Chapter 9

After calling Ducky to the crime scene, Tony was left in charge. Gibbs disappeared into thin air.

"Ziva, go talk to the janitor again. Make an appointment for him with our sketch artist." Tony said, immediately taking over from Gibbs.

"Go find Mr. Brown, got it," Ziva answered while walking away, already talking on her phone.

Tony called in a forensics team. When they arrived, he was a little surprised to find that only Palmer had come with them.

"Doctor Mallard thought I could handle it." Tony smiled; he grown like the kid. Not many people realized that he had become good friends with Palmer when Gibbs had left for Mexico.

"Well, tell me about this head." he said encouragingly.

"Well, obviously, the body is missing." Palmer answered, almost earning him a Gibbs-worthy head slap.

"Besides the obvious, Palmer!" Tony said with a smile.

"The head shows no sign of how he died, whether it was a natural death or murder." Taking the head out of the box, he continued. "It's a clean cut. It looks like it was sliced with a cheese slicer or something like that. Vonk was most likely dead before he was decapitated."

"Too bad," Ziva murmured.

"I'll take this with me" Palmer said pointing to the head. "Go find me a body to go with it!"

Ziva was startled by Palmer's orders and looked at Tony with huge eyes. She couldn't understand why he didn't smack Jimmy on the head.

"The janitor will be in to meet with the sketch artist as early as possible tomorrow morning. First, he has to make breakfast for his mother."

Tony wasn't surprised at all by that revelation. The man seemed unnaturally attached to his mother. It didn't take the forensics team long to process scene, and they didn't find much. No fingerprints on McGee's door, only a few fingerprints on the box, which were probably from the janitor. That was it. Tony whistled. "Let's go back to HQ!"

It was then that Tony and Ziva noticed Gibbs had taken the car and left them stranded. "That means that we have to drive back with the forensics team," Tony said, pretending he was close to crying. They would definitely have to sit in the back of the truck. But at least it was a ride back to headquarters.

Abby jumped on processing the fingerprints as soon as they came in. "Where is Gibbs?" she asked with her foot tapping the ground, impatient for the results.

Tony thought about that for a minute. He came to the conclusion that he didn't have any idea where his boss had disappeared to. "Dunno Abs, watcha got?"

"Well, every fingerprint on the outside of the box was from the janitor of course. But, at the end of the day, no criminal is going to outsmart a forensic scientist! There was a big fat fingerprint underneath the stamps!" She almost radiated joy at the pronouncement.

"Awesome job Abs!" Tony said. He gave her a peck on the cheek and left. "I really hate it when he does that," Abby said with a sigh.

"Does what?" Ziva looked really confused.

"Pretends to be Gibbs," Abby answered, her back to Ziva and her attention already returned to her work.

Tony was not surprised to find Gibbs in the observation room, studying Matt Tree.

"Why did he want my involvement?" Gibbs wondered.

"The man's sick boss. I don't think he needs a good reason for it. I mean, he hated me for pete's sake."

Gibbs chuckled: "He is not the only one to do that you know..."

Gibbs' phone rang. "Gibbs," he said. Tony could hear Abby on the other end. Gibbs closed the phone without saying goodbye. "His fingerprint is the one under the stamp. We have him."

They contemplated that revelation for a couple of minutes. Finally Gibbs growled "Let's get this dirtbag."

To Tony's surprise, Gibbs headed to the bullpen instead of the interrogation room. "Call the team together, I want everyone!" Without questioning the boss, Tony called everyone. Within a half an hour everyone was present in the bullpen. Tony felt like it was going to be a long afternoon, so he also decided to order some pizzas .

Everybody was delighted to see the giant stack of pizzas arrive. Just as they were digging into their meal, Ducky returned from the hospital.

"Timothy is making great progress, I asked the doctor to wait with bringing the lad back until we are there. That way he has familiar people with him when he wakes up."

Abby was happy to hear that and hugged the ME. "So, boss man, what's your plan?" she asked curiously, releasing Ducky and settling herself on the McGee's desk, her favorite place in the bullpen.

