A full day of searching produced mixed results.
"There has to be more than this!" Gibbs was losing his patience.
"Sorry Boss, I checked with the local bases, and for that matter with every base and air station on the east coast. No missing pilots that are unaccounted for. Everyone checks in as alright."
"Kate?"
"Two carrier air groups, the Lincoln and the Kitty Hawk are currently in port for refitting. The pilots still report for daily training and checks on their aircraft. But of the two groups only one is missing an airman, and that airman is a woman."
"Is it possible he's a retired pilot who wears his wings out of a sense of honor?" Kate ventured.
"Sure it's possible, but not extremely likely. The local authorities shouldn't have kicked this one up to us until they had a positive identification on the victim." Tony answered.
"It doesn't even seem like the local authorities we know and love," Tony continued. "When I worked in the Baltimore PD, we never gave a case like this away, this looks like a potential serial killer. We'd hang on to it and try to steal the glory."
"Charming." Kate commented.
"Big city crime is different than your fancy secret service stuff."
"Fancy secret service stuff?!" She nearly shouted.
Tony looked about to give a reply when Gibbs shouted them both down.
"Enough! If you two put as much energy into this case as you do into arguing with each other we'd have it solved by now."
Silence followed him. Words were not spoken in the conference room for a full five minutes while the team sat in thought.
"We could always just put this one off until Ducky and Abby come back with an identification. We're stressing out over nothing until we know if they can get something out of it." Tony suggested.
"NCIS doesn't push things to the back burner because it gets too hard." Gibbs returned, then softened. "But we don't seem to have many leads to follow. Tony, go to the police station that passed jurisdiction to us on this, find out why they were so eager to give the case away."
Tony stood up immediately. "On it Boss."
"Kate, check the entire Navy to see how many personnel are missing total. Scratch off the women, and men that are more or less than four inches away from Ducky's assumed height. Form a list and we'll go over it later."
"That's going to be a huge list."
"We have to start somewhere."
-----
As it turned out, the list was easier to generate than Kate had feared. The Naval branch of the Pentagon kept such records updated daily. It was a simple matter of having a secretary in the Pentagon messanger them over to Kate.
"Four hundred and seventeen!" Kate exclaimed to herself.
Luckily the secretary sent over a computer disc with the files on them, and not actual manila folders. She immediately cut out all the women from the list, which cut out roughly a hundred names.
"Guess it's still a man's navy." She said sarcastically to no one in particular.
With three hundred and twenty names still left on the list, she got to work. She eliminated those who were too tall and too short, another eighty names off the list. She tapped a pencil on the keyboard, trying to think of more criteria to use to refine the search.
Suddenly she dropped the pencil and pressed a button on her phone.
"Morgue."
"Ducky, it's Kate. What's the victim's eye color?"
"Impossible to tell Kate, the victim's eyes were cut out, and they lose their coloration after being detached and dead for so long, the cells have already died."
"What about hair color, or age?"
"Hair color I can give you, brown. Age I can't tell you for sure, but I can give you an educated guess."
"I'll take it Ducky."
"I'd say no older than forty five, and probably not younger than twenty-two. He's done with puberty, everything is fully formed. Hope that helps, I'll get back to you and Jethro when I finish my autopsy."
"Thanks Ducky."
Imputing the new parameters she eliminated another hundred names from the list, mostly eighteen year old enlistees.
"Still one hundred forty left."
She got up from her desk and took the list to Gibbs. After explaining who she had eliminated and why, Gibbs made another cut.
"Alright, keep only active duty personnel who at one time had active flight status. Our victim was at one time a naval aviator, we have to stick to that, or we have to wait for however long it takes Ducky to figure it out himself."
Kate tapped some keys and afterwards they were left with eight names.
"Anything distinctive about these men? Anything that Ducky could find immediately that would set them apart?"
"One is missing his kidneys, one is missing half his liver from a recent transplant. We have blood types for all of them."
"Get Ducky."
Again she called down to Ducky.
"Ducky, what's the blood type of the victim?"
"One moment Kate." In the background she could hear him talking.
"No Gerald, that lab sample there. You know before they could accurately determine blood samples and doctors attempted direct blood transfusions, the mix of blood would clot and congeal inside the recipient's veins. Their blood literally turned to a jelly like substance and they..."
"Ducky!" Kate and Gibbs yelled as one.
