All right! Welcome,
everybody, to the Eighth Annual Duck Dunk!
Are you ready for some action?
Five...
four, three, two...
one!
And they're off, and it's a very crowded field this year!
Yeah!
It looks like Sir Quacks-a-Lot takes an early lead!
But Hot Wings is right on his tail!
Looks like anyone can win this thing.
If they get their ducks in a row.
Couldn't resist a little pun.
Hey, Allen.
Where have you been?
Sorry, took longer than I thought
to wire up the motor.
Happy Go Ducky is on the charge...
I know we want to win this thing.
Of course, we aren't really winning.
We're cheating.
Perfect.
Now that we're actually doing this,
I'm starting to have second thoughts.
The prize is $500.
Do you know how many Robux we could buy with that?
Yeah, good point.
And good thing I don't believe in karma.
It can go faster, man!
Make it go faster!
♪ NCIS 17x18 ♪ Schooled Original Air Date on March 24, 2020
== sync, corrected by elderman == @elder_man
♪﻿﻿﻿♪
Uh-oh, let me guess.
You're trying to decide which twin
gets which color backpack again.
What's that?
You've got that look on your face.
It says you're-you're weighing
some serious pros and cons.
Well, whatever it is,
just buy it.
I'm not shopping.
I'm stressing.
Got an invitation to my 20-year
college reunion.
Ooh! 20 years?
Wow, you're gonna start to rust soon.
Tell me about it.
One day you're acing your midterms...
And the next you're making up
poop songs for your kids in the break room.
You guys heard that?
♪ When you feel the urge. ♪
Okay. Okay, you guys heard that.
Well, that is actually one of the cons.
See, Delilah and I are in the middle
of potty training the twins,
and I'm not sure
that I can leave her alone. I mean,
things might backslide, you know?
So don't go.
I mean, reunions are overrated anyway.
What? No, he's not missing his reunion.
Why not? It's just a bunch of people
rubbing in your face who you used to be.
Or worse, rubbing
in your face who they are now.
Exactly, it's a perfect opportunity
to rub faces.
You're a federal agent, baby.
Then act like one.
Gear up! Got a body.
I had a dream once that started this way.
I was swimming naked in a lake
surrounded by thousands of rubber duckies...
Then you story?
Yes, I very much did.
Talk to me.
Well, boss, uh, meet
Petty Officer First Class
Jeremy Whistler, or, uh...
that's what his military I.D. says.
I'll be able to confirm the I.D.
once his finger pads dry out a bit.
Call said drowning.
Well, not according
to these ligature marks here.
I'm gonna go with strangulation, at least for now.
And it looks like the body's been
in the water about, uh...
about two days.
How he'd get there?
Nobody we spoke to saw anything.
Except for two punks who are gonna need some serious therapy.
Parking lot had cameras.
Yeah, they've been out for weeks.
And footprints are out, too.
Must've been about 300 people
through here since this morning.
So we got nothing?
Or maybe not.
Strangulation usually means a-a struggle.
And I always find DNA from the attacker
under the victim's fingernails, which...
is actually highly unlikely
in this case because he's been submerged
for two days, so, um...
Yeah. Yeah, we probably got nothing.
I think I might've found something.
Looks like it could be the victim's phone.
Anything on it?
Several missed text messages, one voice mail.
But... phone's locked.
And with the latest encryption, this is,
it's gonna be impossible to open.
Or you could do that, yeah.
All right, I see you, Gibbs.
Well, looks like the missed texts
are from his wife, wondering where he is.
And the voice mail is from an unknown caller.
You scumbag, I'm gonna pull your entrails
out of your ass and stuff them down your throat
the next time I see you!
You are dead!
Well, is that a lead or what?
I'm gonna pull your entrails out of your ass
and stuff them down your throat the next time I see you!
You are dead!
Whoa, you must've
really pissed someone off. Hi!
Oh, no, that?
T-That was for a case. I was doing a profile.
Please, come in.
Thanks. Uh, would you like a seat?
Oh, no, I'm okay.
Nice elephant.
Thanks.
I, uh, used to have an ink blot.
Like any good psychologist.
So did you stop by to bring me more Valentine's Day chocolates?
Thank you, by the way.
It was really thoughtful.
It was my fiancé's idea, actually.
