Chapter 13

"Am I correct to assume that Special Agent Gibbs has informed you that we have some suspects pertaining to your case in our custody?" Detective Cirsky asked after they'd exchanged all the necessary pleasantries at the beginning of their meeting.

Xander nodded while Abby looked up in alarm, her pigtails moving about at the quick movement. "They haven't suddenly decided to deny everything again, right?"

"No," the detective said reassuringly, "quite the contrary, actually. They've admitted to even more cases than we would have been able to connect them to."

"Uh, that doesn't sound normal, does it?" Abby asked worriedly. "I mean, I've never heard of a suspect admitting to more than they absolutely have to! Not even with Gibbs around, and he's really scary in interrogation! They aren't going to suddenly claim they were threatened into admitting their crimes, are they?"

"We've certainly given them no reason to do so," Detective Cirsky said.

"Although we're sure that they are scared to death," Detective Doe added. Looking first at Abby, then at Xander, he continued, "You don't happen to have any idea as to why they're so scared? Or maybe how they ended up like that?"

Xander and Abby looked at the pictures Detective Doe had spread out in front of them upon the last question. The first showed the five suspects bound to the outside of a fire escape, each standing on the shoulders of the person below - with the bottom one literally hanging 13 feet or so up in the air. All the other pictures where close ups of the different criminals and the way they were bound to the fire escape. Xander couldn't help but chuckle. Faith, Vi and Lisa had told him just what exactly they had done to the guys, although they hadn't had the time to take extensive pictures, seeing how they had wanted to go undetected. Looking up he only said one word. "Creative."

Abby scrutinised one of the close-ups, turning it left then right and even upside down to take in even the tiniest detail. "How did they get up there? Short of someone being strong enough to actually hold the guys in position while another person binds him to the fire escape they'd have needed a hydraulic platform or something similar. Besides, there are five guys on the fire escape so it would have taken quite a while to get them into position - unless you have at least ten people against them. But wouldn't they have screamed? Wouldn't somebody have heard them?" Abby looked up sheepishly. "Sorry, but this is just so weird."

Detective Cirsky smiled. "I agree. And we're just as interested in the answers to your questions as you are. Do you have any idea who could have done that?"

Abby shook her head. She knew Gibbs could be overprotective when it came to her safety but she was with him last night. Besides, if it had been him, the criminals wouldn't have ended up the way they had. Tony, on the other hand, could be rather inventive at times. But again, she didn't see how he could have pulled it off. Even if he had Ziva's help. And McGee's.

"Mr. Harris?" Detective Doe asked pointedly. "Maybe you could shed some light on this?"

"Well, I certainly would have loved to see them like this." Xander shrugged his shoulders casually and easily returned Detective Doe's glare. "But, alas, I haven't. Seen them, that is. Though if you ever catch whoever did this, make sure to tell them I really appreciated their creativity."

Doe eventually backed down and turned his eyes to Abby. "I'm sorry to have to ask this, but we'd appreciate if you could tell us where you were last night."

"Why? You don't think we had anything to do with it, do you?" Abby asked flabbergasted. "That's ridiculous!"

"It's simply part of the investigation," Detective Cirsky said in a calming voice. "We just want to make sure we know all the details before charging the suspects. After all, nobody wants them to avoid jail because we haven't done everything by the book, right?"

Xander tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at Detective Doe. "Something tells me you know exactly where I was last night."

"I thought you were with Willow?" Abby asked her brother.

"I was. We met at my hotel and Wills wanted to go dancing. So we've googled for night-clubs in the area, choosing one as far away from the one we went to as possible. We got there by eleven, had some drinks, danced and left around three. Took a taxi to my hotel and went to bed," Xander explained easily.

"You were at that club?" Abby pointed at the pictures on the table and Xander winced at the high-pitched tone breaking through her voice.

"Naw, another one." Xander patted her arm before adding in mock-surprise, "Who'd have thought there're more than a couple of night-clubs in the area? In Sunnydale we had the Bronze and ... nothing else."

"Yet you still managed to end up in one of the three clubs that had been hit worst by this gang," Detective Doe commented dryly.

Xander looked at him in shock. Sunnydale had been an amazing acting school, so putting on a shocked expression was almost too easy for him. "I did?"

"Xander!" Abby slapped him, hard.

Rubbing his chest where she had hit him, he said, "Come on, Abs. After our little adventure Willow and I were totally careful. I swear!" Although he could hardly tell her that, apart from Willow making sure nobody could add something to their drinks without setting off a helluva lot of alarms, they also had a personal escort consisting of Kennedy and two other slayers.

