CHAPTER V: Number Three
DiNozzo wrote down the address Delbart gave him. When they hung up, he dialed another number to get the NCIS operator, whom he asked to notify the rest of his team.
A few minutes later, he arrived at the third crime scene, in a pleasant, middle class neighborhood. The house was a smallish two-story, painted white with a green shingle roof. Inside the crime scene tape, he saw a white picket fence, behind which there was a well-kept lawn dotted with various shrubs and a few trees.
Delbart approached as he opened the gate.
"Okay," Delbart began his report. "This victim is a 35 year old male named Benjamin Meissner. He's a CPA who owns a small accounting firm with a partner. The next door neighbor got up at about six to let his dog out, and when he looked over at Meissner's backyard, he saw him out there, lying on his back under a large piece of clear plastic. According to the neighbor, Meissner's married and has two kids, but they're away in Pennsylvania or someplace visiting relatives."
DiNozzo gave him a sharp look but said nothing. Delbart led him around to the back. It looked like the typical suburban backyard—huge propane gas grill on the patio, along with a patio table and chairs, a couple of chaises longues, a swing set near the back fence, a basketball hoop hung over the garage door.
Benjamin Meissner lay in almost the center of the lawn, his limbs slightly splayed. At least there was no bullet hole, DiNozzo thought to himself. Then he saw the mottled purple bruises on the victim's neck under the collar of his pajama top.
"Strangled," he noted.
"That would be my guess," Delbart agreed.
"And the Bible page?"
"Right there," replied Delbart, pointing to Meissner's right hand under the tarp.
"Wonder if the tarp was to make sure the page didn't melt or disintegrate or something."
Delbart shrugged.
Ziva David arrived just then.
"There are a lot of people out front," she said to DiNozzo. "Do you want me to begin interviewing?"
"That would be lovely, Ziva," DiNozzo growled in his best imitation of Jethro Gibbs.
Ziva left at the same time Tim McGee arrived on the scene.
"There probably isn't going to be much evidence out here, not with all this moisture" he observed.
"Do it anyway," DiNozzo ordered.
"Right, boss,"
Delbart thumbed DiNozzo's attention to the other side of the picket fence, where an older couple stood under a bright red umbrella.
"The Nortons," he stated. "He's the one that found the body."
"Have you talked to them?" inquired DiNozzo.
"Nope. Thought you might like to do that."
DiNozzo walked over to the couple. Under the umbrella, they shivered in rain gear. The man had his arm clasped protectively around his wife's shoulders.
"Mr. and Mrs. Norton?" he asked them. "I'm Special Agent Tony DiNozzo from NCIS."
"NCIS?" Mr. Norton queried. "The real NCIS? Omigosh, that's my favorite TV show," Mr. Norton went on enthusiastically. "It's kind of a thrill to meet a real NCIS agent."
DiNozzo couldn't help smiling at the man's approbation.
"How come NCIS is investigating here?" the older man wanted to know.
"We have another case that has some similar elements. The victim was a naval petty officer."
"Okay. So you're going to ask me some questions about how I found Ben and all?"
"Absolutely right. Would you like to go inside, where it's a little drier and warmer?"
Mrs. Norton pulled on her husband's jacket. "That's a good idea, Bill."
As she turned around to return to the house, Bill Norton pointed the agent to a gate in the fence. Once he opened it and passed through, he and Mr. Norton followed Mrs. Norton into the house.
Inside, DiNozzo took an appreciative sniff of the scent of freshly-brewed coffee. Mrs. Norton asked if he'd like a cup, which he gratefully accepted. Clicking of toenails on the highly polished floor announced the entrance of a dog of the mutt persuasion, coming to investigate the stranger. He pushed his cold nose into DiNozzo's hand asking for his head to be stroked. DiNozzo complied willingly.
"His name's Duke," offered Mrs. Norton.
Seated with the Nortons at the old wooden table in the center of the small but spotlessly neat kitchen, steaming cup of coffee in hand, DiNozzo took out his notebook.
