Special Agent Loki Laufeyson

Chapter 16

Thor looked over as the door to the observation room quietly opened and Loki slipped in. His brother was the only one in the room. For a moment, Loki reconsidered entering, then sighed and walked in. Thor turned silently back to looking into the interrogation room.

Daniel Diaz sat slumped down in his chair. He was a deeply tanned man with small eyes and curly brown hair. His clothes were dirtied from when Bishop had shoved him out of the trailer. He had his hands pushed deep into his pockets and his shoulders were hunched.

"Where's Gibbs?" Loki asked in a hushed voice.

Thor gestured towards the reflective window. "He is coming." He looked at his brother. "You have a scar."

Loki self-consciously touched the row of stitches on his cheek. "It's nothing, I assure you."

"Too bad," Thor said. "I thought maybe you had had your own trick pulled on you."

Loki remembered all the times he had stabbed Thor with one of his knives and made a face.

The door to the interrogation room opened and Bishop walked in, followed by Gibbs. McGhee opened the door to the observation room and joined the two brothers.

Bishop sat down and set a file down before her. Gibbs silently took the seat next to her and stared at Diaz.

"Why am I here?" Diaz asked sullenly. "Why would -" He paused for a moment. "- Naval Criminal Investigative Services care about me?"

"You deal drugs," Bishop stated, opening her file.

Diaz shrugged. "Yes, but why is that the Navy's problem? I thought some other acronym dealt with that."

Bishop ignored his statement. "Do you know this guy?" She took a picture from her file and pushed it in front of Diaz.

Diaz looked at the guy and frowned. "Yeah, that's Johnny. We were friends, growing up. Why?"

"Did you know he's dead?"

Diaz sighed. "Yeah, Clare told me. I'm real sorry to hear about that. He was a good friend of mine. I'll really miss him."

"Now, you and Petty Officer Samson exchanged a series of phone calls the week before he was found dead," Bishop said, setting the sheet of phone records before Diaz. "What were they about?"

Diaz thought for a moment and then waved his hand vaguely. "Stuff. I mean, we've been friends for a long time. I even introduced him to his girlfriend. Even though we're in totally different careers -"

"If you can call being a drug dealer a career," McGhee muttered.

"- we're still friends. We don't talk as often as we used to, but last week - that was different."

"What was different about it?" Gibbs asked.

Diaz shrugged. "He was asking about Clare a lot. Like, a lot. Like he couldn't be bothered to call her to ask her how she is."

"What specifically was he asking about?" Bishop pressed.

"Her disposition, kinda," Diaz answered. "Her attitude, how she was acting, her speech, stuff like that."

"Did he tell you why?" Gibbs inquired.

"Not really. When I asked, he said he was worried about her, and not to mention that he'd been asking about her. So I didn't."

"Why were you at Clare Leopard's place today?" Gibbs asked.

Diaz looked down. "Johnny's last wish. He told me to look after Clare, no matter what, and, uh...help her. I didn't know what he meant by that; thought she'd gotten on drugs or something. And although I was insulted that she was not buying them from me, for Johnny's sake, I was going down to see if she needed rehab or something. Especially after his death. I thought, even if nothing's wrong, she might just need a friendly face."