Riparian

Tony had been in the office for a couple of hours now. He had figured he might as well come in as he hadn’t been sleeping well. He kept seeing flashes of startling blue eyes in his dreams. By the time 4am rolled around and he was still waking off and on, he finally thought screw it. He showered, dressed, and headed out for his morning run in an attempt to delay getting into the office till a more reasonable hour.

However, he still ended up in the office by 5:30am. As such he was there to take the call that came in at 6am. Hanging up with dispatch, he first called Gibbs. “Dead body at Rock Creek park near the south entrance.”

“Call McGee and Ziva.” Gibbs commanded.

“Will do, boss. I’ll grab the truck and meet you guys there.” Tony confirmed.

“You’re already at the office?” Gibbs paused to give Tony a chance to refute the statement when he didn’t, he continued. “I’ll grab you some coffee on the way.”

“Thanks, boss.” Tony heard the dead air before he’d even halfway finished speaking.

Calling McGee and Ziva with similar messages, he then grabbed one of the vans and headed over to Rock Creek Park. The park officials who had originally been called in to investigate had roped off the area for them. Though that didn’t seem to be doing much to deter passersby. Fortunately, they had roped off an area much bigger than the main crime scene as many passersby seemed to be getting a foot or more of their body inside of the roped off area.

Taking command of the situation, Tony showed his credentials to the officials trying their best to keep the civilians away from the crime scene and slipped inside. Glancing at the passersby, Tony made a command decision to try and help the park officials. Raising his voice, Tony demanded. “Everyone, stop. NCIS is taking over this crime scene. All civilians need to stay outside of the rope. Anyone who trespasses inside may be charged as an accessory to this murder for disrupting the crime scene.”

Most of the civilians blinked and took a step back not wanting to be considered an accessory. Though, of course, many loudly protested his statement, but he let the park officials deal with them and turned his focus to the body while he waited for the rest of his team to show up.

Gibbs pulled up first, Tony could hear the tires squealing as they screeched to a stop even from where he was. Ziva and McGee pulled in not long after him. Ducky and Palmer pulled in a little bit after Ziva and McGee as well.

Tony had started collecting items around the body. He knew better than to touch the body before Ducky had a chance to examine it. He had quite a few bags of evidence, but nothing that really screamed to him as the critical clue, yet.

Ducky examined the body after all the sketches had been done and moved to turn it over, so it was face up. As he moved the body a piece of paper tumbled out of the pocket. “I think I have something of interest.” He called out.

Tony brought an evidence bag and followed Gibbs over. “What do you have, Ducky?”

“Unfortunately, not the cause of death, but this did tumble out of one of his pockets.” Ducky offered the paper scrap up for someone to take.

Tony grabbed the piece of paper since he still had gloves on and read it aloud. “To Find #2, search the riparian lands for a clue”

“Oh dear. That doesn’t bode well at all. It quite smacks of a serial killer, doesn’t it?” Ducky murmured in dismay.

Tony groaned no way they were getting home at a decent hour tonight. “I’ll take McGee and start searching.”

“Do you even know where you need to search?” Gibbs growled.

“The park.” Tony replied.

“Specifically the river banks, Anthony. Riparian refers to banks of rivers or streams.” Ducky expounded saving Tony the trouble of admitting he didn’t have a clue where to search.

“Thanks Ducky. That will shorten the search a lot.” Tony nodded heading off towards the river bank and calling for McGee as he left.