Hidden Enemy
Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything
Summary: Someone attacks Kate, almost killing her. Why is her blood found on Gibbs´ shirt and just why is his DNA under her nails?
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7- More traces
McGee walked into the lab the following morning after another night under his desk, finding Abby in front of her computer again. She didn´t look like she had slept much. "Hey, Abby." He greeted her and was rewarded by a yawn.
"Oh, hi. What you here for? I don´t have anything on that tobacco yet, maybe it´s homegrown." She said and got up slowly. Her desk was filled with notes and empty evidence bags. Most hadn´t been there the night before, so he figured that she had worked most of the night again.
He explained to her what he had told Tony before and she agreed to return to the garage and check both cars again. "From those stains, Gibbs was standing right outside the driver side door. I ran a simulation with the information I got from you and Ducky yesterday. There is no other place he could have been, so if he didn´t do it, he must have stood right in front of the person who did, but that would be not really logical." She explained and showed him the little program on the plasma screen.
"Looks odd. If he was drugged, do you think he could have done it without remembering?" He asked, but she shook her head.
"No way. Chloroform is going at the central nervous system -he wouldn´t have been able to stand, let alone stab anyone like Kate. She surely defended herself." Abby replied and pulled gloves on. "Let´s say someone drugged him and dropped him into his car. I´ve seen people who were rendered unconscious by medication and most of them start drooling. All right, Tony already drools when he falls asleep, but let´s not go into details right now. There´s a special kind of bacteria in human salvia that will show up under UV light when they have been exposed to the air for a certain amount of time." She dug out a lamp and switched the main lights in the hall off.
McGee was surprised by this. "Glowing bacteria? Yikes, that´s so disgusting, Abby." He said and followed her to the car. The UV lamp was giving off an eerie violet light.
"Get over it, they don´t glow when they´re in your mouth, Tim. When they´re exposed to the atmosphere for more than 10 hours, they start to produce some metabolic byproduct that glows under UV light. It´s sometimes even mistaken for some other fluid..." She grinned knowingly and opened the trunk. Nothing except for some white fibers showed up and they moved on to the inside of the car. The backseat didn´t give them any clue, but when Abby ran the lamp over the passenger seat, a spot on the right side next to the headrest started to glow in a yellowish color. With a wide grin, she swapped the spot, making sure that some of the substance got caught on the cotton stick.
When the lights in the hall came back to life, McGee was smiling as well. "How long will it take to see if that´s his DNA on that seat?" He asked and followed her towards the lab.
"Not long, but long enough for you to run out to the store...I need some caffein, Tim. Please!" Abby looked at him with puppy eyes and he turned around towards the elevator to take a short trip to the store at the corner. He had been thinking about getting sandwiches for lunch and took this chance to get some.
Half and hour later, he almost crashed into Abby when he stood in front of the elevator with a bag of food and a large cup of caf-pow. She bolted out into the bullpen with a piece of paper in her hand. Tony was still at his desk, his hair messed up from the number of times he had run his hand through it. He looked up when Abby slammed a piece of paper down in front of him.
"There was something on the passenger seat. UV said it was probably salvia and I ran it for DNA. It´s definitely Gibbs´ DNA on that headrest." She looked at him for some sign of understanding. "Tony, wake up! How could Gibbs drool on his passenger seat? There´s nobody except for him driving that sedan. He´d never let anyone get near it, you know how he is about it." She went on and his eyes finally widened.
"Okay, slow down, Abby. There´s drool on the passenger seat that´s his. So maybe someone drove the car while he was drugged and drooling away on the passenger seat, but what about the blood on his clothes? Can´t he just have slept on the passenger seat?" He asked and looked at her. Abby simply shrugged and grabbed the drink from McGee.
"I have no clue. I´ll keep checking on that tobacco and the shirt, but I can´t do magic, Tony. I´m just picking up the pieces -it´s your job to get the picture." She said and disappeared into the elevator again. It was going to be another long day.
Tony sighed and picked up his notes. "We need to check with Ducky if we can continue interrogation with Gibbs today. Maybe he can tell us something about that tobacco." He pulled his backpack up and dropped his notes into it. They headed out for the parking lot a few minutes later. "Hey, Ducky. Can we go and ask him some more questions? Really, cool, thanks." Tony put his phone away again. "Kate´s doing better. She´s still unconscious, but slowly stabilizing. We can go ahead and continue interrogation. They are still keeping Gibbs for observation -he is not happy about it."
They arrived at the hospital and finished their sandwiches in the parking lot before going in. Tony insisted on eating something before facing Gibbs. He wasn´t sure if he could eat anything solid afterwards. Gibbs´ mood was going to be on a historical all-time low after being arrested and stuck at a hospital for more than two days on top of that. McGee went to see Kate for a moment while, saying that it was unnecessary to endanger both their lives for this interrogation. He didn´t actually mind being slapped on the back of his head by Tony as he turned back towards the elevator.
When Tony entered the room, he immediately knew that it wasn´t going to be easy. He also knew that he would not need to eat through a straw for the next days. The sight of his boss handcuffed to the rail of the bed hurt more than he had expected. The guard stayed inside the room as well to make sure everything was going smooth. "I just got some more questions. Okay?" Dinozzo asked as he sat down on a chair next to the bed.
"Well, let´s hear them." Gibbs replied, his eyes dark and sad. The sparkling that was normally in those blue eyes was gone completely. He felt uncomfortable in this situation, but he knew that there was nothing he could do to change it at the moment. He wanted this whole messed sorted out soon.
"Okay, did you ever let anyone else drive your car?" Tony asked and got a very puzzled look. He knew that he would have been rewarded for this question by a slap on the back of his head if Gibbs had not been handcuffed.
"No, I didn´t." The answer came after a few seconds and it sounded pretty much like he was getting pissed off by this interrogation already.
"Do you smoke?" The next question came and Tony watched his jaw dropping to the floor. A fire started burning in those blue eyes now, but it was only from anger.
"Have you ever seen me smoke?" Gibbs fired back at him immediately. He hated questions where the answers were obvious enough. Tony should know him well enough to answer those questions himself. He calmed down after a few seconds. "No, I don´t smoke." He added quickly when he noticed the pained look in Dinozzo´s eyes.
"All right... Did you ever order tobacco from outside the US?" He asked and just got negative answer for this as well. It was enough for now and he felt good with those answers. They confirmed their theory that this was a frame-up, but it wasn´t enough to clear him yet. "That´s all for now, thanks." He said and smiled a bit, trying to let his boss know that they were on the right track. The look in those blue eyes really hurt him though and he left the room quickly.
Tony met with McGee out in the hallway. "How´s Kate?" He asked immediately and saw a little smile on his colleagues face.
"Still unconscious, but they´re talking about taking her off the respirator tomorrow. Abby just called, she said we have to come back immediately. She found something on that shirt or something, but the results are still pending." McGee said and they headed out for the parking lot.