Chapter Eight
Answers and Agony
Gibbs, DiNozzo, McGee and David stood in a semi-circle about Abby as she explained, speaking in her customary '33 rpm record on a 45 turntable' manner, tapping into that ultimate 'Caf-Pow!' reserve in an effort to keep from being interrupted.
"First the similarities: When Dawn and Dorothy Higgins were assaulted the perp got into the houses without being seen. Both times he used the back door, but in neither case was there any indication that he had come through the woods, and he had to. The fronts of the houses are simply too open – he couldn't approach without being seen.
"Dawn was taking in her laundry from the back yard where she'd left it overnight. He slipped past her while she was listening to her Walkman. Higgins was coming in through the front door from her early morning jog when she was grabbed about 0500. Both were grabbed from behind, rendered unconscious, though he beat the hell out of Higgins first, and when they were out they were stripped, their hands were bound over their heads with electrical tape and tied to tables.
"Their ankles were taped as well, Dawn's to a broom handle and Higgins to a mop. Both had black hoods shoved over their heads, possibly the same one. They couldn't see anything. Both said they could feel especially smooth sensations rather than bare flesh, I think he used latex gloves. But in the struggle with Dawn one of the fingertips was torn; she thinks she bit it. Either way, I managed to lift one print off the broom handle." She indicated the enlarged powdered image. On the left side of the screen hundreds of images flicker past, their only commonality being the whorl shape rather than an arch or delta.
"I'm running the print against Selective Services records as well as Sex Crimes Lists. The number of Servicemen seems to be less," she said with heavy irony.
"Get on with it." Gibbs' patience was strained. He was still waiting for the proof to back up her assertion that they were looking for a Marine.
"Okay. The creep used a condom in both rapes, but obviously it's not because he's a nice guy. He didn't want to leave any DNA traces any more than he wanted fingerprints. There were also no tracks at all around the house; at least none the Troopers found though we could be more thorough. He was meticulous, but not meticulous enough. The rape kit they used on Dawn in the hospital turned up four pubic hairs that were combed out of hers." She pointed to the Electrophoresis machine. "I'm running DNA as well as Microscopic Analysis."
"You were ordered to turn over everything to the Virginia State Troopers," Gibbs didn't believe he needed to remind her.
"I gave them three! I just … held onto one." He didn't want to continue the fight. "Anyway, it was a kinky black hair, and I'll have a match before I'm through."
She tried to forget the fact that if she did not convince her friends of her allegations, she was indeed through.
x
"Now look at this." She picked up a remote control, aiming it at the wide plasma screen set above a freestanding console in the middle of the room. On it appeared several consecutive pictures of bite marks, the images so close that only in a few could they be seen to be indentations on breasts. The wounds were still livid hours after the attack, and were particularly distinguished by the four round holes, two at either side of top and bottom. "I can't get a dental impression from those teeth, and I'll give you one guess why not."
"They're fake," DiNozzo declared definitely.
"Right. Plastic upper and lower sets marketed as 'Vampire Fangs' in half the Novelty stores in the country, though they really should be marketed as 'Werewolf Fangs', because vampires don't have an enlarged lower set, just upper canines. Anyway, cut off the fangs and you're left with these sorts of holes."
"But if he bit them, even with fake teeth, couldn't you get a DNA sampling from the saliva?" Tim asked.
"No, this guy's crafty. He used a solution of ammonia and bleach when he was done. It obliterated any DNA samples. What I got was utterly useless, a microscopic jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing."
"Sounds like he has most of his bases covered." DiNozzo had no love for smart perps.
"I thought so too, but he slipped up on one point. He was too smart for his own good."
"That kind I like," Gibbs said. "What did he do?"
"It was both times when he choked them, first to knock them out so he could tape them up, the second when he was done so he could get away." She looked over the four of them. "Ziva, would you help me out with this part?"
The dark haired woman stepped closer. "What do I do?"
"Not much," she told her rival, unable to keep from feeling a tang of dislike for the woman who had stolen Tim McGee's affections from her. "Just let me strangle you."
x
"Now here's where that ba - guy slipped up." She took Ziva's arm and turned the woman around, getting behind her. "Now most people," she continued the lecture, feeling a little like Ducky when he got onto one of his pedantic digressions, "when they try to choke someone, go for the whole neck. They try to constrict the entire throat, and have to fight the neck muscles."
