A Year of NCIS, Day 44: Hometown Hero (Episode 2.21)

Episode: 2.21, Hometown Hero

Air Date: May 3, 2005.

The Victim: Petty Officer Justin Dobbs.  Well, not really, but the actual murder victim is non-military.

Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body:  A manager at a storage facility in Richland, Virginia is opening a storage unit.  A girl is looking for a picture of a dead guy’s mother, so he can be buried with it.  The manager examines the bed of a pick- up truck stored in the unit, and finds a human skeleton.

Plot Summary: Tony arrives throwing and kicking things.  His car got towed, and the towing company keeps putting him on hold.  Kate determines that he did not sleep at home last night, and since his car was towed from Georgetown, she hopes the girl was of age.  They squabble over whether Kate has plans for the weekend.  Apparently, Abby and Kate are taking a girl’s trip.  Tony wants to know where, and Gibbs comes in and says, “health spa.”  Abby protests, but Gibbs says he knows Tony will spend all day trying to figure it out and Gibbs wants him focused. 

Dialogue tells us that a now-deceased Petty Officer Dobbs rented the storage unit shown in the opening about ten months ago before deploying to Iraq.  He died in Fallujah last week.  Right before the team leaves to visit the storage unit, Tony finds out his car was stolen, not towed.

At the storage unit, Ducky determines that the skeleton is female, 17-20.  Gibbs asks for a report on the storage facility set up.  Tony says that every renter has a separate code to the main gate, and a key to their own locker.  The facility is checking on whether anyone has accessed Petty Officer Dobbs’s unit.

Kate interviews Emmy Poole, the woman who opened the locker.  She has been friends with Petty Officer Dobbs since high school.  Petty Officer Dobbs mailed Emmy the key to the locker with a will and power of attorney.  He didn’t have anybody else.  Kate asks Emmy if she has any idea who is in the truck and Emmy hesitates.  Kate warns her that they’ll find out regardless, so she might as well spill.  Emmy talks about a girl named Nora Webb who disappeared in high school, and says the police always suspected Petty Officer Dobbs.

Back at HQ, McGee announces that Petty Officer Dobbs’s CO recommended him for a posthumous Silver Star.  The CO is on-screen in MTAC asking for Gibbs.  Gibbs directs Kate to talk to the local LEOs about what Emmy said about Nora Webb, but to not let on that the team has recovered a body.  Gibbs is not in the mood for a measuring contest or a jurisdictional fight, particularly with Director Morrow having not come to work all season.  Gibbs interrupts Tony’s cell phone call and sends Tony to the evidence garage to inventory Petty Officer Dobbs’s stored property.  He can talk to his insurance company about the stolen car on his own time.

In MTAC, Petty Officer Dobbs’s CO, Lt. King, tells Gibbs that Petty Officer Dobbs dragged two Marines to safety and gave his life for theirs.  Lance Corporal Ramos adds that even though Petty Officer Dobbs was Navy, he was one of them.  And he was a hero.  So, since Petty Officer Dobbs isn’t around to defend himself from allegations related to the recovered body, Lance Corporal Ramos charges Gibbs with defending the petty officer’s honor.

In autopsy, Ducky confirms that the body is Ms. Webb.  Time of death is still uncertain and turns on where the body was before the storage locker.  COD is also unknown.

Abby and Tony are inventorying the storage unit’s contents.  Tony finds some home movies, including “High School Senior Year.”  He quizzes Abby on the health spa experience, and she’s mostly screwing with him.

Kate says the LEOs had indeed identified Petty Officer Dobbs as a person of interest in Ms. Webb’s disappearance.  She also has some background on Petty Officer Dobbs: enlisted right after high school, raised by a single mother who died of cancer while he was in boot camp, received medical training.

