I'm sorry that I couldn't upload earlier but I have too much stuff to do. I got ideas for at least four new fanfictions (1 DW, 2 ST and 1 NCIS) but I have no time to write. I will try to continue uploading this story but my last exam of the first exam phase will be on 9th of July, so expect more activity of me after that. Not to mention that I got to prepare the second exam phase in September...
Chapter 9
It was 25 days later that the team got another case that was different to the usual ones. Actually, no murder was usual. Each and every one of them were individual and stated someone's feeling, someone's opinion. A murder was not such a light thing to talk about like all the TV series and movies used to do. Although Washington DC had oceanic climate, it was a hot summer morning and the temperatures were rising non-stop.
"How the hell can he drink coffee?" Marissa asked when they picked their rucksacks from the NCIS-van and observed Gibbs calmly nipping his coffee while talking to the jogger who had found the body.
"This man is dead for about four hours now, so he was probably murdered between six and seven o'clock this morning," Ducky said and wiped the temperature measuring device clean and handed it to Mr Palmer.
"Someone was meeting this guy here," McGee commented and photographed the different set of footprints. "Size 9, a woman's sport shoe, I'd guess her for about one meter eighty high."
"And you wonder why you haven't got a girlfriend?" Tony teased him. "And here's his cell," he said when he founded the phone in the inner jacket pocket. He put it into a plastic bag and named it with his name, location of finding, date, time and case number.
"I hacked the phone," Abby said with a big smile when McGee and Tony entered her lab.
"Congrats," McGee answered surprised about why Abby was so happy.
"And I found this," she explained and opened the window showing the connection between phone and computer.
"He's keeping his schedule on his phone?" Tony asked. "My God, he has been found with drugs and writes down when and where to purchase them? That's really stupid."
"But like that he can't come too late to meetings, can he?" McGee asked.
"That's not what I wanted to show you," Abby said. "By the way, he had noted the meeting of this morning as well. He was supposed to meet at 6 am at the North Park where you found him – and look, he wrote down 'K, H – bring $'."
"That looks like his apartment," Marissa mentioned. She had just entered the lab as well and carried a box of new evidence from the flat of the victim. "He wasn't clean, but tidied everything up. Books in alphabetical order, movies in chronological order, everything. And his drugs sorted by type. We assume that he was a dealer, but not only involved into drugs but also lower crime," she explained.
"So he was there to buy some new stuff," McGee deduced.
"He hadn't had much with him, so he was murdered before the deal could be established," Abby added.
"But if he had dealt with that other person, wouldn't he – or if McGee is right with his footprints – she have taken the rest of the drugs he carried?" Tony wondered loudly.
"Not if the deal wasn't about drugs. Perhaps she promised him drugs, but then wanted to hire him for a small job. That's the way it worked for him, we heard. The other guys in the apartment building were very cooperative when you threatened them with a house search," Marissa said.
"You're all missing the point," Abby intervened. "He has marked another meeting for today. At 1 pm," she said and zoomed in the virtual time schedule.
"If agree, re-meet at 1pm," McGee read. "Wow, he left an address."
"No one ever expects their phones to be searched," Marissa said.
"It's a hotel. Perhaps his killer is still there. He won't know that we can trace him back with this idiot's cell phone schedule," Tony noticed alarmed. McGee and Marissa nodded and rushed with him to the elevator.
"Thanks, Abs," Abby muttered silently, sighed, and turned back to the computer.
Ten minutes later already did the four agents step out of the car in front of the hotel. It was only a small one and very hidden in the back of a dark alley. The temperature had increased even more and all of them were sweating under bullet-proof vests. Trash lying around and organic waste inside the rubbish containers were stinking and Tony had to hold his hand over his mouth when they passed the small street. The smell became better when reaching the hotel. It was an old building and plastering was flaking off from the walls. Gibbs entered first and told Marissa to stay outside and secure this entrance. McGee and Tony followed their boss inside. At the reception, a bald, fat guy was reading a one year old edition of The Green Lantern. "What can I do for you?" he asked bored.
"NCIS. Who's in room 347?" Gibbs asked. He nodded over to McGee and pointed at a back entrance.
"Sarah Smith," the guy answered when he looked it up on a very old computer.
