There wasn't much that Jethro's field team could actually do that day without Sergeant LeMere's body, so he resigned himself to likely being at his desk all day, doing reports, while they waited for the After Action and C.O.D reports he'd requested to finally come through as well as waiting for Ducky or Palmer to be able to go pick up the sergeant's body from Dover Air Force Base later that evening.
And that is precisely how Jethro's day ended up going. Besides a handful of trips out to grab a coffee or grabbing lunch for his team, he was at his desk getting caught up on his reports and going over his agents' reports as they were finished.
By 1600, Jethro dismissed his team for the night, seeing no reason for any of them to stay at the office. Palmer had left for Dover already to pick up Sergeant LeMere's body for Ducky, but the medical examiner wasn't likely to have anything for him for a while. There was nothing they could do until the morning.
So, taking his own advice, he put the stuff on his desk away, finishing for the night. He then pulled out his cell and returned several messages from his daughter, King, Tobias, as well as Carrie Clark who wanted to grab dinner sometime soon.
Jethro then headed home to Arlington and spent some time relaxing and playing cards with Shannon, Phil and Marcy Brooks stopping by their place for dinner a little later on.
The following morning, it was straight down to business, Jethro finishing the rest of his coffee after a meeting with the director before walking into autopsy.
"What do you think, Duck?" he inquired.
Ducky didn't glance up as he responded. "Our personnel in Germany did a splendid job of preserving LeMere's head wound," the medical examiner stated.
"It tell you anything?" he pressed.
"The cause of death appears accurate," Ducky said, still assessing the body. "Textbook sniper wound." The medical examiner passed Jethro the clipboard with all of his notes. "Yeah, high-calibre, single shot and armour-piercing." He glanced at the picture of the sergeant up on Ducky's computer. "As to the distance of the shot, your educated guess would be a great deal more accurate than mine." Ducky turned around to show Jethro the x-rays that he took of Sergeant LeMere. "The bullet went through and through..." The medical examiner stopped suddenly, something having clearly caught the slightly older man's attention. "Well, not entirely through."
"What is it?" he questioned.
While the helmet did not stop the projectile," Ducky explained as he grabbed a pair of tweezers, "it apparently caused something to be left behind." Ducky put whatever the object was into a small specimen jar. "Something small and metallic."
"Bullet fragment?" he suggested.
Ducky shot him a look. "Well, I suggest we leave that up to Abby."
Conceding his long-time friends' point, Jethro headed out of autopsy, spotting Palmer sorting the autopsy supply closet, likely in the middle of doing their inventory.
Dropping the specimen jar off at the forensics lab, Jethro headed back upstairs to grab himself a cup of coffee and see if his field agents had anything new for him.
They didn't have anything new, yet, but Jethro did have a few new threat assessments for East Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, that were left on his desk for him to read, so he got that done. He also checked his email for the first time in a couple of weeks.
Figuring that Abby had sufficient time to have some results for him, he headed outside to grab himself a coffee and her a Caf-Pow. He then headed back down to her lab.
He didn't speak as he walked in but apparently, Abby had heard the elevator ding. She wasn't remotely surprised that Jethro was there. "I'm a big fan of recycling, Gibbs, but I hate how the Taliban does it." Yeah, I really can't argue with that. They're a little too creative for my liking. "They'll reuse any old weapon. Soviet-issued..."
He held out the Caf-Pow for Abby to take.
She smiled, taking the drinking. "Thanks," she said as she placed it down on the table beside her. Abby then got right back down to work. "Or Chinese stuff." She gestured to the image on her computer screen. "They buy tons of ammo likes this straight off the black market, which could be from anywhere in the world."
He gestured to the tiny piece of metal Ducky had found. "Where's it from?"
"Well, this particular shard is made of pure tungsten carbide," Abby explained. "It's an armour-piercing alloy that's primarily manufactured..." The last word the goth said was mumbled so incoherently, he had a feeling it was deliberate.
He turned back towards her. "What'd you say, Abs?"
The goth looked bothered. "Here, Gibbs. It was made here."
"It's American?" he reiterated, feeling equally bothered by the possible implications. It wasn't much to go on, but it did add weight to Ruby LeMere's accusation that it wasn't a Taliban sniper who had killed her husband.
"Well," she said, "the Taliban could've totally bought it off the black market."
Unfortunately, his gut was telling him that wasn't the case. "The wife could be right. It might not have been the Taliban."
The forensic scientist eyed him questioningly. "If not the Taliban, then who?"
Making his way back up to the squad room, his field agents had seemingly finished the back-check on Sergeant LeMere and going over the After Action and C.O.D reports. It was either that or DiNozzo was going to get a head-slap for fooling around.
His Senior Field Agent was doing a pretty bad voice impression. "It was ripped straight from the pages of a dime-store pulp magazine, I tell you."
"You sound like a Kennedy," he quipped. "You got something for me?"
His Senior Field Agent nodded. "We do, Boss."
McGee quickly pulled several documents up onto the big plasma screen while DiNozzo jumped right in to start updating him on the case. "Sergeant Theodore 'Ted' LeMere, Boss. Thirty-one years old, married, no kids. Serving his final tour in Afghanistan."
