Lethal Fractures: Chapter 8

There had been very few changes made to the NCIS forensics lab in the last two years; at least, very few changes that Gracy could identify. She was sure that Abby Sciuto would point out a new poster or a different way of organizing the flasks and bottles of varying shapes, but she wisely didn't ask as she followed Agent Gibbs into the space. "What've you got for me, Abs?" Gibbs asked as they walked in.

"Geez, Gibbs, you've been gone for like, three seconds. I may be good, but I'm not that good." The Goth forensic scientist glanced up to see Gracy standing there as well. If she even noticed the Army major's uniform, she gave no reaction. Until she addressed her, that is. "Major," she greeted with a nod.

"Abby," Gracy replied in the same tone of voice.

"So, this is the shirt Staff Sergeant Jasper was wearing when he died," Abby began without any further pleasantries, pointing at the tee-shirt Gracy remembered cutting from the sergeant's body prior to Ducky beginning the autopsy. "The one from that midnight half-marathon thing." She hadn't needed to say that; Gracy recognized the design on the back, as she had one of her own. The four service logos—Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force—lined the top, and underneath was a comical, not-to-scale depiction of a man in an unidentifiable camouflage uniform with a full pack and Kevlar helmet running on a path that wound around a building that was supposed to represent the hospital. "The GSR is all over the front of the shirt, so he was facing the shooter when he died. But you knew that already, since you saw the bullet hole."

"Well, now we have forensic proof that he was wearing his shirt correctly when he died, instead of having the back to the front and vise versa," Gracy commented, fighting to keep a straight face. As a forensic science major prior to going to medical school, she remembered the basic tenant of not believing anything until you have proof that it was so. She remembered going out of her way to describe things that should have gone without saying, just to demonstrate to her professors that she wasn't assuming anything.

"Assuming that his head was on properly, of course," Abby replied with a nod.

"It was. I was there for the autopsy."

"That's good. Although it would have been really cool if it weren't. I bet I could get a publication for that. Speaking of which, Ducky showed me the article you wrote while you were in Hawaii about the effects of transdermal—"

"Abby, we don't have all day."

"Sorry, Gibbs. We'll talk later," she said to Gracy. "Now, I found something else when I was testing for the GSR. Other than the GSR, of course, which I expected to find. And did. But I also found these." She proudly pointed to a spot on the shirt that once covered Jasper's left torso and abdomen. Both Gracy and Gibbs leaned forward.

"Dirt?" Gracy finally asked.

"Yes! But the way that it's centered into these areas tells me that he didn't get this dirt on him when he fell after he was shot. I'm pretty sure it came from being kicked."

"Someone kicked him when he was down."

"That does seem rather cliché, doesn't it?" Abby agreed. "Unfortunately, whoever it was, probably the guy who killed him, kicked him with the toe of his shoe, so there's no prints. But I did take samples of the dirt and look at it under the microscope, over here." She pointed at the piece of equipment. "And I put it up on the plasma for Gibbs, since I know he can never see anything under the microscope."

Gracy grinned at the comment before lowering her face to the eyepiece of the microscope, expertly adjusting it with the ease of someone who used such a piece of equipment on a daily basis. She frowned slightly as black flecks came into view, using the fine focus to move the image up and down to try to figure out how thick they were. It was very thin, practically just a film. "Now, I put some of the dirt with these black things into the Mass Spec, but we don't have an answer just yet. Major Mass Spec is a very hard worker, but sometimes he takes a little of time to get the right answer."

The pathologist straightened from the microscope, a frown on her face as she tried to figure out something that she knew she was only seconds from grasping. The dust on the shirt, kicking with the toe of a shoe, the black flakes... At the same time, both Gibbs and Gracy came up with the answer. "Boot polish," they said in unison. Abby blinked in surprise.

"Whoa," she said. "That was really cool. Do it again. Ready... go!" She waited for them to speak again, but they just looked at her before turning to each other.

"I remember shining boots," Gracy mused. "Such a pain, and the polish really did flake off in these thin layers. When I was down in San Antonio for Officer Basic, we had to polish them every night, because the heat would melt the polish, and they'd be dull again by dinner." She had a sudden flash of memory: sitting cross-legged on the floor of Shaena's quarters, her polish tin open at her feet, a damp rag in her hand as they laughed about the boys in their platoon. "I was really glad when the Army switched to tan boots." She frowned. "When was the last time Marines wore boots that had to be shined?"

