Chapter 2 – Dregs
What a stressful morning. After the team had picked up Warner at his residence near Quantico they proceeded to take prints and gather evidence with a warrant executed on his house and car. Findings were minimal, as before – but this time they helped quite a bit – placing Warner at the crime scene, and giving him a motive to kill Harry Grissom – the dead Marine.
The day, however, was not over with just the knowledge that Warner was the killer – there was still the interrogation, and taking statements, and clearing up paperwork. At about eleven the coffee machine ran out of filters, which just about killed Gibbs's good mood for the day.
"Don't suppose either of you know what's sending Gibbs over the ledge today, do you?" Ziva inquired after he left to go and talk to Director Shepard. Tony was engaged in battling intergalactic alien life, and was thus unresponsive. McGee didn't look up from filling out his report, but was polite enough to answer, "other than the coffee machine being officially out of service, no. And the word is edge, Ziva, not ledge."
"Well, we solved the case. Why is he talking to Director Sheppard?" Ziva pressed.
"He's probably trying to find some more coffee filters." Tony drolled, still indulged in his game. A sharp smack hit him in the back of the head and he immediately switched screens from the game to a file on Warner's telephone records.
"Thank you, Boss." Gibbs came and stood beside his chair, glancing over Tony's finished reports, initialing them with his scrawly signature.
"DiNozzo, I have this irresistible urge to rid you of your computer and confine you to manual desk duty for the remainder of the week." Gibbs stated frankly.
"It's Friday, Boss." Tony hazarded.
"You know the cleanup crew that works nights?" Gibbs remained impervious, and holding back so much sarcasm that Tony thought he was serious about the situation, and not looking forward to discovering where he was going with this.
"Yea…"
"I think they might need a hand for the next few weekends." He cocked his head at the younger man, daring him to go further.
"Shutting up, Boss." Tony turned back to his computer and popped off the monitor to continue his paperwork. Gibbs returned to his own desk and sat down just as the phone rang. He snatched it up briskly.
"Gibbs." The bullpen fell silent as he listened, then pressed the phone back onto the receiver.
"Grab your gear." He ordered, swiveling in his chair and standing up.
"Where're we goin', Boss?" McGee inquired.
"Security officer dead near the White House gate. Come on." He paced over to the elevator.
"No kidding?" McGee continued, and Gibbs shot him look that confirmed McGee's question to be unnecessary, and he fell silent. The phone at Gibbs's desk buzzed on the receiver.
"Phone's ringing', Boss." Tony chimed. Gibbs huffed in annoyance and pivoted on the spot, walking briskly back to his desk and pushing the SPEAKERPHONE button.
"What?" he half-yelled into the receiver.
"I picked a bad time, didn't I?" Joey's voice crackled over the receiver. Gibbs tried to mentally crush his frustration.
"Bad time for what, Joey?"
"Just wondering which knob turns the A.C. on. It's hot in here." She replied.
"Where are you?" Gibbs pressed firmly to get an answer.
"Hooooome." She elongated the sentence, eager now to hang up.
"So get the sitter to help you. That's why she's there." Gibbs glanced up at his team, who recognized the aggravated look on his face and waited for the axe to fall.
"Well-" she started.
"Well WHAT? He cut her off.
"I can't really ask her anything right now, Jethro." She finished candidly.
"Why NOT?"
"Be…cause…at this actual, material point in time, Ms. Whipple isn't actually, really, exactly physically here."
Gibbs sighed and ran a hand over the front of his face.
"Why NOT?" He inquired fervently, somewhat resigned in the knowledge that Joey was able to get rid of another babysitter.
"Kind of a long story," she answered in her best apologetic voice.
"Fine. Don't go anywhere. I'll come for you." Gibbs made to press the DISCONNECT button, but Joey protested.
"Now?"
"Is NOW a problem for you?" His voice reached a dangerously low level and he noticed Tony, Ziva, and McGee shrinking back towards the elevator upon registration of the threatening tone underlying their boss's words.
