The next morning beamed brightly, with only a single cloud to mar the blue of the sky. That would change, Gibbs knew. He didn't need the overly jovial weather-caster on the tube in his room to tell him that; he could feel it in his bones.

That put a bit of urgency into his plans. He had a case to solve, the circumstances involving Petty Officer Johnson's sudden death, and he'd also like to get back home in time to put in a little work on the boat in his basement. He stared at his reflection in the mirror in the small but clean bathroom in his hotel room, using the image to scrape the face fuzz off but otherwise not observing what was happening in front of him. He was too busy thinking.

Gibbs didn't like how this was shaping up. There was no coherency in what was happening; everything seemed entirely too random. The two petty officers were friends, and there simply wasn't anything to suggest otherwise. Motive? Not there. There weren't any obvious men in the picture that they might fight over and as for Fielding's theory about Mathis wanting Johnson's farm? Gibb snorted. Nice as it was, Johnson's place wasn't worth much in cold hard cash. The house was run down through lack of upkeep, and the land too hilly to work for a profit. If anything, the place needed a heavy duty infusion of cash and then it might be turned into a modest bed & breakfast, but that was about all.

On the other hand, there was the attempted car-jacking. Things like that simply didn't happen in a small town like Starksville where everyone knew everyone else. Also, the thieves spoke Arabic. Ziva had been clear on that point: Arabic. Not Farsi, not Urdu, and very definitely not Hebrew or even French. That was another point that was clear: nobody in Starksville spoke Arabic. Chief Fielding allowed as how perhaps Jake Winslow and Jim-Bob Allen might know a couple of words, since they finished their tour in Afghanistan two months ago, but everyone else who could have come in contact with a Middle Eastern tongue was still overseas in the thick of it. Gibbs sighed. Arabic was not the language that most Afghani's tended to speak, and Fielding had said that both Winslow and Allen were tow-headed blonds, not the swarthy and dark individuals that Ziva and McGee had chased off. Why were a trio of Arabic-speaking hoodlums plying their trade in Starksville? Gibbs didn't like coincidences, and this was too big a coincidence to ignore.

Well, the day should bring answers. Gibbs plotted out the plan of attack in his head. McGee he'd assign to getting a decent and secure link back to headquarters. Gibbs needed the information from both Ducky and Abby, and it would take a couple of hours for McGee to drive to a tech store to get the cords and nonsense he needed to do the job. Too bad the cell service was so bad up here that they couldn't count on it. Hit or miss, that's what it was, and certainly not good enough to handle anything as heavy duty as an internet signal, was McGee's take on it. Gibbs decided to take the other two back to the Johnson homestead to finish the crime scene. There was something going on, and it sure wasn't sitting in Gibbs's hotel room.

He wiped the remainder of the shaving cream from his jaw, put up his tools, and headed out.

It was the first time Gibbs had seen the Johnson place, and he decided that he liked what he saw. There was an honesty to the house, a straightforward sort of character that warmed the soul.

It was a single floor dwelling, sprawling along the small area of flat ground before the land took a sharp rise, although around the corner he spotted the entrance to what was probably a cellar, and he revised his opinion as to how many levels the home had. That was right; he reminded himself that Petty Officer Johnson's body had been found on the stairs leading up from that cellar. The home had to have had at least two stories.

The place was surrounded by a single strand of yellow crime scene tape placed there, Ziva had told him with a sniff, by NCIS. The locals cleared the scene shortly after discovering the body and hadn't bothered with anything more than a few graphic shots of the corpse. Given the laxity of the department, Gibbs had to honestly say that he wasn't surprised. In fact, the concept of taking pictures of the scene had probably occurred to them only because Chief Fielding confided that he was a devoted fan of more than one CSI show and wanted to put the single course in Forensic Science that he'd taken to use.

Gibbs expected his team to do substantially better.

He pushed the door open, using the key that Fielding had supplied, leading his team inside. "How far did you get?" he asked.

