Disclaimer: Belisarius Productions owns NCIS. I don't even own Abby, Michelle or Ziva - frack.
This is my fourth NCIS FanFiction Mystery, all following one progression. You can find these and later stories listed in order in my Profile. While the mysteries stand alone, the back stories cover a progression commencing during the fourth Season of the televised Series.
These stories are fiction. There's no similarity to any person, living or dead.
Perspective: This story takes place a week after 'The Wiccan Affair', so there will be some references to it that you will want to familiarize yourself with.
Rating: T - or NCis-17. Violence, descriptions of Autopsies & Forensic Evidence, frank Adult topics.
Please review.
Sacramental Seal
By JMK758
Prologue
It's not often that 'Very' Special Agent Tony DiNozzo has a Wednesday off but Optional Days are something not even his boss, Deputy SAIC Leroy Jethro Gibbs, can do much about. The fact that Tony can spend this early August morning with a dozen good friends playing baseball in Coleman Park is icing on the cake.
He's playing right field in the warm sunshine, dressed in a Redskins t-shirt and team shorts, when Tom Harris, out sick from work with a bad case of Recurrent Spring Fever, hits a screaming fly ball which shows every sign of becoming a home run. Tony charges for the bordering bushes, glances back several times to judge the distance of the oncoming ball.
He'd been wrong. The wind caught the ball and drives it further right toward the line of waist high hedges that mark the edge of the open space and the border of the small grove of trees. It might be a foul ball, strike one, but Tony has no intention of letting it get away. If it descends on this side of the hedges it'll be an easy out. If it goes beyond, Tony's determined to vault the hedges to make it a spectacular out. Either way, Tom will learn the price of playing 'hooky'.
All this goes through Tony's mind in a few seconds, for as he runs it's clear he must vault the low hedge.
With the superlative reflexes that make Anthony DiNozzo a legend in his own mind he makes his leap, reaches for the oncoming ball, glances down for an instant to mark his landing spot and surprise freezes him. He comes down wrong, falls off his feet, twists barely in time to land in an unspectacular heap upon his butt before he rolls out of the crash.
The ball drops seven feet behind him. He doesn't glance back to see it bounce further.
"Come on, DiNozzo, that was an easy out," Pitcher Carl Hallowell calls from the mound.
"Come on, Tony, get the ball. You're holding up the game," Center Fielder Mike Analone admonishes him a few seconds later.
Tony stands up and can see his friends over the straight top of the hedges. Everyone's looking at him, none patiently, but he barely hears them as he looks down to what had so thoroughly distracted him.
He glances back up to the field and sees Analone approaching in a loping run. "Hey Tony, are you com–"
"Stop where you are!" DiNozzo commands his surprised friend with outstretched palm. "No one comes any closer." He'll have to mark the traces of his ignominious fall.
"What's up?" Analone is too surprised by the imperious order to be annoyed by it. The others also stop where they are. DiNozzo looks down; he's the only one who can see the woman's nude body.
x
She lies on her back beside a hole that appears to be the start of a grave. Apparently about 30 with long blonde hair and an exceptional figure, her flesh is scored by a smeared mélange of wide bloody lines. Gouged flesh crisscrosses her body; much of her skin's upper layer has been torn away in livid furrows from shoulders to hips, dark maroon lines of dried blood trailing from the front of her body down each side. Though she'd clearly bled profusely, the dry ground beneath her bears no marks. The blood that flowed from her wounds trails in all directions up and down her body and to each side, testifying to the violence of her death. Her face is the only part of her body he can see that the blood flowed consistently in one direction, it's run in downward rivulets, this blood already long dried from vertical wounds incised into her forehead.
All DiNozzo can pick out in identification is a familiar tattoo well forward on her right hip. The black emblem, an inch high anchor joined to the world, had been spared the ravages of whatever she'd endured before she'd died. His only other clue is that she's a natural blonde.
"Sorry, guys," DiNozzo calls to his friends. "Game called on account of death."