Silence. "…no, sir."
"Good. Stay put." Gibbs practically dropped the phone and tossed Tony the keys to the van.
"DiNozzo: shoot and sketch, McGee: bag and tag, Ziva: see what you get from the witnesses, and call Dr. Mallard. I'll meet you there."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Joey dragged herself upstairs and slumped down on her bed with her head in her hands. She mumbled something about "babysitters not being able to take a joke," sighed and tipped herself forward, stumbling off the bed towards her dresser and staring at her nervous reflection in the mirror. Reaching underneath her shirt she pulled out a silver chain with a couple of metal dog tags hanging loosely from it. Joey fondled them for a minute, rubbing her fingers over the soft, worn metal and thinking about how much trouble she was in.
Gibbs hadn't told her which knob turned on the AC, and it really was getting warm in the house, despite the nippy chill outside. Joey tugged off her black t-shirt and thermal shirt, but left the sleeveless undershirt on, along with her jeans and shoes. She slipped over to the window and drew back the sheer curtains, then opening the window. There was no mesh screen, and it opened all the way up, not just halfway. Joey loved that window – 1) it had a nice view out over the sidewalk - being on the façade of the little townhouse she and Gibbs shared - and it was always relaxing to watch the general daily activity of the people down there. It was like watching an ant farm. 2) It was on the second-story, and thus provided a comfortable challenge when Joey decided to leave the house through it – usually at night, when she couldn't sleep or when Gibbs didn't know. She never went far, but it gave her a thrill all the same. At this point the open sidewalk down below was terribly inviting, but after thinking for too long about it she was able to persuade herself to stay and face the music.
Turning her back on the window she paced back over to the dresser, the dog tags around her neck making little clinking noises as they bounced against her chest. Opening the drawer she pulled out a stark white, long sleeve dress shirt and gingerly pulled it on, buttoning it about ¾ of the way up. It was a couple sizes too big, and she rolled up the sleeves halfway to accommodate her small frame.
Suddenly, from downstairs there came a light thump, startling her. Joey gripped her shirt in a tight wad around her dog tags, which she tucked back underneath the fabric out of defense. But no sound followed that one, and she relaxed, pulling out a book from her shelf and settling into the chair at her desk.
Surprisingly sophisticated for an eleven-year-old, Joey had a phenomenal (if not strange) interest in the city's inner workings – she had progressively studied architecture and the blueprints of all the major buildings - she knew how the general population of D.C. ran its course. Locations of the best parks, various neighborhoods, and the shops and vendors with the most fantastic coffee and hot dogs were all etched in her mind, and she knew how to access them. Once or twice during a nightly excursion she explored far enough away from her house to notice all of these things. Taxis were the best way to go, but if you had a motorized scooter you could get from Point A to Point B just as quickly. Most importantly, Joey understood the complex schematics surrounding her godfather's job, and knew that because she had chosen to call his while he was working he would probably be slightly more antagonized than if she had waited.
Joey sighed, unable to concentrate on the scattered complexity of Greek Literature and Sonnets. Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
"That was fast," she grumbled, feeling the butterflies as they did taunting loops and somersaults in her stomach.
The house was quiet for a minute. Joey unwrapped a piece of Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The floorboards outside her door creaked and she pushed away from her desk and stood, turning as the door opened.
"Jethro, what happened was-" she started as a man stepped through the frame – tall, with dark hair that hung wet over his eyebrows. A pure look of loathing malice glinted in his rain-gray eyes. Joey stepped back towards the open window, confused.
"Who are you?" she shot at him.
The man remained silent, but stepped forward and pulled off the black scarf that was wrapped around his lower face and neck – revealing himself to be handsome, but unshaven and hard in features.
"Don't you remember?" he stepped closer and lit a flicker of fear in Joey's stomach. He seemed familiar, but she couldn't place him. When no response came, the stranger drew back, seemingly annoyed.