"Great. An alias," Tony muttered but Gibbs was already climbing up the stairs. McGee stayed behind, in case that whoever they were going to find was about to flee.
Tony was a little bit out of breath when they reached the third floor. They walked along the corridor and around a corner until they reached the room. "Shall we first knock?" Tony asked and Gibbs nodded.
He knocked three times and shouted, "NCIS. Please open the door!"
First, they heard nothing at all, suddenly something like a vase hit the ground. Tony stepped back when Gibbs kicked in the door which opened with a loud bang. There was no one in the room but the window on the opposite side was unmistakably open. A plastic vase lay on the dirty carpet, water still dripping out.
"Look, boss, the boots," Tony said and pointed at a pair of dirty boots in a corner. But the boss had already ran to the window. There was a fire escape ladder leading down to the roof of the next building. He could only see a shillhouette disappearing out of his point of view. He touched his earpiece, "Marissa, McGee. Suspect fled over the fire escape. He or she is on the next building's roof."
Gibbs was about to run out of the room, when Tony noticed, "boss. It's a woman."
The boss came back and had a look into the bag which lay opened on the bed. Someone had been packing already. Some shirts lay across the bed, most of them already folded neatly.
Both of them took the stairs down and ran out of the building where they already spotted Marissa at the end of the street. She was kneeling on someone who she just put on handcuffs. McGee ran out of the building after them. "Wow, the probie got her," Tony remarked, but his good mood was immediately gone when they came closer to the suspect. "Oh no," he muttered and put back his gun into his holster again. She definitely was known to the team.
Tony entered the interrogation room on his own. He wondered why Gibbs didn't want to conduct the interview. He sat down and opened the file of the woman in front of him.
"Doesn't look good, Katarina," he noticed. She didn't answer, so he continued. "Forensics analysed the earth under the boots we found in your apartment. The composition of the earth matches the soil in the park where we found this person here," he took a photo and placed it directly in front of her. She took a long look, her face expressing nothing, and she looked back at him.
"There is a certain species of ants living in the park, but it's hardly possible to get them into nature conservation. However, larvae in a specific stadium were found both under your boots and at the crime scene."
"Couldn't it have been possible that I walked there – with my boots, in case I wore them, through the park before the murder happened?" she asked calmly.
"First of all, you wore the boots. We found socks whose fibres were matching those inside the boots. And inside the socks we found your DNA."
"How can you be so sure that it was my DNA when a proper test takes at least ten hours and you arrested me less than seventy minutes ago?"
"We – will match the found skin particles to you," Tony corrected and cursed himself. So bluffing wasn't the right thing to do towards her. "And secondly," he resumed, "we found blood inside the footprint at the crime scene. Would the blood have been added later, the drop would have dried on the soil, as it could hardly absorb any liquids. But the blood had been stomped into the footprint, so the blood was first – and then came the footprint."
Tony looked at her for a while, her tranquillity had vanished. She wiped away a strand of hair hanging down into her face and stared at the body picture taken during the autopsy in front of her.
"Either you tell us now why and for whom you killed that man, or it is time to call your lawyer," Tony mentioned and then added, "you have been sloppy, Katarina. I wouldn't have expected that from you...you hadn't had enough time to get rid of the boots, didn't you?"
Slightly, she nodded, still not saying a word. That moment, the door went open and Gibbs entered the room. He threw his mobile phone onto the table. "Call your lawyer," he ordered and waited until she hesitatingly picked it up. "Now!"
After she had explained a lawyer her situation, she put the mobile back on the table. "He will be here in twenty minutes," she noted. But Gibbs pushed the phone back to her. "And now call your sister."
"What?"
"Just call her. Explain what happened," Gibbs said and left the room without another word.
"Just – do it," Tony advised her and Katarina dialled her number.
It rang several times before Caroline answered the phone. Tony observed closely, and wasn't surprised that Katarina switched to Italian. Luckily, Tony had brushed up his Italian only a little while ago. Katarina explained the situation, and probably received some advises how to react now. When she hang up, she gave the mobile back to the special agent.
"How did she take it?" he asked.
"Better than I would have thought. I assume she expected me getting caught sooner or later anyway," Katarina sighed.