Chapter 3
Back at the crime scene.
The silence in the room was palpable. Everyone had turned facing the body that up until that point they had assumed was an anonymous marine. Gibbs came too first, "Duck lets not make any hasty assumptions. I would hate to be investigating the murder of a superhero then see him on the 8 o'clock news." Upon hearing the doubt associated with his findings, Dr. Mallard went up on the defensive, "But Jethro, who other then an alien, like a Krytonian, could come out so well from being burned. Just look at his human counterpart next to him. There are no discernible features. Also, I am sure if I were to try to make an incision on his body with my regular tools they would not suffice because of his species' characterisitics." Gibbs took a step closer to Ducky and lowered his voice, "We will keep this point quiet until you are damn sure that one of Earth's greatest heroes is dead." At Gibbs's look, Ducky consented and in an equally quiet voice, "Alright for now we will go through the usual processes for identifying John Does. But I am telling you, Jethro, he is Superman." At that Gibbs and Ducky looked around the crime scene. "There's nothing more we can do here, the lab will help us get a more conclusive finding for time of death, cause of death, identification..."
During Gibbs and Ducky's hushed conversation, Ziva, Tony, and McGee continued on investigating with new determination. Ziva canvased the crime scene, 'If there had been many clues as to whether this was indeed a murder, and if it was murder who and why, they were probably all incinerated.' Despite her negative thoughts on the matter, Ziva continued looking around the crime scene and taking pictures of every inch of it. Just then something caught her eye in the corner.
Tony tried to lighten the mood a bit with, "So I think that this is way out of our jurisdiction, especially since this would become an intergalactic matter." When there was no response he continued, "You know how horrible American big wigs are, just think how bad superhuman big wigs could be." A mischievous glint caught in Tony's eye, "Better yet, imagine all the superhuman females we get to meet. Huh, am I right?" Tony was nudging McGee. "I'm sure you've thought of many superheroines, right?" McGee stopped his investigating to give Tony a look, while Tony kept on smiling and nodding his head. SLAP! SLAP! Gibbs hit Tony and McGee over head. A gruff "get back to work," floated from behind Gibbs as he continued on over to Ziva to see what she was intent on looking at.
"What did you find?", Gibbs asked as he crouched down beside Ziva. Ziva had crouched down to where there was a gap between a soot blackened steel box and the wall, and had gotten a pair of pincers out along with an evidence bag. She was eying something up, then lent in with the pincers and grabbed it. Bringing it to eye level, Gibbs saw that it was a gray feather. Ziva contemplated the possibilities of the feather. Then something struck her memory, something consisting of green tights and gray wings. "Doesn't Superman have an acquaintance who has feathers...what was his name...birdman? No, not bird, but some type of bird of prey...maybe Eagleman," Ziva was trying to grasp at her knowledge of the English language and their superheroes. "Hawkman." McGee supplied. "Thank you!" Ziva replied exultingly. Gibbs was still staring at the feather, his gut was telling him something about this feather. "I need coffee," Gibbs said as he came out of his crouching position, "Okay we are finished here, lets take everything back to base, have Abbie identify what kind of feather that is because if it's just a gull I really doubt that it is to blame for a double homicide. And everyone don't forget that there is a dead, possibly a Marine, here as well." As everyone packed up Gibbs thoughts clouded his mind, 'This case has barely anything to start with, only two burned bodies and a feather, but still if it was not for Ziva seeing that feather we would have even less. Sometimes it was really great to have a trained Mossad agent on the team.' Gibbs took a cursory glance at the crime scene again and issued orders to the agents left to bring in samples of the debris to Abbie's lab for testing, they still needed to figure out how the fire started.