"Not far," Ziva admitted. "First, we took pictures of the stairs where Petty Officer Johnson's body was found, including detailed photos of the blood spatters on both the walls and the stair treads. I then began to go through the papers on the coffee table, and McGee started in that corner of the room, taking additional photos." She pointed to the area beside the upright piano. The sheet music on top of the piano cabinet looked to have been disturbed by a tall man—such as McGee—walking by. "We then heard the thieves, and dashed out to try to apprehend them."

"How about where the body was found?" Gibbs looked around for the entrance to the cellar.

"In the kitchen," Ziva directed him. "The entrance is there."

"I'll start there. You two work here, cover the rest of house." Gibbs moved off. "Look not only for anything about the crime, but something that those car-jackers might have been after."

The entrance to the cellar was undisturbed by anything more than the flies that Ziva had complained of earlier but even those were drifting off with the blood dried and no longer appetizing to insectoid appetites. Gibbs squatted to examine the site, looking to confirm what the Mossad officer had told him last night.

He saw immediately what Ziva had spotted: the drops of blood were not consistent with a crime scene such as the local police had proposed. The blood had pooled on the top step and nowhere else, and the drops were perfectly round where they spattered. Some of the blood had welled up and dripped down onto the next step below, but all of the individual drops were round. If the corpse had been moving, trying to escape from an attacker, the drops would have been flung directionally and would have landed in an elongated shape. That hadn't occurred here.

Could Johnson have crawled up the stairs and expired after being hit? Not a chance; the only blood was on the top of the stairs, and Gibbs couldn't see Petty Officer Mathis being careful enough to clean up the bottom steps and not the top.

Where had Mathis gotten the two by four that the locals found in her hand? Gibbs looked further and spotted a bin just outside the kitchen door where the family had kept firewood. Most of the wood was kindling and brush pulled in from the trees out back with a number of logs chopped into sensible chunks but interspersed were saw-cut boards left over from various projects. Clearly Mathis had grabbed the first thing that she could get her hands on to try to pry the cellar door open. Gibbs peered more closely at the door frame, noting where it had splintered. The wood looked fresh at the splintered area, with even a slender smear of blood. That made sense, Gibbs decided. Mathis was found with blood on her hands. She could have been trying to help Johnson, and grabbed the edge of the door frame for support.

Gibbs headed down into the cellar, stepping heavily over the step with the most dried blood to avoid disturbing the evidence. Once down on the floor—dirt, actually—he pulled out his flashlight. The single bare bulb that he tugged into operation to illuminate the area did a poor job. Shadows roamed the entire cellar, darting in and amongst the various crates of cans and the jars that someone had put up when the season called for such. There was a sad looking bicycle in one corner, a remnant of Johnson's childhood, and carefully covered in plastic was a very upscale doll house. Gibbs peered inside the doll house and saw a dainty chandelier still hanging in the miniature dining room over an elegant dining table. The tiny plates and cups were obviously glued onto the table for they hadn't moved in years, dust settling thickly over them.

Gibbs played the flash over the rest of the room: nothing. Nothing to suggest that Johnson was a target for a murder, nothing to suggest that anyone intent on stealing a car had been in here. He gave up, and headed back upstairs.

"Anything?" he asked of the other two.

DiNozzo shook his head. "Not a thing, boss. If there's a pot of gold here, we sure didn't find it."

"Any sign of Ziva's friends?"

Ziva glared. "They are not my friends, Gibbs."

"Just an expression, Ziva. I'll take that as a no." Gibbs looked at his watch. "Let's get back to Police Headquarters. McGee should have a link set up by now, and I want to hear what Ducky and Abby have to say."

"I appreciate your help with this," McGee told Dennis, one of the four local police. "You're sure that Chief Fielding doesn't mind you coming in early?"

"Heck, no." The man was tall and lean, nattily dressed in dockers and a polo, looking completely unlike a member of the pavement-pounding department. He would have seemed to be at home in an upscale country club getting ready to join the lads for a quick chukker of polo if it weren't for his heavy set and uninspired features. "I've been waiting for something like this to happen for the past three years. I'm hoping that it will show these people just how much we need to come into the New Millennium and computerize."

