Chapter 2: The Petty Officer's Secrets
@Anthony “Tony” DiNozzo @Anthony “Tony” DiNozzo @Anthony “Tony” DiNozzo @Ziva David Traits @Ziva David @Ziva David Relationships @Teresa Lisbon - Characteristics @Teresa Lisbon - Dialogue @Teresa Lisbon - Relationships @Victim info
The building superintendent was a nervous man named Roy with hands that fluttered like trapped birds. He handed Tony the key, pointed a jittery finger toward the second-floor apartment, and retreated to the sanctuary of his ground-floor unit.The hallway smelled of lemon-scented cleaner and old carpet.
Tony slid the key into the lock of 2B with a soft click. He paused, his demeanor shifting from casually provocative to professionally cautious."Standard entry protocol," he said, his voice low. "Let me clear it first."He pushed the door open and stepped inside, his hand hovering near his holster. Ziva followed, her movements fluid and silent.Teresa entered last, closing the door softly behind her. The air inside was still and cool, carrying a faint trace of lemon polish and stale coffee.
Nathan Mercer’s apartment was a study in orderly living. The beige sofa was squared perfectly to a simple wood coffee table. Magazines—Naval History and Popular Mechanics—were stacked with their corners aligned.It felt less like a home and more like a well-maintained barracks.
“Neat freak,” Tony observed, already pulling on a pair of nitrile gloves. “I’m getting a serious Sergeant Carter vibe. You’re too young for that reference.”
“Probably,” Teresa agreed, her eyes already cataloging the room. She noted the family photograph on the bookshelf: a younger Mercer, his arm around a smiling teenage girl in front of a roller coaster. The frame was clean, but a faint, darker rectangle on the wood beneath it suggested it had been moved recently. Ziva moved to the small desk tucked into the corner. “Tony, look at this. He upgraded his home security system. The invoice is dated two weeks ago.” She pointed to a small, discrete camera mounted high in the corner above the door. “It is wireless. It feeds to a cloud service.”
“Paranoid much?” Tony said, moving toward the kitchenette.
“Prudent,” Ziva corrected, tapping at the keyboard of Mercer’s desktop computer. “The system was armed the night he died. It shows a single entry at 21:47, disarmed with his personal code.”
“So he let someone in,” Teresa said. She didn’t approach the desk, staying near the periphery of the living area.“Exactly.” Ziva’s fingers flew over the keys. “No exit log. Either they left while the system was disarmed, or they knew how to wipe the log.I will download the cloud data and send it to McGee.”
Tony opened the refrigerator. “One expired yogurt, half a loaf of wheat bread, mustard. Guy wasn’t a gourmet.” He closed the door and opened a drawer, finding takeout menus neatly paper-clipped together. “Hey, got a receipt here.Pier Point Grill, Georgetown. Date and time stamp match his last meal.”
“A restaurant on the water,” Teresa noted quietly. She was looking at the bookshelf again, not at the books but at the gaps between them. Everything was ordered by height, but one thick volume, Britain’s Fighting Ships, sat slightly prouder than its neighbours.
Ziva stood from the computer.“The cloud data is transferring.I found his personal calendar. He had a meeting marked ‘P.M.Delivery’ the evening he died.No location. No name.”
Tony had moved to the bedroom, his voice floating out.“Bed’s made with hospital corners. Single pillow.Closet is organized by color and season. This guy puts my ex-girlfriend’s OCD to shame.”
Teresa finally moved, drawn to the desk Ziva had vacated. She didn’t touch anything. The surface was immaculate: a blotter, a pen cup holding three identical pens, a stack of procurement folders labeled in neat block letters. One drawer was slightly ajar, a quarter-inch of darkness visible.
Teresa studied the desk’s perfect order for a moment longer.She turned toward the bedroom where Tony was rifling through a nightstand. “Hey, Agent DiNozzo?” she called, her tone lightly conversational. “From what you’re seeing, does Mercer strike you as the type to leave things unfinished?”
Tony paused, a packet of letters in his hand.“Hospital corners and color-coded socks?Not a chance. Why?”
“No reason,” she said, shrugging and gesturing vaguely toward the living area. “Just the overall impression.”
