Lethal Fractures: Chapter 5
As it turned out, there wasn't much for the team to do until Monday anyway. Despite his promise, CID Special Agent Wang seemed unwilling to share any information related to the case until he had seen the autopsy reports, which left Gibbs and his team searching background information on Staff Sergeant Nicholas Jasper, unsure of what they were looking for, except anything that could explain his connection with Captain Jessa Rodriguez. By the end of the day on Friday, they knew where Jasper had grown up and how he had done in school, but still had no explanation for what he was doing outside Rodriguez's Chevy Chase condo on Wednesday night. Exasperated, Gibbs sent them home and told them to enjoy the weekend. They figured it might be the last free one they had in awhile.
When he still hadn't heard back from Wang by morning, Gibbs decided that it was time to take matters into his own hands. "DiNozzo," he barked, lobbing a set of keys in the direction of his senior field agent. "Gas the Charger. We're going on a field trip."
"I forgot to get my permission slip signed, Boss," DiNozzo replied with a grin, glad to be given something to do. Gibbs looked less than amused, and DiNozzo quickly slipped away, a chuckling Ziva in tow, McGee bringing up the rear. Gibbs checked with Ducky one last time—still no updates—before heading down the garage to join them.
Despite the very similar missions of the two agencies, NCIS and CID didn't work together often, and Gibbs found himself wondering when the last time had been that he entered the gates at Ft. Belvoir. He wondered if it really could have been two and a half years before, when he and Major Gracy—then CID Special Agent Gracy—had come to arrest her late husband's commanding officer for treason and conspiracy to commit murder. He wondered briefly what had become of Lars Hauser. Last he had heard, the former colonel was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in Ft. Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. It had only been a deal made with the US Attorney that prevented him from being sent to Guantanamo Bay with his co-conspirators.
He pushed those thoughts aside as he led his team of agents into CID headquarters and up to where he assumed Special Agent Wang's office was. A friendly yet bewildered agent had informed them that Wang and his team were currently meeting in a conference room, where she led them.
"You must be NCIS," the man Gibbs assumed to be Special Agent Wang—he was the only one of Asian descent in the room—said after stunned silence had followed the team's entry into the conference room.
"That's right," Gibbs said calmly. "If I had known there would be a meeting, we would have gotten here sooner." The CID agent had no reply to that as he motioned his agent to proceed with his presentation.
"To, uh, bring our NCIS colleagues up to speed, I was just going over the forensics report from Chris—uh, that's Christopher James, our forensic scientist. The bullet that killed Staff Sergeant Jasper is a standard 9mm bullet, nothing remarkable about make or model. Rifling and ammo is consistent with the gun fired in the previous three attacks. As in the previous cases, Dr. Rodriguez's Common Access Card was found discarded on top of her body." A crime scene photo of the crumpled body of a petite dark-haired woman was on the screen, her neck turned to an impossible angle. Resting face-down over her abdomen was the white rectangle of her military ID card. "Uh—"
"Did you say Dr. Rodriguez?" Gibbs interrupted. The agent blinked once in surprise before answering.
"Uh, yes, uh, sir. Captain Rodriguez is a veterinarian for the working dogs at Quantico. Uh, there doesn't appear to be any care given to the placement of the ID card over the body, which is consistent with the previous attacks. It appears that it was removed from Dr. Rodriguez's ID wallet on her lanyard and tossed onto her body. There were two sets of fingerprints on the card, one of which is Rodriguez and one is that of Matthew Gonzalez. He's with the security company that guards the gate on post."
"Is he a suspect?" Ziva asked.
"He's clean," another agent informed her. "Just moved to the DC area five months ago with his wife and kids. He was at Pizza Hut with them to celebrate his daughter's perfect report card or some such thing until 2045 on Wednesday and then went home with them. Everyone says he was there until he left for the base Thursday morning." Ziva nodded, and the previous agent continued.
"There were also some smudges, including those consistent with synthetic gloves, likely nitrile—"
"Anyone check into people who would have nitrile gloves?" Gibbs interrupted. The agent shook his head.
"Nitrile gloves are just as common, if not more so, than latex these days," he informed the NCIS agent. "Anyone can get them. Uh, we haven't gotten her clothes back from NCIS yet, so, uh—"
"I'll make sure you get Abby's report," Gibbs said, glancing over at Wang. He left when you start cooperating out. He was sure it was assumed.
"Uh, thanks. So, uh, onto Jasper." A new picture appeared on the screen, this time of man with light hair buzzed short and a bullet hole through his forehead. He was wearing a dark blue tee-shirt with what appeared to be a unit logo where the left front pocket would be on a dress shirt. The familiar white rectangle of his ID was seen next to that logo on his chest. "Unlike the previous crimes, Jasper's ID is prominently displayed. In all the other attacks, the men had no identification on them, but as you can see here, Jasper's CAC is face-up and properly oriented."
"He wanted whoever found the bodies to know who he was," DiNozzo chimed in.
"Uh, that's what we assumed as well, Agent, uh—"
"DiNozzo."
