Halloween morning, breakfast was a rather rushed affair. They'd all slept in and then all three of them had to rush to get to work. Jethro was dreading the workday slightly as all the weirdos seemed to come out on Halloween, making his job that much more, well, interesting. They were likely in for a rather swamped day.

Kelly was wearing this black scrub top covered with small jack o'lanterns of varying styles, and his wife, who now had a full-time position at a nearby elementary school, opted for a purple Crayola crayon t-shirt with black pants.

How Shannon came up with that particular costume, Jethro had no idea.

"So, what do you think?" Shannon asked.

"It's certainly creative," Jethro told her, not knowing what else to say. It wasn't bad by any means, but there was a train of thought involved he just didn't get. Regardless, he didn't want to say something stupid and upset her. The main thing was her being able to work in it, which she easily could.

Walking into the squad room later that morning, be overheard DiNozzo on the phone going on about how he was currently fairing in the Larceny Lotto that the younger man participated in every year as his own little tradition of sorts.

Shaking his head at his Senior Field Agent's antics, he got McGee and DiNozzo to look into Lance Corporal Korby, telling Ziva to look into the man's wife.

Jethro had to meet with the director about something, but when he walked back into the squad room, forty-five minutes later, they at least had something.

The Lance Corporal had no criminal record, but the man did have one big blemish on his service record for dereliction of duty.

DiNozzo was rather certain that the wife did it, which had Ziva and DiNozzo bickering, but, at least Ziva was able to give them another angle to look at.

"I just got off the phone with the Seabright hotel and spa in Virginia Beach where Korby's wife was checked in last night," Ziva explained.

"She spent the night alone in a hotel three days after her husband gets back from the Middle East," DiNozzo said. "You don't find that weird, Boss."

"It is," he agreed. He turned to Ziva and raised an eyebrow.

"She and Korby's stepdaughter are on their way in to I.D. the body," Ziva said.

"Okay." He turned to his Senior Field Agent. "Interview them again, Tony." He started to walk away. "I'll see if Ducky's got something."

Jethro walked into autopsy and clearly interrupted a lecture of Ducky's regarding one of Palmer's jokes that were in poor taste.

Palmer looked duly chastised and Ducky told Jethro that the Lance Corporal's cause of death was ingestion of liquid nitrogen - which literally boils when it comes into contact with warm material.

Palmer gave him a little demonstration by pouring liquid nitrogen into a pumpkin, then putting the top back on to seal it. Korby didn't die from the nitrogen; the Marine died from breathing. When he took a breath, the nitrogen gas went into his lungs, killing him. Palmer demonstrated again, by taking the top off the pumpkin.

Ducky then said that there was also scar tissue on the back of Korby's throat but it was from something that happened prior to his death. The medical examiner had sent samples to Abby to find out what the cause was, so now they were waiting on the results. Ducky at that point confirmed that it wasn't suicide; more than likely the Lance Corporal was force-fed the liquid nitrogen.

Palmer picked up the pumpkin to move it, but dropped it instead, shattering it on the floor, the result being quite similar to what they saw at the crime scene.

Jethro got an update from his team and then, as he was heading to Abby's lab to see if she had anything for him yet, got pulled into another, substantially shorter, discussion with Director Vance regarding one of their cold cases.

Instead of going straight back to the squad room after talking with the director, Jethro decided to grab his team a little treat.

In the squad room, McGee and Ziva were reviewing the videotape footage from the three teens. He shook his head in amusement as McGee commented on the boys' technique in throwing toilet paper in the trees. Maybe McGee had spearheaded that on-base prank as a boy.

Ziva's reaction was more or less what Jethro expected. The young woman never really got to be a kid growing up. "I do not see the humour or the art."

"It's a... cultural thing," McGee replied. "Tony will tell you."

The pair immediately glanced at DiNozzo.

"Who are you calling?" Ziva asked.

DiNozzo hung up the phone before responding. "Having the wife's file sent over," the Senior Field Agent explained.

"Does your gut ever give you a stomachache, Tony?" Ziva asked sarcastically.

"Keep snickering while I'm over here breaking the case," DiNozzo said.

"Everyone is breaking the case," Jethro stated, now walking up to his team with three coffee cups in his hand, passing each of his agents one.

"You brought us coffee?" DiNozzo questioned.