McGee announces that JAG attorney Lt. Commander Faith Coleman (or Commander Frowny Face, as we like to call her here) would like to speak to Gibbs.  He tells McGee to tell Cmdr. Coleman he’s not around, but it’s too late and she walks into the desk area and says Gibbs can tell her his own damn self.  They have a stare down and the rest of the agents exit the room.  Cmdr. Coleman says SecNav wants JAG involved in the Dobbs investigation.  Unsurprisingly, the Navy would prefer not to give the Silver Star to a murderer, and since Petty Officer Dobbs’s funeral is expected to be with full military honors, Gibbs has 24 hours to figure out who killed Ms. Webb.  Gibbs protests.  Perhaps, it’s karma for the time he gave Kate four hours to collect a Petty Officer’s held mail form the Post Office despite her saying it would take three days (Bikini Wax, Episode 2.18).  Perhaps it’s payback for the last time he had to deal with Cmdr. Grim Visage and gave her the runaround.  Either way, she is unyielding, reiterates her demand, and leaves. 

Abby enters the room and happily takes Cmdr. Coleman’s place. Happily, that is, until Gibbs tells his team to cancel all weekend plans.

Tony shows a video of a car wash, in which all our players are participants.  It was shot two days before Ms. Webb disappeared on April 20, 2003.  Tony and McGee discuss cars, and McGee drove an ‘84 Camaro in high school.  Tony is impressed but wants to know what the hell happened to McGee.  Turns out McGee wrecked the car the first day he had it and ended up in traction.  That earns him a hug from Tony, probably more for the loss of the car than the severe injuries.  “I didn’t know,” Tony says.

Gibbs and Kate decide to have an up-front chat with the Richland LEOs, Chief Whalen and Officer Krieg.  Ms. Webb was last seen leaving a party with Petty Officer Dobbs.  Her parents reported her missing the next day, and when Petty Officer Dobbs was seen again, he had scratches on his face and arms.  Petty Officer Dobbs claimed she got abusive before he dropped her off at her home.  Petty Officer Dobbs was seen flirting with Ms. Webb at the party, and the theory is that he pushed the issue in the car, she resisted, and bad things happened.  When nobody could find the body, the DA didn’t press charges.  Chief Whalen says Petty Officer Dobbs “slinked out of town in a Navy uniform.”  Gibbs takes exception to this and mentions Petty Officer Dobbs’s heroism, but Chief Whalen doesn’t care.  He gives Gibbs a copy of the Webb file and tells him to go photocopy it himself.  Gibbs smiles thinly because he knows it will be Kate’s job to make those copies.

Gibbs squeals into a plant nursery to talk to Nora Webb’s parents.  The Webbs are expecting the agents.  Chief Whalen walks out to say goodbye to the Webbs and apologizes to Gibbs for his slow copy machine.  Nicely done.  NCIS usually pulls this stuff on other agencies.  And Gibbs’s smirk demonstrates his respect.

Mr. Webb would like to know when they get their daughter back.  He and his wife are understandably upset, have no doubt Petty Officer Dobbs did this, and they do not want to answer questions.  Kate presses, but Gibbs calls her off.  He thanks the Webbs and he and Kate leave. 

Jimmy visits Abby with his big ole’ cheese grin.  He brings her a substance that he got off the femur for analysis.  Palmer feels bad that Abby’s weekend got cancelled and he may or may not be flirting with her again.  Palmer is so earnest, that it’s a little hard to tell.  If it’s real, then she’s mean as hell for letting him give her a substitute massage.  Fortunately, Tony is there to deliver Palmer a head slap and cool the room back down.  McGee is there too, and Tony tosses Palmer out, hands over a Caf-Pow, and asks, “What have you got Abs?”    Abby and McGee laugh at Tony for becoming Gibbs when Gibbs isn’t around. 