"You don't have any computers at all?"

"Oh, we have a computer," Dennis scoffed. "It's in that box." He jerked his thumb at a large cardboard entity collecting dust in the corner of the room. "They haven't let me take it out."

"Isn't that a little odd?"

Dennis snickered. "I think Gary's afraid that once I get started, I'll take over the department with it, and he'll actually have to go back to walking the town once in a while."

Considering that the 'town' consisted of three or four buildings, McGee couldn't see that as much of a deterrent. Still, perhaps it was a matter of pride.

"Do you work much with computers?" he asked politely.

"I wish. I used to have a computer repair shop," Dennis said wistfully.

"What happened?"

"I went out of business. Nobody around here wanted a computer, much less needed to get it fixed." Dennis sighed. He watched what McGee was doing. "What are you doing?"

"Hardwiring my laptop to the phone system," McGee explained. "Normally I can use WiFi, and I don't need a landline to access the net. But up here, in these mountains, the signal isn't strong enough to accommodate what I need. You see, NCIS, as part of the military, has additional security demands which require more bandwidth to get through. Plus, Special Agent Gibbs wants a video conference with our people back home, and that takes a lot more than just a little cell call that drops out every so often."

He saw Dennis struggle to keep up, and revised his opinion downward of Dennis's computer skills. Dennis, undeterred, forged ahead. "You think we could get something like that out here?"

"Here?" McGee raised his eyebrows politely. "I don't see why not, as long as it's hard-wired rather than wireless. In fact, it might even be useful for identifying any criminals in your midst or linking one case to another. The D.C. police department uses computers all the time, even writes their reports on them. Makes it easier to file as well as cross-reference."

Dennis got a forlorn look on his face. "Agent McGee—"

"Call me Tim."

"Tim." Dennis acknowledged the familiarity with a smile. "Tim, the kind of stuff we deal with here in Starksville is a call from someone asking for help in getting their cows back in the pasture. Or a call because Jerome O'Donnelly has passed out drunk in the yard again, and his wife's too tiny to drag him up onto the porch to sleep it off." He snorted. "We've pretty much got our 'criminals' sorted out, and most of them are cows named Bessie."

"At least cows don't shoot at you," McGee observed.

Dennis brightened. "True. That was pretty exciting, Tim, what you reported with the other agent—what was her name?"

"Officer David."

"Her." Dennis's eyes shone. "Does that happen often? Shooting, I mean?"

"Too often." It was a safe answer. McGee quickly changed the subject back to the original topic. "Plug that end into the phone jack, will you? Thanks, Dennis." McGee pulled his laptop out of its protective case, automatically reaching for the dull gray data stick that fell onto the floor when the laptop emerged. He frowned. "Where did that come from?"

Dennis got a puzzled look on his face. "Your laptop case, Tim."

"No, I mean, that's not where I usually put my data sticks. I have a pouch that they don't fall out of. I don't remember putting one there, in that open area." McGee examined the small item. "In fact, I don't even remember getting this. This isn't a brand that I usually get, and I know the cheapskates in Accounting won't spring for this many gigs. I don't think this is mine." He started to insert it into his laptop to discover the contents, and then stopped himself. "Gibbs'll be here any moment. I'd better do this later. Right now, we need to get a video feed established and that may take a little while."

"Mind if I watch?"

"Fine, but there's not much to see," McGee warned him, slipping the data stick into his pocket.

"I think there is," Dennis assured him. The man wasn't looking at the computer screen.

McGee uneasily turned his attention back to his laptop and his work. Was Dennis undressing him with his eyes?

