While I was watching an autopsy scene, I heard "Who is that man? What's wrong with him? Did somebody hurt him?" I turned around to see my four year old watching the TV. Needless to say, we had a little talk. She was okay, but she was focused on the guy lying on the table. She wanted to know all about him. That started me thinking, then Taylor issued the box challenge, and this is the result.
Rating: FR13
Genre: Casefic
Characters: Abby and the team
Summary: What will Abby discover as she unpacks this box?
Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or any of its characters.
Jimmy arrived midafternoon with a box from autopsy. "Nice music, Abby."
"Thanks, they're called Adlercreutzia." Abby turned to face Palmer.
"That sounds like a bacteria."
"It is. Some microbiologists I know got together and formed a band. So, what do we have here?"
"Personal effects of one Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas O. Harrison. He was found in an alley in Norfolk this afternoon." Jimmy held out the clipboard for Abby to sign off on the chain of evidence.
"What was he doing there?"
"Bleeding out."
Her hand stopped writing and Abby looked up at Palmer.
"That's not what you meant, is it?"
"No, Jimmy. Not really." As Jimmy left for autopsy, she pulled on a pair of gloves. "Let's see what we have here."
Abby rummaged through the items in the box as she checked them off her list. One uniform, one overcoat, one pair of boots, a ring, a watch, one pair of glasses, a wallet, a cell phone, and a thin black book. There was an ID card still attached to the uniform's shirt. Abby took it off and held it up. "Why did someone want you dead, Master Chief Thomas…"
"…Onas Harrison. An LS located at Norfolk, his job was to oversee the receiving, transport, and disposal of hazardous materials on the base. Harrison enlisted in the Navy after graduating from high school. He completed a BS in chemistry by the time he reached the E7 rate." Ziva reported as the team gathered around the plasma screen showing the picture from the Master Chief's file.
"He's been married for thirty three years to Marie L. Harrison, a veterinary assistant. They live in Norfolk and have three grown children living throughout Virginia. Harrison volunteered with the Humane Society and was an elder in his church." Tim picked up the narration.
"The Master Chief was last seen at work around ten hundred. The Commander was shocked to hear of his death. He says that Harrison, while strict with his men seemed to be well liked." Tony continued. "He said he had no idea why the Master Chief would be in that neighborhood. None of his Navy business would take him into that area of town."
"We might not know why he was there, but we caught a break on the location. There is an ATM located across the street. The camera isn't positioned so that we can see into the alley, but we can look at who was walking by." Tim added.
"Good, get the footage to Abby. McGee, David, check with the other business owners in the area and talk to the family. DiNozzo, you're with me. Gas up the sedan while I check in with Ducky, we're going to talk with his co-workers."
Abby took the clothing out of the box first. The boots were regulation and well polished, or they had been before Master Chief Harrison ended up lying beside a dumpster. The jacket and the uniform both had holes in the left shoulder and back. As she was examining the jacket, a neon pink tennis fell out onto the floor. Abby was intrigued. The ball was fuzzy and worn with little punctures dotting the surface. It looked like one of the toys that Tim's dog Jethro loved. She wondered if the Master Chief had a pet.
The only blood she found on the clothing was A positive, which unsurprisingly matched the blood type of the victim. No gun shot residue was found on the sleeves of the coat or uniform, but it was sprayed around the bullet holes. The shooter had been close. When she had the slugs, she would be able to determine the type of weapon used and approximate the distance the shooter had been from Harrison.
"What do you have for me?" Gibbs walked into autopsy.
"Ah, hello Jethro. Mr. Palmer if you would continue here." Ducky moved aside for Jimmy and crossed to the light board. "Master Chief Petty Officer Harrison was a man of average health, a nonsmoker, and he probably should have controlled his cholesterol better. I found the beginnings of…"
"Did he die from a heart attack, Duck?"
"Well, no. He would have been at risk for one though, if he had continued to eat a diet containing a large percentage of foods like the eggs and sausage we found in his stomach."
"Any surprises for us?"
"Not really. The Master Chief was most likely knocked to the ground by the first round that hit his shoulder." Ducky gestured toward one of the X-rays. "It hit an artery and could have been fatal by itself without swift medical intervention, but a second shot in the back struck his heart. We recovered the slugs and Mr. Palmer took them to Abigail for analysis. I can confirm his time of death was approximately 11:30 am."
