Kate followed Gibbs as he strode down the hall to the morgue. She found Ducky waiting for them with their dead body ready for his autopsy.

"What do you have for us, Ducky?" Gibbs looked the body over curiously. It was mottled with sores, the man's face was creased with lines, his hair white and stringy. While he was clean, the body had an air of general desolateness.

"I don't think our John Doe is a marine, Jethro," Ducky began in his slow pedantic way.

"Why would you say that?" Kate asked curiously.

"If you look at the body, this man wasn't in very good shape."

"Just because you're once a marine doesn't mean that you're always going to stay in peak physical condition once you leave the corp. Right?" She looked from Ducky to Gibbs for confirmation.

"Bite your tongue, Kate," Gibbs told her. "What else?"

"He's malnourished, and I suspect that once I begin my autopsy, I will find that he has a number of different illnesses that come from living on the streets. Look at his feet, they're in abominable condition."

Kate struggled to formulate a theory from what Ducky was saying, "You think he's some random homeless man that someone killed and put in a marine uniform?"

Ducky nodded in approval. "That's exactly what I think , Kaitlynn."

"Why would you think that? What's to say this isn't just some marine who's been discharged, down on his luck, and someone killed him?"

"Besides the fact that his fingerprints aren't listed on any database?" Gibbs asked.

"His fingerprints aren't listed anywhere? Is it possible he's slipped through the cracks somehow?"

"Possible," Gibbs granted, "But not damn likely."

Her forehead creased as she thought, "Okay, why would someone do that? What's the point?"

"Maybe they wanted to get out attention?" Gibbs asked quietly.

"You think someone killed a homeless person, put them in a marine uniform and left them for us, to get our attention?" Her mind was whirling, why would someone do something like that.

"I think they got it." Gibbs commented quietly.

"But why?"

"That's what we're here to find out. So, Ducky, what else can you tell us?"

Ducky turned the body so they could see the bullet wound in the back of John's head. "As you have already surmised, the cause of death was a single bullet hole to the back of the head. From the lack of blood at the crime scene, it is safe to assume that he was killed someplace else and moved to where he was found."

"Someone wanted us to find him." It wasn't a question. Gibbs had a theory and he wasn't ready to share yet.

"I don't understand, Gibbs," Kate insisted. "Why would someone do that?"

Gibbs sighed, "Kate, the killer put the body into a marine uniform because they wanted NCIS to investigate this body, this crime. They knew that since the body involved was a marine, chances are good the case would be handed to me. I think our John Doe was gift wrapped for me."

"But why?" Kate felt like a parrot, constantly repeating the big W.

"That's the question, now isn't it? See what you can do about finding us some answers, won't you, Ducky." Gibbs turned and was out of the door before he could answer.

Kate followed him, her mind whirling. The longer she worked at NCIS, the more certain she became that she was never going to learn all the things she needed to learn.

Turning to the body, Ducky answered Gibbs, although he was no longer anywhere in sight, "I'll do what I can, dear boy. I'll do what I can."

Picking up a scalpel, he made his first incision.