Gibbs pulled the rental sedan into the same parking slot that he'd used yesterday, swearing that the dust hadn't budged an inch but that the weeds had sprouted up by four. He cast a weather eye up to the heavens; yup, the clouds were beginning to pile up. Wouldn't rain for a while, but it was coming. Gibbs hoped to have this thing finished up in time to hustle it out of here before the downpour started. He was a good driver, but the best driving in the world wouldn't get them past a mudslide or a creek that decided to challenge the Potomac for volume. He didn't mind small towns like Starksville—liked 'em, in fact—but there was a boat that needed working on and it was sitting in his basement a couple hundred miles from here.

He hoped that McGee had done his thing, had set up a video conference link back to Ducky and Abby so that he could get the information he needed. He didn't like the way the kid ran his department, but Fielding was the duly appointed chief of police, and ramming stuff down the kid's throat would only get Mathis into more hot water and drag Leroy Jethro Gibbs down with her. No, Gibbs would do this the proper way and then let Fielding figure out a way to get out of this mess himself because Gibbs was becoming more and more convinced that this wasn't a simple case of one petty officer bashing another over the head. There was something going on—who in hell ever heard of carjackers traipsing out to a farm to grab a cheap rental sedan?—but Mathis was the unlucky soul who'd gotten dragged into it.

There was a man about Gibbs's age leaning up against the wall, a gun at his waist and a baton on the other side. Gibbs eyed him cautiously. There was something about him that Gibbs recognized, something about the way that the man handled his weapon. Who was he? More to the point: what was he? Gibbs tried to decide whether or not to greet the man politely.

The man took the decision out of Gibbs' hands. He stuck out his hand. "You must be the visiting cops. Jasper Figgerworth, one of the cops here."

This was a man that looked like a cop: no uniform, but he didn't need one to exude authority. This was the person that Gibbs expected would be in charge, a no-nonsense type who would keep the peace without needing to resort to fines and jails and such. This was the sort of local cop who knew where all the make-out spots were, behind the bleachers and in the woods, and kept those places from turning kids into parents before their time.

"Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, Officer." Gibbs took the proffered hand, found the man's grip to be as firm as his face. "My team: Special Agent DiNozzo and Officer David."

"Miss." Jasper would have tipped his hat if he were wearing one.

"You've probably met my other agent, McGee?"

"The one with the computer, right?" Jasper made a face. "Dennis made off with him, straight away. They're thick as thieves in the back room."

"Just as long as they get the job done," was Gibbs' reply. "Your guy any good with computers?"

"Who, Dennis?" Jasper sniggered. "He thinks he is. Why do you think the dang computer Gary bought is still in the box?"

One corner of Gibbs' mouth crept skyward. "Why don't we see if my agent is any better?"

"Why don't we do that thing, Gibbs?" Jasper gestured; ladies first. Holding the door for the visiting talent.

DiNozzo held back. His instincts, honed to perfection on the Baltimore force, were aroused.

"Mr. Figgerworth…"

"Call me Jasper, son. We don't get fancy around here."

"Jasper, then. Uh, why…?"

"Ain't I chief, son?" Jasper cast a knowing eye on DiNozzo. "You know how much paperwork goes into bein' in charge these days, young feller?"

"Uh, yes, sir, I do."

"Then you know the answer," Jasper told him, holding in the guffaw.

"You mean, it wasn't the shoot out that Chief Fielding talked about?"

"Oh, it was," Jasper assured DiNozzo. "Gary won it, fair and square, over Gloria."

"But you…?"

"Son, I ain't no fool," Jasper said firmly. He winked. "My last qualifiers, I shot ninety-seven out of a hundred. 'Ceptin' on that day. Must've been an off day."

"McGee! You ready yet?" Gibbs walked in, followed by not only his team but Chief Fielding and Jasper. Dennis was still there, looking over McGee's shoulder in awe until Tony DiNozzo entered.

"Just about, boss." McGee did some final tapping on the keyboard, then swiveled the laptop around so that the others could see the screen. "Sit down here, boss. The webcam isn't very large."

"Whatever." Gibbs sat, with both Ziva and DiNozzo choosing to hover behind so that they too could see into Abby's lab several hundred miles away.

