- A "meter maid" sees a body inside a home in Washington, DC; the victim, a retired Marine colonel, received seven blows of an ax; Gibbs and company question a prime suspect, who denies involvement and helps Gibbs to arrest the real killer.
- Parking Enforcement Officer Bixby sees a dead body in the living room of a private home in Washington, DC; the victim, a retired Marine colonel, received seven blows of an ax; due to atypical circumstances Gibbs and company question a prime circumstantial suspect who has not confessed; Gibbs and Tony talk with the suspect, Nick, who is the troubled and conflicted 18-year-old son of the victim; Nick adamantly denies any involvement. The mother is absent but not divorced; she dropped out of sight two years ago. The Duckman sees, recognizes, and interprets an important clue, which went unnoticed during the first autopsy (at the Metro PD). Vance loses patience with Nick and then uses an aggressive technique with him until Nick gives an ostensible confession; however, Gibbs says that there's one problem. Gibbs talks with a neighbor, who says that the widow and mother has returned. Nick helps Gibbs, who then arrests the real murderer.—DocRushing
- Two guys from the parking enforcement bureau pull up on a car parked in a neighborhood. The young one wants to just knock on the guy's door to ask him to move his car. He rings the bell -- and sees a man hacked up with an axe inside.
Tony, Ziva and McGee arrive at work to see boxes of files near their desks. Ziva fishes out Tony for info on Agent Barrett. He knows she and her team are out of town for a few weeks.
The boxes contain Metro PD files. Gibbs comes but doesn't announce the body of the week.
Then Vance does. The body has been in the morgue for two weeks.
Gibbs visits Vance. The victim is retired Marine Col. Neal Peyton, a 25 year vet. He was struck seven times with an axe. Metro turned the case over to the U.S. Attorney, who's an old friend of Vance's. They're taking it. Metro had a circumstantial case. They have a suspect but need a confession.
Vance mentions his US. Attny friend is up for a judgeship. Gibbs thinks they're being used for politics, but Vance says it's about catching a murderer.
The team reviews the files. Metro questioned the suspect for 20 hours and got nowhere. Gibbs and Tony go interview the suspect -- a polite teenage boy.
Gibbs plays good cop, Tony takes bad, telling Nick he had means, opportunity and motive. "I'm sure you'll get just as far as the police did, which is not very," Nick says calmly.
As Tony explains they know Nick has access to the house and axe in the garage, Gibbs interjects asking the kid about his skateboarding.
Tony moves on to motive, which Metro didn't prove. Gibbs fiddles with his watch while Tony asks where he was his dad died. He says he didn't do it, he loved his dad.
Tony tells him they'll prove he did it.
In the morgue, Duckie says there were a lot of blows to the victim's head, a sign of personal rage. Ziva says Nick is 18, although he looks 12.
In the garage, Abby recreates the entire living room crime scene. The victim's tablet computer was next to the body. Nick's fingerprints were everywhere, but he lives there. Abby says his tox screen at the time of the murder showed he was on a cocktail of pills.
Ziva and McGee talk to a Dr. Ellen Gracie at a rehab facility. She says Nick was there three times for addiction to pills but never finished the program. She says Nick is strong willed, but doesn't think he's capable of murder. She can't give details about his complicated relationship with his dad.
In interrogation, Gibbs plays home movies for Nick. Nick won't even look at his dad.
Vance arrives with Nick's unsealed juvenile records. There were three violent altercations between the two. His dad tried to send him to military school, but none would take him. He thinks Nick hated his dad.
Later, Gibbs shuts off the home movies. Nick has fallen asleep. Gibbs wakes him up and asks why he hated his dad.
"This isn't gonna work," Nick says, because he didn't kill his dad.
Back in the office, McGee snoops around EJ Barrett's desk. He finds it locked.
Ziva reports Donna Peyton left two years ago without a trace.
They wonder if his dad isn't the first parent Nick killed.
McGee and Ziva talk to a neighbor, Mark Stafford, who says Nick was a nightmare. He saw Nick come home at 8:30 p.m. the night of the murder. He says Nick was high and drove his car on the sidewalk then dropped his fast food on his lawn.
He saw Nick go into the house and heard him start arguing with his dad about drugs and money.
Nick's car was gone when he came back at 10 p.m. Stafford's teenage daughter died last year of an overdose.
Gibbs rejoins Nick with a bag of fast food. Nick says he's vegan. They show him footage of him in the drive-thru, where the woman who helped him said he was high.