"Fiancé"? Yeah, to thank you
for filling out all those medical history forms for me.
I'm sure you've been wondering what that's all about.
It has crossed my mind, yes.
That's why I'm here.
Um, it's kind of weird to talk about.
Even though I know, technically, you are my biological mother.
I just started fertility treatments.
And you're smiling about it.
Oh, that's great-- I-I mean, no.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, uh, so there's just so much
going on here. Uh...
So you're not dying? No!
You're just trying to have a baby.
And you're engaged and that's just all really fantastic.
Um... not exactly,
because we've run into some complications.
Which is why the doctor wanted the full medical history.
I understand, and I am here-- whatever you need.
I'm so glad to hear you say that.
Just name it-- anything.
Great.
Um...
who's my father?
So we've confirmed the petty officer's identity.
But we don't have
an I.D. yet on the woman who threatened him.
Call was placed using
a voice-over-IP portal.
Or as normal people call it...
Skype.
We're, uh, still trying to track it down.
Who's the victim?
Well, according to everyone we've talked to,
pretty much a saint.
He was an electronics technician in the Reserves.
C.O. said he was one of the best in the unit.
He was an A-plus student at a trade school
called Aspire Technical College.
Which is a sign that someone should go to their reunion.
Says the guy who's never changed a diaper.
And finally, uh, according
to his Facebook page, he was a Scout leader.
Who rescued injured kittens.
And a volunteer at
a local soup kitchen.
Yep.
See? Saint.
Obviously, somebody didn't think so.
Well, his wife's in the conference room.
Maybe she knows something.
Bishop, with me.
I'm sorry.
I just can't keep it together.
I've been with Jeremy since middle school.
He wanted to put a Ring Pop on my finger.
Like, none of this makes any sense.
Your husband mention any fights recently?
No. He was
the greatest guy ever.
And the best daddy.
How many kids do you have?
Uh... just Evie.
She's eight.
God, I can't believe she's gonna grow up without her father.
Are you sure you don't recognize the caller on that voice mail?
No.
And I can't even imagine who would leave it.
Everyone loved him.
You know he worked at a soup kitchen?
Yes, we, uh, we heard.
Look, I-I'm sorry
to even ask this, but...
is there any chance your husband was having an affair?
Mm-mm.
No, no way.
Gambling?
Drug use?
Jeremy?
No. Never.
We're just looking for anything that might
explain the threat on his life.
Yeah, you know, maybe it was one
of those kittens he rescued.
Actually, we think it may be one
of the teachers at the college.
Boss, we I.D.'d the voice mail.
Beverly Berkshire.
You know her?
No. Well, what are you standing here for?
Go find her!
And figure out maybe...
Jack, I'm on the...
I'm gonna have to call you back, Madam Secretary.
Faith wants to know who her father is.
What did you tell her?
I stalled.
What was I supposed to do?
Hey.
I think you already know.
Leon, I swore
that she would never find out.
Yeah.
And I understand why.
But, Jack, this is, um...
this is not an easy genie to keep
in the bottle these days.
Between social media
and-and online DNA sites,
she's gonna figure this out eventually.
I know, I know, I just...
I just want to protect her.
Of course you do, because you're her parent.
Please, barely.
No.
There's no middle ground.
You either are or you're not.
Okay, Director Yoda.
So what the hell do I do?
Like I said... I think you already know.
Ah, that college smell.
Doesn't it make you all nostalgic?
Can we just focus on the case?
Ready for something new?
Aspire is ready for you. Excuse me...
you know where we can find the dean?
Oh! You found him.
Dean Patterson. NCIS.
Oh, great. The career day speakers are right this way.
The students are very excited.
Actually, that's not what we're here for.
Ooh, wait, is that, is that a MakeItMax Pro?
Now can you just focus
on the case? Actually,
that is the MakeItMax Quantum.
One of only five in the state.
Right. Well, we're not here for career day.
We're looking for Beverly Berkshire.
Know her?
Of course.
We're a new school, and still pretty small,
so I know all of our students.
Student? We thought she was a teacher.
And one day maybe she will be.
At Aspire Technical College, we have students of all ages,
but we cater to people looking to make a fresh start
in their lives.
If you're ready for something new, Aspire is ready for you.
