Therapy Time Part Two
Title: Therapy Time
Author: Spiceblueeyes
Pairing: None
Rating: R
Word Count: 20,010
Spoilers: None that I can see.
Warnings: Suicide of OC, violence, angst, brief mentions of child abuse.
Summary: The team gets a case that unsettles Tony more than he wants to admit.
Author's Notes: This is both my first ever NCIS story, and the longest story I've ever written, so I'm excited about it. The story was beta'd by devo79 who is awesome and really helped me make the story better.
Be sure to check out the totally cool art that kj_svala made for the story, she's very talented. You can find it here. The banner at the top of the page is hers as well, and I love it!
“Hey Boss, did you see Seaman Suarez’s service record? He’s a hero!” McGee picked his head up from behind a file and shouted across the bullpen.
Tony, busy working on his computer, answered him. “He’s not a hero, Probie. He’s a murderer.”
“Well, yeah he shot that woman. But he was awarded a Silver Star for his time in Iraq. It says he went ‘above and beyond duty’ to save five other guys in his unit, and then was taken prisoner along with a Sergeant Morris.” McGee scanned the file some more, “they were rescued 34 hours later and Suarez was sent back to the States to be treated for injuries. They were both roughed up pretty bad, tortured.”
Tony swiveled his chair to face McGee, “and what in that story gives him the right to shoot an innocent civilian who was out shopping for her family? Hmm, Probie?” He gazed at him expectantly.
“Um, well, nothing. But-“
Tony cut him off. “That’s right, nothing. Just because you did something good yesterday, doesn’t mean it’s okay to kill someone today.” McGee opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but then seemed to think better of it.
"McGee! Back to work." Gibbs didn't even look up from his computer screen to speak. "Tony, take Ziva and check out Suarez's apartment."
"On it boss." He picked up his pack and headed to the elevator, jogging a bit to get ahead of Ziva as she stood up. He wanted to make sure he beat Ziva to the car. Her driving was like an E-ticket ride on steroids.
~^~
They got to the apartment in just twenty minutes. Ziva had made one illegal u-turn when they made a wrong turn, and had possibly run a red light through a major intersection. Tony wasn’t completely sure though, since he’d closed his eyes.
The apartment itself wasn’t anything special. It had the standard bachelor pad dirty dishes in the sink, and big screen tv. There were movie posters on the walls, The Godfather, Scarface, and Bladerunner. There was also a tread mill facing the television, the guy had obviously cared about staying in shape. Tony went to snoop around in the bathroom while Ziva took a look in the bedroom, where the bed was unmade and the clothes were strewn everywhere.
He opened the cabinet above the sink; there was an electric razor, toothpaste, and a bottle of Advil. On a hunch he took the bottle out and opened it. Inside were many different pills of all shapes and sizes, none of which looked like Advil. Putting the cap back on he slipped the bottle into an evidence bag and sealed it. It would go straight to Abby and her lab to find out what the pills were.
In the kitchen the cabinets were pretty bare. There were a few food staples, like peanut butter, and some cooking spices. There was also one bottle of alcohol. The fridge was mostly take-out boxes and some sodas.
After that there wasn’t much else of interest in the apartment, so Ziva and Tony headed back to NCIS. Tony headed down to Abby’s lab with the bottle of pills, while Ziva went upstairs to report to Gibbs.
Tony walked into the lab and the music blasted his ears, some sort of techno beat that he could feel in his chest. When Abby saw him she ran over to the stereo to turn it down, and then came back.
“Special delivery for the best forensic scientist on both sides of the Mississippi,” Tony said with a smile, holding up the evidence bag.
“Aw, Tony, you shouldn’t have, is it really for me?” She smiled back, her black pigtails bouncing as she signed to keep the chain of evidence.
“I found this in Suarez’s bathroom. Find out what kind of pills those are. We need to know what he was taking.” Tony handed the bag over to Abby.
“Sure thing,” she picked up the bag and spun around, skipping over to her computer and sett it down next to the keyboard with a flourish.
Tony gave a wry smile, “how many Caf-pows today Abs?”
She peered over her shoulder at him, “only two. One I bought myself this morning, and another the Bossman delivered an hour ago.” She grinned and bounced a little more. “I’m thinking of getting the chemical structure of caffeine as my next tattoo!"
