Fic: Figuring it Out (Ch 8)
Chapter 8
It was Sunday morning and Tim was riding the elevator at work trying to balance a box of pastries and a tray holding his latte and a hot chocolate from the coffee shop down the block. He was mentally chiding himself for coming in when the team wasn’t scheduled to.
This is such a dumb idea. He’s probably not even here. He had a date last night. He’s probably spending the morning in bed with her.
As the doors opened, he wondered what the hell he would do with all of the baked goods if Tony wasn’t there. Probably put myself into a sugar coma, he thought disgustedly.
He walked through the doors and took a few steps before he stopped in his tracks. There he was, sitting at his desk wearing an old Ohio State sweatshirt, hair slightly ruffled, reading something on his desk. Tim gave himself a moment to stare; something about seeing Tony in so casual an outfit when he was normally always dressed in a suit did something funny to his insides.
He imagined that this is what he would look like at home on a lazy Sunday morning, feet up on the couch and reading a magazine. He tried not to think about what it would be like to be there with him, maybe with Tony’s head in his lap as he did the Sunday crossword puzzle.
He shook his head to dispel the image but couldn’t quite shake the little bubble of happiness that it had given him.
“Good morning, Tony. I brought breakfast.”
Tony looked up in surprise. Tim glimpsed the pleasure that flittered across Tony’s face upon seeing him and it caused the nervous knot in his stomach to ease.
“McGee! What are you doing here?”
“I figured after your phone call last night that you would show up here to run a new search. I thought I’d come by and help, make sure that you don’t end up with a million hits and make the system explode.”
“Ha ha. I’m not that bad at it, I’m just not you-level good, McMIT. Go home, Probie. Your services are not needed. Rest assured, I will not crash the server. I actually just used your search parameters, and substituted female with male. Even I can’t screw that up.”
“Well then, if that’s the case I’ll just take my baked goods and leave,” Tim said teasingly.
“Are those from Sweet Paradise?” Tony asked, eyes gleaming.
“The one and only,” Tim said as he quirked his eyebrow, moving the white bakery box from side to side temptingly.
Tony followed the progression of the box before he said, “Okay, fiiiiine, you can stay. Now gimme!”
“First you have to tell me how horrible your date was last night that you took the time to not only think about the case but to call me in the middle of it.”
Tony smiled, knowing this game well. He leaned back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head, preparing to brag. “It wasn’t horrible. She even invited me up to her place afterwards,” he said as he smirked and wagged his eyebrows suggestively.
“And yet here you are, sitting at your desk, bright and early on a Sunday morning,” Tim said as he tried to ignore the tantalizing bit of golden skin that was revealed as the sweatshirt rode slightly up Tony’s torso.
“Unfortunately, it turned out she was a crazy cat person and you know how I feel about cats.”
“I know how cats feel about you.”
“Same difference. All she talked about was work and her cats Boots and Marmalade. There’s a third one in there, too, but I can’t remember the name.”
“Boots and Marmalade?” Tim asked incredulously.
“Yeah, I know!” Tony said, throwing his arms out as if to emphasize the craziness.
“So that’s the only reason you said no? I’ve got to tell you, that’s usually not enough to turn you off.”
“Are you kidding me? You think I would step into a place that had three cats wearing Armani?”
“You wore Armani on a first date?”
“You’ve got to dress to impress,” Tony said. “Plus, I took her out to Bellisario’s and that’s not a casual clothes kind of place.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been,” Tim said as he placed the white box on Tony’s desk.
Tony opened it box and looked inside. Tim had gotten an assortment of things but he noticed that there were two of the Venetian filled cannolis that he liked. As he picked one up, he said, “It’s a nice place. We should go together sometime.”
He froze, the pastry halfway to his mouth, as he realized what he had just said.
He closed his mouth and licked his lips, his mouth and throat suddenly dry. He looked up at Tim who was staring right back at him, his expression questioning.
Tony’s mind raced. His first impulse was to make light of it, kid around that Tim needed some polishing up and how he could learn from the master. It would be exactly the kind of thing he always said.
“It’s ridiculously overpriced and the wait staff is kind of snotty, but the food’s good and the ambiance is pretty stellar,” he hedged.
They continued to stare at one another a moment, Tony midway between terrified and hopeful that Tim would call him on it.
Instead, Tim broke eye contact and placed the drinks down on the desk.
“So, did you call anyone else last night?”