She first put her hands, then her arm, around Ziva's throat, the second time demonstrating a classic choke hold, pressing one hand with the other to tighten her elbow about the woman's neck, not letting anything show in her expression about how good it felt. She realized she'd missed the actual moment in their relationship where active dislike had turned to hatred.
"Doing that takes a lot of strength," she continued, feeling she was preaching to the choir. These were all experienced Criminal Investigators, even, she had to reluctantly admit, the woman whose throat was still trapped in the crook of her arm.
"But that's not how this guy did it," she emphasized, reluctant to let go while she had the woman's throat in so vulnerable a position. "Now Dawn's less than an inch shorter than I am, and she says that when he pulled her backward his mouth was right at her ear, so I put him at about 5 - 11, so scrunch down." She pushed down on Ziva's shoulders and the woman bent her knees until her ear was level with Abby's mouth.
"Now, the first thing this guy did was come up behind her and put his left hand over her mouth, pulling her backward." She did the same to Ziva. "She screamed. But he also reached around her," she continued, doing so, "and grabbed her left breast and squeezed it hard." She restrained herself from doing so, just applying half pressure, her fingernails pressing into the woman's breast. She was not at all surprised that Ziva wore no bra under her black tee shirt.
"Now Dawn could still breathe, so when he squeezed her breast he made her scream even more." Ziva obligingly screamed, a quiet yell. "He made her completely empty her lungs…" Ziva did so, "…and then he did this."
Abby's left hand slipped from Ziva's mouth, and with her thumb and first two fingers she pinched the front of the woman's throat. Instantly Ziva was silenced, her trachea closed. Her eyes bulged and she tried to draw air into her depleted lungs, but she could get nothing through the light pressure of Abby's fingers. As the others looked on in mounting concern, Ziva reached up and pulled at Abby's hand, but Abby held on firmly. "Her reaction would instinctively be to pry his hand away, so he did this!"
With all her strength she squeezed, digging her long fingernails as hard as she could into her rival's breast. Ziva convulsed in agony, but she yanked Abby's hand from her throat and pried the other from her tortured breast, turned and slammed both hands into Abby's chest and shoved her away.
"All right! I get it!" she exclaimed furiously. How she restrained herself from punching the woman she never knew, but Abby continued the lecture as though nothing untoward had happened.
"The pain in these women's breasts confused their oxygen-depleted minds. The reflex action to break the hold strangling them was overwhelmed by the intense pain and they lost valuable seconds struggling to break that grip on their breasts. It took about ten seconds for them, panicked, tortured and suffocated, to pass out."
Ziva, holding her breast, fought the lingering pain. Abby had dug her fingernails in very hard, and she knew her breast would be sore for hours. "You didn't have to be so demonstrative."
"Maybe not, but do you all see my point? Ninety nine point nine nines percent of people think that to strangle someone you need to go for the whole neck, maybe even with a garrote, or to hang someone. Hardly anyone knows it only takes six to eight ounces of pressure to strangle someone who can't break the hold. Best of all, there's no wheezing, no groaning, no cry for help, nothing."
"Special Ops will use that method," Gibbs concluded, "SEALS, Covert Tactics. It's perfect for taking out a Sentry, or any other time you need to kill silently but not leave marks. Silence them, then move on."
"Exactly. We're looking for someone who has been trained to kill."
xx
With this much evidence to tentatively support her assertion, Abby won from Gibbs a temporary approval to continue her search, using the DNA and fingerprint samples to try to find a military connection. If the link led not to Navy or Marine, but to Army or some other branch, they would call upon their appropriate counterpart agency. For now, she had her 'go', and that was all she wanted.
When her associates left, satisfied that there was at least a tenuous connection to work on, Tim McGee was the last one out. He held back long enough to lose the others at the elevator. He signaled them to depart, catching a look of lingering anger in Ziva's eyes, then returned to the Lab. Abby, her hands clasped before her, watched his approach. He came up to barely a foot from her.
"What was that all about?"
She looked down. "What was what all about, Tim?" Her evasiveness was hindered since she couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. She looked no higher than his cheeks, pretending to look at him while avoiding it.
"You know what. That demonstration."
"I was showing how the rapist did what he did." She could only look at him for brief instants.
"That was more than demonstrating a choke hold. It looked more like you were trying to rip Ziva's breast off."
She turned away. "Don't be ridiculous, Tim."
He stepped in front of her. "Ridiculous? There was no need for that demonstration at all. Everything you showed us you could have just told us."
She was still looking no higher than his chest. "Not really."
