Chapter 95
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A/N: The number of plagiarist profiles in the Harry Potter Fandom is getting out of hand again. I urge all readers before they read a story from an author they haven't known for more than six months to check out their profile to see how long they've existed and to check out the reviews. There are a lot of members out there sick of this issue and are posting that work has been stolen and where to find the originals.
"What's the verdict? Is the Commander going home with you tonight?" Tony asked.
Gibbs grunted.
"I have a guest room if you'd rather he stayed with me?" Tim offered hesitantly.
"No Tim, you have children in the house. We still haven't definitively proved he wasn't involved. I won't put Heather, Hadrian and the children at risk," Gibbs said.
"I think you're underestimating Hadrian, he may not be a marine sniper but he is just as capable as any agent I know," Tim replied, not hiding his relief.
"And no doubt he has some skills to match our Mossad ninja as well when he's awake, but that doesn't mean you should invite trouble," Gibbs retorted. He'll be fine in my spare room unless you can find something to hold him with overnight."
"There's no evidence that he was involved in Schubert's or Van Rossum's deaths, unless you're suggesting he encouraged his wife to kill them," Tony said.
"If they were in it together then surely she would have agreed to his alibi," Tim said. "She has to know that if we tried to charge him, he'd implicate her."
"You're right it doesn't make sense but then if this woman is crazy as a fox maybe her actions won't make sense," Tony played devil's advocate.
"This case is complicated enough without a follie a deux," Ziva complained.
"Not to mention a double cross," Tony said gleefully.
"You can't seriously think they're in it together?" Ziva said.
"Well no, but it would've been interesting," Tony said.
"Thanks Boss" he said facetiously as Gibbs slapped him up the back of the head.
"Whether the case is boring or not it needs solving. Lance Corporal Schubert deserves justice and her parents need closure, not to mention all the other women," Gibbs barked at them.
"Do we have enough to bring the wife in?" Tony asked.
"We have nothing but suspicions for Schubert's murder, and the evidence in the Van Rossum case is all circumstantial. We need something good from the Emerson file," Gibbs said mentally going over what they had.
"If it is the wife, do we know if these are the only three victims. We need a list of every woman Commander Carter had an affair with since his marriage," Ziva suggested.
"That could be dozens, maybe hundreds of names to run down," Tony said groaning.
"I hadn't really thought that far. We found three out of the eight names we know, there could be a lot more victims," Tim said with dread. He knew in spite of Tony's moaning he would be the one doing the majority of the searching for the past lovers.
"I'll ask him that tonight, he might be more open if I do it casually," Gibbs decided.
Tony had exaggerated but Gibbs still found himself surprised by the number of affairs the Commander had had without damaging his career. In all he had twenty eight new names for Tim to investigate.
"Did you ever love your wife?" he asked.
"I wouldn't have married her if I didn't love her," Robert Carter replied honestly.
"You started your first affair within three months of the wedding," Gibbs pointed out.
"Not because I didn't love Ronnie. It just sort of happened, she did most of the chasing and I was flattered, and it's exciting and new you know," Robert attempted to explain.
"And then you were married and she stopped chasing you and you missed the romance and excitement of the uncertainty?" Gibbs asked sceptically.
"Yes… No… I love Ronnie, but after a while it became clear we're not that compatible sexually. Oh, it was good don't get me wrong but she has a pretty low sex drive and half the time I could tell she was only doing it to make me happy, and it still wasn't really enough. You know…"
"No, honestly, I don't know. I've always been a one woman at a time sort of guy," Gibbs retorted. "Been divorced three times because I'm hard to live with but with my job half the time I don't have enough time for one woman let alone two."
Tim ran the names and found three more women who died suddenly within a month of ending their relationship with Robert Carter and a fourth who seemed to have died while still in a relationship with the serial philanderer.
"Why didn't he mention her death? I get it that he may not have known about the exes, he isn't the sort to keep in touch, but a current girlfriend, he must have known she died," Tony asked.
"It wasn't treated as suspicious, she was killed in a training accident on base. NCIS weren't called to investigate," Tim reported. "He may not have thought it relevant."
"Does that rule out the wife or was it just a freak coincidence?" Tony asked.
"Gibbs says there are no such thing as coincidences," Ziva reminded him.