Tony, who was disappointed that he hadn’t been able to follow through, (and seriously when did he turn into such a sissy?) asked distractedly, “Who would I call?”
“Ziva.”
Tony looked up in confusion. “Why would I call Ziva?”
Tim smiled, so brightly that it made Tony’s heart yearn a little. “To ask if she only looked at female victims. She did searches, too.”
Tony opened his mouth as he scrambled to find something to say. Again, his first instinct was to brush it off, crack a joke about how Ziva would have killed him for interrupting her Saturday evening. But all he could think about was Tim’s bright smile and the fact that he was given another chance is as many minutes to finally say something.
He opened his mouth to speak when his computer gave a soft, but audible beep.
“What was that?” Tim asked as he stared at the monitor, disappointed at the interruption.
Tony turned to the screen and cursed silently at another lost opportunity. “I turned the sound notification function on to let me know when the computer found a match. I didn’t think there would be that many to look through so it would be more efficient to look at them as they came up. I’ve only had two so far and neither of them had the clothes thing.”
Tim sighed, knowing that they would have to table the conversation for another time as they focused on the case. “What did you get?”
“A Baltimore PD cold case from 1997. Jake Matthews, aged 21, was raped and strangled and his live-in boyfriend, Greg Barker, aged 26, was beaten to death and had his genitals cut off. It’s listed as a hate crime.
“That doesn’t sound anything like the Moss or Taylor case,” Tim said, walking over so that he could see the monitor. Tony automatically moved over to give Tim room.
Tony scrolled down as they both read the report silently to themselves. Tony tried to ignore the fact that Tim’s face was just inches away from his.
“Nothing was reported stolen,” Tim murmured.
About a minute later, Tony said, “We might need to reach out to Baltimore PD, again.”
Tim turned so that he was facing Tony. “What did you see? I must have missed it.”
“Here,” Tony said as he pointed to the second to last paragraph of the detective’s notes.
“Oh, I didn’t get to that part, yet. Matthews’ body was found fully clothed, positioned in the middle of the bed. That sounds like a match to both women. We’ll need pictures to confirm.”
“They’ll probably have to scan them into the system. They probably didn’t use digital in ’97.”
“It’s odd. Barker was beaten to death while Matthews was strangled. It’s possible there was more than one person involved in the crime, just like in the Taylor case,” Tim said. “How was Barker found? Was he on the bed, too?”
“No, it says that he was found on the floor in the bedroom, next to an overturned chair. There were ligature marks found on Barker’s wrists and ankles, indicating that he was restrained.”
“Probably to the chair found next to him. Did they find what was used to bind him?”
Tony skimmed the details again. “No.”
“Why tie him to the chair?” Tim wondered aloud.
Tony closed his eyes, picturing the scene based on the description. “He was probably forced to watch what they did to Matthews and then the perpetrator or perpetrators turned on him. It states that the mutilation was pre-mortem based on the blood pooling.” Both men shuddered. “No wonder it was listed as a hate crime.”
“Barker’s death was much more violent than Matthews.”
“More violent then rape and strangulation?”
“Different sort of violence, then,” Tim amended.
“We’ll have to talk to Detective Reid, he was primary. We should try and dig a little more before we go forward with that. Other than the clothes and positioning of Matthews, there don’t appear to be any other similarities to our cases.”
“I can check to see if there’s a connection between either of these two victims, the Mosses and the Taylors.”
“Why don’t we split it? You take the Mosses and I’ll take the Taylors.”
“Sounds good.”
Tim started to walk back towards his desk and Tony felt the loss of his heat almost immediately. His fingers hovered over the keyboard before he asked, “Do you want to go out and grab something to eat after we do this?”
Tim smiled, that same bright smile from earlier and nodded. “Yeah, that’d be great.”
Tony could not stop himself from grinning widely before he turned his attention back to his computer.
About an hour later, Tim said, “I’ve got something.”
“That’s good, because I’ve got squat.”
Tim hit a few keys on his keyboard and the big plasma screen came on.
“According to employment records, Greg Barker and Henry Moss worked for the same company based in Baltimore in overlapping years. They both worked for Plaket, Inc., Barker from ’91 - ’95 and Moss for just a year, ’93 - ’94.”
“Laura Taylor was killed in July of ’94,” Tony mused. “What exactly is Plaket, Inc.?”