We have a student loan seminar
starting in five. Do you want to sit in?
Beverly.
Berkshire. Ah.
She should be in computer lab about now.
I hope she isn't in any kind of trouble.
So does she.
Yeah, I left that voice mail.
But you guys are totally overreacting.
You threatened to shove
Petty Officer Whistler's intestines down his throat.
And then you said, "You're dead."
I was being metaphorical.
Well, now he's dead.
Whoa.
That guy is totally dead.
Can we help you?
I, um... I got locked out again.
You literally wrote the password on your arm.
Now shoo! Oh, that's right.
That's my new lab partner.
Jeremy was my old lab partner.
He didn't show up for class last week, so I got assigned
Stephen Hawking over there.
So what happened?
You mean, aside from you saying you were gonna kill him,
and then somebody killing him?
Voice mail.
Talk.
Like I said, Jeremy and I shared a computer.
Last week, I noticed someone had used our log-in
to hack into the school network.
They were capturing student financial data.
And you're suggesting
that that was Petty Officer Whistler.
Well, it sure as hell wasn't me.
And Jeremy was the only other person that had the password.
If you thought that Whistler was hacking the school,
why not report him? Nobody would've believed me.
Look, I was tutoring half the class for free.
Everyone thought Jeremy was a saint.
And I might have a prior.
Or two.
For...?
Bank fraud.
See the problem?
So when I found out what Jeremy was doing on our computer,
I lost my cool.
But all I wanted was for him to stop.
So why do you think Petty Officer Whistler
was trying to access student financial information?
Are you kidding me?
Do you not know who he is?
I thought that's why you guys were really here.
Who is he?
TerrorCastor.
TerrorCastor? The hacker? You're kidding.
We shared a computer for two months.
I saw his raw code.
I'm telling you, he's TerrorCastor.
Okay, pretend like you're talking to someone cool.
TerrorCastor is number nine
on the FBI's Cyber Most Wanted list.
He likes to target food stamp recipients and old grandmas.
I thought you said he was a saint.
I said people thought he was a saint.
But that guy was the devil.
So, our victim wasn't Mr. Nice Guy after all.
I could've told you that.
Oh, yeah? How?
Thin lips. Is that a thing?
Nana Palmer always said, "You never trust a man
with thin lips."
Or an FBI task force after them.
Let's hear it.
FBI just sent over their case files on TerrorCastor.
This is definitely our guy.
They've been after him for years.
He's done everything from bank phishing
to the Nigerian prince scam.
Mostly targets the elderly.
Maybe he pissed off the wrong Nana.
What about his lab partner?
Her story checks out.
She's got an alibi for the time of death.
Run down his victims.
Someone looking for revenge.
Boss, there's a lot of names in this file.
It's gonna take a while.
Get Jack to help.
Well, she hasn't shown up yet.
Which actually is really strange,
'cause usually she's the first one to work.
Tim.
I'm on it.
You confirm C.O.D.?
Our Navy Reservist was definitely strangled to death.
But I'm having a tough time figuring out by what.
These, uh, ligature marks are unlike any rope or wire
that I've ever seen.
What's that?
Oh, that is why we call you Eagle Eye Leroy.
We don't-- we don't really call you that.
I just made that up.
That's a knife wound.
Uh, based on the scar tissue, I'd say
it's no more than a few months old.
Based on the angle of the injury, I'd say
it was definitely an attack.
And, Gibbs, a wound in this location
would've been impossible to hide from his wife.
I think she knows more than she's been telling you.
Got a second? No, not really.
I just came to pick up a few of my husband's things.
You can talk to us now,
or you can talk to us in interrogation.
You lied to us.
Look, we know your husband was a wanted hacker,
and we're guessing you know that, too.
No. He was a soup kitchen... Soup kitchen cat hero,
and you can't think of anyone who'd want to hurt him.
Somebody did.
He was stabbed a few months ago.
Yeah, now he's dead.
So, if you want to find out who made that happen...
Talk.
Who stabbed him?
No, no. Don't you dare stand here
in your fancy clothes and judge my husband.
He was a good man.
He was a criminal.
He did what he had to do to protect his family.
From what? Having to make an honest living?
Our daughter was sick.
She was born with a neuroblastoma,
and we nearly went bankrupt trying to pay
for her doctor bills.