"Eenie, meenie, minie, mo." Abby didn't believe in examining evidence in a set order because it might cause her to follow some preconceived line of inquiry that neglected others that were equally valid. So she made it a practice to be as random as possible in her work. Her finger stopped at the box of Harrison's personal effects and Abby pulled out three small bags.
In the first there was a simple gold band, probably his wedding ring. She held it up to the light and saw an inscription inside: Tom and Marie / May 18, 1976. There was some blood on the ring. When Abby analyzed the stain, she found it was the same type as the Master Chief's blood; there were no traces of his attacker.
The next bag held a basic analog watch like one she'd seen at Sears the last time she'd dragged Gibbs out to shop. The watch had stopped at 11:33. If it hadn't been already broken, it might corroborate the estimated time of Harrison's death.
The last bag held a pair of wire-rimmed bifocals. The left lens was a stronger prescription than the right. They were broken. Abby carefully put them back in the box and moved on to the computer reconstruction of the murder.
"Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your husband?" Ziva had become better at interviewing grieving widows then she'd been when she first joined the team. It helped that Marie Harrison seemed to have gathered some control and wanted to help them in their investigation.
"No. He may not have been the easiest man to get along with, but people respected him. Tom always had to do things the right way. No cutting corners, no shortcuts." Marie looked around. "See those bulkheads in the kitchen? Tom saw the edges on the drywall weren't quite straight. He pulled them down and had the carpenter redo the work."
"Did that make the man angry?"
"At the time maybe, but not for long. We've known Jim and his family for years. He and Tom hunt deer together every fall. They rarely bring anything back. I think it is," she stopped to correct herself, "was just an excuse to get out of the city for awhile."
"Was he having problems with anyone at work?" Tim asked.
"Not problems, really."
"But there was something?"
"Tom told me that he was concerned about one of the younger men who worked for him. Something was distracting the man and causing him to make potentially disastrous mistakes."
"Did he say who it was?"
"No, I'm sorry."
"The Master Chief was a good man. I can't think of anyone who would want to do something like this to him." Petty Officer Mark Lee was answering Tony's questions.
"Really? We hear he was strict. One mistake and you could get written up."
"Things have to be done right around here. You make a mistake with some of this stuff and it might be the last time you make a mistake. Chief had to be like that and we knew it."
"Did anyone seem to resent that treatment?"
"No sir. Like I said, we all respected him."
"Had he written anyone up lately?"
"I hear that Jimmy Phelps was in trouble a few days ago, but he works a different shift, I don't know why."
In the office, Harrison's assistant was giving Gibbs a list of people who had been written up by the Master Chief. "…and Seaman Tim Rearick was written up for negligence. There aren't too many, the Chief liked to give the guys a chance to redeem themselves before he made an official report. Most of them straightened out after the first incident." He hesitated then added. "This might not mean anything, but I did overhear Petty Officer Byers arguing with the Master Chief last week."
"About his performance?"
"I don't know, sir. They stopped when they saw me."
"Petty Officer Phelps is a dead end. He was reprimanded for coming in late, but we have him on camera at work during the time of the murder." Tony reported.
"Seaman Rearick is still in the hospital receiving treatment for the chemical burns he sustained when he failed to properly fasten the lid on the container he was transporting." Ziva put down the phone.
Tim walked into bullpen and picked up the plasma controller. "Boss, Abby and I finished looking at the tape from the ATM." He put the footage up on the screen. "Right here, at 11:28, we see the Master Chief. If you rewind the tape a little bit, you see this guy."
"I've seen him before." Tony squinted at the screen.
"He's Petty Officer Fredrick Byers, an LS working under Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Harrison."
"The one seen arguing with Harrison." Ziva made the connection.
"DiNozzo, David, pick him up." Gibbs threw out orders. "McGee, find out everything you can about P. O. Fredrick Byers."
With the examination of the ATM footage out of the way, Abby returned to Harrison's personal effects. His wallet was a standard black leather trifold. The clear pocket contained a driver's license. Thomas Harrison was born on June 1, 1956, measured 6 feet, 1 inch, weighed 204 pounds, and was an organ donor. There was an extra twenty-dollar bill hidden in the space behind the license. Abby smiled, that was the kind of thing Tim would do. The total amount of money in the wallet, including the hidden twenty, came to sixty-four dollars and fifty-two cents. There were no credit cards, but the plastic sleeves were filled with pictures. The first picture was of a younger Harrison and what appeared to be his family, a woman, two boys, and a girl. The next picture showed the same woman but older, posing with a couple of greyhounds in an outdoor setting. The other pictures showed the children at various ages and eventually with spouses and young children.