Gibbs and Kate catch up with Emmy Poole at her retail job.  They ask how long she has known about the storage locker.  She says a week, when she read the will.  She doesn’t know who else knew about the will and the witness signatures were unfamiliar to her.  As to her relationship with Petty Officer Dobbs, they were tight in high school.  She says it was his idea to go off to the stupid war and she doesn’t need this.  Ms. Poole and Ms. Webb were friends, because high school.  She sees some customers and abruptly ends the interview, causing Gibbs to remark on the pissed off manner of the town’s population. 

In autopsy, Ducky determines that the victim was strangled. 

Gibbs and Kate return, and McGee reports that nobody accessed the storage unit after Petty Officer Dobbs deployed.  McGee didn’t find anything of interest in Petty Officer Dobbs’s personal effects other than a padlock key to the storage unit, identical to the one possessed by Emmy Poole. 

Tony finds out his car was used in a convenience store robbery in Tennessee.

Gibbs gets called to MTAC.  Cmdr. Coleman feels the need to squeeze his balls a bit because turnabout truly is fair play.  She tells him that she’s going to have to withhold the medal.  Gibbs says this would be denying a hero his due, but he’ll be damned if he stands there and takes snark from JAG so, having made his point, he pulls the NCIS equivalent of pretending he’s driving through a tunnel and hangs up on Cmdr. Coleman.  The MTAC operators haven’t had this much fun since McGee was telling off the State Department (Chained Episode 2.10). 

Ducky is waiting outside MTAC and gives Gibbs the grim fate of Ms. Webb.  They talk about whether Petty Officer Dobbs might actually be guilty.  But the conversation is really a pep talk for Gibbs’s gut, and Gibbs decides he doesn’t want to let down the Marines he spoke to in MTAC.  He bounds down the stairs and says he wants Ms. Poole in interrogation.  Unfortunately, when Kate calls, Chief Whalen answers, and we see Ms. Poole dead in her bathtub with a slit wrist.

NCIS arrives at the scene.  Gibbs wonders if Chief Whalen would have even told them if they hadn’t called.  Gibbs and the Chief have a measuring contest over how NCIS could possibly have jurisdiction over the local suicide of a witness material to a local crime maybe committed by a suspect before he joined the Navy.  And Chief Whalen might have a point.  But he chooses not to press it and lets NCIS have a look at Ms. Poole’s residence.  Ms. Poole’s mother found her, Ms. Poole didn’t leave a note.  The mother said Ms. Poole had been depressed and on medication.  Chief Whalen and Gibbs disagree on whether Ms. Poole was holding something back about Ms. Webb’s murder. 

Cmdr. Coleman is out jogging and finds Gibbs with a gift cup of coffee (who wants that after a run?), sitting on the back of her truck.  She’s a little spooked that he knows where to find her on a Sunday morning.  She should take it as a warning to develop better tradecraft.  Gibbs wants more time to complete the investigation and gives her an update.  When Cmdr. Coleman balks, Gibbs threatens to have Petty Officer Dobbs’s body quarantined until Ducky examines it.  Cmdr. Coleman notes that this is patently ridiculous, but Gibbs just shrugs and says you can never be too thorough.  Cmdr. Coleman asks why the hell Gibbs is sticking his neck out over this, and Gibbs says, “Several Marines witnessed Petty Officer Dobbs saving lives.  Nobody witnessed him taking one.”

At the Webb nursery, Tony and Kate approach Mrs. Webb.  Mrs. Webb says that her daughter and Ms. Poole were very good friends and that Ms. Poole practically lived at the Webb house.  Mrs. Webb felt sorry for Ms. Poole for being caught between her vanished best friend and her murder suspect best friend.  She thinks that conflict plus finding Nora Webb sent Ms. Poole over the edge.  She says it has been hard for everyone and that’s why she and her husband are selling the nursery and moving. 

Mr. Webb walks up and continues to be upset at the presence of the agents.  He blames NCIS for trying to get Petty Officer Dobbs buried as a war hero when Mr. Webb thinks he’s responsible for both Nora Webb’s and Emmy Poole’s deaths.  He tells Tony and Kate to leave. 