So, yeah, we were desperate.
Jeremy wasn't a...
you know, a rocket scientist.
He was a blue-collar guy,
and the only way that he could make the money that we needed
was to cut a few corners.
He cut too many.
Is any of that even true?
Okay, clearly, you don't get it.
Jeremy hated what he did.
He was looking to make a fresh start.
Why do you think he was going back to school?
He was looking for new targets.
He was stealing credit card info from his classmates.
Who stabbed him?
Hell, it was probably you.
No.
No, it wasn't me.
And fine, yeah,
I know who stabbed him.
His best friend.
Taye Tanner, the bestie.
These two
were pretty tight.
They both got twin juvie records for, uh, petty larceny.
In high school, they started a gang called
the Twin Tornados. Then they joined
the Navy together.
How'd that work out? Well,
Taye was caught skimming Social Security numbers
from his shipmates.
He was dishonorably discharged,
then dropped off the map.
Ah. I see why you're down here now.
You can't find him.
There's a rumor you have a lead.
As it turns out, I have been digging
in the dark web for posts by TerrorCastor.
But I ended up finding
a lot more by this guy who calls himself
TerrorPollux.
I think that's your bestie.
Okay. Why? Uh...
Hello? Castor and Pollux,
the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini.
If Whistler is your Castor,
Pollux has got to be this Taye guy.
Were you able to get an IP address
on the posts?
Uh, no. It is the dark web.
I am lucky that I made it out alive.
But TerrorPollux
does have an Instagram feed.
Now, he never posts a photo of his face.
But I noticed, every day, without fail,
he posts a photo of mint chocolate
ice cream.
Okay, I'll call the REACT team.
All right, hold your horses, McSarcasm.
Notice how he's doing something different every day
before he gets his fix?
"Rocking the mint chip
after hitting the gym."
"Nothing like peppermint bonbons
after a sweat lodge."
Wednesday is laser tag day.
Now, look at what he posted the same day last week.
"Walking over to snag
my mint 'n chip after killing it at laser tag."
Yeah. See where this is going?
Yeah. We need to find out how many laser tag places
are within walking distance of ice cream parlors.
Ooh.
One.
So, go arrest his ass.
And then bring Mama back some rocky road.
Yeah.
Mm.
All right, laser tag place
said Taye left about five minutes ago.
Must be mint chip time.
There's a lot of kids in there.
Let's wait and see if he's gonna come out.
All right.
Good by me. Yeah.
So, what does this guy do again
that he can play laser tag all day?
Steals from old people.
Oh, wow.
Now, that's a guy that should be ashamed
to show up to his reunion.
Which reminds me...
I really want to go.
I want to go, but I just think it's too much for Delilah.
Uh-huh.
Sure.
Look, do you know that I graduated
with a biomedical engineering degree from Johns Hopkins?
This another midlife crisis?
You know what most of my classmates are doing right now?
Half of them are rich CEOs
of biotech companies, flying around on their private jets.
What am I?
A cop with a gun.
Yeah, on a government salary.
With a gun.
You're NCIS Senior Special Agent Timothy frickin' McGee.
You eat corrupt CEOs for breakfast
and murderers for lunch.
Yeah, but...
No, no. There's no buts, man.
You shouldn't be embarrassed to show your face at the reunion.
Your-your classmates should be embarrassed
to stand in the same room as you.
Tim.
I'm serious, man.
You're really good at what you do.
Man.
You should be proud.
Thanks, Nick.
Thank you, man.
I appreciate that.
Ooh, there's our guy.
Want me to take this?
No, you know what? I got him.
Thanks.
All right. They got him.
Torres and McGee are bringing him in now.
Hey.
Tag team with McGee in interrogation?
Work up a profile?
Jack!
What was that about?
Got no idea.
Hmm.
Was that a "no" to the interrogation with McGee?
Hey.
You okay, Jack?
Uh, Faith came to see me.
She wants to know who her father is.
Tell her.
Hmm.
It's not that simple.
I was 19.
A sophomore in college.
Some friends asked me out.
And we went to a party, and I drank too much.
Way too much.
I asked one of my friends to drive me home.
Someone I was close with.
Someone I trusted.
And he raped me.
After it happened, I blamed myself.
For drinking too much.
For putting myself in that situation.
