This one is kind of choppy, I am sorry about that.
XVI. In a Mad World Only the Mad Are Sane.
"I don't understand this." Abby glared at her monitor.
"What's wrong?" McGee looked up from his laptop screen.
"I have tried to decrypt this in every way known to man. I have run every program I can." She sighed. "It just doesn't make words."
"What do you mean?" He asked. He was tired, seeing as they hadn't left her lab since they had arrived back from delivering the supplies to the cabin the previous evening.
"I mean its jibber jabber McGee. There's not a single word that makes sense. In any language." She flung her arms up in the air. They both stood looking at the jumble of letters on the screen.
"Abby, what if this case wasn't about the file?" He looked at her.
"What d'ya mean, Elf-Lord?" Gibbs walked up behind him.
"Er, boss, what if the file was just a distraction? Who ever planted it knew that we would put all of our time and effort into finding out what was in it and not following other avenues of investigation." He said.
"Did you find any prints on the laptop, Abs?"
"No, but he had one of these cool mouse-mats that you place between the screen and the keyboard during transportation and it cleans it." She said, holding the offending article up with gloved hands.
"What about the outside? On the top and bottom surfaces."
"None." She frowned. "Which is odd because you would expect to find prints from when someone closed the lid."
"Someone wiped it clean." Gibbs said.
"So, what's the motive?" McGee asked.
"Don't know, McGee, why don't you find out." Gibbs pecked Abby on the cheek and walked out. "Good job."
"Cynthia, this is really important, I need to talk to Gibbs and I know he's in there." McGee said to the director's secretary.
"I can't do that, Agent McGee." She shook her head.
"Then I'm sorry." He knocked on the door and walked in, ignoring Cynthia's protests. "Boss, I've got something." He said, holding a folder.
"Go, McGee." He nodded from where he stood opposite Jenny.
"Five years ago, Lily Carlin filed for a restraining order against an ex-boyfriend, Elliot Grebe. Apparently he was claiming that Elsie was his daughter." McGee handed the file to Gibbs.
"Why didn't we find out about this earlier?" The director stood up from her desk chair.
"Because she used her maiden name so her husband wouldn't find out." He smiled. "Abby ran his DNA against a sample of Elsie's, not his daughter. Get this, he has been in and out of the psych ward over the past ten years after he attacked his mother's fiancé because he made his favourite pastry wrong."
"Let's pick 'im up." Gibbs shrugged.
"Elliot Grebe?" McGee asked as he and Gibbs walked into the public area of the mental hospital.
"No, Santa Claus. Who's asking?" The man said, turning away from the chess set to reveal a scar that ran down the whole left hand side of his face.
"NCIS." Gibbs said, flashing his badge at him.
"Never heard of you." He said, moving the white rook.
"Naval Criminal Investigative Service." McGee stood on the other side of him.
"What do you want?" Elliot moved a black knight.
"We want to talk about Lily. She's dead." Gibbs watched as he moved another white piece.
"She wouldn't let me see my kid." He muttered.
"Elsie isn't your daughter." Gibbs looked at him.
"She IS!" The man yelled, standing up and flipping the chequered board over.
"Sir, please calm down." Tim said, ducking to avoid contact between his face and Elliot's fist.
"Alright, come with us." Gibbs snapped a pair of handcuffs around the suspect's wrists. "Calm down."
"Jethro, I was reviewing x-rays of the Lieutenant's skull and noticed a remodelled fracture, I would say from about two weeks before he died, hidden by all the fractures from his fall. Something struck him hard."
"Ok, Duck, why's that important?"
"You wanted to know why he fell. I think that was the thing that caused him to fall."
"He fell due to a head wound from two weeks earlier?"
"It would just take a knock to cause bleeding to already damaged blood vessels in the brain."
"Thanks, Duck." Gibbs said as he walked into the interview room. "Hey!" He slammed the file down on the table. "Why'd you kill him?"
"Who?"
"Lieutenant Carlin."
"I didn't kill that fool." He laughed. "I just hit him about a bit."
"Yeah, and that head injury is what killed him!" He yelled.
"Well, I didn't mean to." He shrugged.
"Okay then, why did you kill Lily?"
"Who says I did?"
"We have a witness who can identify you."
"She was keeping my daughter from me." He shrugged. "She didn't deserve to be the mother of my child."
"So you killed her and planted the file on the computer? Why not take the girl?"
"She ran away before I could catch her."
"So you thought setting fire to the house she was in would make it better?" Gibbs looked at the man, disgusted. "That house was full of children, innocent children!"
"They wouldn't let me see her."
"She isn't your daughter."
"She is, you're wrong." He yelled. "You shouldn't be doubting me! Those people in the house doubted me, they said I couldn't see her."
"If you can't have her, no-one can." Gibbs glared.
"It worked, she's dead now." Elliot shrugged.
"Wrong! She's under my protection!" He slammed the door, leaving the man with the scar laughing.
"Nobody can say that he is in his right mind." Jenny said as Gibbs walked into the observation room. The killer had started to cackle loudly, the sound made more unnerving by the speakers in the room.
"Who would want to?" McGee stared at the disturbing scene in front of him.
"He confessed. We've got him." He sighed and shook his head, disgusted by the man before him.
"Bring them home, Jethro." The director smiled at him, nodding. "Good job."