"Your parents never-" he began as if he had rehearsed it.
"My parents were murdered." The girl stepped towards him and spit out her gum on the floor, fists clenched in anger. "What do you care?"
The man's face contorted into a frigid grin. "Little Kitty Grey." Joey froze and lowered her hands. He sounded almost....happy. You were always too smart for your own good."
In one swift motion he extended an arm and grabbed the front of Joey's shirt. Before she could react accordingly a heavy object cracked across her skull and numbness enveloped her as her vision blurred, then blackened, like a candle being snuffed out.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Jethro jammed the key into the lock of his front door, doing a double take as he looked down in frustration. The lock was covered in tiny scratches and there appeared to be some graphite residue on the doorknob. Feeling shock take over, Gibbs turned the key and shoved the door open, whipping out his gun. He took the stairs two at a time and flattened him against the wall outside Joey's room. Kicking the door open he shouted, "NCIS!"
But there was no one there. Outside the still-open window a hot dog vendor served a naval officer in his uniform dregs, with a large duffel at his side. Gibbs watched in some kind of ignorant stupor as the man hailed a cab. Cursing this distraction, he swung his foot into the bedpost, running out of the room to search the rest of the house for his goddaughter. But she was nowhere to be found.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Tony, Ziva and McGee had returned from the White House, loaded with evidence bags and boxes of the dead security guard's stuff. Gibbs was staring intently at the plasma, messing with a timeline/mapping program.
"This guy practically lived at the White House, Boss," McGee reported. "He has so many personal affects," he dropped a bag, groaning under the weight of the all the evidence he was carrying.
"Where were you, Boss?" Tony inquired, setting down a couple of boxes on the floor by his desk.
"DiNozzo, find a cart and take all the evidence up to Director Shepard." Gibbs ordered and turned to head down to Abby's lab.
"Why, Boss?" He asked, confused. He wasn't the only one – both Ziva and McGee also appeared nonplussed.
Gibbs turned and Tony swallowed, seeing some kind of sorrowful disturbance in his eyes. "Because this case is no longer our problem. Take everything to the director and meet me in Abby's lab in five."
Abby had the stereo blaring again, trying to blare out the horrifying intensity of Joey having disappeared. Seeing Gibbs looking so somber upon his arrival into her lab didn't help much with her own mood, but the puzzled looks on each of Tony's, Ziva's, and McGee's faces indicated to her that they were blissfully unaware of the severity of the situation.
"Abs." Gibbs slid a Caff-Pow onto the counter and leaned over her shoulder to scan over her findings. She was examining the cover of a book about Greek Literature. Flipping through it, a handmade bookmark fell out and floated to the floor. Gibbs gingerly picked it up and placed it back on the counter. It was made of folded notebook paper and had something written across the front: Joey's book. Back off, paper thieves!
"Boss…why is Abby tagging one of Joey's books?" Tony tore his eyes away from her working hands and paced over to the back table, where one black and one orange shirt lay stretched out for examination.
"New case, DiNozzo." He responded blankly.
Tony stared back at him in confused shock.
"Gibbs, is Joey missing?" Ziva was calmer in her statement, but it was obvious she was still a little rattled. McGee was busy already, taking a silent cue from Gibbs and beginning to take pictures of Abby's findings.
"Disappeared around noon. Timeline is still being edited, but we need to find a lead...soon." He replied without looking up from the book on the table. "Ziva, head to the crime scene and talk to everyone – broad daylight, someone had to have seen something."
"The crime scene…meaning – your residence?"
He nodded and she left with her kit.
"McGee, stay put and help Abby. DiNozzo-"
Tony pivoted; ready to do anything to help his mentor find his daughter.
"With me," Gibbs prompted and left, Tony following in his wake.
Abby clocked the time Gibbs left on the timeline: 2:45 p.m.
TBC
Author's Chapter Notes:
Joey gets into more trouble than usual...