As they walk slowly along the stone path to the car, Ziva surprises Meredith by looking to Michelle. "What did you sense?"
"She's in great pain, but you saw that. You also saw she was lying through her teeth."
"Tell me something I did not see."
"I didn't get much beyond pain, and a lot of that," she says, reaching for the rear car door.
"Could you have helped her?"
She looks back, annoyance flashing in her eyes. "Of course I could. If she'd've let me."
"Guys," Meredith says, "feeling a little out of the loop here."
Both Washington Agents turn to her, but at Palmer's brief nod Ziva says "Michelle has, I suppose you might call it, the gift of 'Laying on of Hands'."
"Oh." She considers this. It's something she's heard of when connected to the Church, but it's not a cross - well, not only a cross – that the woman wears about her neck. "Convenient."
"Not as much as you'd think," Michelle assures her.
"You asked me yesterday if I was a witch."
"Yes," is all Michelle will say. "But all of this leaves us little better than we were before. If Jerome Devlin is abusing her we can't prove it by her."
"Doctors and Hospitals can," Brody counters.
"That can establish a trend that Gibbs and Pride can use in their Investigation," Ziva declares. "It may become necessary to confront Mrs. Devlin with what we know or to bring her in. Ducky and his team–" she hesitates at the odd sound, "say there was no bruising visible at the time of death to stain the skin, other than under the skin at her shoulder, which accounts for the dislocated bone. The broken and healed bones go back half a year, at least those to her ribs and arm do, but we must determine if Devlin is indeed the source of those injuries."
"The fact Saunders doesn't say how she was hurt is enough of a red flag for me," Brody declares.
"For me too. But the burns that Jimmy and Sammy attribute to probable electric shocks Ducky concurs about but he has yet to find a definite Cause of Death other than electric shocks that might have come from a defibrillator that may or may not have been at her home. If she was being abused by Devlin we have no one who can support or contest that beyond a nine year old brother in whom she is unlikely to have confided."
x
"I find it interesting." Brody says, "that the NIS records on the Clinic show nothing about why she lost time there, only that the injuries were broken arm and rib. Pride is usually very good with records."
"The file Tony brought back from Aventine doesn't say why she was laid up for injuries," Michelle says. "I wonder if they knew."
"The Clinic's on-site files don't go back that far," Brody says, still annoyed at those long and generally wasted hours, six in a car with too little to show for it.
"I know," Michelle says, still annoyed that the Personnel files last only 10 years there and budget constraints at the time had kept much of the information from being archived on computer before the files were shipped out to storage. "As Tony would say, we're dealing with that famous river in Egypt."
"Girlfriend and wife both keeping mum," Brody says. "Girlfriend's dead," she looks back to the green house.
"The only thing we have to go on is a secret room that was evidently a surprise to Paul Saunders," Michelle concludes. "But someone knew about it well enough to keep it clean or to clean it and to place the body inside. Yet we can't even say if the murder took place in there or not."
"Where does that put us?" Brody asks.
"Gibbs would take to the boat he is building in his basement; I believe it is his seventh. For me it will be the fifty pound bag in the gym."
xxx
The sun has set by the time Michelle Palmer gets off the elevator, but she doesn't reach her apartment door at the corner of the right hall before it opens. Jimmy is on the other side so her smile is four fifths for him and the rest for the cool draft that hits her from the air conditioned living room.
"Honey, you should have told me you were coming up, I'd have met you."
She hugs and kisses him, glad of his cool body against hers. "With the air conditioner?"
"With a cold drink. It's almost a hundred out there."
"You treat me too WELL!" ends in a shriek as he catches her up, his hands behind her back and knees and she's too quickly in his arms before he pushes the door closed with his foot.
"I was so worried about you," he declares as he holds her close.
"Why?"
"It's a hundred degrees out there. You could get sick in all that heat."
"I got plenty of air conditioningeven when I had a witness interview."
"You could get a chill," he says, looking down at her thin blouse and miniskirt, which at the moment is riding up her thighs. She won't tell him that her breasts have started to ache, because she doesn't want to know what he'll want to do for her. Before long she's not going to be able to avoid it, but she'll try as long as she can.
"Jimmy."
"Yes?"
"Put me down."
x
But it's to the long couch that he carries her and deposits her gently upon it. "How was your day?"
"It was NCIS; you know. You worked on one end, we did on the other. But it was interesting working with Pride and his team."
"I worked this afternoon with Merry Brodie. She is really very – nice," he finishes awkwardly enough to let her know the woman's niceness wasn't what had been about to slip from between his lips.
"Do I have to be jealous?" she asks with a smile that takes the sting out.
"You are the only one I make merry with." He bends down and hugs her.
"I should hope so," she assures him facetiously when he straightens, her fingers describing before her an ineffective arcane symbol.
"Want to watch some TV? I'll have dinner ready soon."
"You'll have dinner ready?"
"Sure," he says, sounding quite slighted. "I can cook."
She feels she might be able to get used to this if she dared, but she'd thought she'd straightened him out yesterday. She realizes now that there was only one part of him that she'd straightened, and that the only reason he hadn't smothered her at work was because they were at work. But she's perfectly capable of doing all of her normal routines – when she can get him to let her keep her feet on the floor.
"Sweetheart, thank you but there's an old Chinese saying: 'Never let a Medical Examiner cook you dinner'." He steps back, his expression worse than if she'd slapped him. Maybe she had. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry."