Tony and Kate walk past a Hum-Vee and Kate asks why Tony doesn’t get one, since they’re “loud, overbearing, and politically incorrect,” just like Tony.  Officer Krieg arrives to bust up the party and escort the agents out of town.  A measuring contest ensues.  But it ends in a draw.

Abby is dressed for a funeral, complete with a funeral umbrella, but she says she was at church.  Gibbs comes for news and Abby reads him the riot act for killing Abby&Kate spa weekend.  But Gibbs might make it up to her if he gets what he wants.  Abby tells Gibbs that the dirt analysis indicates that Nora Webb was buried in the ground and then dug up and put in the storage unit.  Abby can get more information, but McGee is having to perform emergency surgery on her malfunctioning mass spectrometer (which means its findings will break the case, but we’ve still got runtime to devour). 

Ducky and Gibbs chat in the elevator, and Ducky agrees with the local ME that Ms. Poole committed suicide.  Gibbs asks Ducky to examine Petty Officer Dobbs’s body and buy Gibbs and the team some time.  Ducky laughs and says he can spend forever finding nothing. 

Abby runs in to the desk area excitedly holding a piece of the plastic that was covering Ms. Webb.  She spoke to the manufacturer and it’s a brand-new product.  It has only been on the market for four months.  In other words, it came out after Petty Officer Dobbs shipped out to Iraq ten months ago, and he couldn’t have wrapped Ms. Webb’s body.  Gibbs observes that this doesn’t mean Petty Officer Dobbs is innocent.  He could have had an accomplice.  McGee suggests Ms. Poole. 

Gibbs gets called to MTAC and Cmdr. Closing Time says that SecNav won’t sign off on the Silver Star. 

Abby and McGee discuss whether they can go home.  And debate who has to ask Gibbs.  Gibbs makes clear they are both expected to remain.  Gibbs and McGee talk through the case.  A person seeking to frame Petty Officer Dobbs could have put the remains in his storage unit, and Ms. Poole had the key.  But Petty Officer Dobbs’s code entry for the gate wasn’t used.  McGee realizes that Ms. Poole could have used someone else’s gate code.  Moreover, the best time to hide the body would be in the window after Petty Officer Dobbs died (so he couldn’t defend himself) and the body being discovered.  Since the gate has camera footage, the team should be able to find who the likely suspects are.  McGee and Tony head off to obtain the security tapes. 

Abby has determined that nobody picked Petty Officer Dobbs’s padlock.  It was barely used, but it was opened with a key.

Cmdr. Coleman shows up on a Sunday with coffee.  Gibbs asks if she’s there to gloat.  She says she believes in miracles.  She has never seen one, but if she does, she wants to be nearby, so she can call the Pentagon.  Gibbs points out that miracles take hard work, and she asks him to give her a desk.  He does, and also gives her a file.

Abby arrives and wants to talk dirt.  The boys arrive and also have something to say.  McGee says they looked at the surveillance from the day of Petty Officer Dobbs’s death until the day the remains were found.  They didn’t find Ms. Poole, but they think they recognized someone else.  If Abby can enhance the footage. 

The team adjourns to Abby’s lab to look at film from three days after Petty Officer Dobbs’s death.  A van pulls up to the unit and it’s Mr. Webb.  There are no other cameras, so there’s no proof of where he went.  He also would have had to have known where Petty Officer Dobbs’s unit was, and he needed a key, both of which could have been obtained from Ms. Poole.  Then Abby mentions that the dirt analysis demonstrates that Ms. Webb wasn’t buried in the woods.  She was buried somewhere were the soil was fertilized.  Like a plant nursery.  Gibbs tells Kate and McGee to start backgrounding Mr. Webb and takes Tony with him.

Once again, Gibbs squeals into the plant nursery parking lot.  He gets a call from HQ and learns that Mr. Webb was Nora Webb’s stepfather.  Gibbs hangs up and Cmdr. Coleman realizes that he hangs up on everyone and not just her. 