The small screen blinked, and produced a clear picture of Abby's lab. Large beakers bubbled in the background, interspersed with several large and boxy machines blinking in random order. "Hey, Gibbs," Abby chirped into the other end of the signal. Dark pigtails bounced over her shoulder, not quite hiding the spider web tattoo that decorated her neck. Today was a pink day; shocking pink, in fact. The color nearly caused the little laptop's screen to implode, trying to keep up with the intensity. Abby pushed her face into the screen. "When are you guys coming home?"

"When we're finished here, Abby," Gibbs replied. "I hope you've got some good news for me."

"Gibbs, don't I always?" Abby tapped her own keyboard, exchanging her image for that of red circles bobbing about on the screen: red blood cells. "I ran an analysis on the blood on the two by four that you sent me, and compared it to Petty Officer Johnson's blood. There hasn't been enough time for a DNA match, but I was able to confirm that the blood on the wood and Petty Officer Johnson's blood are the same type. That's the good news, Gibbs. You want the bad?"

"Lay it on me, Abbs."

"Petty Officer Johnson's blood type is O positive, Gibbs. Like forty percent of the American population is O positive. That's not going to rule out very many people, and it doesn't rule out Petty Officer Mathis. I got her blood type from her records, and she's O positive also."

"You got anything else, Abby?"

"Of course, Gibbs." Abby's cheerful face popped back onto screen. "Ducky gave me prelims on the bruise that was on Petty Officer Johnson's head, the one that might have come from the two by four."

"And did it?" Gibbs hurried the Forensics expert along.

"Nope. Nada. Not a chance, Gibbs. The bruise was circular, came from contact with a single point. If it had come from the two by four, then it would have been a long line kind of bruise and not a big round dot."

"Good work, Abby." Gibbs meant it. "I'll bring you one of those caffeine things when I get back. You got anything more for me?"

"Nope. But Ducky does. I made him wait, Gibbs, 'cause if he'd gone first you never would've listened to me."

"Abbs, I always listen to you."

"No, you don't, Gibbs. But I love you anyway." Abby disappeared from view, only her arm pulling Dr. Ducky Mallard onto the screen.

"Jethro?"

"Ducky." Gibbs gestured to the three locals behind him, cuddled into the crowd of NCIS agents. "Chief Fielding, and his men Jasper and Dennis."

"Not that I can see them, Jethro, through this miniscule high tech version of a telescope but greetings, gentlemen."

"They can see you, Ducky. That's good enough. Abby thinks you've got something for me?"

"Yes, I do, Jethro. Mr. Palmer returned sometime after midnight with the dearly departed, so I wasn't able to get to her until early this morning. Bearing in mind your request for haste, I sent up the usual samplings to Abby—"

"The results, doctor?" There were times to let the medical examiner ramble. This was not one of them.

"Jethro, there was no murder. This was death by natural causes."

"What?" Gary Fielding was aghast. "Of course it was a murder! We have the murder weapon! Randi was a young girl! She wouldn't have died of natural causes! Mathis killed her!"

"I'm afraid not, young man. The results of the autopsy were very clear. Petty Officer Johnson died of a cerebral aneurysm that chose that moment in time to break open. The blood that you found at the site flowed out of her like water, leaking through her mouth and making it appear as though she was struck."

"But…the bruise!" Fielding was having a hard time giving up his case. "There was a bruise on her head. Where did that come from?"

"I cannot say for certain, young man, but a possible and certainly plausible scenario might be that our dear young petty officer, experiencing a sudden and severe headache as the aneurysm began to leak, climbed the stairs to seek help from her friend. Feeling faint, she toppled over and struck her head just prior to expiring." Ducky shook his head. "I am sorry, Jethro, but no murder occurred here. Petty Officer Randi Johnson was the unfortunate victim of the frailties of her own body. Even had the aneurysm chosen to rear its ugly head while Petty Officer Johnson was near to a high level of medical and surgical care, she still might not have survived the experience. I must rule this as death due to natural causes, Jethro," he concluded.