"Abby." She did not look up. "Look at me." It was several moments before she could comply. She didn't want to hold his eyes, but he compelled her to. "We've known each other too long; far too long for lies between us. I was watching your eyes. You hurt her because you wanted to."
"No I didn't." But she could not hide behind a false smile of innocence. "I … didn't." The lie grew worse the second time she tried. She stepped around him, going deeper into her lab, her sanctuary, but he took her arm, stopped her.
"Come on, Abby. We're friends. I want you to level with me." He made her turn back to him. "You two have never gotten along, so be it. If you two can't be friends, that's one thing, but the antipathy has never led to violence." She looked away. "What is it between you two?"
She turned, unable to stand the pain any longer. "You want to know what's between us, Tim? You really want to know?"
"Yes, Abby, I really want to know."
"All right!" She clenched the lapels of his jacket with both fists and yanked him down to her, pressing her lips to his with a vehemence that surprised both of them. She held the kiss, driving months of fiery passion and need into him. She put everything she had into it, everything she felt, everything she was and dreamed and longed for.
Finally, after an eternity, she let the astonished man away, but only a few inches. "You're what's between us, Tim McGee. Damn it, I love you!"
x
Abby clutched his jacket so tightly her hands hurt, looking into his face, into his eyes, searching desperately. He seemed to have no words to answer her and the seconds strained on into eternity. "Tim, I just said 'I love you'. Don't you even have anything to say to me?"
But he said nothing, completely lost for words. She could see in his eyes that he was groping; hunting for something to say, searching for something that would not hurt her. Slowly he straightened and she let him, but she kept hold of his jacket. He closed his hands gently over hers.
"Abby, I can't think of anything to say to do justice to you."
"You could say you love me." She tried not to allow a pleading tone to invade her voice, but she had shown him her naked heart and had nothing left to defend herself with.
"Abby …" he began, so clearly searching for the right words. "I have always loved you as –."
"If you say 'as a friend' or 'as a sister' I swear I'm going to cry," she declared, her voice breaking.
He shook his head, not wanting to say this, not wanting to hurt her.
x
"Abby, I wish I knew what to tell you. I've always had feelings for you – but if I were to say 'if this were any other time' or 'if you'd said this two months ago', or two years – I'd only hurt you and I do not want to do that. I care about you - very, very much. I even love you. The times we shared are special to me."
"They're special to me too, Tim." But even as she looked up at him, imploring his return, she knew it wasn't going to work. They weren't going to get back what they once had, and the pain of that was worse than she'd expected.
"But I'm with Ziva now." She felt the knife twist in her heart. "I don't know where it will go. I don't even honestly know where we will go, if there might be something in our future. Who knows? I can't." He stopped, seeing that his efforts to ease her pain were only making it worse.
"Abby, I'm in a relationship I can't just walk away from. I really am very, very sorry. I don't ever want to hurt you, I love you too much for that, but I can't change how things are." He straightened out of her grasp. "I'm sorry."
He backed away, seeing she was at her end and not wanting her to suffer any more by losing the last of her self control in front of him. "I'm sorry."
He turned and walked away to the back hall. She watched him go through the back door to the stairwell rather than up in the elevator, and felt her heart rip out of her chest in an attempt to follow him.
Turning away, she felt a tear slip down her cheek. "Ducky!" she whispered; her voice breaking, 'you tried to warn me." She squeezed her eyes closed, more tears tricking down her face. "Why didn't I listen?"
xx
Tim McGee ascended the stairs one level after another, his mind on the woman he'd left behind, wondering what he could have said that would have eased her pain, that could have made things better. He didn't really believe anything could.
Arriving at the Operations level, he reached for the metal door but it swung rapidly away from him and Ziva David was as surprised as he was. The difference between them was that where he was concerned, distressed and introspective; she was furious.
The door swung closed behind her, trapping them on the small landing at the top of the stairs. Ziva held her hand over her left breast.
x
"What's wrong?" he asked, doubting that in her burning fury he had a need to, but using it to open the conversation anyway. He knew he had taken the stairs to give himself time to think, but Ziva's appearance on these stairs was not good. This stairwell allowed unannounced access to the lab.
"The little bitch drew blood! I have had it! I am going down there to have it out with her."
Tim, a step down from her, raised his hands. "Please don't." He had left Abby wounded. This wouldn't be a battle but a slaughter.
She tried to step around him on the small landing. "Get out of my way."
He took a step down, and grasped both hand rails, completely blocking her, but she came down until their bodies almost touched, she on the next step. This put them eye to eye, but where his were imploring, hers were filled with a deadly fury.