"Nope," he replied. He'd gotten something else for them knowing from past experience that McGee wasn't exactly big on coffee. The younger man would drink it but found it a little too bitter for his personal taste.

His Senior Field Agent smelled it, not entirely sure what to make of the situation. To be fair, Jethro wasn't exactly known for doing this sort of thing.

McGee copied DiNozzo. "It's apple cider," the younger man said happily.

"Yep," he said. "Happy Halloween."

Ziva and McGee did little cheers in the air, Ziva giving a little hum and McGee merely grinning as he did so.

They hadn't had lunch yet, so he gave them a moment. They were all about half-way through their drinks when he finally stood up, saying, "breaks over." Jethro turned to McGee. "Run it."

"Yes," McGee replied, putting the video back on the screen. "We are still scrubbing the video from the kids, Boss."

"Multiple neighbours have filed complaints against Korby," Ziva added.

"But only one neighbour has filed multiple complaints," DiNozzo immediately chimed in. "Ted Rogers lives across the street." He gave Jethro a pointed look. "I still think the wife is good for this."

He eyed Ziva and DiNozzo. "Rogers... You two... go."

Down in Abby's lab, Lance Corporal Korby's fright gear was all over the place. It was also all motion sensor activated, which Jethro hadn't been aware of at the time, so he accidentally set it all off, ghoulish mechanical laughter filling the forensics lab.

"Welcome to the random factory, Gibbs!" she said loudly so that Jethro could hear her. "Most of Korby's prank stuff... It's motion sensor activated, so until I get a chance to process it all, you need to move very... slowly."

Jethro stood there until everything turned back off and then he tried to, very carefully, make his way over to Abby.

He quickly noted that the young forensic scientist wasn't wearing a costume this year, which she always did. "No costume this year, Abs?"

"After last year's Jonas brothers debacle," Abby explained, "Vance banned costumes." She gave him a look. "It's McGee... skinny jeans... Didn't work."

He couldn't argue with that. "What d'ya got?"

"A car, at the scene of the crime," she informed him, pulling up what Jethro assumed was an original image. "It's only a glimpse, but the time stamp indicates that it's taken around the time of death. 11:13 PM."

"You get a plate?" he asked.

"No visual on the driver," she informed him, pulling up and showing him the enhanced image, "but when I enhanced the image, I did manage to get this."

"It's a livery number," he said, immediately recognizing it.

"From the Quantico Marine base motor pool," she confirmed without missing a beat. "Vehicles can only be signed out..."

"By a Marine," he said, starting to walk away. "Nice work, Abs."

"Wait, wait!" she called out, stopping him in his tracks.

Jethro immediately turned around to walk back over to her, setting Korby's prank stuff off all over again.

Abby cringed as she saw the look of irritation on his face. "There's more."

He sighed and then waited for everything to turn off again before making his way back across the forensic laboratory.

"Sample from our dead Marine's stomach," the forensic scientist quickly informed him. "I expected to find liquid nitrogen, of course, but I did not expect to find traces of turpentine, acetone and benzene in his flesh."

"Paint thinner?" Jethro suggested, thinking he recognized the combination.

"Yeah," Abby confirmed. "Liquid nitrogen killed him last night, but it wasn't the cause of his ulcerated stomach lining. Someone tried to poison him before last night."

That certainly got his attention. "When?"

"According to the chemical levels," she said, pulling the test results up on the screen, "he ingested the paint thinner two months ago."

"While he was still overseas." It has to be a member of his unit then.

"Whoever tried to kill Lance Corporal Korby in Afghanistan..." Abby said, voice trailing off slightly at the end.

He turned towards her. "Finished it here."

Then pair shared a look, neither one liking the implications of that.

The team worked for another hour-and-a-half but came up with nothing else. There was nothing else keeping them there at the moment either so with zero new leads on the Korby case, Jethro sent everybody home for the night.

He'd been the last one to leave, as he had a report he had to finish.

Once the report was finished, he grabbed his things from the desk drawer and started walking across the room. Pulling out his cellphone, Jethro sent a quick text off to his wife. 'On my way. Did you grab the candy?'

He didn't have to wait long for a reply. 'Yes. I stopped at the store right after work.'

'Alright. See you soon.' Just as he pressed send, Jethro heard the tell-tale sound of the elevator arriving. Throwing his cellphone back into his pocket, he hopped inside it and headed home to his wife.