All the things that survivors put on themselves.
Eventually,
I left school over it.
Six weeks later,
I found out I was pregnant.
Can you imagine?
After the adoption, I joined the Army
to get my life back on track.
Tested into PsyOps.
The rest is history.
Uh, aren't you gonna say anything?
What's his name?
Conversation's not over.
Oh, yes, it is.
Will you slow down?
It was just a question.
And you're not getting an answer.
Why do you think I never told you before?
Because you thought I was gonna go kill the guy?
Because I couldn't stand the idea
of you looking at me like I'm some sort of a victim.
Like I'm a fragile teacup in need of saving.
And that's exactly what you're doing. No, I'm not.
It's a guy thing.
Okay.
This isn't about ancient history that can't be changed.
This is about Faith today.
Look, I get that you're mad.
Okay? And all I can say is welcome to the club.
I've been a member for almost 30 years.
Please, I can handle this on my own.
Um...
So, the bestie is in the interrogation room.
But, of course, I can come back.
No, no, it's-it's fine.
We're finished here anyway.
This was my favorite hoodie.
You know chocolate stains, bro.
Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it.
You'll be exchanging it for an orange jumpsuit
soon enough.
We know you're the hacker TerrorPollux.
Oh, is that what you know?
Yeah. And we also know
that Petty Officer Whistler was TerrorCastor.
Wait, what do you mean "was"?
It's called past tense.
We use it when we're talking about people who are dead.
Or, in this case...
Murdered. So start talking.
Now. A-About what?
You're crazy if you think I killed Jeremy.
I mean, that was my homie.
I-I would never.
You shoved a knife into him.
We got an eyewitness that said you stabbed Jeremy
three months ago.
Now he's down in our morgue.
Do you see what we're getting at here?
Okay. Look,
Jeremy and me just had a simple misunderstanding.
That's all.
Over what?
Orange jumpsuit.
So, about a year ago,
Jeremy and me started selling security software online.
To get rid of viruses on people's computers.
Viruses that you put on their computers
in the first place.
Prove it.
Misunderstanding!
All right, so, we're making a killing.
Dumped, like, 50 grand into a numbered offshore account.
That sounds completely legit.
And then suddenly, the account gets cleared out.
Jeremy acted like he had no idea what happened,
but I'll tell you what happened.
He's the one that took it.
I mean, that turncoat stole from me.
So you killed him?
No, no, no, no. I confronted him.
And things got heated.
My knife might've, you know...
slipped.
The wound was four inches deep.
He lived.
And that was the last time I saw that thief.
Look, I don't know who killed him, but it wasn't me.
Well, he was right. It wasn't him.
And he has the saddest alibi possible.
He was at a laser tag convention in Ohio
when Petty Officer Whistler was murdered.
Talk to the wife again.
About what?
I mean, all she's gonna do is tell us about the amount
of kittens her husband rescued.
Our revenge theory was a bust, too.
Most of Whistler's hacking victims were out of state
when he was killed, and the ones that were
closer by all alibi'd out.
So I have... Nothing.
All of you got nothing.
Well, not for lack of effort.
Boss, we ran down almost 400 names.
Well, run it down again.
Boss...
We missed something.
So recheck everything.
The crime scene.
The wife.
Computers at the school.
Somebody killed this guy!
Find out who.
Well, Gibbs is mad.
Oh, yeah. I noticed.
About what?
Jackie Sloane. My God.
What are you doing here?
How long has it been?
Haven't seen you since Santa Barbara.
Spare me the buddy routine.
We're not friends.
And you can probably guess why I'm here.
Um, no, not really.
Then let me jog your memory.
You raped me.
After the homecoming dance.
You drove me home and attacked me.
H-Hold on. You'd been flirting with me for months.
You asked me to drive you home because you wanted...
What I wanted was for you to stop!
I said no! Over and over again.
I said no!
If you had said no, I would've stopped.
I would've... I tried to fight you off.
I even gave you that scar.
Just before you pinned my shoulders down.
You remember that? No.
You're remembering it wrong.
You were drunk that night.
Shut up!
That gaslighting crap might've worked on me 30 years ago.
But not anymore.
I know the truth.
Ah, and I see that you do, too.
What do you want?
An apology?
Money?
It was 30 years ago.