"Ziva, I'm asking you: Let this go."
She was surprised, but by no means less angry. "Why?"
"Ziva, I love you. And I'm asking you. Please." He let go of the rails. They were nearly touching and if she wanted to get by, she'd have to shove him down the stairs. "Let this go."
She stared, searched for some kind of answer, searched for some justification for this or some reason to be even angrier. He can virtually hear her thinking. 'What had happened between them down there?' "Why?"
"Please."
He gave her nothing, no clue, no reason, just and only his plea for her to reject or not. Finally: "All right. It will not change anything."
He stepped up to her level, reached out and touched her sore breast. "I'll kiss it and make it better."
She could not help but smile at the incongruity of the offer. His palm cupping her breast did, in fact, already make her feel better. "Now that is an offer that just might be worth it."
Just might?"
She grinned, allowing him to draw her closer into his arms, and even as they kissed in this secret place, enjoying the spice of knowing full well that the door could open at any moment, he was sure he could count on her to let him keep his promise.
xxx
Hours passed. Afternoon bled into evening and darkened into night, and still Abby Sciuto worked alone in her lab, pouring over every bit of evidence she could reconstruct, looking for every clue she could, searching her memory for any tiny fragment of information she could have missed. She thought intently about the minutes she'd spent in the cabin while collecting clothes for her friend's overnight stay, searching her memory for anything she could find to help her. She had not had her camera, but she trusted the detail of her memory, and scrutinized the mental images for everything she could find which would catch this bastard.
Two tiny chimes rang virtually together, a completely unwarranted coincidence that flared Abby's hopes as she looked up, incipient sleep banished from her mind.
"No!" she cried. Across the screen she had pinned so many of her hopes on was a livid red bar declaring the soul stabbing proclamation 'Negative Match'.
She turned to the Electrophoresis machine. "No! No No No No NO!" Her voice rose to a yell as the red bar screamed 'Negative Match' at her.
Nowhere in the Sex Crimes database or in the collective records of the Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force or Coast Guard was there any record of the person that she hunted.
Worse than a total washout, her entire reprieve had hinged upon the Military connection that could justify her assertions and her actions. Without them, the axe would fall upon her instead.
Picking up the telephone receiver, she glanced at the clock and changed her mind. Quarter after twelve. Her call of surrender to Gibbs could wait until morning. Before then, she had a more important call to make. She punched the number and listened to the ringing. This time it wasn't twenty times. "Hello?"
"Hi, Sunshine, it's me. Please, before you–" **click**.
Abby sighed, the receiver slipping from her fingers to clatter onto the desk.
xxx
Christine Martinka fought the pain as his teeth bit hard into her right breast. She refused to scream, refused to give any satisfaction to the brutal animal that lay upon her, slamming his hips into hers, invading her with bruising force, trying to hurt her as much as he could.
He'd started with a brutal punch to the side of her face as she'd stood washing dishes in her kitchen, having no idea he was there. That punch had splintered her glasses, sending them flying from her face, rendering her sightless, her vision blurred. The brutal beating that followed was only because he could pummel a blinded and defenseless woman into submission, mercilessly knocking her about the room. When he'd strangled her into unconsciousness she'd already been under him, unable to move.
She'd awoken worse than blind, head covered by a foul smelling bag, blackness her world, wrists bound over her head and legs held far apart, the animal already within her!
But she was determined to resist him. Concentrating, she relaxed her body, relaxed the muscles deep within her, completely relaxed and made herself limp. He might take her, but she could deny him any pleasure.
He bit her breasts over and over, the pain almost breaking her concentration, but she fought it down. She kept herself limp, relaxed, felt him slam into her with brutal force but gave no pressure back even in her pain. He grunted and sweated, the drops falling down upon her bare chest, but she gave him nothing but as loose a passage as she possibly could.
x
Finally, with a cry of frustrated lust, he pulled out of her and his hand clutched the hood, wrenched it off her head, pulled several red hairs from her scalp. She squinted into the light but without her glasses his body was a darker blur surrounded by the lighter blur of the kitchen ceiling. "Bitch, you lie like a fucking rug!"
"Just get done, will you? I want to douche you out of me."
He drew back, and suddenly she felt something long and very hard shoved deep into her. This time she couldn't fight the pain of the brutal metallic invasion. She writhed in panicked agony, knowing what it was. "Douche this!"
In the small kitchen, the explosion was deafening, but she never heard it.