"Where have you been? Why did you bring me here? I have rights, you know." Petty Officer Byers had been kept waiting and was irritated.
"Of course you do. What ever were we thinking?" Tony sat down across the table in interrogation.
"Why am I here?"
"Because you couldn't run fast enough. You really should work on that. If you'd been training, you wouldn't have let a girl take you down." Tony hoped Ziva wouldn't watch this recording. "We just wanted to ask you some questions about your relationship with Master Chief Harrison, but you decided to run. Bad decision."
"What kind of questions? I got along with him fine."
"Really, because we heard that you had an argument with him last week. What was that about?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. We didn't have any argument."
"That's interesting because we have witnesses that say you did. We also have a recording of you outside the alley where he was killed at the time of his death. Would you care to explain that?"
"I haven't done anything wrong." Byers tried to remain stoic.
"You'd better hope not, because your attempt to run away added to what we already have was enough for a warrant. My teammates are searching your home right now."
"May I join you in here?" Tim stood in the door of P. O. Byers' bedroom where Ziva was working.
"Of course." Ziva distastefully moved aside dirty laundry from the closet she was searching. "How can a person live like this?"
"You should have seen some of the guys' dorm rooms at MIT. It was their first time away from home and mom wasn't cleaning up after them. Have you found anything interesting?"
"No. But it should not be difficult to find whatever was making him nervous. He does not strike me as intelligent."
"How can you tell? You didn't have much conversation with him when you picked him up."
"Look around the apartment, besides the slovenly housekeeping, the refrigerator is filled with molding take out containers and there are no staples in the cupboards to prepare meals. There are no signs of scholarly pursuits, instead he has an entertainment center the size of a wall and DVDs to cover another one."
"You've just described Tony's home." Tim interrupted.
"But even Tony does not have pin-up posters of rock stars and bikini models all over his home. It looks like a teenager lives here."
"True, I wonder…" Ziva's words gave Tim an idea, and he moved to the foot of the bed to check under the mattress. "Well, look at what we have here."
Ziva moved over to see Tim pulling bags of a white powder out of a hole in the side of the box spring.
Abby needed to finish processing the Master Chief's personal effects, since his body would soon be released and the family would be coming to collect them. The next to last item in the box was Harrison's cell phone, which was slightly damaged but still functional. Examining the log, she found the only calls either made or received were for work or people listed in the address book.
There were two unopened text messages. The first one read: "Honey please stop at store. Get usual, dog food, garbage bags." Abby wondered what the "usual" was. If her sister-in-law asked her brother to get the usual, she'd bet on him arriving home with beer and chips, instead of the milk and bread that were always in short supply. The second text included a picture of a toddler that Abby recognized from the wallet pictures. He was seated on the floor surrounded by a dozen broken eggs and an empty egg carton. The message read: "Do you think that's funny Dad? He's all yours Friday."
"Where have you been?" Byers was looking worried.
"Well Fred, I'm going to remind you of those rights that you said you had earlier."
As Tony read his rights, the petty officer's face turned pale. "What's going on?"
"I just checked in with my teammates. They made a fascinating discovery at your home. You must have some really happy bedbugs."
"What?"
"They found your stash, Byers. Come on, couldn't you have found a better place to hide it than in the mattress? You guys need to make us work for our evidence. They tell me that there is enough there to charge you with possession with intent to distribute."
P. O. Byers said nothing, but he wouldn't meet DiNozzo's eyes.
"Now, you're already going down for the drug charges, so why don't you just tell us what happened in that alley. Get it off your chest. Why was the Master Chief following you? Did he find out about your little sideline and was going to turn you in?"
"No."
"Maybe he was in on it with you. Did you lure him out there to get rid of him because you didn't want to share or did you argue and things just got out of hand?"
"I didn't kill him."
"Sure you didn't."
"No man, I didn't do it." Byers was starting to sound desperate.
"You know, it really doesn't matter if you don't confess. We can show that you were at odds with Harrison and we can place you in the alley at the time of the murder. That's good enough for me." Tony stood up and turned to the door.
"Wait, you've got to believe me. I didn't kill him, but I can tell you who did."
"I'm listening." Tony turned around.
"No, I want a lawyer and a guarantee of protection first."