"Rule 39," Tony nodded. "But sometimes coincidences still happen. If we include her in the murders it cuts down our suspect list enormously. So we have to be very sure she was murdered."
"He must have known about her death, he should've mentioned it last night," Gibbs said frowning.
"A lot of these deaths are civilians and in several different states," Tim said slowly.
"You want to give up the case to the Feebs?" Tony asked incredulously as Gibbs glared at his youngest team member.
"Not give up, but ask for a consultation from the experts. The BAU deals with serial crimes all the time, they might have some insights to offer. Especially as we don't have much in the way of hard evidence left from most of these women, because they were ruled accidental and buried or cremated years ago," Tim suggested.
"It's our case," Gibbs growled.
"And it will remain our case, the BAU are consultants and take over cases strictly by invitation only. They won't come in and take over unless that's what we ask them to do. If I only ask for a consult that's what we'd get. Honestly boss they consult and offer advice on dozens of cases for every one they take over," Tim said.
Gibbs sighed, he had to admit they needed the help. "Call them but if they take our case you'll be washing the truck for the next month.
Tim winced knowing that washing the truck would be the least of it and made the call.
"SSA Reid," Spencer answered.
"Hi Spencer it's Tim McGee, are you in town?" Tim asked.
"Yes I'm working cold cases, what's up?" Spencer replied.
"Well much as I wish I was calling to catch up after work, I think we've stumbled across a serial killer. We have six or seven victims and I think we have a suspect but there's absolutely no evidence linking her more than circumstantially to the hit and run victim, and the method of killing is different in each victim. I was wondering if you or your team could give us a consult?" Tim said.
"Sure, would it be easier to send me the files or for me to come to you?" Spencer asked.
"We still have some of the files being sent to us, we've only just identified half the victims from cold cases or due to their relationship with our suspect," Tim said.
"Do you just want me or should I ask my team?" Spencer asked.
"It's complicated, I think we're might need the whole team, but I'll leave it to your judgement," Tim said diplomatically.
"What can you give me to take to the team? If the MO is all over the shop how did you tie them together?"
"They had all recently ended a clandestine relationship with a Commander Robert Carter, we think that the killer might be his wife," Tim replied.
"I take it you've ruled out the Commander himself?" Spencer said.
"He has an alibi for at least two of the murders, so he couldn't have done it on his own but we can't rule out them working together as crazy as that sounds, or him hiring the killer. The wife has a borderline personality disorder and we're not entirely sure she could have done it on her own either. The thing that brought them to our attention is that there seemed to be a deliberate attempt to frame the Commander with the most recent murder and his wife refused to give him a firm alibi. He said he was home with her and she didn't deny it but said that she took a sleeping tablet and wouldn't have known if he'd left."
"Okay send me what you've got and we'll look through it and see what we can find. Were they his only lovers?" Spencer said before going in to talk to Hotch about the case.
"No about one in five, he was quite the ladies' man. If you want, I'll send you the information we've got coming in on his other exes too but it might take a day or two," Tim offered.
"Let's see what we can make of the information you already have to work up victimology," Spencer replied.
Spencer rang back at the end of the day. "We talked it over and for what it's worth we came to the same conclusions as you did. The rest of the team reached those conclusions without me telling them what you believed. The wife is the most likely suspect. We don't believe her husband is helping her but it is possible that she has a submissive partner, probably a man due to the physicality of some of the murders."
"You think that it's been the same submissive partner all this time?" Tim asked.
"It's highly likely that it is, it would be difficult to find more than one person willing to help murder someone's husbands ex-girlfriends and none of the murders suggest more than two unsubs at a time, but it is possible that she committed some of the murders with her partner and others alone, if she had a second partner for some of the murders I think it might've been a woman," Spencer said.
"The nurse? Donna McKay?" Tim asked.
"No, I think she was duped into loaning her car on the day of Susanna Van Rossum's murder and treating the unsub's injuries but had no involvement with any of the others. Reading the transcript of her interrogation I doubt she knew in advance that she was helping Veronica commit murder, though she might have had more suspicious afterwards than she admitted to," Spencer said. "Gibbs did an impressive job with her interview."