What are you doing here?
There's a woman coming.
In a few days, she will ring your doorbell
and ask for your medical history,
and you'll give it to her.
Why would I give it to her?
Because half of her DNA is yours.
After you answer all of her questions,
you'll tell her that we had a fling in college,
it didn't work out and we haven't spoken since.
And then you'll explain to her
that you have no place in your life for her.
And then you will never, ever talk to her again.
You won't even think about her.
You got that?
Good.
You have no right to tell me what to do.
Sorry?
If I want to talk
to this woman again, I will talk to her.
She's my daughter, too, after all.
This is a waste of time. What are we even looking for?
I don't know. But you're more than welcome to tell Gibbs
you didn't think it was worth the effort.
Pass.
Why do you think this case is getting under his skin so badly?
You know, I don't think it's the case.
Torres said he heard Gibbs and Sloane
getting into something on the stairs. Oh.
Oh. You think they're breaking up?
Do we think they're even dating?
McGee, come on.
Well, I-I didn't even like to think
about my parents dating, okay?
And Gibbs, you know,
lies somewhere between them and Ducky.
Yeah, but...
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Shh.
You hear that?
I don't hear anything.
Exactly.
Where are the students?
Where is the school?
The entire school was cleaned out.
Desks, computers, even vending machines.
Did you try calling?
Well, nobody's answering the phones,
because there aren't any left.
The website is down, too.
It's like... school disappeared.
Schools don't just disappear.
Yeah, this has to be connected
to Petty Officer Whistler's murder.
Maybe it's just some random robbery.
It wasn't a robbery.
I just spoke with a bunch of students.
They saw
leasing company trucks picking up
equipment from the school
when they showed up for class yesterday afternoon.
You get the name of the company?
Yeah. I already ran it down.
Looks like Aspire Tech hasn't been paying their bills, so,
the leasing company repossessed
their stuff.
Used the term "con artists."
Maybe it does have something to do with Whistler.
But if this was one of his cons...
What's the con?
I think I have an answer to that.
And you can thank Florida Man
for clueing me in.
Come on.
Oh, come on. How can you not know Florida Man?
Kase, I got... I got no idea what you're talking about.
Okay, forget my attempts to socialize you.
All you need to know is, last year, I did a web search
for my birthday and the phrase "Florida Man,"
and found this story.
"Welcome to Screw U."
It's an exposé on pop-up scam schools.
Pop-up?
Well, the concept is pretty simple.
A scammer rents a space,
then puts up a shingle for a trade school,
and hires a bunch of teachers. Then,
they enroll as many students as they can, helping them
apply for as many student loans as they can.
Then when all that juicy loan money comes in...
They let the school go bust, start over somewhere else.
I think
that's what's happening with Aspire Tech.
I've been digging into their financials,
and that place is a house of cards.
Yeah, Aspire hired real teachers and got a real school going,
but it wasn't built to last.
Aspire got loans on overextended lines of credit,
missed most of their payments, and when they got an extension
to hire more teachers, they hired
more loan counselors instead.
So when you say "they," you mean Petty Officer Whistler?
I'm not so sure he's the con man we all thought he was.
Remember that offshore account his bestie said he cleaned out?
Mm-hmm. Well, I traced the withdrawals.
He didn't steal from his bestie.
Whistler used the money to give refunds
to all the people they scammed.
Now, on the other hand, he was stealing credit card
information from Aspire students, so,
he had to be involved somehow, but running an actual school
was sort of out of his wheelhouse.
Yeah. He had a partner.
These allegations are absurd.
I mean, do you even have any proof?
Uh, well, Agent McGee, do we have any proof?
Well, Agent Bishop, uh, this is your signature
on this loan extension.
And, oh,
look-- you personally hired all the teachers.
Looks like you were running the entire operation.
Okay, that's-that's just how new schools works.
Okay, my job was to...
Blah, blah, blah.
Your job was to blah, blah, blah.
Look, we know Aspire Tech was a scam.
And we know you were running it.
What we don't know is...
why you murdered Petty Officer Whistler.
What?! No!
We know he's got a habit of ripping off his partners.
Okay, you are way off base here!
He rip you off, too? I didn't kill anybody!
All I was doing was-was... Just running a school.
Without a single credential that qualifies you to be a dean.
