Chapter Ten
Get the Hell off this Crime Scene!
When Gibbs' car, preceding the MCR van, pulls to the side of the road above Compton Lake, three NCIS vehicles are already parked and Ducky's M.E. van is among them. It's the first time Gibbs can recall Ducky beating him to a scene.
When he gets out, Gibbs receives the report of Special Agent LiGreci. "The blood pools first in the middle of the road, then you see it smears off toward the left. Fortunately there's no real traffic here this time of year and with the blood and disturbed gravel in the middle of the road we got lucky. We haven't seen any cars since we got here." He points to straight black marks in the asphalt.
"There are tire skids from a jackrabbit start and impact spatter on the right side of the road. His body looks like it'd been dragged through the blood to the edge and hidden about five feet deep into those bushes. The M.E.'s assistant is checking out the man's body."
"Assistant? Where's Ducky?"
He shrugs. "Not here. She came alone."
Gibbs stalks across the road and carefully makes his way through the high brush on a circuitous circuit that will not damage any evidence. It's easy to find the body, which has been laid on its back at the base of a tree. Samantha Sky, wearing her extra small blue jumpsuit, crouches over the body, her back to him.
"Where's Ducky!"
She starts at his sharp demand, but by the time she looks over her shoulder her face is wreathed in a smile. "Hi, Agent Gibbs! Sorry, I'm not Ducky, but if it'll make you feel better you can call me 'Chicky'."
"I asked you a question!"
The demand washes the smile from her face. "Jesus, he's still in Court. He said on the phone I should do the preliminary examination and–"
"Get the Hell off this Crime Scene!"
x
She comes up to her full five foot two and steps over brush to within an inch of him, and though he towers over her by a full foot her anger makes up the difference. "Now you listen to me," her low tone carries only the inches between them but burns with fiery outrage, "you may be Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge with power to tell any other Special Agent what to do, but I am the Acting Assistant Medical Examiner and I have a boss and he told me what to do here! I will follow his orders until he tells me otherwise."
"One thing you'd better learn right now, young lady, is that we have a Chain of Command here and I am in charge of him as well. That means that he follows my orders and so do you, and I will not have an 'Acting Assistant Amateur' messing up my Crime Scene."
"I am not stupid, I am not an Amateur and I am not taking one step out of these woods until my boss tells me to. I've made some discoveries I can report if you want to hear them instead of treating me with such disrespect.
"I know you don't particularly like me, I don't know why because I can't remember having done anything to you. But I have been studying medicine for nearly five years, going for my M.D. and ultimately an M.E. It's one of the two main things I want to do in my life and I know what I'm talking about. Your own M.E. is satisfied about that or he wouldn't have sent me here! Now, do you want a report or not?"
"Fine, let's hear your 'report'."
x
She visibly forces her anger down but is still far from her normal joyous élan, just enough to talk civilly to him. "First, Ducky said Christine DiGiuseppi died when her rib cage was cut away. She didn't!"
Now she has his attention. "Tell me."
"Her heart was still beating when her rib cage was removed; she survived the incisions and the removal of the bones. He made a three quarter inch slit in her aorta; it would have shot a stream of blood up and about until she did die. He probably blocked it with something until it stopped."
"How did she survive everything he did before that?"
"I Googled her. She was a marathon runner, collected trophies for years. She placed 27th in the Women's division of last year's New York marathon. You could see how toned she was; Agent DiNozzo even commented on something like that in the hotel room. She had what it took to survive.
"I also found out Powers is ambidextrous, something to watch out for if you go up against him. The scalpel work on all three bodies was canted to the right in most but not all cases, but the work done on Maria Sanchez, who he'd just begun on, was more noticeably both left and right," she points down to the body at their feet, "and the stab wounds on this body were all done by the left hand. I found bruising to his neck that shows he was held down by the right hand while the knife was being used.
"The blade was horizontal rather than vertical as one would normally see in an overhand stabbing, but the position of the neck wound shows Powers had to be above or straddling the body when the knife was used. It was probably held sideways, canted left though it was, to prevent it being caught in the ribs.
"There are twenty-one stab wounds, all to the chest. The blade is a single edge serrated. Several of the wounds had impact impressions of the guard, so I was able to get a maximum size of 7 inches long. Now that's what I've found so far, if you'll leave me be and let me work I can find out more!"
Gibbs regards the petite young woman with more respect than he'd felt before. Munhausen had had a hunting knife in with the rest of his gear. It was probably transferred out of the SVU into Sanchez's car, used to kill her as well as the man at their feet. He'll check on that later. "Good work," he tells her with a nod, turns and starts back out the way he'd come, but then he turns to see her still watching him, "Chicky."
x
"McGee," he calls as he steps out of the brush onto the road, "is there a BOLO out on Sherman's car and wife?"
"I e-mailed the details to Henderson, he's putting it together now."
"LiGreci, when this bastard takes someone he generally travels for some time before finding the spot for his killing. How long ago do you think this happened?"
"Blood's still a little wet. The tanks and fins were still wet. I'd say if it wasn't condensation there's about two hours worth, but those tanks won't have lasted anywhere near that long underwater. He probably laid low until sun-up, waited until he started to hear traffic above, then came out. It looks like he stayed for some time in the bushes to the right of the road, probably flagged those people down for help.
"He pulled the husband out of the car and killed him, spatter on the other side shows he might have used some blunt weapon on the passenger. If the wife got out he probably subdued her and put her back in before driving off."
xxx
Two hours later, feeling he has given Abby enough time to conduct an examination of the stolen SUV, Gibbs strides into the garage. He sees her lower legs sticking out from under the driver's door. "What've you got, Abby?" Between his second and third words, he hears a 'clunk' from under the vehicle.
"Ow! The beginning of a lump – thank you very much."
"Never mind that, what did you find?"
She uses her feet to drag her body out upon a rolling platform, and when she's out he sees her grease stained orange jumper and a new smear planted upon her forehead. "God, I thought I was the only one who woke up this morning on the wrong side of the coffin," she looks more closely at him. "You look terrible."
"When I'm in mine, maybe I'll get some rest." He takes her extended hand and boosts her to her feet. She uses a rag to wipe her forehead, smearing the mark rather than cleaning it.
"The bottom of a car is a historical record of everyplace it's been and believe me, this thing's been everywhere." Gibbs grabs the rag out of her hand as she gestures emphatically to emphasize her points. "But I did find, in the cab, a reasonable print of a bootie covered size 11 Adidas, more later. You already know this thing was last in the woods before spending a couple weeks in a garage. Remember the pine needle and soil on the driveway outside the Sollecito's house, well actually the Field Forensics Team found it, I don't get out much–"
"Abby."
"You really should switch to decaf, cuts down on the grouchies."
"Pine needle."
"All right. Well, some were on the cab floor and stuck to the pedals. Munhausen transferred some on his boots when he drove, they got onto Powers' protective foot coverings, his booties, when he drove and transferred off when he walked up to the house."
"We nearly caught this guy on a hill."
"I'm working on that."
"Abby–"
"Gibbs, I'm only one woman trying to do forensics on three bodies and three crime scenes in barely three days on one salary. I'm working on it. I can tell you, however, that the fibers under DiGiuseppi' fingernails definitely came from the front passenger seat." She points into the cabin. "You can see where she scratched it right there. She knew she was going to die, and she was marking her transport."
"She was smart."
"It was the right thing to do, it just sucks that it couldn't help her."
Gibbs gives her a wry smile as he wipes more of the grease mark away, then he leans in, lightly kissing her forehead.