Abby saw the Caf-Pow edge itself up onto her counter, large masculine fingertips gliding off it once it was stable, just beside her keyboard. Normally, she would smile at Gibbs for his wonderful tribute, But now…
"Whaddya got Abs?" he uttered the words she knew would come, and she visibly cringed as she turned to look at him.
She just stared at Gibbs for a moment, large green eyes rounder than usual, her hands already twisting around each other, and fidgeting all over her braid tips.
"Abby," he said firmly, "what did you call me down here for?" His ice-blue stare withering her further. There was no music. He already knew something was up with her.
"Any word from Tony and Tim?" she asked hopefully.
Gibbs nodded once,"Yeah, but no information that leads us anywhere." He grimaced. "They're on a flight back tonight." He tilted his head, "Anything on the anonymous call that came in to us?"
"It was whispered, and I analyzed it for anything defining but came up with general ambient street noise," she walked to her second keyboard and brought up the recording. "It came in at 4 am."
They heard the whisper, "Body for NCIS on Faulkner's path in Rock Creek. A marine. By the forked log." And then the caller hung up.
"We know if this is a man or a woman? Where it came from?" Gibbs pressed.
"It's definitely a man, someone who obviously knows what we do, and as far as where, it was from one of the few pay phones we have left downtown." She worked the keyboard and showed him on the downtown map. "There are no cameras McGee or I could find right near this one. The closest was an ATM two blocks away and there's no way to know which way the caller came from. The neighborhood is lots of commercial garages and warehouse type buildings."
Gibbs reached over her shoulder and called Kate at her desk, asking her to grab Balboa and check out the pay phone for prints. Though he hardly thought that would help since at least a dozen prints might be on it from random people. Still…never assume. It was late and Kate had been about to go home, so Abby wasn't surprised when Gibbs said, "I want it done, now," curtly before hanging up.
The way Abby was staring at him…."What else?" He growled.
She let out a heavy sigh, her plaid mini swirling just a little as she spun to go back to her main terminal and hit her keyboard a few taps. An image popped up on her monitor, and she eyed the older man surreptitiously.
It was an enlargement of a human hair. A brown one.
"From the body?" Gibbs asked, looking at the screen intently.
"Ahhh, well…yes…" Abby fidgeted some more, before beginning a slightly breathless stream of words. "It was one of only three not belonging to our victim, who…well considering he has the …um…shrinky-dink effect, still has most of his own hair intact. So these were the only different ones. And…there was DNA…" she paused to pop a close-up of the cadaver's throat onto the screen. "On the edge along the wound is some kind of saliva."
"Some kind? What do you mean, some kind Abs?" he asked sounding a bit annoyed. Her nervous demeanor was making him feel itchy.
She looked at him and her brows wiggled up for just a second. "Well I say some kind because…it's not human. So I've been looking for an animal match." A flick of a button showed her other screen spooling for matches. "Nothing so far. Odd, because off-the-bat there are only so many animals known that can do this kind of damage. And it doesn't explain what happened to all the blood. Pretty creepy actually, in a fascinating puzzle-I-need-to-solve way. Obviously he was not killed on site, but Ducky can conform that for you. There was no blood or anything unusual in the soil samples around the body."
"What about the hair?" he asked.
She looked down for a moment.
"Abby."
She swung her face up, looking dismal. "OK well…it…it's Tony's." There. She said it. And winced again as she looked at Gibbs' face go from perplexed to realization, that special shade of red she knew was part and parcel to the vein-popping precursor of someone getting a new asshole ripped for them. "I'm sure it's-"
"DiNozzo," he growled angrily. All this time, all the work they did together, and it just takes one particularly interesting piece of ass to throw the SFA off his game. Enough to contaminate a crime scene! When the hell had the younger man managed that? Perhaps within the first several minutes when they started checking out the scene?…before Tony had needed to sit that one out. Gibbs could not believe he was going to have this conversation with DiNozzo.
"Gibbs-"she panicked. She saw the muscles in his jaw twitching.
He shook his head. "What else? Any prints or other information?" He sighed angrily and rubbed his eyes for a moment.
"No." She was miserable. She'd had to tell him. It was too important not to. But now she was worried about Tony. "Gibbs, please don't be too hard on him. None of us are perfect…"
He just stared at her for a long moment. And in a low voice stated, "A crime scene Abby. A goddamned crime scene. This isn't like him. But I can tell you right now…it stops here." He whirled and stormed out of the room.
"Gah!" she put her elbows on her counter and squeezed her clenched hands to her temples. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, and opened them to look at her Caf-Pow. She sighed and quickly grabbed it. "I don't deserve you," she said mournfully, as she dumped it down her slop sink.
Ducky watched from the front seat of the car as Jimmy Palmer struggled with the many strangely sized and heavy bags. Then he took a good look at his cousin, sitting in the passenger seat beside him.
The man had aged.
