Lethal Fractures: Chapter 10
Despite the surprise of seeing Mann again after four years of no contact, Gibbs quickly got down to work. Confident that Wang had already filled the former CID agent in on the case, he cut to the chase. "I know you've already sent agents to do so, but I'd like my people to check out Captain Rodriguez's home. Seeing as she died just outside her building, I think our killer might have been watching her. We'd need to see the crime scene as well."
"You're about half an hour behind the eight ball, Gibbs," Wang told him. "After we heard back from Chris about the boot polish, I sent an agent back to her condo to check it out. Rodriguez was ROTC before the Army put her through veterinary school—in all, she's been in in one form or another for almost twelve years. The Army didn't introduce ACU's and tan boots until six years ago and didn't make them required until four years ago. We wanted to exclude the possibility that she still had a pair of black boots and polish in her home before declaring that the polish came from the killer. Your Agent DiNozzo requested that he and Officer David go along and take a look at the crime scene as well. I gave them my blessing."
Gibbs nodded. He wasn't surprised at DiNozzo's initiative—after all, Gibbs himself had trained him—but was a little annoyed that he hadn't called to give an update. Then he pulled out his phone and saw that he had one missed call from Ziva. So maybe they hadn't forgotten about their boss after all. He looked up and turned to Mann. "You want to come?"
She looked like she was going to refuse for a second—after all, she had probably just gotten off a twelve-hour flight that was likely spent reading through the case notes, and time-zone wise probably should have been sleeping—but she changed her mind and gave a crisp nod. "Has your driving improved at all, or should I borrow a car from CID and drive myself?" His only answer to that was to grin.
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They were almost into Maryland when they spoke again. "I see you still think of traffic laws as guidelines," Mann said sarcastically as Gibbs accelerated past another car. When the NCIS agent didn't reply, she changed the subject. "So DiNozzo did something without prior approval from the boss? I find that hard to believe."
"It's been awhile since you've been around," he replied. She flushed slightly at the unspoken words underneath the statement. "DiNozzo's been showing a lot more independence lately. He's bucking for his own team."
"That I really find it hard to believe." The Agent Tony DiNozzo she remembered seemed to practically worship the ground his boss walked on; she couldn't imagine him wanting to get away and be out on his own.
"Hell, it's about time," Gibbs scoffed. "He's been working for me for too damned long."
"Any idea where he wants to go?"
Gibbs shrugged. "Probably somewhere in the Middle East. Ziva's been talking about the possibility of going home."
Maybe it was her jet-lagged brain that failed to make the connection, but she couldn't see what the Mossad liaison wanting to return to Israel had to do with the senior field wanting a position in the Middle East. "What does that have to do with anything?"
He looked surprised at the question, then starting chuckling. "Hell, Holly, they've been sleeping together for the last two years. It's about time things started to get serious."
Wow. A lot had changed since she left DC. "They're sleeping together and you're okay with that?" she asked incredulously. "Whatever happened to the all-important rules?"
He shrugged. "I told them to keep it out of the office. Hasn't been a problem."
They arrived at the Chevy Chase condominium complex to find the NCIS evidence truck parked about a block away, close to the municipal park where Jasper and Rodriguez had been killed. They headed in that direction to see DiNozzo walk up the short path toward the truck, his NCIS cap backwards and a camera around his neck. "Hey, Boss," he called when he saw them approach, then did a double-take at who was with Gibbs. "Colonel?"
"Hello, DiNozzo," she said calmly. The senior field agent continued to look confused, his eyes going from his boss to the former Army officer and back again.
"Agent Wang called in a consult," Gibbs finally explained. "Holly was the senior agent in charge of the original three cases. You find anything?"
"No," DiNozzo replied, instantly back to business. "Apartment's clean, no signs of black boots or polish anywhere. She had a lot of pictures on her walls—a magazine ad for Mizuno shoes staring Rodriguez, some other pictures from races, a couple of her with Jasper, mostly shots of her and friends or family. Only other decoration was her undergraduate diploma, a BS in zoology from University of Washington. Ziva thinks her vet school diploma is at her office on base. She probably has a lot of deployment-related stuff there too, because there's not a lot here." He placed the camera in its carrying case in the back of the truck and grabbed a bottle of water. "Only other thing of note is that her condo faces the street—living room, bedroom, and bath all visible from the front. If our guy was watching her, he could see her come and go from the front door and watch her at home from the same spot. She has blinds on the window, but they're up now, might be like that all of the time. She has a dog, but CID already passed it along to one of her coworkers to take care of."
"And the crime scene?" Gibbs asked as the three headed back toward the park. DiNozzo shook his head again.
"Nothing there either, Boss. CID released the scene on Friday, so that's not a big surprise." They arrived back to find Ziva David leaning back on a park bench, her eyes closed. DiNozzo handed her the bottle of water, which she took a long swig from, swished it around her mouth, and spit it out. Gibbs raised his eyebrows.
"You pregnant, Officer David?" he asked, only half joking.