"Sorry. Yes I have it right here. Type AB negative, the rarest of the types of blood you can have. Please now, no more interruptions or I'll never get this autopsy done."
Ducky hung up and Gibbs turned to see what Kate's results were.
"Well?"
"Lieutenant Max Janson. Missing for two days, reported after he failed to report for a physical examination."
"Why wasn't he on the lists you and Tony came up with?"
"He's officially assigned to the Kennedy battle group in Hawaii. He's TAD to Norfolk to work on a new carrier landing system. That would explain why he didn't show up on any of our checks."
Gibbs mulled that over. "Well, looks like we have a victim. How long as he been at Norfolk? Where is his bunk?"
"Just over four months. He's at the Naval Air Station. We can get directions to the bunk when we get there."
"Call Tony, tell him to meet us there ASAP."
"Sure."
-----
An hour later the three of them marched into the base main office at Norfolk Naval Air Station.
"Agent Gibbs, NCIS. This is Agent Dinozzo and Agent Todd. We need to see your commanding officer about Lieutenant Janson."
The young recruit in front of him nodded. "Yes sir!"
He disappeared behind a door in the back, and moments later the NCIS team was ushered into the Admiral's office.
"A pleasure as always Agent Gibbs."
"Wish we could meet under different circumstances for once Admiral West."
"Well, what can I do for you? My midshipman said you are here about our missing Lieutenant Janson?"
Gibbs nodded. "Admiral, we believe we found his body yesterday in the woods outside DC."
West's smile cracked at that. "Your proof?"
"Janson is the right age, height, hair color, and blood type. The only match for the criteria of missing naval aviators."
"What can I do to help?"
Gibbs smiled. It was nice working with helpful line officers, as opposed to officials in Washington who only knew how to get in the way.
"Release Janson's medical records to our medical examiner. We can authenticate his identity immediately and continue with our investigation. Then we will need the full cooperation of your base personnel and access for interviews."
West raised an eyebrow at the seemingly large demand. "Of course Agent Gibbs. The record will be transferred immediately."
"Is there a place on base where we can stay in the mean time?"
Kate and Tony in the mean time stood silently in the background, somewhat unused to Gibbs totally leaving them out of a conversation. But they chose not to jump in.
"Yes, have my midshipman out front show you to a staff conference room down the hall."
Gibbs smiled again. "Thank you, sir."
"A pleasure as always Agent Gibbs."
Down the hall, Gibbs immediately turned to Tony.
"Well?"
"About what I expected," Tony began. "Turns out there was a murder just like this a few months back. The local police were totally stumped by it, never even identified the body of the victim, gave up and pushed it to the back burner. When they found out the second victim was a naval aviator, they pushed it off on us as fast as possible."
"Trying to land us with the fallout?" Kate asked.
"Certainly looks that way. Cops don't usually turn a case like this away, but this station is way underfunded, they just don't have the resources to examine this case like we do. They didn't want the political pressure from the Chief and the Mayor, so they pawned it off on us."
Gibbs rolled his eyes. "Did they at least give you the file from the first case?"
"No."
Kate and Gibbs both started to glare at him, until he pulled a file out of the folds in his coat.
"Fortunately there was a new secretary working at the front desk." He smiled predatorily. "I got the file, and a busy Saturday night this weekend."
Gibbs smiled. "Just when I start to doubt you..."
"I know Boss, thanks."
"You disgust me." Kate scoffed.
"Aw come on Kate, I did it for the sake of justice!"
She rolled her eyes and Gibbs ignored them both as he opened the file and spread it over the table in the room.
"Looks the same to me. At least their crime scene photographer looks halfway decent. He got all hieroglyphics around the body, five just like last time. And the victim looks the same too."
Kate pulled out her briefcase and removed the file they had built up so far on Janson. They compared the two for the next five hours. Finally Ducky called with news.
"Well done Jethro. Dental records match perfectly. You have yourself a victim."
"Thanks Ducky. Tomorrow we'll have records for you on the first victim."
"First victim? So this is a serial killer?"
"Looks that way. Good work."
The line went dead and the NCIS team got back to work.
-----
The following day they commenced with their interviews of the base staff. Twelve hours of interviews all focused on one direction.
"Everyone I interviewed described him as extremely religious, he visited the base chaplain a lot."