Gibbs sat back in his chair. "Well, that puts a new spin on things," he said. "You sure, Ducky?"

"Quite sure, Jethro. Natural causes, unquestionably."

The members of both executive departments, NCIS and local constabulary, paused to inhale that pronouncement. Every person there contemplated as to how this new information, indisputable and stark, affected the various aspects of the problems in front of them.

"Jethro? Are you there? Did you hear me?"

"Yes, Ducky, I'm here." Gibbs was the first to recover. "Anything else you think I ought to know?" His team could hear the annoyance in his voice: not only had they been diverted to this supposed 'case', but it turned out that the whole excursion could have been avoided had the locals actually followed procedure by turning the body over to a coroner. Gibbs could have been hard at work at his desk, cleaning off the papers that were piling up there, so that he could go home and work on that damn boat.

But then there wouldn't be the mystery of the Arabic-speaking carjackers in this little town that barely acknowledged that the outside world existed, let alone had actual 'foreigners' among them. Starksville hadn't had a case of grand theft auto since the Fifties, Fielding had told them, when the state troopers had chased a varmint through the center of town. The theft of the auto had occurred a county over, but the chase zipped through Starksville so they dutifully counted it among their statistics for that decade.

"Not at the moment, Jethro. Will you be returning today?"

"Hopefully, Ducky. Hopefully." Gibbs signaled to McGee to end the transmission. He turned in the chair so that he could face the young chief of police, ignoring the huge grin on Jasper's face where Fielding couldn't see it. "Well?"

"Uh…"

"I think you have a suspect to cut loose." Gibbs' voice was exceptionally mild, and his team held their collective breath. Not one of them liked to hear that note, not when they'd made a mistake. Unless they were very very lucky, an eruption could follow. "And an apology to make."

"I—" Fielding cut himself off, ugly red seeping up from around his neck. He took a long moment to control himself. "I'll get the key." He turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

"DiNozzo. David. Go with him," Gibbs ordered shortly. "Bring Petty Officer Mathis here."

"On it." No jokes. It wasn't a time for humor. It was time to get an innocent suspect out from behind the bars where she'd sat for the better part of three days.

"McGee."

"Yes, boss?"

"Go get coffee, and none of that dish water in the back room. Petty Officer Mathis deserves better. You. Go with him," Gibbs directed Dennis. "He doesn't have enough hands to carry all the cups for everyone."

"Yes, sir." Gibbs wasn't Dennis's direct supervisor, but that didn't matter. Escape from the simmering volcano was a good thing. Dennis fled, McGee trailing after him.

One left: Jasper Figgerworth.

Gibbs regarded his counterpart, fire in his eye. "I suppose you have a reason for letting things get this out of control."

"I ain't the chief—"

"Stow it," Gibbs snarled. "We both know what's going on here, and we both know that you screwed up. If Petty Officer Johnson's body had been cremated without a proper autopsy, Petty Officer Mathis could have ended up doing fifteen to twenty for a crime she didn't commit! Not a particularly good way to treat one of this country's finest!"

"You're right, Special Agent Gibbs," Figgerworth admitted grimly. "For what it's worth, I never intended for it to go this far. Young Fielding—"

"Maybe next time this town will award positions based on ability and not on who can pick up a gun and shoot." The words were soft, but cutting.

Figgerworth flushed. "I'll take your words to mind, Agent Gibbs."

Chief Fielding came back in, Petty Officer Mathis following him with a bewildered look. DiNozzo and Ziva trailed behind, making sure that everyone crowded into the room. Mathis looked disheveled and pale, and in dire need of a shower and the chance to go outside to remember what sunshine looked like.

Gibbs rose, and solicitously and ostentatiously offered Mathis a chair. She sank down, still not quite understanding what was going on. "Sir…"

"Did Chief Fielding tell you what the story was, Petty Officer Mathis?"

"Yes, sir," she replied faintly. "Something about Randi not being murdered?"