“That sounds…oddly appropriate.” Tony shook his head and turned to leave. “Call me when you get the results.”
“No problemo.” Abby was already absorbed in whatever she was doing on the computer.
~^~
Back up in the squad room Tony sat down at his desk and put his back pack on the floor. Ziva looked like she was working, but she was a spy, trained in how to look like she was doing something while not actually doing anything. So you could never really tell. McGee was typing rapidly and Gibbs was, well, no one was really sure what Gibbs was doing over there. Tony’s theory was that all that time he spent staring at his computer screen; he was really using some marine sniper technique to sleep with his eyes open. Periodically taking sips of coffee on autopilot.
“Has anyone talked to Suarez’s family yet?” Tony asked.
McGee stopped typing and answered, “His parents were killed in a car accident when he was 10 and he was put into the foster system.”
“Who did he spend the longest amount of time with?”
“Um,” Tim scrolled down his screen and said “Ronald and Marcy Peters.”
“Give me their phone number, I’ll call them.” Tony picked up his phone and dialed the numbers that McGee dictated to him.
“Hello?” A feminine sounding voice asked. Tony poured on the charm.
“Hello, Is this Mrs. Peters?”
“Yes, who are you?” Her voice sounded slightly suspicious.
“I’m Special Agent Anthony Dinozzo, from NCIS. May I ask you a few questions regarding-“
“What’s NCIS?” Mrs. Peters interrupted him.
“It’s the Naval Criminal Investigative Service ma’am.” Tony explained. “I’d like to ask you some questions about Rafael Suarez.”
“Um, I’m not sure…” she paused, “why do you want to know about Rafael?”
Tony answered her delicately, “he’s currently a person of interest in an ongoing investigation.” It was never good to just come out and say ‘he murdered someone in cold blood and then ran away.’
A voice from the background on the other end of the phone shouted, “who’s asking about Rafael?”
“It’s the Naval Criminal Investigators people Ron.” Mrs. Peters answered the voice.
“What do they want? Give me the phone woman!” There were some scratching sounds as it sounded like the phone forcefully changed hands. “What did that fool boy do now?”
“Mr. Peters I presume?” Tony asked.
“I’m Ronald Peters. Now what did the boy do. I could tell he was trouble the day he showed up. I knew he would end up in a ditch somewhere. So is he?”
“I’m sorry, what?” Tony was a little dumbstruck.
“I said, is he in a ditch somewhere?” Peters asked again.
Tony gave Mr. Peters the same line he’d given Mrs. Peters. “No sir, he’s a person of interest in an ongoing investigation.”
“Hrmmph, boy deserves to be in a ditch. I tried to teach him, beat him regular so he’d toughen up. But no matter what I did he always had a smart mouth, couldn’t never keep it shut.” Tony’s stomach turned as he listened. It sounded like Rafael Suarez had had an even worse childhood than him. He’d at least been ignored most of the time, and only hit around the holidays.
Suddenly he was sympathizing with this killer he’d never met, and that made Tony very uncomfortable.
Mr. Peters was still talking “…and if he thinks he’s gettin’ any money from me he’s got another thing comin’. That little piece of shit always had somethin’ to say. I told his teachers they could discipline him proper, but they didn’t have the guts.”
“Thank you for your cooperation sir.” Tony cut in. “We’ll call you again if we have more questions.” He hung up the phone. Clearly those people wouldn’t know anything of Suarez’s life now. If he’d had any sense he’d have left and never looked back. Just like Tony had.
~*~*~*~
So you don’t think of him as just another murderer now?”Henry asked. Tony sat for a long moment, his eyes unfocused, thinking.
“No.”
Henry let the ‘no’ sit for a moment, hanging in the air. He didn’t ask any follow up questions; just let the silence ask the questions for him.
~*~*~*~
That night when Tony went home, unlocked his door, threw his keys onto the counter and sank down into his couch, he looked around his apartment. He saw the dishes in the sink, the movie posters on his walls, the standard bachelor pad décor, and he saw Rafael Suarez. He replayed the conversation with Mr. Peters over and over in his head.
“I tried to teach him, beat him regular so he’d toughen up.” The voice said. But somehow, in the repetition, the voice of Mr. Peters became his father’s voice.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you son, can’t do a damn thing right. You’re weak.”
He’d gone to college and never looked back, not once. But those demons have a way of following you, whispering to you when your back is turned. Make one mistake and you’re a failure all over again. Never show weakness, don’t let anyone see your hurt.