That's because I'm not a real dean!
I'm just a previously-owned car salesman.
You're a used car salesman?
Yeah, and, well, I also do a little acting on the side.
Well, how does a used car salesman
end up running a school?
Last year, I was sending out résumés to get a new gig,
and I got contacted by this headhunter online
who said he represented these people
who were starting a new school.
They were looking for someone who knew how to sell,
which, for the record, I do.
Hmm.
I was just supposed to be a figurehead.
Show up at recruitment seminars, sign papers.
I looked at it like an acting gig.
More like a scam gig.
I was hired to enroll students, which I did.
Everything else is above my pay grade.
Okay, well, good luck with that in court.
Of course, you know, we could put in a good word
for you with the D.A.
In exchange for...?
Telling us where we can find that headhunter.
So, the GI Bill covers almost $25,000 per academic year,
which is more than enough to cover your tuition and expenses.
And we can even help with all of the applications
so that the money gets routed properly.
What about legal fees?
'Cause I see a whole lot of those in your future.
Remember me? We met in the computer lab.
I see you found a comb, by the way. Nice.
If, uh, you could excuse us, okay?
Where are you going?
I was just gonna grab a bite.
Mm. Well, you might want
to pick up a new belt while you're at it.
Yeah, we're gonna need to test that one for the DNA
of the guy you strangled with it.
Apparently, this is
the third school con
our bad guy pulled off in the last five years.
So was Petty Officer Whistler part of it or not?
Not. So why is he dead?
Because he uncovered it.
We found a bunch of e-mails on the bad guy's computer.
Uh, looks like
Whistler figured out the school was a con pretty quickly.
Never con a con man.
It turns out he didn't hack Aspire's network
to steal credit cards.
He was collecting evidence.
Evidence for what?
To blackmail the bad guy.
"As long as you
"keep this place running,
I won't rat you out."
So, Portland posed
as a student to find out
who was blackmailing him.
When he found out it was Whistler,
he killed him.
Whistler's wife wasn't lying.
He was trying to go legit.
Better late than never. Mm.
Nice work. Pass this along to Gibbs and McGee,
uh, wherever they are.
We don't know where Gibbs is,
and McGee just left for his college reunion, of all things.
And I'm back.
Wait. What are you doing here?
Aren't you supposed to catch a plane?
Yeah. Well, uh,
I was about to board
when I got this text.
"Tim, we missed you at the reunion."
It was last night. I messed up the date.
Aah! You did not.
Well, nonetheless, welcome back, Agent McGee.
Thank you, Director.
Yeah, apparently, I got
my potty training dates mixed up with my reunion dates.
Well, that's not impressive at all.
Maybe it was better you didn't go.
Yeah, but who am I really trying to impress?
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that
I was going for all the wrong reasons.
So it's probably best
that I didn't end up there at all.
Damn, son. Sounds like I gave you the bad advice.
Oh, no, you gave me the rocking advice.
No, I'm gonna save that pep talk for a rainy day.
Hey. Hey.
Hey there. How you doing? Good. How are you?
Good. Good to see you. Thanks.
So, did you get what you needed?
Yeah. I did.
My doctor has all the info she wanted, and...
I finally got to meet my biological father.
And... how did that go?
Um, yeah, I don't know what I was expecting, but, uh,
let's just say, I don't think he and I will be
getting coffee anytime soon.
But, um...
I have a feeling that there's more to the story
maybe than what he told me.
I'm not sure what you mean.
Wasn't a fling, was it?
What did he say?
Nothing. He didn't have to.
When we talked in your office, I-I knew something was off.
The look you got on your face when I asked about my father.
I've seen it on enough women's faces
at the trauma center at the hospital.
I'm so sorry...
what happened to you.
Ah, I'm sorry I didn't tell you,
but I want to tell you everything now, okay?
When I was pregnant,
I remember I was so scared.
I was terrified that, um,
maybe I couldn't...
love you because of what happened.
But then you were born, and I...
didn't want to let you go.
But I was afraid I, um...
couldn't be the mom that you deserved.
I just felt so, um...
I felt so damaged.
I wanted to protect you.
You did.
You gave me up.
That was you protecting me.
Thank you.
You gave me a wonderful life. You did.
== sync, corrected by elderman == @elder_man