"The long road to justice" - Ch01.
A speculative story, exploring the back story of a member of the JAG supporting cast, who crossed over into the early days of NCIS. RATING – dark to start with.
A/N: "they aren't mine, I'm just playing with them - apart from any character created by myself".
Summary: this is a fictional story, in a fictional (slightly) Alternative Universe, about fictional characters who entertained us in a fictional TV series between 1995 and 2005 - and its spin-off.
Canon: Linking the story into the Season eight "death of Loren Singer" episodes, plus a couple of early NCIS episodes as the chapters develop. Mike
A/N published 09MAR2021: because there is no "back-story" to so many of the JAG characters, I have let my imagination roam; hope you like it. Comments and PMs and suggestions are most welcome; I shall update periodically. Mike
TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ
Ch01 – "The end of innocence"
Friday 12th April 1985, 20:49hrs EST
Alleyway leading to Main Street, Allentown PA
The evening was pleasantly warm for an early-April walk in Pennsylvania. She had bidden farewell to the last member of her cheerleading squad as they walked home after practice on the Muhlenberg College campus on West Chew Street. She was due to meet her parents at the local diner at 21:00hrs for a family celebration of her 17th birthday with a small party. She had shrugged off her team sweatshirt and tied it around her waist, helping her body to cool down somewhat after the exuberant finale to the cheerleading practice in the High School playing field.
Ducking down the alleyway between the hardware store and the pharmacy, she was thinking about the next steps in her life – getting ready for her senior year and then onwards to the US Naval Academy at Annapolis.
Tall, leggy and athletic, she strode confidently along the alleyway. Then she felt the strap on her sports bag pull her back. She half-turned to her right to reduce the pressure of the strap - and then everything suddenly went dark.
TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ
Friday 12th April 1985, 23:37rs EST
Emergency Room at Lehigh Valley Hospital-17th Street
1627 W Chew St, Allentown, PA 18102, United States
She awoke to find herself looking into her mom's concerned eyes. Over Mom's shoulder, her Pa was looking concerned, but speaking to a woman in a neat pant-suit whose jacket displayed a detective shield.
Something was wrong. She had a splitting headache. More worryingly, she couldn't close her legs and there was a sheet held up across her mid-section. Just visible above the curtain, a surgical cap was moving and she realised that, in time with the movements of the head, she was being touched in a very private spot.
"Mom, what's going on?"
"Oh sweetie, I'm so glad that you are back with us." Her mom began weeping – which didn't help the patient's level of concern. She was an intelligent girl – well, young woman she reasoned, given this *was* meant to be her 17th birthday!
The female detective stepped across and introduced herself. On the recommendation of the detective and as she realised what must have been done to her, she agreed to a detailed forensic examination, elimination fingerprinting and what felt like a factory of swabs being taken.
It was obvious what had happened to her. She had been rendered unconscious at the start of the attack and had been found an hour later by a passing K-9 unit on a routine patrol of the Chew Street area. Swift summoning of an ambulance had brought her to the ER.
Several weeks would pass whilst she recovered, before she was able to get back fully to her studies. Her parents were truly marvellous and supportive - especially her Pa.
Of all the people involved in the story, her father was the most valuable. On more than one occasion, in the small hours of the night, he would sit with her as she sobbed. His message was always the same: "Not all men are like this - there are many, many, good and kind men out there. They are the majority, because there is overwhelming good in the world."
She knew what he meant and she refused to be bitter forever.
She worked hard and there was no lasting impact to her studies – or to her acceptance, in June 1986, into Annapolis where she graduated in the Class of 1990.
On graduating USNA with a qualification in surface warfare, she elected to transfer to the Naval Justice School (NJS) in Newport, Rhode Island.
For more than ten years, she dedicated herself to the law of the seas, maritime law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Promotions were awarded on her merit and by 2003 she was several years into her rank of USN Lt-Commander, JAG Corps, serving in one of the naval districts.
TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ
The attack had left dark marks on her soul and her psyche.
Every year on her birthday – April 12th, the anniversary of the attack – she called up the detective who had been there on that night in the ER. Over the years, the detective had advanced to Captain rank by 2001 but the two women always had a special bond.
