Disclaimer: NCIS as well as the NCIS characters do not belong to me. This is just for fun.
A/N: Rated PG-13 for violence.
I would like to thank my beta, Rinne. She not only gave me good comments on the story and corrected my grammar, but also taught me some useful rules that will hopefully improve the way I write dialogue. I would also like to thank Tweeter, for reading the story, and checking it for any plot holes, or problems with clarity or tone.
Any mistakes made are my own.

Chapter 4

McGee was often impressed by how well Gibbs handled the families of victims. He found that he himself, when faced with such enormous grief, did not know how to act, or what to say. Yet Gibbs, who was usually rather tactless, seemed to know exactly the right way to behave. They were sitting in the Richards' living room. Mrs. Richards was sitting in a chair facing the window. She looked like she had been sitting there for a long time, and didn't even acknowledge them when they arrived. She hadn't spoken a word since.

Mr. Richards, on the other hand, seemed to crave conversation.

"He had such big plans, my Charlie, he wanted to be a teacher. He always loved kids," said Mr. Richards. "I think he was going to propose to that girl of his, Natalie."

"What makes you say that, sir?" asked Gibbs.

"He told me that there was something he wanted to talk to me about, sounded real happy. I know he and Natalie were getting more and more serious about each other. He spent most of his time with her, since he got back."

Mr. Richards cupped his face in his hands and started to weep quietly. Gibbs got up, sat next to him and put his hand on his shoulder. "I know this is hard on you, sir."

Mr. Richards looked up at Gibbs with tears in his eyes. "My son never hurt anybody. He was so happy to come back from the war alive. Never complained about his leg hurting, although I know it did. Why would anyone do such a thing to him?"

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Sergeant Michael Lieberman was learning to walk. He had done so once before, like everyone else, when he was a toddler, but back then he had the advantage of having both his legs. Now, thanks to a car-bomb that exploded at the road block he was manning near Tikrit, he was left with only one. When Tony and Ziva arrived to talk to him, his physiotherapist suggested that he take a break, so he allowed them to wheel him over to the small dinning-hall that was just around the corner from the physiotherapy room.

"You probably want to talk about Charlie?" he asked once they were all seated around a table.

"That's right," said Tony.

"I don't know what I can tell you. I can't believe something like this could happen."

"Why don't you start by telling us how you two met," offered Ziva.

"We were both injured around the same time, got primary medical care in Iraq, and were flown back to the US together. Charlie was one of those true optimists, never complained. Dealing with something like this, it was really good to have him around."

"You were close?" asked Tony.

The Sergeant held back tears and replied, "You could say so, yes".

Tony decided it was time to change the subject. "Natalie told us you were there last week, when Charlie got into that fight with Jeff White".

Lieberman nodded his head. "I was there, I couldn't help him, being in this damn chair and all, but I was there. The gall of that little shrimp, coming up to Charlie, and mouthing off about how the likes of him shouldn't be dating a white girl; after Charlie nearly got his head blown off trying to defend…" he trailed off. "And then he used that word, and Charlie punched him in the face. Well he deserved it." He lifted his head up and looked from Ziva to Tony and back again. "Will you need me to testify, about the fight? Because I'll be more than happy to help. Whatever it takes to make those bastards pay for what they did."

"We will probably need you for that, Sergeant, but we need to ask you a different question first," said Ziva. "Do you know of a reason why Sergeant Richards would be wearing his dress uniform on the day he died?"

The Sergeant looked a bit surprised at the question but nodded his head. "I can only think of one reason, but its kind of silly."

"Please Sergeant, this could be important," encouraged Tony.

"He was planning on proposing to Natalie, but he wanted to tell her parents first. He was kind of nervous about it to, especially about telling her father. Maybe he thought wearing that fancy uniform would help."

"Why was he so nervous?" asked Tony.

"I've never met Natalie's father or anything, but from what I hear, he's mighty protective of her. I guess Charlie thought he might think he wasn't good enough for her."

"Why would he think that?" asked Ziva.

The Sergeant shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not sure. Natalie's father used to be his math teacher, and from what I gather they got along very well. I always thought it was just nerves, on Charlie's part. I guess we'll never know, seeing how he never managed to talk to him."

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"So you're saying you think Natalie's father shot Charlie because he wanted to marry his daughter?" asked Ziva after taking another bite from her hamburger.

Tony stole some of her French fries and stuffed them into his mouth. "You have to admit it's a possibility. He shoots Charlie, and then, knowing about the fight last week, throws the body in front of the warehouse, hoping the blame falls on the skinheads. They just did him an extra favor, by doing a number on the body and hanging it next to the river."

"But why would he do that?" Ziva asked excitedly. "Why would he even object to his daughter marrying a war hero, one that loves her and who wants to be a teacher, just like him?"

"Have you ever considered that he might be a racist?" asked Tony, reaching for some more of Ziva's fries.