“It’s a transport company. It ships merchandise from distribution warehouses to specific retailers.”
“Do they just deliver to retail stores or do they do any home deliveries?”
“Just stores. Did Laura Taylor work at a shop?”
“No, she was an elementary school teacher.” Tony paused as he absorbed the information. “Can you get more information about the company?”
“Sure, give me a second.
As Tim looked up the information, Tony started to pace, going over the details in his mind. His brow furrowed as he started to come up with a theory, one that caused his mouth to set in a grim line.
“It’s a family owned company that’s been in operation for 22 years. Depending on who’s contracting them, they deliver anything from appliances and electronics to clothing.”
“How big is the company?”
“It looks like they employ anywhere between 40 and 50 people.”
“Those are present numbers though, right?
Tim nodded.
“So if we go back fifteen years, the company’s only been operating about seven years… those numbers would be cut in half at the very least.”
“Barker and Moss must have known each other.”
“Business like that, usually there’s only one driver, but depending on how much merchandise they have to load and unload, they might need more than one person on a delivery. What cities do Plaket service?
“According to their website, Baltimore and its surrounding areas”
“Including DC?”
“Including DC.” Tim confirmed.
“I’m getting a really bad feeling about this.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“What are the odds that Moss and Barker happened to work together around the same time that Laura Taylor was killed and then a few years later, Barker’s lover is killed in the same manner and his body is positioned in the exact same way? Flash forward seven years and the same thing happens to Moss’ wife.”
“It makes a sick kind of sense. It’s a leap, not a big one, but still. Was there any mention of a truck or cube-van seen near the Taylor place?”
“I can’t remember. Can you pull up the report again?”
After Tim did so, they read it over together.
“Son of a bitch,” Tony murmured under his breath.
“How is it you read faster than I do and I never noticed before?” Tim asked, still not having seen the cause of Tony’s cursing.
“I have many hidden talents. Second page, third paragraph.”
“There was an unidentified truck parked one block over. Why didn’t they follow-up on that?”
Tony was going through the pages quickly. “It says here that a few times a month, for about a year, a truck similar to it was seen parked in that area. The owner of the vehicle was never identified, but I guess they just assumed that it was the same truck.”
“Was the truck seen there again after the Taylor murder?”
“Yeah, a few more times after that according to the notes.”
“And then it stopped?”
“It doesn’t say. Maybe they wrote it off and didn’t look into it further.”
“Why would a truck be parked there only a few times a month?”
“Could be a lot of things. My guess - the driver was having an affair with someone who lived in the area. Spent the night whenever they had a delivery in DC and left the truck parked in the street close by.”
“Sounds plausible. But why wouldn’t the person who lived in the area report who the driver of the truck was?”
“The Taylors lived in a nice neighborhood, upper-middle class. You have to keep up appearances.”
“Appearances? A woman was murdered,” Tim said indignantly.
“You’re assuming that the affair was between a man and a woman. This was back in the mid-90’s. Homosexuality still held a lot of stigma.”
“Barker. Yeah, good point. If we follow this theory, that Peter Taylor committed the crimes in Baltimore as revenge, why was Barker killed and mutilated and not Moss? Why were there so many years in between the two murders?”
“All good questions, Probie. Could be a lot of things. Maybe it took him that long to find out that the second person responsible was Moss. Unless…”
“You’re going somewhere with this. What are you thinking?”
“Seems pretty coincidental that Susan Moss was killed while she was pregnant.”
“Oh god, do you think he bided his time?”
“Maybe. Lots of maybes though.”
They were silent for a moment as each tried to figure out what they should do next.
Finally, Tim said, “We need more information. Maybe Plaket, Inc. has a work log we can look at. Although 15 years… it’s a long time to keep records. Plus, computers were only just starting to get big around that time, they might only have hard copies.”
“We’ll also need the pictures from the Barker/Matthews case to check if the positioning is the same. We need to talk to Gibbs,” Tony said resignedly.
“He’s not going to like this.”
“No, he’s not. I’ll call Gibbs and see what he wants us to do.”
“I’ll keep looking for connections.”
Tony walked back to his desk and picked up the phone, dreading the conversation with Gibbs. From what he had gathered, the Taylor case had hit a bit too close to home for him. He worried about how Gibbs would react to this new lead.
Mentally bracing himself, he dialed Gibbs’ number. As he listened to the phone ring, he thought with regret that the talk with Tim would have to wait.