"Any ideas where to find the evidence because just quietly I'm beginning to think the only way we'll solve this is letting Hadrian go and interrogate her his way," Tim replied, knowing Spencer had the clearance to know how magic could be used to obtain information.
"But this is definitely not one of his cases, that wouldn't stand up in court," Spencer warned.
"No but he has the skills to make sure she doesn't remember anything about being questioned. Then we'd know where the evidence was if there is any and the partner's name or names. We'd just have to find another way to explain finding it," Tim replied speculatively.
"Another way to find the information that would stand up to some very intensive cross examination, she and her family could hire some of the best lawyers in the country," Spencer warned.
"Yeah, that's what drove me to ask for your assistance first," Tim admitted.
Spencer laughed. "Well what we do has been called witchcraft by more than one defence lawyer but it's fairly rare that our profile doesn't stand up in court."
Tim laughed too. "What do you have for us?"
"Well the partner is definitely submissive but I doubt their relationship is sexual or they'd have killed the husband by now. I'd start by looking at her siblings or cousins if she was particularly close to them, or someone in one of her therapy groups that isn't heterosexual, or perhaps someone young enough to see her as a pseudo parental figure, maybe a niece or nephew or the child of one of the staff at her parents' house," Spencer said.
"Thanks Spencer," Tim replied. "Maybe we can get together for a drink or a meal after the case. My mother is staying but I'm sure she would be glad to meet some of our friends or if you don't fancy that she'd be happy to babysit so we can go out."
"I'll look forward to hearing from you, it will be good to see you and Hadrian and I'm interested to hear how this one works out," Spencer said.
"If it ever works out," Tim said pessimistically.
"You'll get her, if not this time then next time since you'll know what to look for right from the start," Spencer said encouragingly.
"We're not the BAU and if she kills again it won't be for months if not years depending on how long it takes Carter to date and break it off with someone with the same victimology and Gibbs will definitely rate that as a failure," Tim replied.
"I know but sometimes you have to accept that it's the only way, if he was killing all his exes you could set up surveillance on the next one or even send an agent in undercover but if it could be three or four girlfriends from now you'd need to know why she chose those victims, send me the details of the exes she hasn't targeted and anything else you manage to dig up bout the last weeks of each victim's life and I'll try to run victimology on them, see what's unique about these specific victims that led her to target them, nothing stood out from the information you gave us," Spencer replied.
"One thing you do need to do is warn Robert Carter. The unsub deliberately tried to frame him with the last murder, if it is the wife her rage against his cheating is growing. If he keeps on as he is he may be in danger along with the next victim," Spencer said seriously.
-o0o-
"Well the good news is that the BAU agree with us that Veronica Carter is a likely suspect and while she may have a partner for some if not all of the murders, they're pretty convinced that it isn't Robert Carter. They did postulate that Veronica might have had several dupes like Donna McKay rather than a willing submissive partner and speculated that if she does have a partner it might be someone quite young, early twenties though Spencer told me not to rule out anyone in their late teens to late twenties, early thirties if Veronica has some form of authority over them or they have a mental health condition that could lead to submissive acts," Tim reported while his fingers were busy setting up the searches Spencer had recommended.
"They cleared Robert completely?" Ziva asked.
"Yes, we're going to have to let him go," Tim replied.
"What? Why? He's in protective custody!" Tony exclaimed.
"Yes but we've had him nearly 48 hours, if he was being questioned we'd have to charge him or let him go. So unless we find enough to bring in the wife, she's going to get suspicious if we don't release him, which we want to avoid," Gibbs replied.
"The BAU are already concerned that he could be killed with the next victim, since framing him hasn't worked, the unsub's anger at him is increasing," Tim said.
"If we charge him with the murder of his pregnant girlfriend and unborn child then he's going to have to be put in isolation for his own protection. It's too risky," Tony said slowly.
"Spencer and the team are running victimology on the girlfriends. If we knew what made her choose to kill these one's specifically we could send someone in undercover," Tim replied.
In the end it was Tim that found the commonality between the girlfriends that had been targeted. "The victims all made significant changes to their lifestyles soon after breaking up with Carter," he said excitedly.
"So you're saying that they all made over their lives after the breakup. They applied for transfers joined gyms went on diets, gave up smoking or alcohol or partying. Why's she doing it? Is she targeting mistresses that seemed to get over Robert too quickly because from everything we've heard that's the exact opposite of Lance Corporal Schubert," Tony said dismissively.