Chapter One
Angel in the Outfield
In the Operations Division on the third floor of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service Headquarters, Leroy Jethro Gibbs puts down his phone receiver and looks across the irregular square of desks, starts to address Special Agent Tim McGee but his desk's vacant. A glance to the right; McGee's behind his partner's desk, leaning over Officer Ziva David's shoulder and supposedly looking at her monitor, but his real view also pushes the limits. "McGee."
"Er, yes, boss?" He looks over, no guilt in his eyes.
"When you're done playing peekaboo, grab your gear."
"I wasn't..." Ziva just looks back and up at him, a sultry smile on her lips as she very slowly presses her blouse more securely to her chest.
"Let's roll, people," he tells the pair, not allowing McGee a moment to protest his innocence.
He pulls open his drawer, takes out his shield and gun and touches a button on his phone, sending an automatic signal.
Coming around his desk, he tosses the van keys to Ziva, but then reconsiders. Not pausing on his way to the elevator, he plucks them from her hand and pushes them into McGee's.
Ziva's affronted, looks from Tim to Gibbs' retreating back. McGee can only give her a 'what can you do' shrug.
"It was only a little dent."
"Come on, people, DiNozzo has an 'Angel in the Outfield'."
The two hurry after him, neither wanting to interpret that one.
xx
Donald Mallard's blue and white ME truck is always kept fully stocked and ready for rapid departures, because under Gibbs' direction there are no other kinds. With their equipment and field gear already stored, he and his Assistant Jimmy Palmer can move with quick efficiency, but sometimes even this isn't enough to satisfy an impatient Gibbs. Nonetheless, this time the Examiners arrive in the basement parking area scant seconds after the Agents.
"What do we have, Jethro?" Ducky inquires as he and Palmer head to their truck and McGee and Ziva board their own.
"DiNozzo has a body in Coleman Park."
"Navy or Marine?" he asks as they board. They handle no other type of investigation, so it's an easy guess.
Gibbs is already in his car. "Looks like Marine. He's secured the scene and is waiting for us."
"What do we know about our latest charge?"
He closes his door, ready to begin. "Only that she has a Corps tattoo."
'Well,' Ducky thinks, 'whomever the body does ultimately turn out to be, I'll be sure she receives appropriate respectful attention.'
"We'll be right behind you," he calls through the ME truck's open door. "Try not to shatter any speed regulations. Speed is essential prior to a murder, not after."
"Just try to keep up when I break Mach 1." No matter how much advice he receives, he's going to do things as he always does: his way. He drives up the ramp at least 10 miles per hour faster than Ducky would take it. Ziva exits even faster.
Mallard shakes his head, gives a sigh of long suffering and closes the door. "Tally ho, Mister Palmer."
xxx
When the three vehicles skirt the outfield of Coleman Park's baseball diamond, DiNozzo waits by the far right corner beside the long, waist high hedge. Unlike his black uniformed colleagues, his Redskins tee shirt, shorts and sneakers are a striking image, and there are a dozen similarly dressed men waiting a few yards away.
DiNozzo had told his friends to keep their distance to preserve the scene, but once each had gotten a look from center field, nothing will drive them further away until their curiosity is sated.
The teams assemble beside the Senior Field Agent and look over the three foot high line to get their first view of the body. "Oh, dear," is all Ducky has to say.
x
In death the statuesque blonde woman is still lovely. Her hair reaches her shoulders, still this side of Regulation length and, as DiNozzo had wisely omitted from his initial report, there's no doubt that the color is natural. The only thing adorning her body is the Marine tattoo forward on her right hip, a curious variation of the symbol's usual placement.
Unfortunately, beautiful as she was in life, before death she'd been savagely tortured. Her body is striped with deep livid marks that have gouged her flesh from shoulders to below her hips, the deeply carved wounds crisscross her in a brutal road map of bloody pain. Some of the long gouges look to be a half inch deep and, from the way some of the bloody lines disappear behind her, the assault presumably covers her on all sides. Deep though much thinner furrows, almost like nearly parallel knife wounds, are cut downward into her forehead and downward trails of dried blood line her face. The marks are visible under her hairline on each side of her head and brown blood cakes her blonde hair. The cuts have apparently been made all about her head.