She always believed that justice would one day be served. With her NJS qualifications and JAG status, she always asked about new technologies, more in hope than expectation that one day her attacker would be identified and - maybe, just maybe – brought to justice for the unprovoked attack which had landed her in the ER that fateful Friday night back in 1985.
She had always kept a watching brief after DNA testing had begun in 1985 – the very year of her attack. In 1987, Florida rapist Tommie Lee Andrews became the first person in the U.S. to be convicted as a result of DNA evidence; he was sentenced to 22 years behind bars.
She prepared herself for a long wait – but she set, as her standard, the mantra that "revenge is a dish best served cold". She also wanted the verdict to be right – beyond doubt – so she settled down for a long, slow march towards justice for what had happened on that night in 1985.
Although the attack did not define her – she locked everything away in a box deep in her soul, only opening it on her birthday – she knew that she had been changed, unwillingly, that night in April of 1985.
She read widely in her spare time, as she developed her interest in the subject of forensic identification. Periodically, a news item caught her eye. In the United Kingdom, Colin Pitchfork became the first person, convicted in 1987, to be "nailed" by DNA evidence which had been left at a murder scene in Leicestershire in July 1986. The parents of the two 15-year-old girls who had been killed saw justice after less than two years of investigations into an otherwise "unsolvable" case.
In the 1990s, the forensics community switched to STRs (short tandem repeats), which are a shorter type of repeat unit. The time to run a DNA match steadily improved from the initial duration (a range between "six to eight WEEKS"), eventually settling on just a few hours.
In the USA, the DNA Identification Act of 1994 authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to expand a pilot project into a national DNA database, the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), as a tool for solving violent crimes. CODIS combines DNA analysis with computer technology to enable crime laboratories at the local, state, and national levels to exchange and compare DNA profiles electronically.
For most of CODIS's history, DNA profile entries have had to contain 13 loci. In January 2017, however, the number of loci for new CODIS profiles was increased to 20. The additional loci are primarily ones that forensic scientists over in Europe were already using. Including those loci makes it easier to share DNA profiles internationally. Cultural history traits also enabled information to be sourced indicating ethnic and cultural origins - handy for identification as well as the elimination of innocent suspects.
TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ
Her parents went to their graves in 1997 and 1999, not seeing the advent of justice for their daughter's attack. They were buried together, in adjacent plots in Allentown Cemetery. She honoured her parents every April 12th, every Thanksgiving and every Christmas Day. She continued the vigil, confident that – one day – her attacker would receive the long-overdue "knock on the door" that signalled the arrival of his Day of Reckoning.
She was a patient woman; she could wait. Very early on, she came to a peaceful conclusion - this was not about vengeance, this was about justice. She served the law and she had to believe that the law would come through for her in the end.
TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ
In the meantime, she adjusted her style, appearance and image to maintain a low profile. She loved the USN uniform, which enabled her to hide in plain sight. Her Jeep – like her apartment – was a model of cleanliness and neat patterns, with everything in its place. Clothing – uniforms, casuals and smart civilian wear – were all hung correctly in her home. Her shoes and boots were always polished and stored in their original boxes where possible.
She drew the line at having a bonsai tree in her apartment – that might seem a little like an OCD characteristic!
The one big gap in her life, for many years, was any sign of male companionship. Whilst she had participated fully in the life of USNA whilst at Annapolis, she had never let anyone get close. She established a close, small, tightly-knit circle of friends - two women and one man. To them, she disclosed the details of the attack. To everyone else at Annapolis, it was an unknown part of her teenage years. This approach continued in her life through the entire 1990s and into the "noughties" through her time at NJS.
Finally, in early 1994, she had trusted a man; over the next 18 months they had grown steadily closer until he proposed marriage. He was aware of what had happened and, as a Naval psychiatrist based at Bethesda, had access to a group of helpful colleagues who offered her assistance. He was very insistent that he was a patient man; he was prepared to wait for her, until she was ready for intimacy – and she loved him for that.