"No think about the changes they made, Lance Corporal Schubert gave up smoking and cut down on her alcohol intake a couple of weeks after Robert dumped her," Tim replied.
"Yes because she was pregnant, to protect the baby," Ziva said.
"And Susanna Van Rossum gave up a high stress job with exceptionally long hours and began moving house to be closer to her parents, Ashley Mitchell joined a gym and started eating healthier, but it just so happens that the closest gym to her house also has the reputation of having one of the best child minding facilities for its members, Hannah Emerson gave up her motorbike racing, Yvonne Lowery changed from training for a triathlon to yoga and pilates," Tim said. "These are all changes a woman might make if she found out she was pregnant."
"But they weren't all preggers were they?" Tony asked.
"Not that I can tell from the data we have available, none of them made an appointment with an obstetrician or started decorating a nursery, buying baby stuff on amazon or clicking onto pregnancy websites, but to someone watching them for possible signs of pregnancy from a distance without access to their internet history, it's possible the watcher might have become suspicious," Tim replied.
"What made you put that together?" Ziva asked.
"Though our children's school and other activities, Hadrian and I have a lot more contact with couples with young children than you do. Giving up having a glass of wine with dinner, buying a bigger house or a house closer to the wife's family or taking up more passive forms of exercise frequently precedes a happy announcement," Tim said.
"I think we should find out exactly why the Carters don't have children?" Gibbs said.
"There's nothing in Veronica Carter's medical history I can access that would preclude a pregnancy, and no signs of her having a child, being treated for a miscarriage or receiving an abortion," Tim replied.
"Did you check back to her teenage years? And what about another country, the family would have wanted to keep it quiet?" Gibbs asked.
"Yes boss, I even checked the records from her paediatrician, there's nothing documented," Tim replied. "As for another country, Robert Carter hasn't been posted overseas since before their relationship started."
"And as a teenager?" Ziva asked.
"If I were to do that sort of long term travel history search it would flag her as a potential terrorist with Homeland," Tim warned.
"She's a serial killer murdering Navy personnel, she is a threat to our service women," Gibbs retorted.
"Two Navy personnel does not constitute that level a threat, even if she started killing all his lovers, Commander Carter can't have dated enough women to make her a threat to national security." Tim said dryly.
Tony laughed.
"Even Tony's not capable of that and he doesn't have a wife to keep happy," Ziva said.
"Do it, Tim. We need to know. I'll smooth it over with Morrow if it becomes an issue," Gibbs ordered.
"On it Boss," Tim said typing rapidly.
"It would take months to set up an undercover op if possible pregnancy is the criteria for her targeting the victims," Ziva said frowning.
"Unless we convinced his current girlfriend to pretend to be up the duff and put protection on her," Tony said.
"He's dating a civilian, we couldn't put them at risk, and if Mrs Carter is watching these women closely enough to notice these changes in their routines then she wouldn't miss her target suddenly gaining a protective detail," Gibbs shot the idea down.
"We could put someone in as an ex-girlfriend showing up with a baby or toddler, but we don't know if she'd go after the mother or the child. It's too big a risk," Tony said talking himself around in a circle.
"Not necessarily, there doesn't actually need to be a child, so she has to go for the mother. We could send someone to the house with an ultrasound picture or photographs of a baby or toddler to tell him that he's the father of their child, who she'd left with her parents while she sorted things out because she didn't want to risk exposing the child to the reaction of a parent who didn't want anything to do with them and might react badly to the news," Ziva said.
"We can't use Ziva because Mrs Carter might have seen her if she's following the investigation, but judging on his other women Paula Cassidy or Rachel Dawson, the new JFA on Balboa's team, are exactly his type," Tim suggested.
"I'll talk to Vance and Balboa about swapping his Junior for Ziva for a few weeks in a month or so if we haven't cracked the case," Gibbs said.
"Why not trade McGee?" Ziva and Tony both asked.
"Because I might not be able to get Balboa to give him back," Gibbs said straight faced.
Tony laughed but Tim just smirked at him. "Don't get a big head there probie," Tony retorted.