"I'm doing my best. I'm trying!" He's stricken and in that moment she realizes that what she'd just thought was over-solicitousness is motivated by more than she'd thought. Pressures he'd hidden are very close to the surface and nearly broke through his wall.
x
There had been a time when she might have smiled and answered 'very', but this is not such a time. She'd seen, for that moment, into his soul and understands what's been driving him, and he's no longer driving her crazy.
She stands up and won't let him back away but pulls him into a tight hug. "Darling, I know and I really, truly love you for it. I'm sorry. This whole thing is freaking me out as much as it is you, and I'm not talking about just this case. I didn't mean to take it out on you."
Perhaps it's the long hug, but he finally does relax against her. "I forgive you."
x
Rather than draw out the moment until it becomes really maudlin, she looks up to him and asks: "What's for dinner?"
"Hot dogs." She can't keep the surprise from her eyes. "I didn't have any time to–"
"Hot dogs are fine." It's not deep dish pizza, her first choice, but it'll be good. And at least she doesn't have to worry about it making her sick - she hopes. "And who knows, if I'm still hungry later you can feed me another hot dog." She bumps her pelvis against him.
"Isn't that how all this got started?"
"Nooo, it started with a wild Tarzan who kidnapped me, dragged me to his lair and spent all afternoon attacking my poor body."
"Then this'll be part two?"
"If you're hoping for twins, mister, forget it." She sits down on the couch before he can think to put her down. Maybe having a totally solicitous husband isn't all that bad, provided she doesn't get used to it, and now that she knows why... "So what's on television? And anything but 'The Notebook'. That's on tonight, but it makes me cry."
"That always makes you cry."
"No crying. I've been keeping them under control but just you wait until my hormones really start kicking in; then you're gonna see crying."
He crosses the room, turns the cable on and scrolls through the guide. "MeTV has '240-Robert'."
"240 who?"
"It's an old show, but what else for them? I caught it two weeks ago, something of a helicopter police rescue show. Thing is, the star, you'd almost think he could be a young Agent Gibbs."
"Puh-lease."
"SyFy Channel has 'Star Trek: Enterprise'. After that is 'Quantum Leap'."
"It all sounds weird. Are the 'Nationals' playing?"
He scrolls further through the Favorites list. "In about twenty minutes in California, against the Dodgers."
"Okay. Hot dogs and baseball. Finally something sane."
xxx
Tim McGee sits on the foot of the King sized bed, HP Ipaq Writing computer in hand, working on the Dropbox linked 'The Other Locked Room' when the bedroom door to his right opens and Siobhan, wearing blue shorts and green tee shirt, steps in. "You're home."
He looks up, surprised at her surprise. "I'm home."
"I called when I came in, you didn't answer so I started dinner."
He looks at his watch, mildly surprised at what it announces. "What time was that?"
"About a half hour ago. It's almost ready."
"What is it?"
"Cold tuna and chicken salads with carrots, cherry tomatoes and celery. It is way too hot to cook," she declares.
Her appearance finally filters through to him. She's not wearing her Liturgical uniform of black skirt and light blue back button blouse with wraparound white collar yet she didn't come in here to change. "Where are your clothes?" The look she gives him makes him regret the question.
"I changed before I left. I was not going out in that heat."
He recalls she'd left some clothes in her former room in the Rectory, and if his brain were less broiled from the day out... "I don't blame you."
"What are you up to?" she asks, eyeing the small device in his hand.
"My neck in trouble."
x
"What have you done to that poor girl now?" she asks, flashing back to her private conversation with Samantha Sky in her office before she'd gone on to the Church. They hadn't discussed Timmy's book. Perhaps she doesn't know?
"Nothing. Well, aside from Sabrina Shore being arrested for murder, but Amy Sutton hired Shelly Jalmer's lawyer and Coven High Priestess to defend her."
"Isn't that kind of the way things really happened? Minus the pseudonyms, I mean."
"Yes. But I had to modify some things."
"I should expect so. Like what?"
"Well, since Amy and Sabrina are going to wind up living together when that case is over, I had to make some changes in their personalities."
"Like what?"
"Since I had to make Sabrina a more likely suspect, she couldn't be as nice as Sammy is. She's more aggressive, her relationship with Mavis SanAntonio is more confrontational and–"
"Wait. Karen Huston," she pronounces is 'Houston', "is now SanAntonio?"
"Yeah."
"Honey, what the heck are you doing?"
He's as surprised by her tone as her piercing stare. "What do you mean?"
"What do you mean what do I mean? You've written three marvelous books, superb examples of imagination and creativity, and even though you did include real people - thank you very much for not doing it this time," Princess Mairenn in 'Cearbhall's Quest' had been an unwelcome surprise, "you had marvelously original stories, two mysteries I didn't even see through until the last chapter, and now you..."
"Now they want the first full draft of 'The Other Locked Room' next week. Granted I had a bit of time on the Pacific Princess to make some headway, but I've had two back-to-back cases and have to steal five minutes at a time just to rewrite history. When I signed for a third 'L.J. Tibbs novel I didn't foresee running out of time."
"Next week?"
"Next week. I could have really used that Suspension."
The day when being suspended is preferable to anything else... no wonder he's stressed. "Well, honey," she says, pulling the door, "all I can say is 'good luck'. I'll bring in your dinner and leave you alone for the evening, but I just hope Samantha and the others like your efforts."
"Thank you."