"Now I understand from Detective Delbart that you got up to let Duke out into the yard at about six, is that right?
Mr. Norton nodded his head.
"I didn't know it was raining, so when I opened the door, I looked up at the sky and then I was looking around and then I saw him over there. Well, I saw the plastic tarp first, and I thought that was kind of odd. Like maybe it was outside and got blown into the yard by the wind or something. I didn't know at the time Ben was under the plastic, but I walked over to the fence to take a closer look, and that's when I knew there was a body under it."
"So the plastic was already over his body when you first saw him?"
"That's right. I ran back in the house to tell my wife and then I dialed 911."
Mrs. Norton was nodding her head with a bobbing motion.
"I took a peek out there, too, "she said. "What a terrible thing. It was very upsetting."
Mr. Norton continued, "We talked about going over there to check, to see if maybe he wasn't dead, or something. But he wasn't moving, and I have a tendency to get bronchitis in the damp." He thumped his chest with a fist, looking apologetic. "At first we thought maybe he'd had a heart attack or something, but when we thought about it, we knew that couldn't be. First of all, what would he be doing out there in the middle of the night? And then how could he have gotten that plastic tarp over himself? It's just not adding up, Agent DiNozzo."
"I agree, Mr. Norton, and you can take my word for it we'll do everything we can to find out how he died, and if someone else caused him to die, who that person is. I understand Mr. Meissner's family is away."
"Oh, yes," Mrs. Norton answered. "His wife is Sarah, and they have two children, Lisa and Ben Junior. Her folks live near Philadelphia so she takes the kids a few times a year up to see them. They left last Thursday, so they'd be there in time for the Sabbath, and they should be back this Thursday." She paused, looking sad. "Well, maybe they'll have to come back sooner now."
"Do you have a number to reach them?"
"Yes," the woman said, getting up from the table to fetch a piece of paper held to the refrigerator door with a magnet. "I wonder if I should call them."
DiNozzo took the piece of paper from her and wrote the number in his notebook.
"If you'd rather not, I think Detective Delbart will be happy to do it."
"Good," she said. "It would be a very difficult call to make. I don't want to be the bearer of bad news.
DiNozzo went on, "How long have the Meissners lived in that house?"
Mr. Norton picked up the conversation again. "Well, let's see, when they moved in, Sarah was pregnant with Benny, and he's nine. So a little over nine years." He smiled a little sheepishly. "The missus and I never had any kids of our own, so we kind of adopted them as our substitute grandkids."
Tony smiled at him. "I'm sure they're going to appreciate having you so close to take care of them now.
Only a couple more questions, and then I'll have to go. Did either of you hear anything last night at any time from the direction of Ben's house? Did the dog bark? Have you noticed any strangers hanging around in the last day or so? Noticed anything out of the ordinary?"
The Nortons looked at each other and shook their heads. "Our bedroom's on the other side of the house," the old man replied. "And we're all a little deef, you know. Duke, too. Once we go to bed, we can't hear anything from over there."
Mrs. Norton added, "I took him a plate last night. He's not a very good cook, and I like to take care of him a little when his family's gone. He was fine when I was there."
DiNozzo closed his notebook. "All right," he said, "time for me to go back to work. I appreciate your help, and if there are any more questions, I or one of my team will be in touch with you."
He stood up, then remembered something else. "If you've spent time in the Meissner house, we'll have to get your fingerprints so we can determine if there are any prints there that don't belong."
"Not a problem," Mr. Norton replied, standing up to shake the agent's hand. "You can count on our cooperation."
"Absolutely," Mrs. Norton added. "Oh, I do hope you can find the criminal that did this."
"We'll do our best, ma'am. And thanks for the coffee. It was very good."
After leaving the Nortons' house, DiNozzo returned to the Meissner backyard. While he'd been gone, Dr. Mallard and Palmer had arrived and were preparing Ben Meissner's body for transport back to the NCIS morgue. David and McGee had completed as much of the initial phase of the investigation as they could, considering the lousy weather.
