Thirty seconds into the drive, Kate was grateful that she'd picked a vending machine with bottles instead of cans, because without the option of sealing her drink, she would have had citrus-flavored clothes before Tony had made it out of the parking lot. Perhaps he was trying to show off that he had a stronger grip when it came to car keys, or maybe he'd just driven too much with Gibbs. She settled for clenching white-knuckled hands around her knees and trying to remember whether she had ever cleaned up her will and testament after moving to DC. If she had stuck it in the closet along with her old squash racket, it would probably take an archaeological expedition to unearth it, and all of her money would end up going to Jews for Jesus, or the YMCA.
"Now, Kate, I want you to let me do most of the talking with this guy. I've worked drug cases before. You got to handle junkies in a certain way - - "
"You think I couldn't handle myself with a drug addict?" Kate retorted.
"Might be a dealer now. I just don't know if you know what questions to ask."
"I'm trained as a profiler, Tony. I know how to get what I want out of someone."
"Why doesn't Gibbs let you do more interrogations then?"
"Because unlike some, I don't need regular inflations of my ego."
Tony scoffed. They strolled briskly across the park, hands swinging side by side. It was already half past six but animated children, still too young to attend school, still ran across the pathway in front of them, bouncing balls and throwing sticks to dogs, whether they owned them or not. The grass around them was bright green, basking in the warm red glow of dusk.
A few hundred feet away stood the basketball courts, filled with groups of guys enthusiastically passing the ball around. The youthful players, clad in clammy multicolour sweaters, stood out against the melancholy concrete of the court. One of them dribbled the ball nimbly past his friends and shot it into the tatty, chained hoop.
The two agents walked through the crosshatched fences toward a group of guys bouncing some balls off-court. They looked at the two like they were tourists.
"Hi," Kate said. "Is Dean down today?"
"Dean who?" a young blond man replied.
"Dean Westwood. We've been told he hangs out here," Tony stepped in.
"So do lots of people."
"Brown hair. About twenty-nine," Kate clarified.
The guy flipped his hand towards the players on the court, some swinging the ball wildly, some not: "Take your pick."
"Thanks for your help, fellas," Tony smiled, sarcastically.
"Excuse me, I'm looking for a guy called Dean, brown hair, about twenty-nine," Kate asked as she strode toward the next huddle of men.
"What about one called Eric, dark, ‘bout twenty-five?" said a dark guy, about twenty-five.
"No, thanks. Smart arses aren't my style," she replied, with a smirk. Tony laughed, intaking a sharp breath.
The guy snarled his lips and flipped a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to a guy jogging off the court.
The man had a basketball under his arm and was grinning from ear to ear, his green eyes sparkling. His cheeks were flushed pink and his forehead was beaded with sweat. His skin was tanned, and the muscles on his bare arms glinted moistly in the evening light. Dean Westwood was devastatingly handsome, in an after-shave commercial kind of way. And he knew it. And he looked nothing like a Coke junkie.
"Dean Westwood?" Tony asked.
"Who wants to know?" he said, wiping an arm over his brow.
"Agent DiNozzo, Agent Todd," Kate said. "NCIS."
"Oh, man, my brother told me about you guys. I think it was you guys. You're like CSI but you work on dead sailors, right?" He smiled.
"Something like that," Tony replied grimly.
Dean was four inches shorter than Tony and it clearly frustrated him; he kept drawing himself up to the balls of his feet to make eye contact. Under normal circumstances, Tony would have drawn himself up to his full height just to be contrary, but he wouldn't want to be on the other end of the news Dean was about to receive, so instead he rounded his shoulders, slumped, and lost two inches. Disguise without decoration. Why use props when he was this good without them?
"We need to ask you about your brother."
"Why are you asking me about my brother?"
"He's dead," Tony answered.
In the space of half a second, so was the air between them. Kate watched as the blood immediately drained out of Dean's face and his boyish features suddenly grew old and ashen.
"Ha . . . Harry's dead?" Dean stammered.
His voice had been a combination of fear and shock. Kate nodded gently.
"I . . . When . . . did he . . . ?"
"Friday night. He was found out the back of Club Neon. Shot."
Dean suddenly looked as if he'd just lost his balance and sat quickly on a nearby bench. Tony and Kate stayed standing.
"When was the last time you saw him?" Tony asked.
"I, uh . . . I was there with him. At the club that night. We went out for a few drinks. A bit of fun. I figured he'd just hooked a girl or gone home or something after a few hours."
"You two are still in contact regularly?" Kate asked.
"You've talked to my parents," he stated bluntly.
Tony and Kate were silent.
"It was the first time I'd seen Harry since he'd gotten back from Iraq. I know my mother told him to keep away from me, but Harry and I were still tight."
"Anything about him seem strange to you? Any odd behaviour?" Tony asked.
"Mmm, no . . . not as far as I can remember. Although . . . " He stopped abruptly.
"Although what?" Kate asked.