Tony reappeared in the doorway, his gaze shifting to the desk. He crossed the room in three strides and focused on the slightly open drawer.He pulled it fully open, his gloved fingers probing the interior.“Well, the overall impression is right,” he muttered. “This drawer’s a mess compared to everything else.Pens are jumbled. Paper clips spilled.” He lifted a stack of folders, fanning them out.“Huh. See this?” He pointed to a clear plastic tab at the bottom of the drawer.“It’s a label for a hanging file folder. Says ‘VALOR SUPPLY.’ But there’s no folder here.”
“So it’s missing,” Teresa said.
“Or it was never here,” Tony countered, though his expression was doubtful. He closed the drawer gently.“But you’re right. A guy this neat doesn’t have one messy drawer. He either took that file with him, or someone else did after.”
The computer chimed and Ziva returned to the monitor. “The security log shows the system was disarmed for twelve minutes starting at 21:47. It was re-armed remotely at 21:59 via a smartphone app.”
“Remote re-arm?” Teresa asked, back drifting toward the bookshelf.
“Yes. Meaning Mercer could have left with someone, then re-armed the system from his phone once he was outside.” Ziva’s eyes narrowed slightly as she watched Teresa scan the books. “There is no sign of a struggle. No forced entry. The meeting appears voluntary.”
“A voluntary meeting that ended with him shot at a rest stop,” Tony concluded, his voice tight. He began photographing the disordered drawer. “So our victim trusted someone enough to disable his new security system for them. Great.”
Teresa’s attention was fixed on the bookshelf. Among the perfectly aligned spines, the thick blue cover of Britain’s Fighting Ships protruded by maybe half an inch. It was a tiny rebellion against the room’s rigid order.She reached out and lightly tapped its spine.
“This one’s out of place,” she remarked, as if noticing a smudge on a window.
Tony glanced over. “Probably just didn’t push it in all the way.”
“Probably,” she agreed, turning away as if dismissing it.
But Tony was already moving, drawn by the inconsistency.He gripped the heavy volume and pulled it all the way out. He hefted it, then opened the front cover. Nothing. He fanned the pages. A single, folded slip of notepaper fluttered silently to the carpet.
“Hello,” Tony breathed, crouching to retrieve it.He unfolded it.His eyes skimmed the handwriting. “It’s a time and a dock number.‘Georgetown Marina.Slip 14. 22:00.’ Last night.”
“The marina is less than a mile from Pier Point Grill, where he ate,” Ziva said, already cross-referencing. “The timeline fits.He eats, meets someone at the marina, then returns here with them.”
Tony stared at the note, then at Teresa, who was examining a framed photo of the roller coaster again.“How’d you even see that? The book, I mean.It was barely sticking out.”
Teresa didn’t look at him. “Lucky glance, I guess.It just looked different.”
“Lucky,” Tony repeated, not buying it.“You got a thing for neatness? Is that your superpower?”
“I just like things tidy,” she said, her voice neutral.She finally met his gaze. “It’s not a superpower. It’s common sense.A messy drawer in a clean room stands out.A book out of line on a shelf like that stands out.”
Ziva watched the exchange, her head tilting a fraction. She said nothing, but her previous assessment of Teresa as a simple observer was now quietly shelved.No rookie had that specific, casual precision.
Tony stuffed the note into an evidence bag. “Well, my common sense says we need to see Slip 14.” He stood, energized by the lead. “McGee can pull marina ownership records and any camera feeds.George-town's full of tourists.Maybe we got a break.”
“Maybe,” Teresa said. She took a final look around the still, ordered apartment. The single disturbed drawer and the missing file whispered of a frantic, hidden search.The voluntary disarming of the security system spoke of trust, violently betrayed. “He was scared enough to get a new security system,” she noted quietly. “But he still let the wrong person in.”
Ziva powered down the computer. “Fear and trust are not mutually exclusive.They often coexist, right until the moment the gun is drawn.”
The three agents moved toward the door, the sterile apartment closing behind them like a tomb.Tony pocketed the evidence bag, his mind already racing to the marina.He shot another puzzled look at Teresa's back as she preceded him into the hall.
He couldn't shake the feeling her "luck" was a little too consistent.