Kate agreed with Tony. "Same here. He's a Catholic, devout by all accounts. I think our next interviewee should be the chaplain."
"Do we have the identity of the first victim yet?" Gibbs asked.
"If the victim is a civilian we'll probably never know. But Ducky said he was going to check the blood type against the base personnel here over the past few months, then he'll use that list to check the dental records for a match."
"Anyone wanna bet our first victim is a highly devout catholic?" Gibbs said.
"Certainly looks like a safe bet Boss." Tony answered.
They soon found themselves in front of the base church. As they were walking in, Gibbs' cell phone went off.
"Gibbs." He answered.
"Jethro, I have a positive identification on the first victim. Lieutenant Mark DeHavilland."
"DeHavilland? Any relation to..."
"Unknown. I'm about finished with the autopsy, I'll have a report ready for you with my conclusions within the hour."
"Alright Ducky, call me when you're done."
"Of course Jethro."
Again the line went dead and the three NCIS agents entered the church.
"We have a positive ID on the first victim?" Kate asked.
"Lieutenant Mark DeHavilland."
"Well, now we have some more questions for the padre."
Gibbs gave Kate a look but said nothing. Inside they found a priest sitting in the front pew alone. The church was otherwise empty.
"Father?"
The priest turned at Gibbs' words.
"Welcome. I'm Father Mulhanney. How can I help you?"
"Father, I'm Agent Gibbs, these are Agents Todd and Dinozzo. We're NCIS. We have some questions for you."
"Of course, there are no lies in God's house."
Kate raised an eyebrow at that, but no one seemed to notice.
"Father, what can you tell me about a Lieutenant Max Janson?"
"Max? He comes here almost every day, with the exception of the last few days. I hear he's gone missing, very troubling news. I've prayed these last couple nights to God for his safe return."
Gibbs grimaced. "I'm sorry to say Father that we found the body of Max Janson in the woods outside Baltimore two days ago."
"Dead? Max?"
"Sorry Father, but we need to ask you some questions about Max."
"Of course, what would you like to know?"
"What was your relationship with him?" Gibbs jumped right into the questioning.
"I was Max's priest. He confided in me almost daily, prayed, helped out around the church and even in the surrounding community. He is, was, a good man."
"Any idea on why someone would want to kill him?" Kate asked.
Mulhanney paused for a second, his mouth opening as if he wanted to say something, and then closing again as if thinking better of it. Finally he spoke.
"I can't imagine who would want to kill such a good and kind human being."
Gibbs gave Kate and Tony a sidelong glance that the others matched.
"What about Lieutenant Mark DeHavilland?" Tony put forward.
"Mark? He's been missing for months, presumed dead. But no one knows how or where. What has happened to him?" Father Mulhanney was very worked up and very agitated now.
"What can you tell us about him?" Gibbs ignored his question.
"A troubled man. Problems have plagued him since his youth. I worked with him a lot to try and come to grips with his demons. His disappearance was no great surprise to me. Please tell me, what has become of him?"
"He was murdered a few months ago in the same fashion as Max Janson."
The NCIS agents noticed Mulhanney's skin visibly change to a pale color as the blood drained from his face.
"Father? Are you alright?" Tony asked.
"Yes, thank you Agent Dinozzo. Tell me, are any of you Catholic?"
Kate and Gibbs shook their heads and looked at Tony, expecting him to do the same.
"I am."
"Really? God be with you Agent Dinozzo."
Then Father Mulhanney got up and left the main hall of the church for his inner chambers. The NCIS team had no choice but to leave the church.
"Well?" Gibbs said when they got away from the church.
"He did it." Kate said firmly.
"What?" Tony bursted out.
"You saw how he reacted when you asked him if anyone had a motive to kill Janson, he evaded, and he knew something."
"He just found out that two of his friends and parishioners were murdered, under those circumstances any one of us would react that way. On top of that, he's a priest, if he knew things confided to him in confession by the Lieutenants he couldn't tell us anyway."
"An excuse. For all we know he used the information he learned in confessional as material to mark his victims. Look at the way they were killed, a religious ceremony? I think we have ourselves a killer."
Tony held his tongue at a look from Gibbs, but it was easy to sense the palpable tension in the air.
"Perhaps. But we still have a lot of unanswered questions. Tomorrow we need to check with the families of the two victims to try and find out what exactly the criteria is for the murderer."