She took his name upon marrying him. With both civilian and USN paperwork workloads (leaving aside BUPERS, the USN Bureau of Personnel), this meant that she was still working through the paperwork to change over all her documentation on the night when NCIS arrived, with Metro PD in tow, to inform her that Commander Alan Coleman, USN, had been killed by a psychotic patient who had gone off his meds.
Thus it was that, after barely a month as a bride, she stood at his graveside in Arlington as a widow in the autumn of 1995. Somehow, she felt that life was just laughing in her face.
She decided to throw herself back into her work. After all, she could bring justice to the villains and relief to their victims. She just assumed that she clearly wasn't meant to be happy, or fulfilled, or even with a man long-term. She feared that any sign of a "third strike" from fate would probably break her,
That harsh and self-critical opinion would stay with her until the Spring of 2003, when a case brought her into contact with the man who would change everything in her life – for the better and forever.
TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ
Tuesday 22nd April 2003, 09:27rs EST
Brig conference room, Detention Centre, US Navy Yard, Washington DC
Less than a fortnight after celebrating her 35th birthday, she found herself in the depressing grey walls of the detention centre, as the suddenly-appointed defence counsel in a capital case.
She had introduced herself to the defendant, Commander Harmon Rabb jr. He was clearly still reeling from his arrest by NCIS and she could feel the sense of injured pride rolling off him in waves. However, "indignation doth not a defence strategy make", so she began to steadily earn his trust and dismantle his barricades.
She sat bolt upright in her usual pose (the pose which many had commented on over the years, but the pose in which she felt most-completely in control). Her uniform was her shield and she wore it with pride.
She looked at him, coolly and analytically. He didn't seem the type to murder a fellow officer – any officer – and especially not a pregnant female officer in addition to everything else: "yeah, yeah, appearances can be deceptive - but..."
But there was something that he held back and she just could not break down the barriers and get through to him. Her feminine intuition was telling her "dig deeper", but even her feminine wiles and JAG interrogation processes could not get "the Hammer" to open up and divulge.
She sighed. Sometimes, lawyers make the very worst defendants - because they believe that they know best!
His unhelpful comment - "It could be worse – I could be without an alibi" - was the lowest point in their conversation. However, she had been allocated to defend this arrogant naval aviator turned fellow JAG officer – and defend him she would, to the very best of her ability and as far as the arrogant SoB would allow her...
This, in all probability, meant that she'd be defending Harm, in court, at a court martial for murder with at least one arm tied behind her back. She idly began structuring a plea in mitigation.
TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ
Adjourning to the female heads, she splashed cool water over her face and looked, exasperatedly, at her freckled reflection in the big mirror behind the washbasin.
"What the f**k is this asshole hiding?" she muttered to herself.
Alongside her, a female USMC lieutenant-colonel chuckled and turned to her.
"Let me guess, Harmon Rabb, the annoying enigma?"
"How did you…?"
The Marine extended her hand. "Sarah Mackenzie, JAG corps – call me Mac. I've been Harm's (work) partner since January of 1997 and – trust me – he could give irritability lessons to Captain Queeg in 'the Caine Mutiny' - if you remember that film."
"Understood. Faith Coleman, JAG San Diego."
Mac sighed, then looked up into Faith's face once more, as the taller woman awaited Sarah's wisdom. "But at least you – an outsider in the nicest possible sense – can get in to see him. All of us in the Falls Church JAG office have been banned by the Admiral – on pain of death or excommunication almost – from *any* contact with Harm. Apparently we have to be above all possible implications. I'm only allowed in here because I have a client sitting in the brig, but I need to steer clear of Harm."
Sarah Mackenzie looked sad for a moment, then she brightened. "I won't place you on the spot, Commander, but do please know that all of Harm's colleagues are rooting for him. We just cannot see it in him to murder the Wicked Witch of Washington."
She paused, placing a hand over her shocked mouth. "I'm sorry Commander, but that came out wrong!" Covering her confusion, she quickly dried her hands and backed out into the corridor, preparing to interview her own client in the brig.
There was nothing else that Harm's defence counsel could do, as the trial date was set and due process rolled through into the courtroom.
TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ-TLRTJ
End of "A long road to Justice" Ch01 – "The end of innocence".
Mike, United Kingdom, 09-03-2021