"The Marines introduced tan boots in 2002, which was three years before Sergeant Jasper enlisted. Everyone was in tan by 2004."

"So Jasper probably didn't shine his own boots and then kick his own shirt," Gracy said thoughtfully. "Would he have used polish for his wingtips?"

"I don't think he would have kicked himself in the side," Abby chimed in. "And he was wearing running shoes, not his wingtips."

"Assuming that he was kicked the night he died," Gracy argued. "I don't remember any bruising on his left flank, but sometimes perimortem bruising takes a day or so to develop. I'll have to take another look—or have Ducky take another look—at the body. But if he was kicked that night, then we're looking for someone who was either wearing black polished shoes to commit double homicide, or someone with a pair of polished black boots, which would mean a Marine issued boots before 2002, or Army before 2005, Air Force before 2008, or Navy before..." She frowned. "When did the Navy change uniforms?"

"The blue camo was available in 2009 and not required until earlier this year," Gibbs informed her.

"Ugliest camouflage ever, by the way," Gracy mused. "And blue camouflage? What are they trying to blend into, the ocean? Don't you think if someone fell into the ocean that they'd want to be seen?" Gibbs had to smile slightly at the small rant; he also felt that the Navy's new blue camouflage uniforms were a little ridiculous. "The other thing to consider is that somebody bought a pair of combat boots from a surplus store, but why put the effort into shining them if you don't have to? And who wears combat boots in August if they don't have to? If we catch this guy, I hope his lawyer uses some sort of diminished capacity defense, because anyone who wears boots when not required is clearly insane."

"I wear boots when not required. And in August," Abby chimed in.

"I stand corrected."

"If this is someone with a vendetta against female Army officers, it could be someone who was in the Army," Gibbs commented. "Which would mean that it was someone who had joined the Army before 2005."

"We knew that already," Gracy pointed out. "The first murder happened in 2003. Unless he started this vendetta, and then joined the Army, which would be a little strange, to say the least. The question would be, was boot polish found at any of the previous crime scenes, or is this new? And if it is new, does it mean we're dealing with a new killer, or is the old one getting sloppy?"

---

After leaving NCIS, Gracy immediately put aside all thoughts of polished combat boots and killers with vendettas against Army officers out of her head as she listened to the excited prattle coming from the backseat. Nate, who at two weeks shy of his seventh birthday was already showing signs of inheriting his father's talent with computers, couldn't stop talking about the computer game Agent McGee had shown him, which had a concept Gracy couldn't seem to grasp, although she was thinking it had something to do with espionage and shooting people, with an educational twist that reminded her of playing Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego?. As Nate was the son of two Army officers, one of which had been in Intelligence, she supposed it would have been a little hypocritical of her to complain about him playing such games. And from the way Maddie was going on about the stories Officer David had told and some of the things she had shown her, Gracy supposed her daughter had a new role model. She figured she would rather have Maddie idolize the Mossad officer—trained assassin or not—than any current Hollywood starlet.

They succeeded in finding most of what they would need for school at the Exchange—although the selection of clothes for pre-teens prompted Gracy to promise her daughter a trip to the mall in the near future—and also picked up some odds and ends for the house that either hadn't made the trip from Hawaii or were needed to accommodate the extra space in the larger house. A brief stroll through the Class Six—she knew the Exchange wine and liquor store wasn't called a Class Six on a Marine base, but Army habits died hard—produced a few bottles of wine for the housewarming party that Gracy had planned somewhere in the back of her mind.

Their next stop after shopping was Arlington National Cemetery, close enough to the Exchange that they had seen grave stones from their position in the parking garage. The previous good mood was replaced by a slightly somber one as the three prepared for their first visit in two and a half years. It had actually been Maddie's idea over breakfast a few days before, and since then, she had been obsessed with traditional protocol for visiting a grave. Should she bring flowers, she wanted to know, or was that too girly? Gracy told her that she could bring whatever she wanted to bring, or nothing at all. Any choice would be appropriate. She asked if she should speak to the grave marker as if speaking to her father, and again, her mother replied that she could do whatever she felt like doing. She explained that protocols weren't as important as paying the respects that one came to give.