"Should we start preparing Carter?" Ziva asked.
"He needs to know the back story. It would need to be a one-night stand, if Veronica Carter has had her husband under surveillance she wouldn't have missed a relationship, so he doesn't have to remember much but he's got to at least know not to deny having met her before," Tony said.
"We should try to find a night she couldn't have been watching him," Tim said.
"She was in hospital for two weeks during May two years ago, that would make the child just over eighteen months old. We need a reason for the mother to have waited so long to approach him," Tim said.
"A failed relationship," Tony suggested.
"Or an illness," Ziva said.
"A need for a bone marrow donor perhaps," Tim said running with Ziva's idea.
"Too fantastical, I'd say either a failed relationship or a new boyfriend who doesn't want to be a full time step dad," Tony argued.
"A woman would not give up a child for a man," Ziva said scathingly. "What about a lost job and she can no longer afford the child or a huge promotion with an overseas posting, or deployment."
"I have trouble believing that a good parent would give up a child for any of those reasons either but Deployment makes the most sense to me, someone in the middle of a hitch who has no choice but to deploy," Tim replied.
"There's always a choice for a single parent, if they didn't have family that could look after the kids, McGee," Gibbs replied.
"Commander Carter would know that," Tim replied after a moment to process that.
"He would but he will also be in the know that this is an undercover agent and he would understand that the desire to serve your country and live up to your training is sometimes more important than regulations allowing for an easy exit," Gibbs replied. "Dawson would be the better choice to impersonate a marine."
They briefed the commander about the undercover agent who would visit. "Just ask as you normally would if an ex-girlfriend turned up with a child. Would you recognise most of your girlfriends from two or three years ago," Tony told him.
"Yes I think so," Carter said doubtfully.
"The agent's cover name will be Avril Montague, this is what she looks like," Tim said, showing him the false ID they'd made.
"And what's her son's name?" Robert asked.
"You're not supposed to know that she's going to tell you about having a son so we will let her tell you the name," Gibbs replied gruffly. "This is the information about her that you should've known when you were dating. The only reason where telling you anything is so you don't deny having the relationship with her. That's all you need to know. That this woman's name is Avril Montague and that you had sex with her while your wife was in the hospital a couple of years ago."
"Oh yeah, thanks." Carter said. "When will she be coming?"
"Better you don't know in advance," Ziva said.
Robert huffed, "You don't trust me?"
"We know you weren't involved in the murders but you don't have undercover training and it takes serious practice to do it well enough to fool someone who knows you. So we need your reactions to be as genuine as possible. If we hadn't had to ensure you wouldn't deny the whole possibility we wouldn't have told you anything," Tony said.
"Her method of killing until this last one was to arrange an accident or hit and run or make it look like a natural death. The last woman was clearly murdered and we think that it might have been because she was actually confirmed to be pregnant with Carter's baby and had already informed Carter, she had to act quickly before it became more widely known, or her husband left her but it was still a planned attack and the woman was gutted, her uterus totally destroyed, we believe the foetus was her primary target. You're going to be claiming to already have a child so she will act quickly but we don't believe she will attack you at their house, she will want to kill the child as well. In fact, it's possible that the child will be her only target. Get in say your piece, attract her attention to you and get out. We'll have agents in the area and we want you to head directly to the safe house, don't stop for fuel or anything else. We will have agents tailing her and let you know if she comes close. Balboa and your team have offered to rotate a protective detail at the safe house unless they're needed for an active case, you can work cold cases from there. McGee said to tell you that the internet connections are secure enough," Gibbs prepared the junior Special Agent for the role.
"Okay I've got it. When should I go?" Special Agent Dawson asked.
"Special Agent Balboa will release you to my team, once you've finished the case you're working on now and completed all the paperwork," Gibbs said.
"But that could be a week or two," Rachel protested.
"All the better, we don't want the wife to be suspicious that this is related to the investigation into the death of Carter's mistress," Gibbs replied. "We've asked Carter to keep his liason's with women strictly casual until then so she's not likely to target a new girlfriend before we start the operation."
A/N2: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.
A/N3: For those of you reading my story "The Last Attempt to Save the Pureblood Lines" Rico Perrien has with my permission written a spin off fic "Grey Against the Dark" I encourage you all to read it.