After answering a few more questions, including Abby telling them where she had spent the night, successfully squashing another theory of Detective Doe, neither Abby nor Xander were overly sorry to see the back of the two detectives.

Xander sighed when he and Abby entered the bullpen. "Twinkie. I could really do with a Twinkie right now."

"Oh, oh!" Abby literally jumped up before rushing over to Gibbs' desk. "Twinkies! I need Twinkies!"

Gibbs raised his eyebrows but quickly rolled out of the way of his favourite Goth, giving her free reign over his desk. "Bottom drawer."

"Bottom drawer, bottom drawer," she mumbled while using almost excessive force to pull it open. "Ha!" Abby held up an old pack of Twinkies as if it was her most valuable possession. "Twinkies." Grinning widely, she handed the rumbled looking pack over to her brother.

"Sweet!" He barely had opened the pack before the first one vanished into his mouth. He closed his good eye and moaned in pleasure. "Best treat ever!"

"What are these Twinkies?" Ziva asked, walking over to where Xander was standing. Her coming up from his blind side didn't stop him from moving the bag out of her way just as she was reaching for it.

"Mine."

Giggling, Willow came over as well. "Rule number ... something: Never get between Xander and his Twinkies. Others have tried and failed miserably."

"You have rules?" Abby looked at her in awe. "Like Gibbs' rule number one 'never screw over your partner' rules?"

Willow briefly glanced over to Xander and he quickly answered, "Yup. We've got a whole bunch of them. Never get between Xander and his Twinkies. Never get between Xander and his pizza. Never get between anyone and their food, actually."

Gibbs, having noticed the quick exchanged, filed this away as well.

"So what's your rule number one then?" Tony asked eagerly.

Xander shrugged his shoulder. "Doesn't matter."

Yes, he would definitely ask Xander about their rules, Gibbs thought.

"Boss!" McGee stood up, excitedly pointing towards their main screen that suddenly came to life. "I've found a possible suspect."

"Didn't you say your search program would take at least a couple of hours to start giving out names?" Tony asked.

"Yes, I did." McGee said smugly. "That was before Willow showed me how I could improve it. She's a genius!"

Blushing brightly, Willow shrugged her shoulders. "I just like to tinker with search algorithms. That's all."

"Let me see." Abby pushed McGee aside and started typing. "That's brilliant! I never thought of doing it that way!"

"That's our Willow," Xander said, hugging Willow to his side.

Tony smiled brilliantly at Willow. "I like smart woman."

Willow returned his smile before replying sweetly, "Me too."

McGee managed to choke on his own coffee, while everyone else was simply smirking at Tony.

"First transvestites, now lesbians?" Abby said far too innocently, "My dear Tony, I think we need to have a long, long conversation."

"You hit on a transvestite?" Xander chuckled.

McGee had recovered enough to put in his own two cents. "He didn't just hit on him."

"As much as I love this conversation," Gibbs said loudly, "We have a suspect to bring in. Tony, Ziva, you're with me. McGee, call if you get more names."

"Yes, Boss."

"Thanks for your help, Miss Rosenberg." Gibbs nodded his head in thanks before grabbing his stuff and moving towards the elevator.

--

"Impressions?"

"I knew she was gay!" Tony said immediately - and earned himself a slap to the back of his head just as quickly.

"DiNozzo! I wanted to know if she could be the Champion of Light."

"Sorry, Boss. Having a bad day." Tony took a deep breath to collect his thoughts. "Right. Willow. She doesn't strike me as the fighting type. And that's what the Champion of Light does, right? She fights? However, if said Champion was to have a team, you know, for collecting intel and such things, then she'd be their McGee. And their Abby, I guess."

"I agree," Ziva said while they made their way to the parking lot. "Willow was offered a job with a leading software company while she was still in high school. And she declined. Also, she got offered places at several Ivy League universities as well as Oxford but again declined and ended up staying in Sunnydale, attending UC Sunnydale."

"How?" Tony asked in astonishment. He'd been with Ziva the entire time since they'd met Willow in Abby's lab. Realisation dawning, he shook his head at himself. "Spent too much time flirting, not enough time listening."

Instead of slapping him again, as DiNozzo had clearly expected, Gibbs only gave a curt nod. There was no need in knocking some sense into DiNozzo when he'd already realised his mistake. And one thing Gibbs was sure of, his agent would learn from it. "So we believe they're on the support team."

"Yes." Ziva said with confidence.

"Is there something else you want to share?" Gibbs asked curiously.

