Pedro Hernandez death revisited (short)
S7 E22 Borderland story AU - Gibbs isn't worried about the bullet
Xxxz
Gibbs walked through the automatic door to autopsy. "You wanted to see me, Duck?" He saw a body on a table. "I do hope that's not another victim I haven't heard about."
Ducky, sitting next to it, smiled slightly. "A victim, yes, but not our case. I'm helping Abby with one of hers. It's a cold case from her Mexican symposium."
"Ah," Gibbs replied, looking at the exhumed corpse.
Ducky indicated the deceased. "Meet Pedro. Remarkably well preserved for a 20 year old case."
"Pedro, huh?"
"I believe so." He looked toward his assistant who was sitting at a table nearby. "Mr. Palmer?"
Jimmy reached for the folder. "Uh… yep, Pedro Hernandez. Apparently a sniper gunned him down outside a small town in Mexico."
A vision of Pedro's head snapping and blood spraying flashed from Gibbs' memory.
Swiveling his chair, "The bullet that killed him ricocheted inside his skull. Abby thinks she might be able to trace the bullet, but it's pretty old."
"Abby, huh?" Why in the world was this coming up now?
Ducky kept working but announced, "Yes, however, I didn't call you down here to discuss ancient history. I've finished my psychological profile of our dead serial killer."
The ME went on about Corporal Collins and Gibbs listened, mostly, while also thinking about Pedro. He looked at the body, imagining the man before he died, and wished he could shoot him again. Or take the time to torture him before shooting him again.
He stopped day-dreaming when Ducky said, "but he shows none of the psychopathology that normally motivates a serial killer."
"Yeah, what motivated him?"
"I don't know. And until we know that, we know nothing."
Gibbs watched him probe a little more and then remove a bullet from the skull.
"Jethro, if you would be so kind."
Gibbs watched Ducky drop the bullet into a specimen jar in his hand.
"Mr. Palmer, would you run this up to Abby."
Jimmy headed out of autopsy and Gibbs helped Ducky put the body into a cold drawer.
"You don't need to do anymore on this guy?"
Ducky smiled wryly. "No, I think it's safe to say that bullet killed him."
Later that night Gibbs sat in his basement sipping bourbon. He told himself to relax but think. Why was that body coming up? What was someone's motivation for bringing it to Abby's attention? No doubt it was about him but why? And why now? Gibbs knew he'd have to wait a bit and see how things were playing out. One thing was certain. Abby wouldn't get a read on the bullet. He'd replaced the barrel on his rifle before he went to Mexico to find Pedro Hernandez and that barrel was now 20 years deep in a landfill after being scored with a rat tail file.
End
Thanks for reading.
Jethro, if, uh,
you would be so kind?
Mr. Palmer, would you
run this up to Abby?
I got it, Duck. I got it.
Oh, thank you, Jethro.
Gibbs.