"Okay, let's go back home and get to work," DiNozzo told them. He paused for a word with Detective Delbart, who agreed to do the usual follow-up, including getting fingerprints from the Nortons and the other neighbors, as well as calling Mrs. Meissner. They agreed to meet again around 2:00 p.m. to discuss the case.
At his desk finally, DiNozzo ordered David and McGee to do their preliminary reports a.s.a.p. and then pay visits to the soup kitchen, to the medical records department at Bethesda Hospital, and to the small office where Ben Meissner had his accounting practice to interview the victims' associates. He told them he wanted at least partial reports by 2:00 o'clock so he and Delbart could review them during their meeting. They exchanged looks; he was definitely turning into Gibbs junior.
Once the other agents had gone on their mission, he began entering his notes into the computer. His next task was to pull up the map he'd made yesterday, adding to it the location of Meissner's house. After staring at it for a while, he started to set up a table, making a column for each of the three victims and rows into which he entered the facts about each murder.
Homer Algawid. Age 69. Did volunteer work at a soup kitchen. Homeless; except for a refrigerator carton in an alley. Found there early Sunday morning with his throat slit, and page 13-14 of a King James Bible under his right hand. Never in the service.
Jane Adamovsky. Age 19. Found Monday morning in her apartment, in a complex seemingly favored by young adults, with a bullet hole in her head, and page 15-16 of the same Bible under her right hand. A Naval Petty Officer working in the medical records department at Bethesda Hospital.
Benjamin Meissner. Age 35. Partner in a small CPA firm. Found Tuesday morning under a tarp in his middle-class backyard, apparently strangled, and page 17-18 of the Bible under his right hand.
DiNozzo pulled up the database for all military personnel. He was not surprised that Meissner's name didn't show up.
So—neither of the men were military, but the young woman was. Interesting—but what did it mean?
He called the lab to verify that the third Bible page found with Meissner was indeed 17-18, which Abby confirmed.
His next call was to the morgue; Ducky had only just begun the autopsy on Meissner's body, but he was able to state almost without reservation that the death had been by strangulation. The pattern of bruises on his neck pointed to a garrote rather than bare hands, but, oddly, there didn't appear to be any particles of fabric on the neck.
Once he'd concluded his conversation with Dr. Mallard, DiNozzo stared at his monitor; there were some patterns, but he wasn't quite able yet to connect them into anything meaningful. He got up and proceeded up the stairs to Director Shepard's office.
Once admitted, he flopped, rather gracelessly for him, into a chair. He recounted for the director's benefit what had been discovered so far.
"Not very much to go on, "she commented drily.
"Yeah," he replied. "I really miss Kate—Agent Todd."
"Non sequitor," Shepard countered.
"Nope, not at all. She was a profiler, one of the best. I could use her now to look at everything and maybe pick up on whatever connections there are."
"Well," Shepard suggested, "we do have several forensic psychologists on staff. Would it help if I call PsyOps and see if one of them could help you?"
"Yeah," DiNozzo said, sitting up straighter in his chair. "Yeah, that might be a good idea. I confess I'm getting nowhere fast."
Twenty minutes later, back at his desk, DiNozzo heard the elevator ding and out stepped a short, round, older woman with graying hair cut exactly like Gibbs'. She was not beautiful, but she had an expressive face that conveyed a sense of considerable intelligence and warmth. He'd seen her around the building from time to time but had never known who she was or what she did. Now she stepped to his desk.
"Special Agent DiNozzo?"
When he confirmed his identity, she introduced herself. "I'm Professor Rose Bennett," she said putting her hand out. "Forensic psychologist."
DiNozzo grabbed her hand, shaking it enthusiastically. "I'm really glad to meet you. I've got some data here, which, if they aren't puzzling, are incomplete, and I could really use your help in trying to make sense of them."
Author's Chapter Notes:
DiNozzo solves a mystery the old-fasioned way.