"I just realised something else about Xander." Ziva said with a shrug of her shoulders before elaborating. "Men often underestimate my abilities. They think they are taller, heavier and can therefore easily overpower me. However, I never got that vibe from Xander. If anything, he's treating me with much more respect than he does Tony right from the moment we've met."

Tony was going to protest but then he thought about it. "Damn. I think you're right. He must-" He was interrupted by his cell phone ringing. A quick look at the caller ID told him he'd better answer. "Informant," he explained before answering the phone. The call lasted several minutes and was, much to Ziva's annoyance, rather one sided. Tony put his phone away just as they reached their destination. "That was an old friend from Baltimore PD. He recently met someone who had worked for Sunnydale PD. Long story short, our assumption seems to be right. Xander and Willow work with or for the Champion of Light."

"I want details after this is over," Gibbs said while getting out of the car. In fact, he wanted the details now, but they had to catch a possible serial killer first.

--

It was past midnight before Gibbs allowed himself the next break.

They had been lucky, catching their suspect at home without too much resistance - thanks to one of the stranger things he'd come across in his long career. They had been careful in their approach, seeing how Martin Fox had been described as a 6 foot 5, 250 pound mountain of muscle. He had gone around the back while Ziva and Tony had taken the front door. Neither of them had been surprised when Fox hadn't answered the door upon their knock.

What had taken them by surprise, though, was to find him in a foetal position on the floor, whimpering and the tell-tale signs of being violently sick next to him. They had arrested him without any resistance before the paramedics arrived. Their first guess was a violent allergic reaction to something, quite possible to whatever he had eaten last.

With Fox out of the picture they had taken a closer look around his house and it hadn't taken them long to find the evidence they'd needed. They had found several livers, or parts thereof, in the freezer and sent them straight off to Ducky. I hadn't taken very long for their ME to verify their human origin and point out the bite marks on some of them.

A short time later DiNozzo had called from the hospital, telling them that Fox had indeed suffered an allergic reaction. As soon as he had mentioned Fox' reaction to penicillin, Ducky had gone through his notes and had made the connection the hospital couldn't - how Fox had been exposed to penicillin in the first place. As it had turned out, his last victim - the victim that had NCIS brought into the game to start with - had been on antibiotics at the time of his death. By eating parts of his raw liver, Fox had also ingested some penicillin - and his body had reacted to it.

Ducky had only been able to give them an estimate of how many different donors they were talking, seeing how the livers had been cut up in portion sizes. But he was certain there had to be at least 10 different victims. After that revelation Abby had taken samples of every piece they'd found in the freezer and started to assemble the DNA profile of each of them. Not only would it aid them in getting an actual number of victims but also be crucial in identifying them.

But Abby had gone home for the night now. As had Ducky. However, with McGee finding the link between the victims and basically running their investigation on his own, Gibbs wasn't as up to date on the details as he should have been. Therefore he had McGee print out everything he'd assembled so far before sending the agent home. Now he was sitting at his desk, poring over the data. The bullpen was dimly lit and apart from his only two other desks were occupied.

Reaching for his coffee - and realising it was empty - Gibbs threw the paper cup away and closed the files in front of him. "Time to go home."

Ziva and Tony looked up from their respective desks, exchanged a look before concentration on their boss. Seeing the look of impatience on his face, they jumped up simultaneously and grabbed their stuff. Neither of them was surprised when they ended up in a small diner instead of their respective homes.

"Tell me what you've got," Gibbs said even before they'd sat down. He didn't need to explain what he'd meant either and Tony started as soon as the waitress had taken their orders.

"The officer working at Sunnydale PD remembered the name Xander Harris. About seven years ago, a number of names started to repeatedly appear on police reports. Xander Harris was amongst them. As were Willow Rosenberg and a Buffy Summers. And that's only the ones he mentioned unprompted. They'd been victims, witnesses and even suspects in a number of cases. Most at Sunnydale PD considered them nothing but criminals. Our guy, however, had a closer look at the big picture." Tony stopped and waited for the reactions.

"DiNozzo, I'm not getting any younger!"

"Right. We already knew that Sunnydale had an unusual high crime rate. However, it was even higher until a bit over seven years ago when it started to drop significantly. Literally just when Xander's and his friends' names started to appear in the police reports as well. Coincidence? I think not."

--

A/N: Great. I let He-Muse out of my sight for a minute and he comes up with stuff like that! I'm kinda scared to see what he'll do with the Xander and Gibbs meet (should be up next)... Anyway, thanks again for all the reviews! They keep my muses talking to me and my fingers typing.