Ziva spoke up. "Spotless record, numerous commendations." The photo McGee put up on the plasma screen changed. "His working dog, Dex, has been returned to Patuxent River for evaluation before being reassigned to a different handler for another tour."
McGee started to brief him on the After Action Report for the shooting. "According to an eyewitness, the shooting occurred just after Sergeant LeMere rescued two Afghan children from a Taliban minefield."
"Who's the witness?" he inquired.
McGee pulled the guy's Military contractor I.D card up onto the plasma screen. "James Virgil, thirty-eight years old. He's an American civilian contractor." Jethro had already surmised as much given the I.D card. "His company, Beta-Co, works with the military, maintaining our facilities while rebuilding Afghan infrastructure."
"What about the bullets?" he pressed.
"According to Sergeant LeMere's CO," Ziva told them, "they used the bullets we asked about." That comment caught his attention. "But a handful of unused eight-round clips were apparently lost in a firefight last month."
DiNozzo hummed at the Junior Field Agent's comment and then turned towards Jethro. "Which would kind of lead us back to the Taliban, wouldn't it, Boss?"
"It would," he agreed, "except for the wife's video."
"It is entirely possible that one has nothing to do with the other," Ziva pointed out.
"Start with the eyewitness," he ordered. "Go from there."
McGee got his attention. "Boss, Beta-Co's full statement's in the report."
He shot McGee a pointed look. When did orders become a debate?
"But we'll gladly do it in person," McGee conceded.
While both McGee and DiNozzo went upstairs to set up a meeting in MTAC with James Virgil, Jethro signed one of the dodge chargers out of the motor pole and headed out to Woodbridge to meet with Ruby LeMere.
The roads and traffic were decent, so it wasn't all that long before he was pulling up to the LeMere house in Woodbridge. It was quaint. It was painted a soft yellow with white trimming, the yard enclosed by a white picket fence.
He pressed the doorbell and then, giving her a moment, knocked on the door. He could hear the working dog Dex bark once and run to the door.
"Come," he could hear Ruby say to the dog. A couple of seconds later, she opened the front door. Her eyes widened slightly as she registered him. "Agent Gibbs."
"Hey," he replied warmly.
Dex immediately tried to jump up on him, tail wagging.
Ruby pulled the dog back. "Sorry. Down, Dex."
He glanced from Dex back to her. "Got him back, huh?"
"Yeah," Ruby replied. "Uh, just a day or two until Patuxent River reassigns him."
That's rough. "You have a minute to talk?"
"Yeah, sure!" she agreed without hesitation. "Come on in."
Heading into the living room, Jethro pulled out his notepad and explained to Ruby why he'd made the trip in from D.C. He could help but note the strong connection between Ruby and Dex. The dog was curled up beside Ruby, happily soaking in the attention as Ruby petted him, a small smile on her own lips despite the situation.
"I don't understand," she said. "Ted was killed over there. Why ask about here?"
"I'm just covering all the bases," he stated simply.
That curt explanation seemed to satisfy Ruby. "Well, Ted and I had arguments like any couple, but nothing that I... think would..."
He gently cut her off. "No, not you." Although she was seemingly coping quite well, all things considered, you could tell that Ruby was head over heels for her late husband. The grief he could see just below the surface was all too real. Ruby had nothing to do with whatever had happened. "At work. Trouble... on the base with other Marines?"
"None," she replied with a wistful smile. "Teddy was like a big dog himself." Ruby was visibly fighting back tears at this point, Dex resting against the young widow in a clear attempt to comfort her. Ruby made a little gesture with her right hand as she finished what she'd been trying to say. "He was real easygoing. And..."
Her hesitation caught his attention. "And what?"
"I'm sorry," she said. "Can I get you a... cup of tea or water or something?"
He shook his head slightly. "No, I'm fine. What were you gonna say?"
"Oh, nothing." She adopted a slightly more serious look. "Um, just this scrap he had at the base about... six months ago."
"Scrap?" he inquired. "Like a fight?"
"One of the base trainers is kind of a cranky old man," she replied. "Pitt, they call him. As in bull, I guess. I don't even know his real name."
That could be connected. "What'd they fight about?"
"Ted thought that he was a little rough with Dex," she explained, "and one thing led to another. Both of them got written up, but, uh, Teddy never mentioned it again."
Jethro watched as Ruby kissed the dog's head, petting him. "Why 'Dex'?"
"Poindexter," Ruby explained with a warmer smile as she continued petting Dex. "He's too smart for his own good. Teddy and I got him at about three months. We raised him together -" Her voice broke slightly. "- right here in this house."
Knowing just how hallow platitudes and the like sounded when you just lost the love of your life, Jethro didn't bother with one. He'd already said that he was sorry for her loss back at the Navy Yard the prior morning. Instead, he indicated the dog with a slight tilt of the head. "He can't stay longer?
"No, that's not how it works." She resumed petting Dex as the dog let out a little whin. "He's only four, so he's got a few tours left in him." She patted Dex gently on the back. "But that's what we signed up for, right?" She took a breath. "Duty calls."
Easily reading between the lines, Jethro nodded curtly. Isn't that the truth?