He wondered how much of Suarez’s decision to join the Navy was a way to get away, and how much was to prove that he was tough, that he was a man, and that he could make it after all. Stick it to all the Mr. Peters in the world by putting on that uniform.
It was one of the reasons Tony had gone into law enforcement, after his knee injury made pro sports no longer an option. He always took special pleasure in handcuffing men like his father. The ones who were arrogant, took advantage of other people without remorse, the ones who hit their wives and their kids and justified it by saying it was for their own good. If he manhandled those men into the patrol car a bit rougher than usual nobody ever said anything, and if he enjoyed the sound of their heads bumping the top of the car on their way in, well, who was going to know?
~*~*~*~
Henry tapped the tip of his pencil against his note pad; and the sound practically echoed in the silence. Tony didn’t say anything, he didn’t like the emotions this therapy session was stirring up. It was supposed to be easy, come in, charm the guy, convince him everything was A-okay in Tonyland and get back on active duty. Simple.
But this guy actually wanted to do his job. He wanted to get inside Tony’s head, or at least he wanted Tony to face the things in his head, even if he didn’t say them out loud. That wasn’t fair, it wasn’t how the game was played, it wasn’t how he played the game. Tony didn’t like cases where the bad guys were sympathetic, it made things complicated. And this case, this guy, had gotten under his skin in a way that had never happened before. He wanted to go home, slide in his dvd of Casablanca and lose himself in it. The case was over, why couldn’t he just leave it behind?
“So tell me,” Henry interrupted Tony’s swirling thoughts. “What happened next in the investigation?”
~*~*~*~
As soon as he arrived at work the next morning he had an e-mail from Abby saying that she knew what the pills were and if he wanted the information it was going to cost him. She put a smiley at the end though, so he knew she was just messing with him. Sometimes he thought she was kidding, and she was totally serious. He’d had to pay two Caf-pows and a sheet of fake tattoos for a packet of evidence once. He’d complained to Gibbs, but he’d just said “don’t piss her off, DiNozzo.” Sound advice, but it wasn’t really helpful at the time.
The timestamp on the e-mail said that she sent it last night, so she probably wasn’t here yet. No one else was here yet either. Trouble sleeping often brought Tony to the office before everyone else, and last night he couldn’t keep his father’s and Mr. Peters voices from circling in his head. So he sat at his desk and started to read the report on Suarez’s background that McGee had put together yesterday while he and Ziva were checking out the apartment.
The file had information about Suarez’s childhood. Up until he was ten he’d lived with his parents in Washington D.C. Then when they were killed by a drunk driver he was put into the foster system. He was bounced around from home to home, and people complained that he had “problems with authority” and “an attitude problem.” Reading between the lines it seemed like Rafael had been an angry kid, but then who wouldn’t be after losing their parents to an asshole that had already been charged with a DUI in the past, and then after killing two people, been given the minimum sentence.
He’d spent two years in the Peters home, from ages 12-14. Tony imagined that for Rafael, those years were best forgotten.
Tony looked up as Gibbs walked into the bullpen. “Hey, Boss.” Gibbs just nodded in acknowledgement and sat down at his desk. He was a man of few words.
Back to reading, and he found out that Suarez had the same Zodiac sign as he did. Creepy much? This guy was coming way to close to home.
Ziva and McGee came out of the elevator together, talking about…robots? Did he hear that right?
“I’m telling you Ziva, eventually technology will replace people and robots will perform all the menial tasks like working in factories and mining.” Tim seemed animated on the topic; he had that earnest look on his face. Ziva gave a small smile and shook her head.
“This will not happen McGee. Machines are only as trustworthy as the people who make them. Also, I think some people would object to the use of robots at all.” They both glanced at Gibbs when she said that. His luddite tendencies were well known by all. The department’s budget reflected the number of cell phones Gibbs broke on a regular basis.
The two of them broke off to go to their own desks and start working. Almost immediately the sound of typing came from McGee’s direction. Tony went back to his file.
As soon as he was 18 years old Rafael had enlisted in the Navy. He went through boot camp and his instructor gave him only positive reviews. He’d done two tours in Iraq, and it was on his second one that he’d been wounded and sent home. Tony flipped to where there was more detail about that.
