Lethal Fractures: Chapter 9

A/N: Happy St. Patrick's Day! In recognition of wearing green, and in memory of the days when boots had to be polished, I've posted a picture of me ready to defend our country during my Officer Basic Course into my profile (limited time offer). Bonus points to anyone who can look at the picture and see why the idea of me defending anything in it is laughable :)

Agent Tim McGee glanced over at Abby Sciuto as they handed over their ID cards at the gates to Ft. Belvoir, where Army CID was housed. She had been rambling on about something since they had first gotten into the car at NCIS, excited about getting to leave the lab to do some "real field work". He hardly thought that leaving one forensics lab to visit another counted as "field work", but he wasn't going to destroy her fun.

They were easily waved through the gate, and they soon found themselves at CID headquarters, where they went through another security screen—Abby's forensics kit and the evidence from Jasper and Rodriguez had gotten some attention—before they were given visitor's passes and a uniformed escort to the lab. Their escort, who never gave his name, nodded once to them when they arrived at the lab, and then disappeared without a trace. McGee wondered if he'd reappear when it was time for them to go.

The CID lab couldn't have been more different than its counterpart at NCIS. Sure, McGee could identify the mass spectrometer and the series of benchtop microscopes and centrifuges and superglue chambers for fingerprints, but where Abby's lab was dark and mysterious—just the way she liked it—everything here was white and chrome and gleamed like a gourmet kitchen.

"And when you're done with that, Sergeant, I'd like you to get started on the DNA evidence from the Johansen case." They heard a muffled "yes, sir" in response before a man came into view.

Like his lab, Christopher James was the antithesis of his NCIS counterpart. Where Abby had a larger than life presence—due, in part, to her appearance—her height, the large platform boots, the tattoos and short skirts—and in part due to her effervescent personality, James seemed to blend into the background, a slight young man with thick glasses and a white coat that matched his gleaming lab. "My assistant," he said as a way of explanation.

"I had one of those once," Abby mentioned. "He tried to frame one of our agents for murder."

"Bummer," James replied, as if there was nothing unusual about that statement. He held out a short hand. "Chris James."

"Abby Sciuto," Abby replied, taking it. With her boots on, she was easily seven inches taller than this guy. "Do you have a last name somewhere, Chris James?"

He chuckled the way one who had heard the joke a thousand times would. "My middle name is Hanson," he said. "I used to accuse my parents of getting confused on the birth certificate. You have the evidence from the Rodriguez/Jasper case?"

And just like that, it was down to business. Abby quickly explained what she had found, pulling vials and small plastic baggies out so James could see the findings she was referring to. "The polish came back Kiwi Parade Gloss," she said after a long story about how she had found the black flakes on Jasper's shirt.

"Anything significant about that?"

"Only if you consider the fact that it's, like, the second most popular type of black shoe polish, right after Kiwi paste polish," Abby said. Gibbs had said that Kiwi Parade Gloss was what he had used; Gracy had said the same thing.

"So no use tracking down purchases."

"Nope."

"Hmm. Did you try running it for DNA? Maybe he spit-shines his boots."

"I thought about that," Abby said. "But my boss says that 'spit-shine' is just an expression." Gibbs had explained to her in great detail how to shine boots to get a finish you could use as a mirror, which apparently was the goal. You filled the lid of the polish tin with water, then got a small amount of polish on the polish cloth, dampened it with the water from the lid, and rubbed a small section of the boot until it was as shiny as it got. Then you repeated that over and over until both boots were gleaming black. It sounded like far too much work for footwear that was meant to get dirty.

James had the evidence boxes lined up from the previous three cases, which all occurred before he began at CID, making Abby suddenly feel very old. McGee took a seat at one of the benches several meters away as they discussed how to go about searching the old evidence for the black flakes of polish—what was the refractive index of this particular boot polish? Would darkening the lab and using a polarized light source work? What about the ALS? Finally, they decided on the old-fashioned way: use them each one at a time and hope that something came up. The geeky little CID scientist was starting to get excited as he considered his prospects for publication. To the best of his knowledge, nobody had ever published how to detect shoe polish on clothing before. To fill the time, McGee idly ran a Google search to see if that were true, thinking as he did so that DiNozzo would be scoffing and calling him 'McGoogle'.

"McGee," Abby called to him impatiently. He glanced up to see her wearing the familiar yet still comical orange plastic goggles for using the ALS. "Are you going to grab a light source and help us, or do we have to do everything by ourselves?"

"Oh," he replied, standing up. "I didn't realize you wanted my help."

"Well, it would make this go faster. Do you know how many potential light sources we could search with?" He didn't, and made the mistake of saying so, which started both Abby and James on a long back-and-forth of the various lights and filters they could think of. It was a lot. He hoped they found something before they got through that list.

Each armed with a sample of that make of shoe polish dried onto an index card—Abby thought about everything, as usual—they began testing light sources, looking for one that would reflect the polish or cause it to glow or get any sort of reaction that would make finding it on clothing easy. After the first hour, McGee began to feel discouraged, but Abby and James seemed to get more into the experiment with each potential light source they rejected, going into great details about what that said about the polish's chemical composition and placing bets on which light source would be successful.

"Ah-ha!" Abby finally declared as she held up what looked like a flashlight. "We have a winner. The Parade Gloss glows like my next door neighbor's house at Christmas when you change the dielectric constant of the light source." She went into a very lengthy explanation that, even with his engineering background, McGee had a hard time following. Chris James appeared to be hanging onto every word.

"Wow," James said thoughtfully when she was done. "I wouldn't have guessed that."