Gibbs looked at everyone and then signaled to Ziva to put something up at the plasma. First a picture of Matt Tree appeared on the screen, then another picture popped up. It was a picture a badly beaten McGee. Abby gasped aloud and looked away,

"This man tortured McGee, he killed his brother, he killed an innocent girl, God knows what else he did. And we're going to put him away. We are going to send him to death row."

"But before that can happen we need everything on this man. And when I say everything I mean everything. DiNozzo, you go find out anything you can about this man related to his criminal record. Call in as many favors as you have to but do it. Ziva, I want you to search his house. Take some probies with you and scour it from top to bottom, pull up the floors if you have to. Abby, the forensics has to be tight."

Abby looked very disappointed. "My work is always spic and span, Gibbs!" She told him.

Not answering to her, he continued. "Palmer, autopsy that head, Johnson's team is looking for the body. And Ducky. I want you to put together a profile about this creep. Go back to the day he was born. GO! GO! GO!" Gibbs yelled at the team, adding a little extra drama.

The team scattered and went to work. They where surprised when Cynthia brought everyone coffee, Caff-pow or tea.

"For McGee," she shrugged. Abby, surprised by the gesture, treated the woman to an enthusiastic Abby-hug.

"Oh! Okay, it's my pleasure" Cynthia said, almost running away. She liked Abby, but she also liked breathing.

A few minutes before three that afternoon, everyone was back in the bullpen and ready to report.

Ziva went first. "There were traces of explosives in the house, and we also found profiles, the same type as we found at Vonk's house. I think they will turn out to be copies. In the basement we found a lot of snakes; a few of them were alive, but most are dead. They look like lowland copperfields. I contacted animal control to remove them. Nothing else"

Tony continued. "Matt went to prison seven years ago. Got out two years ago. Was sometimes a suspect in fraud and blackmail cases, but was never caught. He always stays below the radar, just your friendly next door neighbor. He is on a lot of watch lists."

Everyone looked at Abby. "My work is fine", she said, angry anyone would doubt her work.

"Palmer, make me happy" Gibbs said, encouraging the man to speak.

"Well, the head didn't show any sign of abuse or torture. A little research showed that the head is severed with a guitar string. That takes quite a bit of force. As I said before, Vonk was dead before he was decapitated. In his brain, we found traces of poison. Abby is running tests now, but given the damage to the nerves, I am gonna guess that he was attacked by snakes. Probably the same species that killed Ryanne Star."

"Take it away Ducky," Abby said melodramatically when the man didn't start to talk right after his assistant.

"Thank you, Abigail. Well, surprisingly enough, Matt, born as Sijmen, had a relatively happy early childhood. Loving father and mother, three younger siblings who died in a car crash. The family always had at least two dogs. Father was a dentist, mother was housewife. Used to be a "geek" in high school and college. Joined the Marines right after college. Excellent record until he was arrested for drugs. It was all downhill from there. Given his history, I think his problems originated in his childhood. His other siblings perished when Matt was fourteen years old. He apparently suffers from survivor's guilt. He felt responsible for their deaths but it wasn't his fault. The things I've told you before still hold true. I think something happened to him in jail. But we need to get the records to be certain and that could take some time. So I think you have to work with this. When you talk to the man, I think you should be sure to mention his happy childhood."

Gibbs smiled at his team. "That's good work. Interrogation in thirty minutes. Tony, you'll be questioning him with me again. Go hit the head or something until then."

"I have to talk to Vance," Ziva said and left a sea of surprised faces behind as she walk away.

Tony ran after her up the stairs and grabbed her just before she entered the Director's office. "Scuttlebutt says you're pregnant."

Ziva smiled at this. "Do not worry pumpkin", she said with a fake smile plastered on her face, patting him on the cheek. "Everything will be alright."

Thirty minutes later, Tony and Ziva arrived just in time to see Gibbs enter interrogation. Tony hurried into the interrogation room behind his boss, while Ziva headed to observation. To everybody's surprise Matt immediately started to talk when Gibbs sat down next to Tony.