"I'll see about that."
Tony left the interrogation room and met up with Gibbs, who'd been listening in observation. "What do you think?"
"He could be telling the truth. What have you found out?"
"He had average scores on his aptitude tests and average performance reports. There's nothing out of the ordinary about him, he's just an all around average sailor. He has no prior record, so he's either new or really good at this."
"Keep looking and find him a lawyer."
"There you are Gibbs. You had me look for anyone else walking by the alley. This is it." Abby had done what she could with the recording. "We eliminated everyone but these three. We have ID's on two of them, the dental hygienist and the day care worker. We should be able to clear them, since they don't have any records and we just haven't been able to contact them. That leaves him."
"A guy wearing a hoodie. Can't you get the picture any clearer?" Gibbs was disappointed.
"The scar could identify him."
"And thirty other guys."
"That's the best I can do with all of the shadows on his face. I have friends at NASA might be able to do more with it."
"I've been transporting drugs for the Washington Street Gang." Byers had spoken with his lawyer and they were now sitting across from Gibbs. "The cocaine comes into the country on a cargo plane and is left in a locker on the base. I take it from the locker and off base to them."
"Do you know who brings it in?"
"No, my only contact is outside of the Navy, a guy named Toby Smith. He lets me know when it's arrived and where to meet him. A week ago he contacted me about a new shipment. He told me to be careful; the police were snooping around. I got a little nervous after that call, always looking over my shoulder. The Master Chief knew something was going on."
"What happened?"
"Not much, he kept an eye on me though. He seemed to be always hanging around. Smith called me to let me know where to meet him and Chief overheard us. He thought something was off and he pushed me for details. I didn't tell him much, just that it was personal and to butt out."
"But he didn't."
"I swear I didn't tell him where we would be meeting, but he must have remembered and followed me there. Toby saw him and thought I was turning on him. The rest of it all happened so fast. He pulled out a gun and Chief pushed me. I ran and heard shouting and couple of shots behind me. I didn't turn back."
The last item in the box was a little book with "New Testament" in fading gilt letters on the front. It opened automatically to the book of John. Highlighted in yellow were three verses. "My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater Love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command."
"You want me to testify. Are you crazy?" Byers was incredulous.
"No." Gibbs replied.
"Do you know what these guys are capable of?"
"Yes. That's why you will be in our protective custody from this point on. When the prosecutor has the deal finalized, we'll pass you over to the US Marshals and they'll put you in witness protection."
"I don't know."
"It's your choice, but do you really think that they are just going to let you walk away after seeing what you have? The Master Chief gave you a second chance. Are you going to waste it by walking away and letting them finish you off?"
Abby's phone rang. "Abby Scuito."
"It's Gibbs. Master Chief Harrison's widow and daughter are here to pick up his personal effects. Would you box them up?"
"Yes."
"Tony is escorting them down."
"Okay." Abby hesitated. "Gibbs?"
"Yes?"
"Tell me we're going to get this guy."
"We will."
Abby packed up the items; they fit in a container the size of a shoebox. As she'd often told her co-workers, she was a scientist and she dealt with evidence and facts. Sometimes, though, when you put all of the evidence together, you see more than just the facts.
A sound at the door made Abby turn. She saw the woman from the picture with the greyhounds entering her lab with the woman who appeared to be the mother of the toddler. For once, Tony was not trying to flirt with the pretty younger woman and respectfully ushered them into the lab. "Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Slater, this is our forensic scientist, Ms. Scuito."
"Hello." Abby shook the women's hands.
"Please call me Marie. This is my daughter Joyce."
"Call me Abby. I'm sorry for your loss." Abby slid the box across the table to the older woman.
Joyce put her arm around Marie as they looked through the box. Marie saw the tennis ball and smiled as she picked it up. "The girls are going to be happy to see this."
"The girls?"
"Our dogs, Belle and Princess." She showed Abby a picture on her cell phone. "Our granddaughter Hailey named them for us."
"They're beautiful animals."
"Thank you, we got them from the Virginia Greyhound Rescue. Tom always said everyone deserves a second chance." A sheen appeared over her eyes. "Thank you."
Abby watched them as they walked back to the elevator with Tony. She turned to her computer to continue working. As she closed a page she'd been working on, a picture she'd added to her wallpaper caught her eye, two greyhounds playing in the park.
Endnote: New Testament quote is John 15:12-14, NIV.