Ducky wondered if he were just in denial about his own age. He always thought it an odd effect, that people never realized their own climbing number but could easily sport the ravages of time in others. Feargal had grown an outrageous beard, along with long hair which spread out from under his wide brim hat. He's come off his flight in an impeccable brown herringbone tweed suit and cape. He wondered where in God's name Feargal had even gotten these antiquated and finely tailored type of clothings. These details left him looking like a well-dressed wizard. His hair had mostly gone white. But his bearing, if their initial greeting at baggage claim had shown Ducky anything, was still as regal and upright as it had been many years ago.
"My good man! How wonderful to see you!" the low rumble of his voice filled the car. His cousin's still fierce steel-blue eyes beamed at him from under the round spectacles that added to his antique affect.
"Yes," Ducky smiled,"it's been too too long! But we shall have a marvelous time catching up, you and I. And perhaps you might help shed some light on this very peculiar case that has come across our path."
The senior man jutted his chin slightly, with a twist of his wide mouth. "I will do everything in my power to help you." He looked into Ducky's eyes with a burning intensity that made the Doctor feel somewhat uneasy.
"Yes, well," Ducky nodded,"I'm sure you will lad. But first thing's first eh? We'll get to my place and you can visit with mother and the corgis."
"She's still alive then eh,?" he asked cursorily.
"Aye," Ducky smiled.
"That's because evil never dies lad!" his cousin cried and started laughing himself into a fit and Ducky smiled and rolled his eyes.
There was a sudden movement in the car as Jimmy jumped into the back seat, grinning and obviously pleased as punch that Dr. Mallard allowed him to come pick up Feargal with him, at 5:50 in the morning, no less.
After a moment, when the car didn't start and Feargal continued to laugh, Jimmy asked, "What'd I miss?"
Ducky and Feargal just snorted at the same time as the M.E. started up the car and they departed the terminal.
Tony was exhausted. Not only from the fruitlessness of the trip to LeJeune, but from the looks McGee gave him. The looks the interviewees gave him, checking out his bruises. His turtleneck sweater barely concealed the mother of all hickeys. He cringed at the idea of Gibbs seeing it. He was already on the Boss' shit list. During the interviews he'd been brusque and professional, but his nerves were frayed.
The night before when he'd been packing…Renata and Joachim had come over to his place when he explained he didn't have time to play with them and get ready for his trip properly. He asked them to leave.
But they didn't.
They'd brought wine. They'd brought toys. But Tony was irritable from the bad day at work he'd had. So he'd ended up getting into an argument with them both. Which ended in blows. Followed by sex. Lots of it, if he remembered correctly. He drank a lot of wine as well. It occurred to him, as he dragged his hung-over ass around all day, that Gibbs would absolutely end his fucking life if he knew A) Tony was hung-over on the job and B) he'd given his first blowjob last night.
They'd done lots of playing, the three of them. The sex with Joachim up to last night mostly included just hands on each other, and the other man's unbelievably talented mouth on Tony's dick. But something about the argument…Renata striking him and yelling at them while Joachim was stripping Tony's clothes off and nibbling his jaw…later her moans of orgasm from him or Joachim…Tony couldn't even remember the details of it in the haze of smooth skinned limbs and wet mouths… they were all worked up, the heat of anger turning into aching need. It had made Tony crazy enough to get on his knees at one point for Joachim…and something felt off about that. He never saw himself as an angry sex kind of person. And he sure as hell never went for men before. But Renata was mesmerizing…she brought out passion in him he didn't know existed. And he wanted to please them. Both of them. Why?
"What the Hell am I doing?" he asked himself softly, as he came to the light before his street. Confused mossy eyes looked up at the moon which was almost full.
He needed to end it. It was something he knew to be fact. But he wasn't sure he could. This was starting to scare the shit out of him.
He pulled up to his apartment building. He was exhausted down to his bones. He needed sleep. Gibbs wasn't going to be any easier tomorrow when they still had no leads on Pvt. Combs' death. And the case was crawling under his skin a little. Something about it made him feel…like worse was coming. Combs had been a great guy, apparently. And he felt some shame that the body had made him feel so sick that he had to avoid it. He'd let Gibbs down. He was letting Combs down too with his lack of focus. What was it about the body…he shuddered as odd images hit his mind accompanied by a sharp pain in his right eye. "Losing it," he chuckled darkly to himself.
He blew out an exasperated sigh and locked up his car.
He trudged off the elevator with his backpack, pausing at the door of his apartment. Something felt off and he looked around. It was quiet. Fishing out his keys, he then slung his bag back over his shoulder and opened his front door.
Once he closed the door behind him, he placed his keys on the console table and felt it.
Shit. He wasn't alone.
He gently eased his backpack to the floor and drew his gun as his eyes adjusted to the dark. Heart pounding, slowly and as silently as possible, he crept forward, scanning the foyer and living room.
He was about to check the kitchen, and startled violently with a gasp when he felt a grip both on his throat and his gun.
"We have work to do Tonyyy," the voice crooned in his ear.