Chapter 2

"Abbs, what have you got?" Gibbs asked when he entered Abby's office and immediately turned off the music which was again set to maximal volume.

"A headache and too much of Caf-Pow?" she answered and looked at the three empty paper cups on the evidence table. She was standing at the computer on whose screen a DNA identification was running.

"Is that our victims DNA?"

"Yes, her test didn't show any result on the East coast's naval officers, so the West Coast's are still running in the background."

"Did the murderer leave any traces of DNA?" Gibbs asked surprised and Abby already pushed him to the table in the mid of the lab where all kinds of beakers and dishes were lying.

"Although Ducky proved that the victim was sexually abused, he couldn't find any semen. It might be that he ejaculated somewhere in the room, but the fluorescence all over the place makes UV-light unusable. Have you thought about that, Gibbs, this is awful? How crazy are the perps these days?"

"Abbs…" Gibbs reminded her to her work. Like always, he was gave along the impression that he was under pressure of time.

"Alright…the CSU gave me some probes they took from the walls and floors of the crime scene. I analyzed them and the forensic guy was right. It is indeed fluorescence, but it isn't very pure nor is it homogeneous."

"What?"

"It means that the perpetrator produced it himself and also in small amounts. Probably because that was easier and doesn't attract any attention. So this also means that this crime was planned a long time before and was exactly done in the way he had figured out." She moved to her left and held up the 'explosive device' which was brought down to single pieces. "This one was a bit harder. He used a usual instruction of a simple explosive device, as you and I can find in the internet. It also shows that this isn't quite his league. He's more focused on the chemical – but also physical – part of the crime. And with 'physical' I mean physics, not the…other physical thing…he did to her…and-"

"Abbs," the boss reminded her to get to the point.

"Okay…let's say he knows mixing chemicals. The bomb's manufacture itself is simple but it's usually used with nails and sharp kinds of stuff. For this one, he built a ball – like a balloon – but with a more solid material. He placed the explosive device itself inside this 'ball' so that when it exploded, the impact would tear the 'ball' apart and spray the liquid all over the room. Now you see this," she pointed to the rests of the device, "and you know the room."

"The bomb is very small," Gibbs commented.

"Exactly," Abby answered, put the evidence plastic bag back and walked over to her computer where she put a 3D-view of the room on the big screen. "I examined the explosion and the liquid inside the bomb was just enough to fill most parts of the room. Actually, it was exactly the right amount to be sure that all important parts of the room were covered, which excludes the corners and the edges of the ceiling."

"Does that mean he measured the room and calculated how much of this fluoro-stuff he had to produce?"

"As I said, he seemed to be quite good at physics."

"Thanks, Abbs," Gibbs said and wanted to go but Abby held him back.

"I got more," she said and pointed to a small beaker filled with a transparent liquid. "Hydrochloric acid. Alone, it's a bit hard to destroy evidence, but one part of it is chlorine…which can be very useful."

"Abbs!"

"Okay, I explain that simply," she answered slowly. "Chlorine can – under specific circumstances, in this case certain compounds with it – react with DNA itself and therefore has the quality to make it unusable for later identification. He spilled some liquids in the sink and the floors in the house in case that he left any traces. Although I take along that he used gloves and shoe covers, and probably even hair covers, he is very, very careful."

"You want to tell me that he knows what he's doing," Gibbs summed up what he had heard too often before.

"I want to say that he probably studied chemistry or biochemistry, perhaps something including physics. Nevertheless, he has a certain interest in bodies and their interior," Abby said with a sad look on her face. She always seemed a bit too emotional concerning her work.

"Thank you," Gibbs said and left the lab and walked down another floor deeper into the earth to visit his pathologist in the autopsy room. "Duck, tell me something."

"I just finished x-raying the set of teeth so that Abby should be able to do a dental recognition in case that the DNA analysis will be unsuccessful."

"She's probably a naval officer, we have all their DNA's," Gibbs reminded him but joined Ducky and Mr. Palmer at the table.

"Luckily – under that unlucky circumstanced – the murderer took away some work from me. Weighing the organs could be performed faster than usual because I didn't have to set the Y-cut."

"Did he know how to do it?"