She lies on her back, arms at her sides. At first glance she might appear to be asleep, but nothing mimics the motionless of death. Her breasts are high and firm, waist slim and hips generous, her legs are long and sleek ... but there seems to be no gross cause of death. Though her wounds, which scoured off the upper layer of her flesh, were undoubtedly excruciating, they don't appear fatal. Her breasts are covered with deep indentations of teeth. More than bitten, she appears to have been chewed, and many of these wounds have drawn their own blood, the trails running both downward and to each side.
The only other clue is the shallow hole beside her body, which starts at her bare feet and goes up to her knees. There's no shovel or other implement in sight, and they can only speculate her killer was interrupted. This is as much as can be discerned from the field side of the hedges.
x
"DiNozzo, what can you tell us besides the obvious?" Gibbs asks his Senior Field Agent.
"Besides the obvious? Nada. Those are my marks," he says, referring to coins placed along his footsteps on this side of the hedge and the disturbed earth beyond. He'd had nothing else with which to distinguish the trail or his landing spot.
"All right. McGee, pictures, DiNozzo, sketch." McGee passes over the large pad and set of pencils. "Ziva, walk the area, look for everything. By the way, DiNozzo, welcome back to work."
"Thanks, Boss." He's far from pleased. When he'd met his friends for this early morning game before the weather would turn too hot to enjoy it, he'd expected a fuller day.
"Ducky–"
The man cuts him off as only he may. "After they're finished and I have properly examined the young lady, I shall give you a report."
xx
It takes little time for McGee and DiNozzo to collect a complete series of photos and triangulated drawings, both distant and close to the body, allowing Mallard and Palmer to step over the barrier and begin their examination. In addition to the body, there are some partial impressions of what seem to be sneakers 'below' the base of the hole, but the nearly barren ground is dry and firm. The short grass is spotty around the body, and it's clear the hedge is the limit of tended ground. There's not enough loose dirt for the area to yield suitable impressions, but what they can get yields to angled flashes.
After a few minutes, Ducky calls to Gibbs and the three Field Agents draw close as well to hear the preliminary findings.
"As you can see," he says, pointing to the woman's breasts, "there are numerous dental impressions."
"She was bitten."
"This goes more to the level of 'tortured', Jethro. Most of these impressions are quite deep, and several pierced the skin." Gibbs doesn't interrupt, but 'pierced the skin' is a kind way of describing the bloody wounds, which could be nothing less than agonizing. "The wounds appear perimortem, for if she lived for any appreciable length of time then circulation would have returned her breasts to their natural state within a very short time and we would be left only with those marks where the teeth actually broke the flesh. We will get some useful dental impressions; I only hope that they yield up a suspect."
He's offended by what's been done to this young woman and doesn't care to be kind in his hopes for swift justice. The degree of violence inflicted upon this unfortunate young lady is utterly appalling. "I should place the time of death to be no more than minutes after, or perhaps before, those injuries were inflicted. I'll know more when I get her on my table. Notice the tattoo."
"I have," Gibbs says dryly, unsurprised by the segue.
"Of course." He's sorry for having stated the obvious. The black tattoo, about an inch wide and forward on her right hip, is the Marine Corps insignia. He's used to seeing it on arms, or even legs, of Marines.
"She's had that mark for a while," Gibbs concludes.
"Yes. If it were fresh, there would be considerable redness all about the area and the mark would have to be kept moist with gel. While it has not lost the crisp definition and color as seen in older samples, I'd say this mark is almost certainly less than five years old."
"Interesting place for it," DiNozzo remarks, little to Ducky's sense of propriety.
"Yes, the placement is significant. I would venture to say–."
"Don't venture," Gibbs directs.
"No, but taken from a Psychological Autopsy viewpoint, it suggests…" he gives Gibbs a smile, gets grudging permission to venture anyway, "that a concern for privacy comes into play. While I need far more resources upon which to formulate a hypothesis, I would 'venture' that she is proud enough of her affiliation to get a tattoo, but is selective of to whom she shows it."
