NCIS: Hawai'i

Swipe right on your break.

If you go faster, we may actually get to take one.

Hey.

Stop, stop, stop!

You were supposed to drain all the fluids.

The car was prepped. I swear.

Coffee?

Looks like you need it more than I do.

Just need to get my day going.

You sound like your dad.

I am his son.

He's also middle-aged.

Okay, why are you so worn-out?

I'm middle-aged, apparently.

Seriously, Alex, what is it?

College apps? SAT prep? Homework?

Oh, I'm getting tired just hearing all of it.

Fall semester of senior year is tough.

I'm glad you feel that way.

Mrs. Allen wants you to sign it.

And acknowledge that you got a "C"

in a subject you usually ace?

C-plus.

Okay, what happened?

Mom, it's one paper.

It's not like I'm on drugs or getting arrested.

So, can you just sign it, please?

You sure nothing else is going on?

Because Jane Eyre is a classic.

It's a gothic coming-of-age story about a young woman,

like, finding herself.

And you didn't see any parallels?

Clearly not.

Won't happen again.

- Hey, boss. - Hey.

Our victim is Marine Staff Sergeant Travis Cobb.

Workers found him in the back of a sedan

as they were crushing it.

Would've been tough to I.D. him,

except he had his dog tags tucked in his boot.

It's a Marine thing.

Is that the car?

Yeah. A few more seconds

and Cobb would've been crushed and missing forever.

Anyone report him missing?

His C.O. put him on

unauthorized absence status yesterday.

And he ended up here?

Car was empty when it was prepped for disposal,

two days ago, so our theory is

he was killed and dumped at night during off-hours.

Do we know the cause of death?

No, not yet.

But we're really hoping it wasn't from the crushing.

Talk about nightmare fuel.

All right, Kai, when we're finished here,

follow up with Chase for an answer.

Yeah, yeah, I got it, boss.

Thank you.

Doesn't look like they're running any CCTV.

We have any other leads on who might have dumped the body?

This place is on

a suburban home security package.

Spare key in a fake rock,

"Beware of Dog" sign with no dog,

and all the employees have alibis.

What would a young marine be doing

to get dumped in a junkyard?

It's the stuff you see with mobsters and criminals.

According to his C.O.,

he couldn't be further from either.

Said he was a good marine with a good heart.

Maybe his C.O. didn't really know him.

Thank you so much, Annie.

Oh, I think word's gotten out about this place.

But, hey, waiting can be fun. Right?

Yeah. Totally.

I'm sorry, I just thought

supplying our respective teams with caffeine fixes

is sort of our thing now.

I want to tell my boss we're dating.

Say something.

I'm just, we, uh...

We were, we were on coffee,

and now we're-we're on-on talks with bosses.

Well, there's an FBI barbecue coming up,

and I want you to come with me.

Okay. Yeah, same page now.

I-I think you should totally tell your boss

so... I can meet your team.

This is great.

Yeah, it is.

Okay, so then why does it seem like you're worried?

He could take me off as NCIS liaison.

No, he wouldn't do that.

Would he?

Uh, if he felt like there was a conflict of interest.

Shoot. I, um, I-I have to run to K-Bay.

I think you're doing the right thing.

It's gonna be okay. Really.

Oh, yes, you're done.

Okay, never mind.

Sometimes it can be a sobering reminder:

How fragile our physical forms are.

Don't get me wrong, I-I've seen many physical forms.

I'm just...

Crushed in a car is new.

You never forget your firsts.

Like the time I went to examine

a body flattened by a plane wheel.

Quite literally, like a pancake.

Couldn't eat breakfast for a week.

Right.

So, uh, given the state of this physical form,

were you able to learn...

just... well, anything?

Postmortem examination can be revealing in any circumstance.

For example,

the liquid oozing from the car wasn't all blood, per se,

since our marine bled quite a bit

before his body was dumped.

So, what was it? Organs.

Decomposing and crushed in the vehicle.

I was also able to identify time of death

as roughly 33 to 35 hours ago.

And then there's the evidence of how he died.

May have been crushed and broken,

but the pieces were there.

Well, most of them.

Part of the back of the skull is missing.

As well as the incisors.

This, unfortunately,

is not my first gunshot wound to the face.

Any other signs of struggle? That's harder to tell.

But there was something else.

I found trace evidence of a unique chemical compound

in his sinuses and lungs.

Do you know what it is?

Not something I'm familiar with.

Sorry. It's cold.

It's all right. Doing your job.

Are the leads warm, at least?

Nobody I talked to at K-Bay knew where Cobb went

the night he was murdered, who he was with,

or why he had a weird chemical in his lungs. Okay.

Did they have anything else to say about him?

I did learn he was from Daytona.

Had no nonjudicial punishment.

And he also brought doughnuts to work

at the motor pool every Monday.

So the leads are colder than the coffee.Except...

in spite of a bright future with the Marine Corps,

he was getting out.

Any word on where he was going? Never submitted

for travel orders back to the mainland.

Maybe he was staying here. I mean, it makes sense.

Everybody I talked to assumed Cobb had

an entire life outside of K-Bay that he just never talked about.

A life that led to his murder.

But do we have any ideas on what he might have been mixed up in?

Drugs, reckless behavior?

Never popped positive or arrested.

He was squeaky clean.

But, yeah, he had to have been staying for something.

Can't just be the palm trees.

Maybe it was for someone.

Hey, Ernie, any update on the... Shh.

Representative.

Representative.

Trying to get Cobb's cell phone records?

Sorry about that.

I got his call log, but I've been in automated hell

trying to access more.

You should've seen when I tried to dispute a hidden fee.

They broke me like a bad habit.

Well, usually I'd be dealing with Caroline,

but she went on her honeymoon in Turks and Caicos.

Anyway, here's what else I got on Cobb.

He didn't post much on social media,

but he was following 412 car accounts, literally.

And bank records show

a bunch of transactions at auto retailers.

It's not surprising he was into cars.

He worked in the motor pool.

But what about a significant other?

There's one 808 number that comes up a lot.

And if I could just get off hold,

I'll be able to find out who it belongs to.

Thank you for waiting.

Hi, this is Ernie Malik from NCIS.

No, no, I usually speak with Caroline.

Oh, I know.

I know. She's so much better off with Dan.

I got her the griddler. The stand mixer was taken.

You?

Oh, my. Sneaky.

I know. Caroline is the best.

So if you could just unlock those records.

Mahalo.

Yes!