Gibbs and Tony show Mr. Webb a still from the security video and he hangs his head.  “I know.  Security video can be so darn unflattering,” Tony says.  Gibbs tells Mr. Webb the next steps of the investigation in order to encourage him to come clean.  Then he accuses him of digging up and moving the body because he was afraid the new owners of the nursery would find it. 

In interrogation, Mr. Webb says Emmy Poole was always around Nora Webb.  As they got older, Mr. Webb started sleeping with Emmy.  On the night in question, Emmy called Mr. Webb and told him Nora found out.  Emmy and Nora got in a fight at the party, and Petty Officer Dobbs, even though he didn’t know what the fight was about, offered to drive Nora home.  Mr. Webb met her out front and tried to calm her down.  She wouldn’t stop screaming, so Mr. Webb choked her to death, he claims accidentally.  But it’s real hard to strangle a person, so I don’t believe him.  Gibbs looks at the two-way mirror and asks if Chief Whalen wants to handle it from here.

Cmdr. Coleman invites Gibbs to Petty Officer Dobbs’s funeral.  She says she has never seen a Silver Star awarded.  Gibbs says he worked all weekend, so he can come in late on Monday.  Cmdr. Coleman sashays out and we think maybe there’s a little something there between her and Gibbs. But, if so, it happens off camera, because we never see her again. 

Gibbs heads back to the desk area where the agents are all watching a high-speed police chase on the plasma.  The police are chasing Tony’s car on an interstate in Oklahoma.  The car hits a semi, crashes, runs off the road, and is totally destroyed.  Kate can’t help but laugh a little, and that’s mean, but not as mean as Gibbs saying, “Fiberglass.  Not good for boats either.  Have a good weekend.”                 

Quotables:

(1) “You read the agency policy on sexual harassment, didn’t you Palmer?” -Tony, spreading the irony like a fine paste.

Time Until Sexual Harassment: 2:45.  When Tony finds out Kate and Abby are taking a weekend girl’s trip, he purrs, closes his eyes and says he’s painting a mental picture. 

Ducky Tales: Ducky gives a biological lecture on the female skeletal frame.  He also sings the “‘dem bones” song to Palmer.

The Rest of the Story:

-The always unpleasant Commander Coleman previously appeared in UnSEALED, Episode 1.18 and Call of Silence, Episode 2.7.  She has a pattern of showing up when high level military honors are at stake.  This will be her last appearance.  Which is a shame, because it looks like she and Gibbs had a little something there at the end.

-Tony drives a Corvette.  He’s dangerously close to becoming a stereotype this season.

-Gibbs doesn’t usually give witnesses a pass.  But he clearly feels sorry for the grieving parents.  You know, until finding out that one of them is the killer.

-Tony calls Palmer an autopsy gremlin.  I think that nickname shows up again.

-The next time we see Abby with an umbrella isn’t so cheery.

-Tony references the film They Came to Cordura. 

-It’s worth noting that Abby has windows in her lab that look up to a sidewalk where you can see people walk by.  For whatever reason, there’s a shot of a man kneeling down to tie his shoe and looking in at Gibbs and Abby while they discuss the case.  Gibbs takes notice of it, and it seems to trigger something in his mind, but it’s never mentioned again, and appears to have just been a goof.

Casting Call: Nobody I recognize.

Man, This Show Is Old: This one probably could have been made today.

MVP: McGee and Tony got the storage unit surveillance tape.

Rating: This was a solid effort.  I totally thought Officer Krieg was the murderer, and I wasn’t looking at Ms. Webb’s dad/stepdad.  The shit with Tony’s car was dumb and needlessly distracting, but the rest of the character work was solid.  They even got me to like Cmdr. Coleman before sending her off to a JAG farm upstate never to be seen again.

Seven Palmers.

Next Time: Tony may be about to make his last catcall as he falls prey to a biological weapon.