Nate, who had been too young to remember his father when he had left for war, and fortunately slept through the nightmarish drama that followed his death, seemed almost lost in their planning for this visit to the cemetery. Gracy often wondered how losing his father when he was so young would affect him. Unlike his older sister, he didn't even have memories of his own to go along with the stories of the man he knew only from photographs. He seemed to have made up his mind about what his father would or wouldn't like, however, probably from a combination of the stories he had heard and his own impressions of what was and was not acceptable. He declared that he wouldn't bring flowers, but wanted to bring a flag. Gracy was surprised at the request before remembering that his first-grade class the year before had gone to a national cemetery in Hawaii on Memorial Day and placed flags on the graves of soldiers who had died in battle.

The sun was beginning to set as they crossed the cemetery toward the section where Major Scott Jaser Gracy was laid to rest, which, strangely enough, reminded Gracy that they hadn't had dinner yet; she would take the kids to a restaurant when they were done here. She saw in the distance a row of Marines lined up with their rifles to give a salute at a funeral, and flinched at the sound of the report. She wasn't normally jumpy around gunfire, but hearing it a cemetery brought back unpleasant memories. She wondered briefly what she had looked like that day. It had been a cold but clear day in December. She had worn her black trench coat over her dress blue uniform. Actually, the first trench coat she had removed from the closet had been Scott's; she hadn't realized until she had put it on that she had the wrong one...

She blinked at the memory, and found herself stopped in motion in front of a stone simply marked with the insignia of the Army's Intelligence Corps and the words "Scott Jaser Gracy, MAJ, US Army, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, SEP 7, 1974-NOV 17, 2007". The date he died was an estimation, her estimation, based on an autopsy she performed on a dining room table.

"Mom?" Maddie asked uncertainly, her blue eyes turned toward her mother. The blue eyes, like the black hair, were just like her father's. Gracy gave her daughter an encouraging smile.

"You can put the flowers down in front of the headstone, if you want," she told her. Maddie nodded and placed the flowers on the ground gently before speaking hesitantly.

"I hope you like carnations, Daddy," she said. "They had blue ones, and I remembered that you liked blue." Maddie had agonized over the flower selections earlier that day, asking Sonja multiple times about her father's flower preference. Did he like these? What about these? Gracy had tried to remember what kind of boutonnière he had when they got married when she remembered belatedly that he had been wearing his dress uniform. Good God, how did I forget that?

Nate had confidently stuck the pole of the flag into the ground, then seemed uncertain of what to do next, looking up at her expectantly. With those dark blue eyes, his dark hair buzzed short for the summer, his already olive skin further tanned by the hours outdoors, he looked almost like a miniature version of his father. She smiled down at him and rubbed the top of his head before returning her attention to the gravestone.

She studied it for a minute, thinking about how little it revealed; just the bare facts of his life—his name, the day he was born, the day she thinks he died. Nowhere did it mention that he had been captured in the desert half a world away and tortured until he died. Nowhere did it say anything about the wife and children he left behind, or that his own father had died when the embassy he had been guarding was attacked when Scott was eight years old, or the fact that he could speak three languages like a native, or even that he loved to study history, but was terrible at remembering dates that events occurred.

She let her mind wander as she stood there, remembering the first time she had visited Arlington. She had been twenty-two, recently married, recently commissioned into the Army. It was August, actually—almost fourteen years to the day ago. She had completed her Officer Basic Course and was ready to start medical school, Scott was on leave from Intelligence training. He had suggested the trip, and she had eagerly agreed, armed with a list of famous graves she wanted to see. It had taken awhile, but they finally found the area she was looking for, the section were she could find the greats of Army medicine—Reed, Sabin, Gorgas. She remembered the way Scott laughed at her childish delight at seeing the final resting places of the men she had studied with wonder. She had vowed then that someday when they had children, she would bring them back there to tell them about yellow fever and polio and tell them how those men had helped make the world the place it is today. Someday, when Maddie and Nate were old enough, she would do that. And she would tell them about their father's laughter and how he teased her.

Staring at the gravestone, the one far away from those men she had admired, she still felt sad, still felt the loss of the man she planned on growing old with, but she no longer felt that paralyzing grief that had ruled her life for too long. With a sad smile, she touched her fingers to her lips, then to the gravestone. She had touched her fingers to Scott's lips much in the same way the last time she saw him alive, before he crossed through the security gate at the airport to catch the plane that would take him to Iraq. "I miss you," she finally murmured. Then she turned away and took her children's hands in hers, and headed back to the car to get something to eat.