READ THIS PART FIRST

Coarse language. Can't appreciate, leave.

Step one: Go to Youtube, search for "the wire crime scene", choose the one that's 3:45 long.

Step two: Watch the whole thing

Step three: Read the story.

DISCLAIMER: Neither NCIS nor the Wire is mine. I profit nothing from this story.

BALTIMORE

The projects didn't change. Still the same dust-blown affairs like last Tony DiNozzo had seen it. So backwater. So sick. This place reminded him of Somalia, a country-sized sewer so decrepit only cockroaches and cockroach-hearted thugs survived. Sure, it looked better, but DiNozzo also knew better. Dealers and fiends roamed it day and night, rotten people all. He expected more from America.

Thump.

An elbow to his chest. Ziva David, his fellow agent.

A keymaster approached them, gestured to follow him inside.

Right. He wasn't here to contemplate. He was here to investigate a case. An old case. Baltimore Police Department had just recently transferred a Marine homicide case to NCIS. DiNozzo understood. BPD too didn't change. Still underfunded, underpaid, understaffed. Its big men were more concerned to fill up quotas. When they weren't met, make it SEP: someone else's problem. In other words, this case, it's trash. Dumped by BPD to NCIS.

Thump.

He was contemplating again. Stop, DiNozzo said to himself. Case now.

They followed the keymaster to an apartment. He unlocked it, let them in. An empty apartment. Hadn't been running since the murder.

The crime scene was the kitchen. DiNozzo skimmed the photos. "Oh, fuck." He glanced at Ziva.

"Motherfucker."

They went on. DiNozzo was to recreate the scene with the photos, Ziva find oddity on the autopsy reports and measurements.

DiNozzo spread the photos. The chest. "Fuck." Right hand. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Ziva read the reports.

Left hand. "Fuck."

The Marine was five-three and twenty-years old.

Stomach. "Fuck." Groin. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Ziva checked the corpse's photos again, front and rear both. Through-and-through. The hole at her back was lower than one at her chest. "The fuck?" She placed it at her own.

DiNozzo drew a circle. The head. "Fuck." Then the hands.

Ziva turned to the photo-body, checked it with tape measure. But it zipped back on her finger. "Fuck!" Paper cut. She kissed it.

DiNozzo turned to the window, which had been holed a month ago. The glass was replaced and the pots were gone, so he put a photo and approximated the hole with his marker.

Ziva rolled down the tape, measured her body and the wound. DiNozzo helped hold down the tape. She took her gun, faced it against herself, checked the trajectory. Fit?

No. Too high. She shook her head. DiNozzo rolled the tape up. "Ah, fuck."

Ziva knelt. Execution style. Gangsters often forced their victims to kneel before they killed them. She refaced her gun, checked the trajectory. "Fuck fuck." The floor behind her. She fell to crawl, see for a projectile. "Aw, fuck."

DiNozzo saw the narrow wall next to the photo-body. Wait...Could it be? He checked it, then the window. "Motherfuck?"

He took the window photo—there. A shard, so tiny, but there. Inside. Ziva saw it too. "Oh fuck. Oh fuck." He pointed at it with his markers.

Ziva took her gun, handed it to DiNozzo. They tried again. DiNozzo aimed the gun at Ziva. Ziva leaned to the window, projected the trajectory with her hands. Fit?

Yes. The shot came from outside! They nodded to each other. Then returned to the photo-body.

"Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck."

"Fucker."

They checked the wall. The projectile must be here. Or was it? "Oh, fuck." No mark.

Ziva ran the wall with her hand, try to feel any crater. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck."

DiNozzo checked the photo-body. "The fuck...fuck, fuck, fuck." What did they miss?

Suddenly, Ziva grabbed a photo. The Marine held something on her hand, which pointed to fridge next to the wall. Quickly she turned there, slipped DiNozzo the photo. "Mother fucker."

Ziva opened the fridge. A spackled spot inside the door. "Fuckin' A."

Ziva scratched the spot. Too hard. DiNozzo handed her a plier. She dug the spot, pulled it. "Fuck..."

Crack.

There! The bullet.

DiNozzo turned to Ziva, bullet-squeezed plier on his hand, a proud hunter with his game. "Motherfucker."

Ziva took the pliers, admired the catch herself. "Fuck me."