"Reducing to words of one syllable."
"Well, at least no more than three, it would not normally be seen except by those she was intimate with." He looks over the body as a whole. "I can never understand why anyone, particularly so lovely a young woman, would consent to have her body marked in such a way."
"Talk to Abby about that," Gibbs advises. The Forensic Scientist's impressive and still growing collection of significant tattoos is the stuff of NCIS Legends. He's seen as many as nine, but he has assurances from her that there are several more that he'll never see. However, their resident expert on tattoos, as well as being expert on everything, will be able to give them an approximate age of the mark.
"Yes. Well, there is no apparent fatal wound unless it is under her, which Mr. Palmer and I will now check. Lividity is fixed, though it's inconclusive that she was lying on her back when she died. She is in full rigor. These give me a preliminary Time of Death as by or prior to 2 AM."
"What about the cuts?" he asks, pointing to the vertical slits that surround her head down to mid-forehead. "Ever see anything like them?"
"Too soon to be certain, though I have my suspicions."
"Care to share?"
"No." Gibbs has learned long ago that when his old friend answers in that manner, there's no point in trying to change his mind. "There are no signs of struggle surrounding the body and she has been savagely tortured, so I don't believe she was killed here. Give me a hand, Mr. Palmer."
Together they partially turn her so they may see her back. Her arms don't move, nor do her legs. Her back is deep purple from shoulders to ankles, yet nearly white where her body had pressed most firmly on the uneven ground. The deep gouging of her flesh looks even worse for the forced away blood.
"I would say she'd been placed here within an hour of her death. As you see, she has been subjected to the same ravages in back as in front, but lividity," he tells the gathered agents, "has settled in her back. As you see, I can find no wounds beyond the obvious damage to the epidermis."
Supporting her body on her side, he points to her hands locked beside her. "Her wrists are deeply indented with what appears to be rope, forward of her left wrist, back here on her right. The fact that her wrists haven't returned to a natural condition indicates that she was bound through the moment of death."
The men allow her body to lay flat. "The wounds on her body, particularly where they are interrupted behind her but mark her arms, indicate she was very likely whipped while her hands were bound behind her back. Rigor, being complete, indicates she died sometime between twelve to sixteen hours ago, I'll have more to give you later." The man reminds him once again of what he knows so well, that the search for evidence is a painstaking and time consuming process.
Gibbs looks to his team. "All right, get to work."
x
Before they may do so, however, the sound of a helicopter's rotors approaches, grows loud and halts overhead. They look up, seeing a Network News chopper hovering, even from this high they can pick out a camera being brought out.
"It figures they'd show up soon," DiNozzo gripes, wondering which of his friends gathered several yards back had been the one to call them while he wasn't looking. It's only a matter of time now before the cars, vans and trucks arrive.
"I'm not done yet," Ducky says crossly, looking up at the offending helicopter hovering loudly above them, then down at the naked woman, "but they are going to turn this poor woman's death into a circus for their fabled ratings."
"No, they're not," Gibbs declares tightly. "DiNozzo, McGee." He points to the folded white sheet in the Examiner's supplies. The men don't have to be told.
Opening the sheet, which would on some occasions be used to cover the body before it's placed in a black body bag, they stand beyond the woman's head and feet, each holding two corners. The white cloth allows enough light for Ducky and Jimmy to work by, but over their heads it forms an adequate shield against the camera.
DiNozzo smiles up at the frustrated crew.
xxx
It's an hour later when Donald Mallard and Jimmy Palmer return to their lab, Palmer wheeling the black bag bearing gurney before him. The Local and Network News vehicles had arrived not long after the helicopter had, but by then the Examiners were finished and the body properly covered, preparatory to being bagged. DiNozzo and McGee had established a perimeter several yards away from the three foot high hedge, beyond which the frustrated newshounds couldn't pass. When the team was leaving one of the reporters had tried to 'buttonhole' Gibbs into an interview – never the wise move.
