With Intent to Die - 50

Vice Admiral Bill Clancy, a post Vietnam mentor of Chegwidden's from the USS Farragut, was shot while hunting and it was ruled a suicide. C didn't believe it for a minute and had Harm and Mac investigate despite their obvious prejudice toward the suicide evidence. They talked to the hunting guide, Craig Allenby, and hunting partners Admiral Paul Whelan and Deputy Secretary of Defense Mitchell Schoenfield. Allenby said that Clancy had gone behind a tree to relieve himself when he heard a shot. The others said that Clancy was depressed and despondent over loosing funding for a pet project. Whelan was arrogant and rude about Clancy's weakness and being "in over his head" and told C that he though C was "made from the same mold." When H and M reported back that they thought it was suicide C still didn't believe them and took over the investigation himself. H seemed distracted with Annie so she used an analogy and asked what if someone told you that C had committed suicide. H couldn't even comprehend the concept so he realized what C was going through. Clancy's wife, Evelyn, told C that her husband didn't have much "joy to share" and she believed that it was suicide and she felt responsible.

The SECNAV enticed C with Clancy's DCNO job and told him to "give up the investigation." H offered to continue to help C and told him of Annie's analogy. C asked if he would investigate even at cost of his career and H said he would. Bud found that Clancy had been on Carbamazepam (anti-depressant) so Evelyn admitted to C that Clancy had been injured in the head on a ship several years previous and had begun having temporal lobe seizures- Carbamazepam is also an anti-convulsant. Then Whelan was also found stabbed to death. C kept having dreams of Clancy that made little sense. The dead Clancy awakened and told C that "there are bees on the bridge" and then "move on, he was innocent, it's too late, take your staff, run." When they were leaving Evelyn's house they saw Schoenfield drive up so they staked out the house through the night and talked. C admitted to H that after Vietnam, aboard ship, he had been one "fractious SOB" and Clancy had taken him to the fantail to "straighten me out." C won but realized if Clancy had been willing to get his nose broken he deserved listening to. H called Annie who had apparently been waiting anxiously for H to return. When he came out, Schoenfield admitted having an affair w/ Clancy's wife but called C and H "poor detectives."

H, M & B found that Allenby was father to Allen Broat a seaman on Clancy's ship, the USS Jim Bridger, with Whelan as the XO & C as JAG. Broat had been wrongfully imprisoned for setting a fire aboard ship then died in prison before he was exonerated by a subsequent similar fire aboard another ship caused by design flaws. Allenby was in prison at the time and became obsessed with "getting even" with his boys "killers." C went to Allenbys cabin and surprised him. He said he had been watching them all for years and had talked Clancy into letting him guide for him; but was cagy enough not to admit directly killing them both. They fought and Allenby pulled a gun. C had remembered to "bring his staff" so was rescued by M & H but was shot in the arm. NCIS told C that Allenby had claimed C started the fight and would be out in a year because there was "no forensic evidence."

Dalton was still pursuing M and challenged her for not answering his calls. He said he didn't want to loose her and asked if he should stop calling. M said NO (believe it or not!). C called his daughter Francesca but said there was nothing wrong. Annie was "blitzed" comparing Hs missed supper with her waiting for her husband to come home from a mission. H told her, "I'm a lawyer, what can happen, a paper cut?"