It said, in clinical terms, that Suarez had all the fingers on his hands broken, burns on his arms and torso, and multiple superficial cuts to his body. The man who had been captured with him wasn’t nearly as bad off, he had had a head wound but had not been tortured the way Suarez was. They had both received a purple heart, and Suarez had also been given a Silver Star. Tony remembered that McGee had mentioned that before, and had seemed surprised that someone who was considered a hero would randomly kill a woman in a supermarket. It was, admittedly, strange, but the Silver Star didn’t give Suarez a pass on the murder. The law didn’t work like that.
The phone on his desk rang and Tony reached out and picked it up, putting it to his ear. “Special Agent DiNozzo.”
“Hello? Are you on the team investigating the Suarez case?” A male voice asked.
“Yes I am, do you have information for us?” Tony picked up a pen so he could jot things down.
“Yeah, I’m Rafael Suarez.” Tony paused for a split second in surprise and then started snapping his fingers to get McGee’s attention.
“Hi Rafael, we’ve been looking for you.” Tony kept his voice calm and smooth; he didn’t want to spook Suarez into hanging up. McGee finally looked at him and Tony signaled him to trace the call. Ziva and Gibbs had looked up from whatever they were doing when he’d said Suarez’s name.
“I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry for what I did. More sorry than you know.” Suarez sounded truly contrite, but an apology wasn’t gonna cut it for a murder.
“Why don’t you come in and we’ll take your statement. Hear your side of the story.” Tony offered. It was a long shot that Rafael would just turn himself in, but it sometimes happened.
“I’ll think about it.” The tone of his voice said that he really would think about it, and that was the sign of a man who really regretted his actions and felt guilty. Experience though, told Tony that self-preservation would win out, and Suarez would stay on the run.
“Look, if you turn yourself in a Jury will go easier on you; do you really want to spend the rest of your life on the run?” Tony asked.
“No, no I really don’t.” With that, Suarez hung up and the line clicked dead. Tony looked over at McGee to see if the trace was successful, but he shook his head ‘no.’
Hanging up the phone Tony sighed. Suarez’s guilty conscience had forced him to call, but it didn’t really change anything. They were still going to catch him, and when they did, he was going to jail.
~*~*~*~
On to Part Three
Author: Spiceblueeyes
Pairing: None
Rating: R
Word Count: 20,010
Spoilers: None that I can see.
Warnings: Suicide of OC, violence, angst, brief mentions of child abuse.
Summary: The team gets a case that unsettles Tony more than he wants to admit.
Author's Notes: This is both my first ever NCIS story, and the longest story I've ever written, so I'm excited about it. The story was beta'd by devo79 who is awesome and really helped me make the story better.
Be sure to check out the totally cool art that kj_svala made for the story, she's very talented. You can find it here. The banner at the top of the page is hers as well, and I love it!
“Hey Boss, did you see Seaman Suarez’s service record? He’s a hero!” McGee picked his head up from behind a file and shouted across the bullpen.
Tony, busy working on his computer, answered him. “He’s not a hero, Probie. He’s a murderer.”
“Well, yeah he shot that woman. But he was awarded a Silver Star for his time in Iraq. It says he went ‘above and beyond duty’ to save five other guys in his unit, and then was taken prisoner along with a Sergeant Morris.” McGee scanned the file some more, “they were rescued 34 hours later and Suarez was sent back to the States to be treated for injuries. They were both roughed up pretty bad, tortured.”
Tony swiveled his chair to face McGee, “and what in that story gives him the right to shoot an innocent civilian who was out shopping for her family? Hmm, Probie?” He gazed at him expectantly.
“Um, well, nothing. But-“
Tony cut him off. “That’s right, nothing. Just because you did something good yesterday, doesn’t mean it’s okay to kill someone today.” McGee opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but then seemed to think better of it.
"McGee! Back to work." Gibbs didn't even look up from his computer screen to speak. "Tony, take Ziva and check out Suarez's apartment."
"On it boss." He picked up his pack and headed to the elevator, jogging a bit to get ahead of Ziva as she stood up. He wanted to make sure he beat Ziva to the car. Her driving was like an E-ticket ride on steroids.
~^~
They got to the apartment in just twenty minutes. Ziva had made one illegal u-turn when they made a wrong turn, and had possibly run a red light through a major intersection. Tony wasn’t completely sure though, since he’d closed his eyes.