"Right. We, uh, couldn't figure out why, though."
"Were the previous male victims in the military?" Ziva asked thoughtfully. "Maybe the killer has a fixation with military ID cards, and that is why he has always left the female victims' ID cards visible."
"But they weren't displayed like Jasper's," DiNozzo pointed out.
"That is true."
"To answer Agent, uh—"
"David," Ziva filled in. "Officer Ziva David, Mossad liaison." There was a brief period of silence in the room, interrupted by DiNozzo's snicker, which was cut off by Ziva's elbow jabbing into his abdomen.
"Uh, to answer Officer David's question, no, the previous male victims were not associated with the armed forces, either in the past or when they were killed. That was another difference between this crime and others. Uh, like Rodriguez, the only prints on Jasper's card are his own and two contracted guards—"
"And they both have alibis, before you ask," Wang informed the NCIS agents.
"Right. And, uh, some smudges and some patterns consistent with synthetic gloves. As far as the footprints..." Gibbs let his mind wander as the CID agent explained, in painstaking detail, he various prints he had found on the path and the weather conditions in the few days leading up to Wednesday's murders and the numbers of joggers and walkers that use that trail. He found himself focusing on the photo of Jasper, still displayed on the large screen.
"That unit patch," he finally said, interrupting whatever the young agent was saying about the difference between running shoes and walking shoes. "That's not from around here." As one, all heads turned toward the screen, eyes narrowed into squints. The agent controlling the display enhanced the image and oriented it properly to help them out.
"We hadn't gotten to that," Wang finally said. "This is the only picture where that's visible, and you guys have his actual shirt."
Gibbs ignored the unspoken jab. "That's Fleet Hospital 3 in Iraq," he said.
"Wow, Boss, you knew that off the top of your head?" DiNozzo asked in wonder. Gibbs didn't tell him that he recognized it because he had seen the Navy hospital's patch pinned to a bulletin board in a morgue office in Ibn Sina more than a year before. A teasing comment about liking Marines passed through his mind.
"Jasper was deployed to Iraq two years ago, Boss," McGee chimed in. "He was with an engineering brigade. I don't know why he would have been at the hospital. There's no record of any injury in his file."
"The shirt's from a race," one of the CID agents chimed in. "See? Under the logo it says 'Fleet Hospital 3 Midnight Half-Marathon'. Your staff sergeant must have been a runner. Captain Rodriguez used to run professionally for Mizuno, the shoe company, when she was in vet school. She was in Iraq at the same time, could have been at that race."
"Could be where they met," McGee said, vocalizing what they were all thinking.
Wang shook his head slightly, not to disagree with the statement, but in an expression of frustration. "That's all well and good," he said, "but it does nothing to explain why these two—or the previous six—are dead."
"What do the couples have in common?" one of the CID agents asked. "Other than the women all being Army officers."
"Well, that's your common link," Gibbs pointed out. "Maybe this has nothing to do with the men at all, and they were simply dating the wrong women. Wouldn't be the first time that happened."
"What're you thinking, Boss? Someone that has something against women officers?" DiNozzo asked with a frown. Gibbs shrugged a shoulder.
"Could be. Or it could be these officers specifically." He frowned as he studied the pictures of the women, taped on a white board against the opposite wall. "Two captains, a first lieutenant, and a second lieutenant."
"Those are all fairly junior ranks," Ziva pointed out. One of the CID agents shook her head.
"I don't know if that's relevant," she said. "There are more captains than any other officer rank in the Army, because unless there's an unusual separation—medical discharge, death, etc—you're going to reach captain before your contract is up, but not everyone will reach major. And women are more likely than men to leave as soon as their first contract expires."
"What about their jobs?" DiNozzo asked. Again, the agent shook her head.
"A nurse, a quartermaster, an instructor, and a vet. Nothing. Both Macintosh and Rodriguez went through Officer Basic Course at Ft. Sam, but it was two different courses—nursing corps and combined medical/dental/veterinary corps—and did so years apart. Other than that, none of them have had any of the same assignments or been posted to the same base. Literally the only thing they have in common is that they're officers in the Army."
"And female," Gibbs reminded her. "That seems to be specific."
"They're all white," McGee chimed in. "Well, Rodriguez is a Hispanic name, but she's fairly light-skinned."
"Again, not relevant." This time it was Wang who spoke. "Eighty-five percent of Army officers are white. Statistically speaking, if you randomly pick four Army officers, you have higher odds of ending up with four white Army officers than getting any minorities. We've already been over this, before you guys arrived. Listen, I don't mean to sound territorial about this—"
"Then don't," Gibbs interrupted.
"—But we agreed to share our notes regarding Staff Sergeant Jasper's murder. The rest of this is still a CID investigation," he continued, ignoring the NCIS agent.
"Sergeant Jasper and Captain Rodriguez were killed by the same person," Gibbs pointed out, "and until someone proves otherwise, that person killed the other six as well. I don't see how we can share Jasper's notes without getting into the other cases. Like it or not, Agent Wang, you're stuck with us for awhile."