"Let me say it so: If you read a hundred medical books and then were told to do an autopsy, it would look like this," he said and pointed on the corpse which seemed even paler now due to the bright light.

"You mean he doesn't have any experience?"

"I wouldn't call it 'none at all'. The cuts are precise and his hands did not shake, but he didn't have the right tools to do it professionally."

"For example this," Mr. Palmer said and held up a device Gibbs could hardly name. "When a body is opened and we want to access certain organs, it holds the rips and sometimes also the chest bones apart. He didn't have this so that the bones are still in order."

"I think that he only had two or three different types of scalpels, tweezers and perhaps he even used crucible tongs. The nervous system tissue was carelessly pushed apart so that the organs were recognizable. He took them out and hell knows what he did with them. However, he put them back wherever they belonged. More fascinating is this," the pathologist said and picked the big, red heart with his gloved hands. He turned it around and Gibbs saw something that could not be right.

"Is there something missing?" he asked.

Ducky nodded. "A part of the 'backside' of the heart was cut out. I couldn't find it in the body so I assume he kept it. The same happened with a small piece of the stomach which is the reason for that its former content has flown into the upper body half. We had to get it out by suction before we could start examining the rest." He pointed to a testing tube with a yellow-brown-green liquid in which solid, unidentifiable 'things' were wobbling around.

Gibbs wished he would not have looked up. "Abby said she was being raped?"

"Unfortunately yes. Her vagina stained red and she had been still alive. But we could not find any semen so I assume he wore a condone – which is very unusual for rape criminals."

"Thanks, Ducky."

"One more thing, Gibbs: The way it looks, he has planned this very precisely. It wasn't a spontaneous act and therefore I think not the only one. He'll do it again – please find him before he gets this chance."

"I'll do my best, Duck. Like always," Gibbs said shortly and left the autopsy hall.

I wash my hand with water, soap and special disinfection solution. It takes me at least five minutes before my hands are clean, but I know that they will never be clean again. I have a look at my hands under UV-light and notice the yellow-greenish lightening spots that can also be found on my working place, my lab kit and the glass devices which I already cleaned so eagerly. However, I walk upstairs and see that the light in the living room is switched off. In the darkness, I take the staircase, avoiding the one that makes a sound and step onto the first floor. I open the door to the bedroom but I see that he isn't asleep yet.

He looks up from his book and smiles. "I've been waiting for you, honey."

"I've had work to do," I explain. "It took me a bit longer than expected."

"CSU called and said they found blood all over the place," McGee said when he put down the phone.

"How were they able to figure that out? The whole damn place was glowing," Tony asked confused.

"They came back today with another set of UV-lights and searched the abandoned house with using another wave length of the light. Which means that the whole room was lighted up, but for example semen and blood could be seen as dark dots – well in this case they found a huge amount of blood all around the body but this proves that the woman was killed where she was found."

"Concerning her, Abby just sent me the lab results," Ziva told the boss who stood silently in front of the plasma screen watching the crime scene photos. "She says that her DNA matches Naval Corporal Diana Sullivan." She put her driver license and naval ID onto the scene and Gibbs regarded the calmly. "Age 23, not married, no problems at work and she came home from a mission in Afghanistan last week. Her parents both died but she has a brother, Marc."

"You and Tony go talk with him. Although it seems like a usual rape, we cannot exclude a proper motive," the boss said and drank the last bit of his coffee before he turned and through the paper cup into the bin. "McGee, we're gonna drive to her naval office. She was stationed in the naval hospital in Norfolk since Monday."

Although the team went after all traces they could see, none of them led to a clue concerning the solution of the case. It was already evening when Tony and Ziva came home from a journey halfway through all cities in DC's vicinity where they had visited, visiting the brother and boyfriend of the victim, as well as her current workplace. But nowhere they found out something of interest and it was evident that they were soon going to lose the case on the police or FBI as they usually handled serial killers. However, as long as the victim stayed a naval officer, they were in charge.

"You planned something for tonight?" Tony asked when Ziva had packed up her thing and had already turned to leave.

"No, why?" she wanted to know and waited for him to catch up. Together they walked to the elevator.

"I thought…we could…you and me…could going to…drink something together?" Tony muttered in a voice that was very unusual for him.

Ziva first thought about teasing him but then decided to nod, "I know a great pub in North town."

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