"I better not be," she said darkly as she took another sip of water. "I would have some strong words for the pharmaceutical company that produces my birth control if I were."
"You and me both," DiNozzo quipped. Neither Gibbs nor Mann missed his hand gently kneading the back of her neck before pulling away.
"You know, DiNozzo, the only hundred percent effective method of birth control is abstinence," Gibbs dead-panned.
Ziva spared DiNozzo from having to answer. "I do not think that is an option, Gibbs."
Tony grinned down at her before turned back to his boss. "She had some leftover Chinese for lunch," he said as an explanation.
"Then why aren't you sick, DiNozzo?"
Ziva snorted. "Tony does not eat leftovers," she said in a slightly mocking tone. Gibbs figured there was more to that story, but he didn't care to know.
"I hope you weren't puking all over my crime scene."
"The scene has been released, Gibbs," she reminded him. "And no, I did not. I used the trash can." She pointed at a metal bin on the other side of the small park. "I assume Tony already told you that we did not find anything of interest in the apartment?"
"Just some photos and a view of the street."
She nodded. "The apartment is on the eleventh floor," she said. "It would be difficult for someone to see into the rooms from ground level across the street. Even with binoculars, there is not much that can be seen at that angle except the ceiling. He would also be too obvious—a man with a pair of binoculars pointed into a condominium complex is sure to be noticed. He would likely be in a building with a view of the front of Rodriguez's building. There is one in the final stages of construction and not yet occupied that fits that description. I spoke to the building manager, who said that there is one security guard at night who guards the building. No surveillance is in place yet. The guard who was on duty on Wednesday night was a Joe Avila. I got his contact information from the building manager."
Gibbs nodded, but it was Mann who spoke. "Could be a suspect, or could just be a lousy security guard."
"Right," DiNozzo agreed. "Either way, we were going to round him up when we were done here and take him in for questioning."
"Do it," Gibbs ordered. "Give Agent Wang a call first and let him know what you're doing. I want him to think that we play nice." He paused, then added, "But bring him into NCIS."
DiNozzo grinned. "Sure thing, Boss."
"You have the keys to Rodriguez's place?"
DiNozzo nodded and handed them over. "Going up to take a look?"
Gibbs gave him a look. "No, DiNozzo, I just decided that I wanted to start a key collection."
"Right, Boss. Stupid question." DiNozzo smacked himself in the back of the head before Gibbs and Mann walked off. Mann waited until they were out of earshot before she turned back to Gibbs.
"Well, at least you still have him well-trained."
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Just as DiNozzo and David reported, there was not much of interest in Captain Rodriguez's one-bedroom condo. There were quite a few pictures of Rodriguez running, and even more of her with friends—in and out of uniform—and family, including one with her parents. Gibbs figured her mother's blond hair and blue eyes provided a fairly good explanation for McGee's observation about how light-skinned Rodriguez was. As both NCIS agents had observed, the condo was on the front of the building, facing the street, and Gibbs could see the unfinished construction site less than a block away. He was sure that if he had a good pair of binoculars, he wouldn't have any problems seeing inside the building, or the other way around.
"Not much remarkable in ways of pins and ribbons," Mann observed, holding out Rodriguez's dark blue service jacket. It was similar the one Gibbs had seen on Gracy the day before, except her shoulder tabs had the silver 'railroad tracks' of a captain, her caduceus lapel pins bore a 'V' of the Veterinary Corps, and Rodriguez lacked any special pins above her rows of ribbons, where Gracy wore her Combat Medic Badge and Airborne pins. "She seems to have done just what was expected of her for her rank, and not much more."
"Probably biding her time until she could leave the Army," Gibbs remarked. "She owed five years of service from her time in ROTC, and if the Army pays for vets the way they pay for doctors, another four for vet school."
"Three," Mann contradicted with a shake of her head. "Medical students can get all four years of school paid for. Vet students have to pay for their first year, but they only owe three when they're done." At his raised eyebrows, she replied, "We had a case of a vet who wanted to leave the Army early shortly after I joined CID. It came up." She didn't ask how he knew about how much time physicians owed the Army.
He nodded. "So she owed eight years after completing vet school. Graduated four years ago, had another four to go. Probably would have made major in another two years."
"Yeah," Mann agreed before she replaced the uniform. "I don't see how that helps us any. None of the victims were especially remarkable officers, either good or bad. Rodriguez was the only one who had been deployed, but that was two years ago."
"They were all ROTC," Gibbs suggested. He took a quick picture of a photo on the wall, a young Rodriguez in the Army's old Battle Dress Uniform, a cadet rank on her patrol cap, three other grinning female cadets with her.
Mann shook her head. "So are about seventy-five percent of all Army officers," she pointed out. "West Point only produces about eight hundred new second lieutenants a year, of which only about a hundred are women. The rest come from ROTC, Officer Candidate School, or direct commissions in the medical, legal, or chaplain fields. And if someone had a grudge against women in ROTC, why wait to kill them until they're officers? Why not attack cadets? There must be something about these officers, something they said or did, or someone they met. I just wish we knew what that something was."