"That's right," Gibbs confirmed. "After three days"—Gibbs was not above digging in the knife—"after three days, an autopsy on Petty Officer Johnson was finally performed." Was there just a little bit of emphasis on the word 'finally'? "The medical examiner was very clear: Petty Officer Randi Johnson died of natural causes. She had an aneurysm. There was nothing that anyone could have done for her, let alone you. You're cleared, Mathis." Didn't I tell you that I'd find out the truth?

"I'm…" Mathis swallowed hard. "I'm free?"

"Fielding?" Gibbs turned to his 'opposite number', pointedly not mentioning the kid's title.

"There are a few formalities—"

"Chief Fielding." There was a world of meaning in those words, but they didn't come from Gibbs. They came from Jasper Figgerworth. The older man crossed his arms.

Gary Fielding coughed. "Uh…yeah, you're free to go."

"Her things?" Ziva prodded.

"Yeah. Right. Uh, Jasper, would you—"

"I think you have the key to the lock box, chief." Jasper wasn't letting him get away with anything.

"Uh, right." Fielding backed away toward the exit. "I'll get your stuff."

"Thank you." Mathis's voice trailed off. She looked to Gibbs, as the one who seemed to be most in charge. "I'm really free to go? Sir?"

"You are, Mathis." Gibbs kept his voice gentle. "You got a place to go?"

"Anywhere but here." The words were heartfelt, and she suddenly remembered the older cop still in the room. "Begging your pardon, sir—"

"We got it coming, missy." Figgerworth accepted the blame. "Don't blame you for thinking poorly of us."

"Do you have a way to get out of town and back to your ship?" DiNozzo asked kindly.

"I've still got the rental car, back at Randi's house. It's in my name, not Randi's." Tears were close, they could all see that. Relief was pushing her over the edge.

Gibbs determined to cut this short for the sake of the petty officer. For the locals, he would have drawn it out all day. "You can take the car, Petty Officer Mathis, but I can't let you into the house. It's still a crime scene."

"Gibbs?" That was Jasper.

Gibbs ignored him for the moment. "Ziva, DiNozzo, you two arrange to remove Petty Officer Mathis's things from the scene. Catalog them; clear them. Get an address from Petty Officer Mathis as to where she'll be for the next week, just in case we need to ask her some questions."

Ziva took the petty officer by the arm. "Come," she said. "We'll stop at my hotel room, so that you can wash up."

Mathis nodded, still barely able to believe that her personal nightmare was over. "My clothes…"

"You have more at the house. You can change there."

Mathis agreed. She plucked at the ones she was still wearing after three days, trying to avoid the blood stains that were still there. "I don't ever want to see these again."

"I will dispose of them for you," Ziva promised her. "Come, Tony."

Jasper Figgerworth waited until the trio had left, and it was just himself and Gibbs. "You sound as if this thing ain't over, Gibbs."

"It's not," Gibbs told him. "I've still got a mystery: why did those carjackers come all the way out here to Starksville? I picked up the rental in D.C., and it sat in a parking garage for a day and a half in a Philly hotel. Why were they after it?" He folded his arms. "Or does it have something to do with Starksville? Talk, Jasper."

"I've been telling you the truth, Gibbs. Starksville is a quiet little place. Least it was until you all showed up." Sullen.

"Get any strangers passing through? Either for the day or a little longer? You've got some nice fishing around these parts, Jasper."

"We do at that." Jasper, his brain prodded into action, began working. "We had a couple and their two boys stop into Belker's place for ice cream on their way back home. Nice folks; didn't look like any problem. They moved on after an hour or so."

"Anyone else?"

"I can ask the others. There was that pair of men, almost a week ago, Gibbs." Jasper tried to remember the details. "Thought they looked a mite fishy. Said they were investigating the area, planning to set up a bunch of stores somewhere. Did a lot of looking around."

"You get any names?"

"Nope, but I told 'em to go look up Ms. Hester, over in Buckeye. She does all our real estate stuff when we need it."

"You get hold of her, Jasper." It didn't matter that Jasper wasn't in Gibbs' chain of command. "You find out their names."