The apartment itself wasn’t anything special. It had the standard bachelor pad dirty dishes in the sink, and big screen tv. There were movie posters on the walls, The Godfather, Scarface, and Bladerunner. There was also a tread mill facing the television, the guy had obviously cared about staying in shape. Tony went to snoop around in the bathroom while Ziva took a look in the bedroom, where the bed was unmade and the clothes were strewn everywhere.
He opened the cabinet above the sink; there was an electric razor, toothpaste, and a bottle of Advil. On a hunch he took the bottle out and opened it. Inside were many different pills of all shapes and sizes, none of which looked like Advil. Putting the cap back on he slipped the bottle into an evidence bag and sealed it. It would go straight to Abby and her lab to find out what the pills were.
In the kitchen the cabinets were pretty bare. There were a few food staples, like peanut butter, and some cooking spices. There was also one bottle of alcohol. The fridge was mostly take-out boxes and some sodas.
After that there wasn’t much else of interest in the apartment, so Ziva and Tony headed back to NCIS. Tony headed down to Abby’s lab with the bottle of pills, while Ziva went upstairs to report to Gibbs.
Tony walked into the lab and the music blasted his ears, some sort of techno beat that he could feel in his chest. When Abby saw him she ran over to the stereo to turn it down, and then came back.
“Special delivery for the best forensic scientist on both sides of the Mississippi,” Tony said with a smile, holding up the evidence bag.
“Aw, Tony, you shouldn’t have, is it really for me?” She smiled back, her black pigtails bouncing as she signed to keep the chain of evidence.
“I found this in Suarez’s bathroom. Find out what kind of pills those are. We need to know what he was taking.” Tony handed the bag over to Abby.
“Sure thing,” she picked up the bag and spun around, skipping over to her computer and sett it down next to the keyboard with a flourish.
Tony gave a wry smile, “how many Caf-pows today Abs?”
She peered over her shoulder at him, “only two. One I bought myself this morning, and another the Bossman delivered an hour ago.” She grinned and bounced a little more. “I’m thinking of getting the chemical structure of caffeine as my next tattoo!"
“That sounds…oddly appropriate.” Tony shook his head and turned to leave. “Call me when you get the results.”
“No problemo.” Abby was already absorbed in whatever she was doing on the computer.
~^~
Back up in the squad room Tony sat down at his desk and put his back pack on the floor. Ziva looked like she was working, but she was a spy, trained in how to look like she was doing something while not actually doing anything. So you could never really tell. McGee was typing rapidly and Gibbs was, well, no one was really sure what Gibbs was doing over there. Tony’s theory was that all that time he spent staring at his computer screen; he was really using some marine sniper technique to sleep with his eyes open. Periodically taking sips of coffee on autopilot.
“Has anyone talked to Suarez’s family yet?” Tony asked.
McGee stopped typing and answered, “His parents were killed in a car accident when he was 10 and he was put into the foster system.”
“Who did he spend the longest amount of time with?”
“Um,” Tim scrolled down his screen and said “Ronald and Marcy Peters.”
“Give me their phone number, I’ll call them.” Tony picked up his phone and dialed the numbers that McGee dictated to him.
“Hello?” A feminine sounding voice asked. Tony poured on the charm.
“Hello, Is this Mrs. Peters?”
“Yes, who are you?” Her voice sounded slightly suspicious.
“I’m Special Agent Anthony Dinozzo, from NCIS. May I ask you a few questions regarding-“
“What’s NCIS?” Mrs. Peters interrupted him.
“It’s the Naval Criminal Investigative Service ma’am.” Tony explained. “I’d like to ask you some questions about Rafael Suarez.”
“Um, I’m not sure…” she paused, “why do you want to know about Rafael?”
Tony answered her delicately, “he’s currently a person of interest in an ongoing investigation.” It was never good to just come out and say ‘he murdered someone in cold blood and then ran away.’
A voice from the background on the other end of the phone shouted, “who’s asking about Rafael?”
“It’s the Naval Criminal Investigators people Ron.” Mrs. Peters answered the voice.
“What do they want? Give me the phone woman!” There were some scratching sounds as it sounded like the phone forcefully changed hands. “What did that fool boy do now?”
“Mr. Peters I presume?” Tony asked.
“I’m Ronald Peters. Now what did the boy do. I could tell he was trouble the day he showed up. I knew he would end up in a ditch somewhere. So is he?”
