Colloquial

Gibbs shook his head he couldn’t make heads or tails of the caller’s speech. Even the 911 operators who took the call didn’t know if the guy was threatening to take his own life, threatening to take another, trying to save someone’s life or what.

Gibbs would wonder why it got redirected to NCIS, however, the 911 operators did manage to get a location of the caller, but when the paramedics arrived all they found was a dead petty officer. No sign of the caller though they doubted it was the dead petty officer as the caller had clearly been male and the dead petty officer was most definitely female.

He’d given the tape to Abby as it was basically their only clue as to what happened at this point in time. There were no obvious wounds on the body and they hadn’t found anything at the crime scene that could even point to it being a murder, yet. He hoped Ducky would be able to provide them a better cause of death once he’d had some more time with the body.

Tony had listened to the tape and he thought he’d caught a word or phrase here or there that he recognized, but he couldn’t place it. If Abby wasn’t able to figure out, he’d be asking Ducky to listen to the tape next. Since there was no evidence to speak of and no clues that anyone knew how to interpret, he’d sent the team home as he was sure that as soon as they had more information they’d be hitting the ground running and wouldn’t have time for sleep.

Gibbs glanced over at DiNozzo who appeared to be staring off into space and shook his head. DiNozzo had refused to go home even though everyone else had done so. Something about the tape was obviously bothering him. Gibbs wondered if this was one of those cases where something that was bothering Tony would eventually become a break that lead to solving the case.

As Gibbs watched, Tony snapped his fingers and jumped up rushing down the stairs not even bothering with the elevator. He ground to a halt in front of Abby. “Can you make a copy of the recording for me, Abbs?” He was practically vibrating as he stood there waiting for her answer clearly ready to rush off as soon as he had what he needed.

“Sure. 2 secs.” Abby replied spinning around and quickly making a copy before handing it to Tony.

Tony didn’t even say bye. He just dashed out of there to his next destination leaving Abby staring after him slightly shocked.

He didn’t go far though. Just took the stairs down to autopsy.

“Whoa, slow down, my dear boy. What’s the rush?” Ducky spoke calmly as if he could soothe whatever had Tony’s tail feathers in a ruffle simply with his voice.

Handing the recording to Ducky, he spoke quickly as if his very life depended on the answer. “Can you listen to this and translate it or at least tell us which colloquial dialect it is? I recognized a few of the colloquial phrases as ones I’ve heard you say before despite mostly not being able to understand the caller’s speech, so I’m hoping you can give us some hints.”

“Sure. Sure. Sit down and catch your breath while I do that, dear boy.” Ducky settled Anthony onto one of the autopsy tables.

Tony just hoped that Ducky could identify it for them because while it was unlikely that Gibbs would kill him over this, if they didn’t catch a break on this case soon it wouldn’t matter as Gibbs the growly bear would be front and center the whole time.