Nick says he saw Casablanca that night, but Tony busts him for not knowing a scene. They ask him how often he blacks out. Gibbs asks Nick if he can say for certain that he didn't kill his dad. Nick says no.
Vance pressures Gibbs to go hard at Nick. He gives him three hours to make Nick talk or he's going in himself.
Gibbs visits Duckie, who's reading Nick's Metro interview transcripts.
Duckie says the original cause of death was wrong. He fitted the skull bones back together and found a hole -- not from an axe.
Duckie says Nick might have been framed.
In the lab, Abby shows Gibbs the contents of the colonel's tablet. He had an email account that only one other person knew about: Dr. Ellen Gracie, the rehab doc. There are steamy emails from her. She got a call from a gas station phone two blocks from the time scene 10 minutes after the murder.
Ziva and McGee revisit Gracie. She says Nick didn't know about her relationship with his dad. She says Nick called her that night and left a message. She plays it for them. He's crying and panicked, asking where she is. He says, "he's dead."
Vance goes in to talk to Nick carrying an axe. Gibbs reminds him he's bringing down a kid, not a tree.
In interrogation, Vance says his dad must have been ashamed of him. Nick says his dad loved him. Vance says his dad put him in rehab to get rid of him. Vance says Nick's dad thought he was a failure. Nick starts to cry and asks where Gibbs is. They play Nick's voice mail. He says he just left the house and there's blood everywhere. "Oh god, what have I done?" he says.
Vance continues to berate Nick as he cries. Vance says his dad blamed him for his mom leaving and for ruining his life and then he gave up on Nick.
Nick asks how Vance would know that. Gibbs is shocked watching when Vance then says that Nick's dad told him. He was a friend of Vance's.
Nick says his dad only cared about the Corps.
Vance puts a picture of the colonel on the table and whacks it with the axe. He asks Nick if that's what it felt like to kill his dad.
Nick says yes. He says he killed him and he's glad he's dead.
Vance talks to Gibbs, who says there's a problem: He doesn't believe him.
The team watches the confession but doesn't see what Gibbs does. Vance comes for an explanation. Up in Vance's office, Vance claims knowing the victim wasn't a conflict of interest. Gibbs says Nick didn't hate his father, he was scared of him. Before Vance went in with an axe, Nick couldn't even look at a picture of his dad.
"The first time he ever faced his father was in that room, and he did it because you did it for him," Gibbs says.
Gibbs says Vance swinging an axe at a scared kid could look like coercion to a jury. Vance is about to call the U.S. attorney but Gibbs says he's going to go have a talk.
Cut to Gibbs on a park bench with Nick, chowing down a hotdog. Gibbs reminds him about being a vegan. "You're either a bad liar, or a bad vegan," Gibbs says.
Nick says he doesn't remember enough to prove he didn't do it and they've showed him enough to prove he did. He remembers seeing his dad's body. Gibbs says that's because Nick was there but was high and ran.
Gibbs asks about his mom. He thinks she left because of him because he stole her pills. Nick says he went to rehab because his dad made him and his girlfriend was there and he missed her. She brought pills in and they'd sneak out and get high.
His girlfriend Megan died six months ago at the clinic of an overdose. She lived next door.
Gibbs interviews the neighbor, Mark Stafford, pointing out how Megan was at the top of her class before she started dating Nick.
Gibbs shows him pictures from his yard of stacks of chopped wood. He claims he doesn't know where his axe is.
He says he was yelling at Nick that night and his dad came out to defend him. He says Nick should have been in jail.
Stafford says his daughter is dead because the colonel was a lousy father.
"You made him pay for it," Gibbs says.
He asks for a lawyer. Then he says he saw Nick's mom at the house last night.
They find six calls to the house yesterday from a prepaid cell.
Cut to Nick meeting his mom in a café. She hugs him and says she missed him. She says she left because she didn't think she could be a good mom. He asks if she's back on her meds. She says no.
He asks when she came back. She says two weeks ago. She says she went by the house to see him, but found the colonel. She says they fought and she picked something up, but didn't think she hit him that hard. She got an axe from next door so they wouldn't think Nick did it.
He shows her the wire he's wearing. Gibbs comes in. Nick tells his mom he loves her and leaves.
At the office, the team packs up the case files. Gibbs gives Vance a meaningful look. Vance gets a call from EJ.
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