“I’m sorry, what?” Tony was a little dumbstruck.
“I said, is he in a ditch somewhere?” Peters asked again.
Tony gave Mr. Peters the same line he’d given Mrs. Peters. “No sir, he’s a person of interest in an ongoing investigation.”
“Hrmmph, boy deserves to be in a ditch. I tried to teach him, beat him regular so he’d toughen up. But no matter what I did he always had a smart mouth, couldn’t never keep it shut.” Tony’s stomach turned as he listened. It sounded like Rafael Suarez had had an even worse childhood than him. He’d at least been ignored most of the time, and only hit around the holidays.
Suddenly he was sympathizing with this killer he’d never met, and that made Tony very uncomfortable.
Mr. Peters was still talking “…and if he thinks he’s gettin’ any money from me he’s got another thing comin’. That little piece of shit always had somethin’ to say. I told his teachers they could discipline him proper, but they didn’t have the guts.”
“Thank you for your cooperation sir.” Tony cut in. “We’ll call you again if we have more questions.” He hung up the phone. Clearly those people wouldn’t know anything of Suarez’s life now. If he’d had any sense he’d have left and never looked back. Just like Tony had.
~*~*~*~
So you don’t think of him as just another murderer now?”Henry asked. Tony sat for a long moment, his eyes unfocused, thinking.
“No.”
Henry let the ‘no’ sit for a moment, hanging in the air. He didn’t ask any follow up questions; just let the silence ask the questions for him.
~*~*~*~
That night when Tony went home, unlocked his door, threw his keys onto the counter and sank down into his couch, he looked around his apartment. He saw the dishes in the sink, the movie posters on his walls, the standard bachelor pad décor, and he saw Rafael Suarez. He replayed the conversation with Mr. Peters over and over in his head.
“I tried to teach him, beat him regular so he’d toughen up.” The voice said. But somehow, in the repetition, the voice of Mr. Peters became his father’s voice.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you son, can’t do a damn thing right. You’re weak.”
He’d gone to college and never looked back, not once. But those demons have a way of following you, whispering to you when your back is turned. Make one mistake and you’re a failure all over again. Never show weakness, don’t let anyone see your hurt.
He wondered how much of Suarez’s decision to join the Navy was a way to get away, and how much was to prove that he was tough, that he was a man, and that he could make it after all. Stick it to all the Mr. Peters in the world by putting on that uniform.
It was one of the reasons Tony had gone into law enforcement, after his knee injury made pro sports no longer an option. He always took special pleasure in handcuffing men like his father. The ones who were arrogant, took advantage of other people without remorse, the ones who hit their wives and their kids and justified it by saying it was for their own good. If he manhandled those men into the patrol car a bit rougher than usual nobody ever said anything, and if he enjoyed the sound of their heads bumping the top of the car on their way in, well, who was going to know?
~*~*~*~
Henry tapped the tip of his pencil against his note pad; and the sound practically echoed in the silence. Tony didn’t say anything, he didn’t like the emotions this therapy session was stirring up. It was supposed to be easy, come in, charm the guy, convince him everything was A-okay in Tonyland and get back on active duty. Simple.
But this guy actually wanted to do his job. He wanted to get inside Tony’s head, or at least he wanted Tony to face the things in his head, even if he didn’t say them out loud. That wasn’t fair, it wasn’t how the game was played, it wasn’t how he played the game. Tony didn’t like cases where the bad guys were sympathetic, it made things complicated. And this case, this guy, had gotten under his skin in a way that had never happened before. He wanted to go home, slide in his dvd of Casablanca and lose himself in it. The case was over, why couldn’t he just leave it behind?
“So tell me,” Henry interrupted Tony’s swirling thoughts. “What happened next in the investigation?”
~*~*~*~
As soon as he arrived at work the next morning he had an e-mail from Abby saying that she knew what the pills were and if he wanted the information it was going to cost him. She put a smiley at the end though, so he knew she was just messing with him. Sometimes he thought she was kidding, and she was totally serious. He’d had to pay two Caf-pows and a sheet of fake tattoos for a packet of evidence once. He’d complained to Gibbs, but he’d just said “don’t piss her off, DiNozzo.” Sound advice, but it wasn’t really helpful at the time.