Ziva smacked his hand away. "What reason do you have to think he's a racist? Weren't we told twice now that Charlie was one of his favorite students? And would you mind keeping your hands out of my fries? I haven't even touched them yet and they're already half gone. It's not my fault you ordered your steak well done."

"What the hell is wrong with ordering it well done?" asked Tony.

"For one thing, it's a terrible thing to do to a cow. Not only is she dead, she's also insulted, and more importantly, it takes longer to arrive and you end up eating all my fries," replied Ziva, moving her fries out of Tony's reach.

"Well, some of us don't like to eat live cow, Ziva." Tony leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands over his chest.

"Anyway," said Ziva, "let's get back to your theory. What makes you think he's a racist?"

"I'm not saying that he necessarily is. I'm not even saying that he shot him. The skinheads could well be lying. I'm just saying that we need to consider the possibility," Tony said, hungrily eying Ziva's fries, which were now well out of his reach. He was really hungry and the steak he ordered was nowhere to be seen. Even Ziva's extra-rare hamburger was starting to look good.

Ziva sighed and pushed her fries back towards Tony. "Do you really think people are still so concerned about skin color? I mean normal people, not skinhead Nazis."

"Some people are. Would your daddy be happy if you brought Paul home?" asked Tony and, after noticing the puzzled look on Ziva's face, added, "You know, a non-Jewish, non-Israeli black man?"

"Paul's both Jewish and Israeli, and one thing my father isn't, is racist. Besides," Ziva added with very uncharacteristic openness, "my father couldn't care less who I'm with."

"Paul's Israeli?" asked Tony. "Really?"

"Why so surprised Tony? We do come in more than one color, you know," said Ziva.

"Oh it's not that at all." Tony smiled. "That's just the first time, you actually answered a question about Paul. I can see that you're finally opening up to me. Want a hug?"

Ziva couldn't help but smile at that. "Okay, let's get this over with. I met Paul seven years ago in Israel. I was training to be a Mossad agent, he was an officer the army sent to teach us how to disarm explosive devices. He is now a bomb expert with the Israeli police and the shabak*."

"So you've been involved with him for seven years?" said Tony, a bit surprised.

"We've been friends for seven years, the rest of it is more of an on-again, off again thing," answered Ziva.

"So, what is he doing here?" Tony asked, smiling at the waitress that was finally approaching their table, carrying his food order.

"He's here for a month, giving a course at Quantico on how to identify the origins of explosive devices, based on what's left of them after they explode. Sadly, he gained quite a lot of experience with that." Ziva didn't add that she suspected that the reason Paul volunteered to give the course was that he was the only person she told the truth to, regarding Ari, and that he wanted to make sure she was all right. "You know what, Tony? Why don't you come have dinner with us, on Saturday night? That way you can meet him and ask him all the questions you want."

Tony was so surprised he nearly choked on the large chunk of steak he had just put in his mouth. "You're inviting me over for dinner?" He remembered the unbelievable food he was served last time Ziva invited him to dinner, smiled and asked, "Are you going to cook?"

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Gibbs was very annoyed. He had just spent half an hour in the director's office, where she informed him of the media nightmare the case was turning into. The headlines were screaming "Lynching" and the reporters were demanding to know why the skinheads hadn't been arraigned yet. Gibbs told the director, that it wasn't yet clear whether the correct charge was in fact murder or whether it was mutilating a corpse. While the director did understand this, she was under a lot of strain, and as was the way of bosses everywhere, tried to distribute some of it onto Gibbs' shoulders.

As Gibbs was coming down the stairs from the director's office, McGee approached him. "Boss, I checked and Mr. Arnold has a gun registered to his name. It's the same caliber as the gun that shot Sergeant Richards."

"Okay," said Gibbs, "let's split up. Tony you're with me, we're going to visit the Arnolds. I want to check out Mr. Arnold's gun. McGee and Ziva, you go back to the warehouse and search it again; if those skinheads did shoot Sergeant Richards we're going to need to find that gun. As is, we've got two competing theories for the same crime. I want us to go at this from both directions, until we can find out which of the theories is the right one."

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Mr. Arnold opened the door to the two NCIS agents and immediately let them into his house. He didn't seem at all worried when they asked him to show them his gun. "It's a terrible thing that happened to poor Charlie, he was a great kid," he said, as he walked them towards his desk. "This is where I keep it, in a lockbox. I haven't shot it in years. Anyway, as I was saying, my poor Natalie is so upset. They were planning on getting married."

‘If this guy shot his daughter's boyfriend, he's sure one heck of an actor,' thought Gibbs. Mr. Arnold took his time looking for the key to the lockbox. He removed the key from the keychain and opened the drawer. He seemed to Gibbs to be as surprised as anyone when they found that the lockbox was gone.

TBC

*The Shabak is the Israeli counter-intelligence and internal security service. The division of responsibilities between Shabak and Mossad is somewhat similar to the division of responsibilities between the FBI and the CIA.