"Pay up, Army boy," the NCIS forensic scientist ordered smugly. Chris James gave a good natured groan before pulling out his wallet and handing over a half-punched frequent-buyer card for a local smoothie place.

"That's what you were betting?" McGee asked with a frown. "Abby, you don't even like smoothies."

"I know that," she replied, tucking the card in a pocket of her skirt McGee hadn't realized existed. "But I was betting my Caf-Pow card, so I really didn't want to lose. So, now that we have the right tool for the job, let's get to work."

To confirm that their light source would work on a real sample, not just an index card, they gently removed Staff Sergeant Jasper's shirt from the evidence bag and scanned the light over it. Sure enough, the three dusty footprints Abby had found the day before all gleamed as the light hit the microscopic specs of boot polish that remained. They also checked his jeans and found a similar, previously undetected spot on Jasper's left hip, indicating that he had been kicked four times, not just three, as they had thought. Not that it changed anything; he was still just as dead.

With a deliberate, almost reverent manner, they slowly removed the clothing from the previous cases from their evidence boxes and got to work, not missing a square centimeter of clothing from any of the six victims. Beginning to get into the task, McGee hadn't even noticed the passage of time.

"Well, that was Lt. Olafsen," James said as he set aside a pair of dark blue jeans, dejection heavy in his voice, "the last of our victims, and there was nothing on any of them."

"Cheer up, Man Without A Last Name," Abby said, her voice still chipper. "Good forensic science is about finding the right answer, not about finding the answer you were looking for. Every finding is important, even a negative. Now we know that none of the other victims was kicked by someone wearing polished shoes or boots."

"Do you think that's significant?"

She shrugged. "Ours is not to question why, Christopher, just how. If the autopsy reports and anthropology reports come back saying that this case isn't related, then that explains why we couldn't find polish on any of the other victims. But if they are related, then this could be a clue that our killer hadn't left before. And besides." She put on a wide grin, "we answered the age-old question of how to find flakes of shoe polish on clothing. Well, not age-old, maybe. More like hours-old. But the length of time people have been asking shouldn't lessen a great scientific discovery. Isn't that right, McGee?" The NCIS field agent, his mind growing numb from the hours of shining lights at objects in the name of this 'great scientific discovery', wasn't paying attention. "McGee!"

"Right, Abby." Often, it was easier to agree with her than explain that he hadn't been hanging on her every word.

---

McGee called Gibbs to tell him about their discovery—or rather, lack thereof—on the drive back from Ft. Belvoir, and Gibbs figured that the CID forensic scientist had been just as prompt at getting information to Agent Wang, because the CID agent called him as soon as he hung up the phone with McGee to ask if he would come over. Gibbs wasn't sure what he could possibly have to talk about that couldn't be discussed over the phone, but he wasn't doing anything anyway, and figured a change of scenery could do him some good.

Surprisingly, traffic was light on the drive into Virginia, and it wasn't long until Gibbs was passing through security at CID headquarters and on his way to see his counterpart. As before, he was directed toward the conference room before he could even ask which office was Wang's. He figured the agent and his team had taken up residence there for the duration of the case.

"You rang?" he asked sarcastically as he entered the space. Wang glanced up and waved him over to where he stood, scrawling information on a white board.

"I take it you've heard from your people about the boot polish," the CID agent began.

"You didn't ask me to risk DC traffic to ask me that."

Wang nodded as he continued writing. Gibbs could see that he was making notes of facts about the case. He had seen other agents do this, often at the FBI, but he never saw the point. It was easier to keep everything in his head.

The CID agent capped the marker and turned to Gibbs, who was still reading what Wang had written. His last entry, just added, was 'Boot polish: Army before 2005?' "How does that help you?" he finally asked.

Wang shrugged. "I don't know yet. At this point, I'm just trying to sort out my thoughts. Listen, Gibbs, I know you don't have that high of an opinion about me, but I'm not going to take that personally, since I've heard you don't have a high opinion of anyone. But I was given this case because of my experience. I may be new to CID, but before coming here, I was at the FBI for seven years, five of which were spent chasing pattern killers. So I don't need you to be telling me how to do my job."

"Wasn't planning on it."

"Right. Quite frankly, I'm annoyed that you're here, involved with this case. I'm annoyed that our killer had the bad manners to murder himself a Marine and get you here. But since you're here and showing no signs of leaving any time soon, I'm going to use you as I see fit. This is a CID investigation first and foremost, and I'm in charge. That means that I call the shots. I decide who does what, and I decide when we're going to bring in an expert."

"I wasn't aware we needed one."

"Well, I decided we did, and like I said, I call the shots. I gave the former special agent in charge a call for a consultation. Now, I expect you to play nice. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly. Are you done?"

"Do you have something to say?"

Gibbs studied the agent as he took a sip of his coffee. "Just this: you may have experience tracking your so-called 'pattern killers', but there's more to this case than some nut-job living out his murder fantasies over and over. This is a military crime. You're going to need someone who has experience with the military and knows what it means to serve. If you're going to be calling in any 'experts', I suggest you forget about the special agent who couldn't solve the case in the first place and start with a woman who has Army officer experience."

"Well, it just so happens, Jethro, that the 'special agent who couldn't solve the case in the first place' happens to be a woman with Army officer experience." Gibbs turned quickly at the sound of the voice he hadn't heard in years to find her standing in the doorway. She looked older than he remembered, but it could have been the fatigue from a full day of travel and six-hour time zone difference. The blond hair in a ponytail and confident stance were certainly the same as they were then.

"Special Agent Gibbs, I believe you've met Retired Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann. The previous special agent in charge."