"I am guilty of killing Ryanne Star, Kevin Vels and Theo Vonk. I also tortured Special Agent McGee but not with the intention to kill. I was planning on killing Special Agent DiNozzo." With that he leaned back and looked at the surprised faces across the table.

Gibbs took just a minute to recover. "Why did you dye Ryanne's hair? Why the colored contact lenses? Why my name?"

Tree took a deep breath and started to answer the questions patiently, like he was just on a social visit. "You see, it was my brother's last wish to hurt you as much as possible. We spent weeks planning this. When I saw your face at the crime scene, I knew we had done it. Having this much power, it's great. And we needed to know that you would handle the crime, that's why we signed our little gift with your name."

This confused everybody even more. Last wish? Weeks of planning?

Tony decided to ask the question. "Would you care to explain the planning, and last wish part? Because my ears? They didn't really process that part."

Matt started laughing. "You people are so dumb! But I will explain it. When Theo was released from prison he told me he wanted to take revenge on you. So we started planning, but he didn't want to go to prison again, it was the worst thing ever happened to him. So he told me I had to murder him after he tortured your agent; so that he could be free from you forever. I said I would take all the blame. After all, I am the oldest brother in the end."

"Too bad we have an agent in the great hereafter to hunt him down." Tony said, thinking about Kate. "You know, sometimes I think that she is worse than Gibbs."

Suddenly the door flew open and Abby ran in.

"Well, well, Miss Sciuto, I didn't thought I would ever be meeting you in person. You are very fascinating, you know?" Matt said with a smirk.

"Shut up freak!" Abby yelled at Matt almost hysterical. Tony jumped up and tried to remove Abby from the room but something changed in Matt's expression.

"If she leaves, I won't talk anymore."

Gibbs and Tony exchanged concerned looks, but decided that getting the information from Tree was too important. Tony pulled a chair from the corner and let Abby join them.

"So why did you want to kill Tony, but ended torturing McGee?" Abby asked, still furious.

"Oh that's an easy one. I would finally have power over some sick and twisted college fratboy! His kind made my college life hell. Killing him was the least I could do. Too bad Gibbs decided to take McGee with him instead. McGee, he was one of us. But in order to cause Gibbs pain, I had to hurt him. So I decided to beat him up instead of killing him. It worked, too, I can tell just by looking at Gibbs' body language and your absurd reaction. I think you two should become a couple again."

Even though nobody understood this last part, they had just one question left to ask. Gibbs spoke up: "How could you kill your own brother?"

"That was the hardest part." Matt actually let a sob break through. "I just threw him in the basement with snakes. When he was dead, I thought it would be a nice touch to send the head to McGee's place. I thought about sending it to Agent DiNozzo's place, but I didn't know how long it would take you to find me. When you didn't find me soon enough I decided to take matters in to own hands."

He looked satisfied now. "That's it. Take me back to my cell. I'll see you all again at my trial."

Abby, Tony and Gibbs left the interrogation room. Tony actually had to drag Abby out since she was determent to kick the man again in his crown jewels.

"That was one of the strangest interrogations I've ever witnessed." Ducky said.

"Sorry, she was gone before I noticed." Ziva told Gibbs, referring to Abby.

"What did I tell you about apologies?" Gibbs answered with a smirk. He was just happy that he put away another jerk. If there was actual justice, Tree would get death penalty

Gibbs looked at his watch. It was 5pm. "Go home, shower and change, get something to eat and then get your asses to the hospital." Tony could have sworn that Gibbs looked happy, except that he knew that Gibbs didn't do happy.

Something had been bothering Ziva; Tony knew it. He grabbed her hand before she left. "Wanna do dinner?" he said. "Meet me in 45 minutes at the hospitals gate. I know a great place, my treat. " Without waiting for an answer, he left.

When he arrived at the car he saw a new text message from Ziva, "Ok',was the only thing it said.