This time it was Dean who cleared his throat, looking uneasy. Dean looked away and watched as a friend shot and missed the hoop, before he replied. "I'm sure you've read my files, agents."
"We're not here to bust you on drugs, Dean," Tony said. "We just want to know about Harrison."
Dean sighed. "I had a bit of an altercation with my dealer that night, at the club. Harry was there and managed to wheedle me out of it. But they were pretty pissed at me. I just . . . Oh my, God. I . . . They might've . . . You mean, Harry's dead because of . . ?"
"Pissed enough to bring it back up outside?" Tony asked.
Dean rubbed at his eyes ineffectually. "Maybe. Yes, I guess. I'd be surprised if they hadn't. But I don't know if it would've lead to a murder - - "
"What kind of an altercation was it?"
"The usual. I didn't pay on time. Harry paid them there but told them that I'd never be dealing with them again. They weren't happy."
"You still stayed at the club though?"
"A few drinks and some crack relaxes you a bit." He smiled painfully.
"Harry as well?" Tony asked, taken aback.
"You didn't know?" he stammered. "I, uh . . . I don't think my parents would want to know about his . . . bad habit."
"They might not have to," Kate replied.
Dean slumped a little, letting his arms dangle over his bent knees, looking back at the court and the players left on it. Slowly he started to speak. "Look, I wasn't the one to get him into it. He had a tough time in Afghanistan and a marine buddy hooked him up with it a few times. He wasn't a user. Just a party-popper. With him it was . . . manageable. He wasn't addicted. He was healthy. He didn't hang out on street corners."
"Who else were you there with that night?" Tony asked.
"There were two guys already there with Harry when I got there. I didn't talk to them much, so I couldn't even tell you their names. But I think Harry worked with them. Through Osiris, I mean. They weren't marines. They were suits. And Emma was there too."
"Your sister?" Tony asked. "We need to have a chat with her too."
"Good luck," Dean said. "She works at The Crimson."
The two agents looked at him to give a little more information.
"The Crimson?" Dean said, disbelieving. "Neither of you have ever worked a case that lead you to The Crimson? Johnny Keller?" He scoffed. "There's no way in hell a fed will get through his door. Let alone talk to one of his girls."
"Well, it's lucky we're not feds then," Tony smiled.
- - - -
Abby flipped a pigtail over her shoulder. "I know why he didn't fight back."
"Burke?" Gibbs asked. "You know why he didn't struggle?"
"Ducky sent me the stomach contents to see if he'd been drugged. We were lucky. One of the few that remains in the body for up to seven days." She moved to the computers and pulled something up on the screen, some unrecognisable chemical compound. Gibbs counted elements: nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon, oxygen . . . "It's Phenobarbital," she said. "Also known as - -"
"Luminal," he said.
"Very good, Gibbs. Have you been stealing my textbooks again?"
"Blacks. Dolls. I've worked a few overdoses before." He looked at the seemingly harmless link of chemicals. "Probably slipped into his drink, though." He had wanted something better than a readily-available sedative; something definitive that would scream a suspect's name. "Thanks, Abby."
"Don't walk away from me when I'm still speaking to you, Gibbs." Abby smiled.
Gibbs stopped and turned back. "What else you got?"
"I got the fax from the sketch artist. Burley confirms it as Harry's brother and sister. They were definitely there with him." She handed him an envelope. "You know, I love George. You should really work with him more often, Gibbs. I'd want him sketching me if I got killed by someone." She smiled seductively.
"No one will ever lay a finger on you, Abs."
"Aw, thanks, Gibbs. That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."
"So does that crap you drink and it's never going to save your life."
"Caff-Pow has life saving abilities, Gibbs. It once stopped some acid McGee spilt from getting to my - - "
"Thanks, Abs," Gibbs trailed, already walking toward the door.
"Don't assume that's all I have," she said, holding up a warning finger.
He obediently stopped. "I give you full marks for showmanship."
"Well, technically it's what McGee has." She nodded toward the agent crouched over the desk behind her. "I just like getting all the credit for the collective effort of the underlings."
"I'm not your underling," McGee said from the table behind them. The laptop was still sitting in front him with a mess of colourful cables and wires leading to Abby's computer.
"You'll always be my underling, McGee," Abby smiled.
"What did you find, McGee?" Gibbs asked, cutting her short.
"Uh, I was able to partially hack into Burke's hard drive. I'm working on trying to recreate a virtual copy of everything to see if I can access the motherboard's - - "
"McGee," Abby whispered. "Gibbs doesn't speak geek."
McGee's bottom lip dropped. "I, uh . . . I still haven't accessed everything yet, but I found some files on his computer that I'm trying to print out now."
"Spit it out, McGee."
"They're all evidence files, boss. Burke was acting as a silent informant for the FBI."
Gibbs stared at him. "Who was he providing information on?"
"The Osiris Corporation. He was ratting out his own company, Gibbs."
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