Not slowing down, he'd replied to only one question, the name of the victim, with a terse "Jane Doe".
Now Jimmy pushes the wheeled cart bearing Jane Doe's body beside the first of three metal examining tables. Ducky pulls down the zipper of the long black bag to reveal the once lovely woman. The front of her body is covered with wide and thin trails of blood and appallingly deep long wounds. Her body is too pale, the gory wounds standing out in sharp relief.
Taking position at her head, Ducky places his hands under her arms, Jimmy taking her legs. They lift the stiff woman off the gurney, out of the bag and onto the cold examination table. Though she's been measured at five foot nine, her bloody body looks small and forlorn.
"I'm sorry that it's cold, my dear," Mallard says quietly and with sincere sympathy, looking past the trails of dark dried blood that line downward along her face, centering his attention on her closed eyes. "Once we get the light on, things will warm up nicely."
James Palmer has long ago become accustomed to his boss' predilection of talking to his charges as though they're still alive and have feelings for what's being done to them. In his earliest days he'd asked about this and Ducky'd explained that what's done in the course of an autopsy is the most personally invasive act that will ever be inflicted upon a fellow human being. This is his way, and he feels it's an important way, of connecting with and relating to his charges. He can never forget that these are human beings, once as vital and alive as he is, and their dignity needs to be observed and preserved even, or especially, in death.
Thus, Mallard speaks to his charges, relating to them as though they are still alive, still aware. To date, as he'd said, not one of them has ever replied, something for which Palmer suspects they're equally grateful.
Having carried the woman's legs while lifting her onto the table, Palmer had been unable to avoid noticing something extremely disturbing. "Doctor, you're going to want to see this. I mean, you won't want to see this. I mean–" He gives up. There's no point, the evidence will speak for itself.
The older man comes closer and there's absolutely no need for Palmer to elaborate on what he's discovered. "Oh dear," he looks up at the woman's face, "I am so sorry, my dear."
xxx
Abby Sciuto sits at her desk in her lab halfway under the ground in a black mood. She's not happy. She is not happy at all.
She's beyond frustrated, beyond furious. Despite her best efforts, she's unable to let go of her feelings, nor tolerate the injustice of the situation. She is the one Tim is interested in, if only he can get his nose out of a computer long enough to realize it. She'd worked for months – months – to get through to him. Even when she'd been in 'protective custody' in his apartment over a year ago she'd walked about in a small tight t-shirt and very tiny panties, had told him to forego the sleeping bag, that they're adults and can share the same bed - and he still can't get the hint.
True she'd backed away months ago, but she'd learned her lesson and had come back fighting, until things had gone totally wrong.
And now, seemingly seconds after she'd been removed from the playing field through her 'enforced vacation', that dark tramp with her exotic accent and mysterious ways made her move.
Well, it is not over yet, not by a damned inch. Ziva David might have drawn first blood, but the war is just beginning and she has too much at stake to give up.
Granted, she'd lost ground, but she knows Tim longer, knows him better and all Ziva had done is to up the ante. She may have drawn first blood, but the next one to bleed will be–.
x
Her mental rant is cut short by the ringing of her phone. She snatches it up and stops herself in mid-breath rather than snap her outrage at the unknown caller. "NCIS; Forensics. Oh, Hi, Jimmy," her anger evaporates, "Ducky wants me? That's so sweet! I want him too." She smiles at the image of her flummoxed friend's face. She feels she shouldn't tease him so, but it's so much fun. She allows the man to find his voice and tell her the reason for his call. "Sure, I'll be right down."
She hangs up the phone, heads for the sliding glass door, and considers restraining herself from any more deviltry. But she dismisses the idea. Why should she miss any fun?
xx
While Palmer was talking to Abby, Ducky continued his examination. What he's found under the intense overhead light isn't at all pleasant.
When Palmer returns, Ducky sends him back to the phone, this time to summon the Investigators. The younger man doesn't wonder at his mentor's grim tone or distressed expression. He knows he'll find out the reason soon enough.