Sensing Evil

"No, when you see the bedroom and the blood spin art in there," Tony said, "I think you'll agree that the guy bled out."
"Let's leave the cause of death to me, shall we, Anthony?" Ducky advised kindly.
Gladly, Tony thought. Ducky's profession, and his constant dabbling in horrific body parts, must lend itself to a sterner
stomach. The ME seemed more intrigued by the scenario in front of him than troubled. Of course, he hadn't seen the two course
meal on the kitchen table yet.
McGee made his way back in, and Gibbs gave him the camera. "Do the bedroom," he ordered. As Kate stumbled in behind
him, Gibbs took the tape measurer from Tony and handed it to her.
She nodded, flashed Tony a I-don't-get-paid-enough-money-for-this look--that Tony could completely relate to--and headed for
the bedroom.
After his sketching was complete, Tony went outside to talk to the neighbors. Considering how long the guy had been alive
before bleeding out, someone must have heard something. Tony found himself wondering why the guy’s tongue hadn’t been on
the menu, then cursed himself for his overactive imagination. His stomach roiled. "Sick, sick fuck," he murmured.
The two neighbors on either side weren't home. The neighbor across the street was an old woman who had to squint her eyes to
see Tony two feet away and responded with, "What? What?" to everything he said. The next houses down in either direction
also had people at home. At one door he was met by a young housewife with two small toddlers, one of whom didn't stop
screaming the entire time Tony was there. He couldn't imagine she could hear herself think let alone hear a crime being
committed.
At the other house he was met by another young woman. This one did her best to proposition Tony into bed. Tony wasn't
tempted at all. She was a little too young-- high school young. She hadn't heard a thing either, not surprisingly, given the iPOD
earplugs stuck in her ears.
Tony could hear Kate talking to the neighbor the next house down across the street from where Tony was. Kate was getting her
ear talked off. One of those people who loved it when their doorbell rang because it meant they could talk to a live human
being.
As he headed for the next house on his side of the street, he could feel Miss Jailbait watching his ass. He wanted to go back in
there and tell her he was old enough to be her father. Which made Tony want to cry because a) how scary was it that he was
old enough to beanyone's dad, and b) he really did want to go in there and tell her he was old enough to be her father.
He struck out at every house. On the bright side, he got propositioned again by someone old enough for him to date, though the
wedding ring on her left hand was a turn off. Tony may have been a sex fiend, at least in Kate's estimation, but he did have
some rules, and too young and too married were two of them. Granted, it was a short list of rules, but Tony stuck by them.
There were too many beautiful, willing women in the world to take a chance with the ones that could end up with him in jail or
beaten to a bloody pulp. And that didn't even include the beautiful, willing men. Or the beautiful, unwilling men, he thought
with a frustrated frown as he headed back to Gibbs and the victim's house.
That was when he saw her. An old black woman sitting on a bench across the street from the victim's house. He would have
sworn on a stack of bibles that there hadn't been a bench there before, and Tony knew he wouldn't have missed her. She wore a
royal blue sari, or something long that wrapped around her body, with red and yellow ribbon trimming. It fell to mid-shin, and
her feet were bare. There were dozens of gold, silver, and beaded bracelets on her wrists, and her hair was tied back in a
severe bun. To top off the whole ensemble, she wore a pair of glasses with leopard print frames. She grinned at him revealing
two gold-capped front teeth.
He blinked at her, then looked around to see if there was a bus stop nearby that had just disgorged her. Nothing. Apparently, he
had walked right by her, her and her bench. He smiled back at her, pulling out his badge. "Hi, ma'am, my name is Special Agent
Anthony DiNozzo. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"
She stared up at him, still smiling.
Maybe she didn't speak English. Maybe she was deaf. "Ma'am," he tried again.