The timestamp on the e-mail said that she sent it last night, so she probably wasn’t here yet. No one else was here yet either. Trouble sleeping often brought Tony to the office before everyone else, and last night he couldn’t keep his father’s and Mr. Peters voices from circling in his head. So he sat at his desk and started to read the report on Suarez’s background that McGee had put together yesterday while he and Ziva were checking out the apartment.
The file had information about Suarez’s childhood. Up until he was ten he’d lived with his parents in Washington D.C. Then when they were killed by a drunk driver he was put into the foster system. He was bounced around from home to home, and people complained that he had “problems with authority” and “an attitude problem.” Reading between the lines it seemed like Rafael had been an angry kid, but then who wouldn’t be after losing their parents to an asshole that had already been charged with a DUI in the past, and then after killing two people, been given the minimum sentence.
He’d spent two years in the Peters home, from ages 12-14. Tony imagined that for Rafael, those years were best forgotten.
Tony looked up as Gibbs walked into the bullpen. “Hey, Boss.” Gibbs just nodded in acknowledgement and sat down at his desk. He was a man of few words.
Back to reading, and he found out that Suarez had the same Zodiac sign as he did. Creepy much? This guy was coming way to close to home.
Ziva and McGee came out of the elevator together, talking about…robots? Did he hear that right?
“I’m telling you Ziva, eventually technology will replace people and robots will perform all the menial tasks like working in factories and mining.” Tim seemed animated on the topic; he had that earnest look on his face. Ziva gave a small smile and shook her head.
“This will not happen McGee. Machines are only as trustworthy as the people who make them. Also, I think some people would object to the use of robots at all.” They both glanced at Gibbs when she said that. His luddite tendencies were well known by all. The department’s budget reflected the number of cell phones Gibbs broke on a regular basis.
The two of them broke off to go to their own desks and start working. Almost immediately the sound of typing came from McGee’s direction. Tony went back to his file.
As soon as he was 18 years old Rafael had enlisted in the Navy. He went through boot camp and his instructor gave him only positive reviews. He’d done two tours in Iraq, and it was on his second one that he’d been wounded and sent home. Tony flipped to where there was more detail about that.
It said, in clinical terms, that Suarez had all the fingers on his hands broken, burns on his arms and torso, and multiple superficial cuts to his body. The man who had been captured with him wasn’t nearly as bad off, he had had a head wound but had not been tortured the way Suarez was. They had both received a purple heart, and Suarez had also been given a Silver Star. Tony remembered that McGee had mentioned that before, and had seemed surprised that someone who was considered a hero would randomly kill a woman in a supermarket. It was, admittedly, strange, but the Silver Star didn’t give Suarez a pass on the murder. The law didn’t work like that.
The phone on his desk rang and Tony reached out and picked it up, putting it to his ear. “Special Agent DiNozzo.”
“Hello? Are you on the team investigating the Suarez case?” A male voice asked.
“Yes I am, do you have information for us?” Tony picked up a pen so he could jot things down.
“Yeah, I’m Rafael Suarez.” Tony paused for a split second in surprise and then started snapping his fingers to get McGee’s attention.
“Hi Rafael, we’ve been looking for you.” Tony kept his voice calm and smooth; he didn’t want to spook Suarez into hanging up. McGee finally looked at him and Tony signaled him to trace the call. Ziva and Gibbs had looked up from whatever they were doing when he’d said Suarez’s name.
“I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry for what I did. More sorry than you know.” Suarez sounded truly contrite, but an apology wasn’t gonna cut it for a murder.
“Why don’t you come in and we’ll take your statement. Hear your side of the story.” Tony offered. It was a long shot that Rafael would just turn himself in, but it sometimes happened.
“I’ll think about it.” The tone of his voice said that he really would think about it, and that was the sign of a man who really regretted his actions and felt guilty. Experience though, told Tony that self-preservation would win out, and Suarez would stay on the run.
“Look, if you turn yourself in a Jury will go easier on you; do you really want to spend the rest of your life on the run?” Tony asked.
“No, no I really don’t.” With that, Suarez hung up and the line clicked dead. Tony looked over at McGee to see if the trace was successful, but he shook his head ‘no.’
Hanging up the phone Tony sighed. Suarez’s guilty conscience had forced him to call, but it didn’t really change anything. They were still going to catch him, and when they did, he was going to jail.
~*~*~*~
On to Part Three