As the doors closed on Carrie, McGee moved over to where Abby was standing at her computer and stood behind her.
"So, what do you think of Carrie?" said McGee. ‘Great' thought Abby, not only does he like Carrie, he's going to rub it in my face as well.
"She seems nice," returned Abby. It was probably best not to let on her wariness of Carrie in case it put a wedge between him and her self. On the other hand she didn't want to be too enthusiastic and encourage McGee into Carries arms. She had decided on a neutral answer.
"She is nice," replied McGee. Truth be told, he didn't really know what he'd wanted the answer to be. Abby could never feel for him. All of Abby past boyfriends had been exciting and knew about plastic death etc. McGee was a nerd who's life involved going home and engrossing in a game of dungeons and dragons. There was no way Abby would ever even look at McGee. "Here, let me have a go at trying to pull up something on Mandi King" McGee said as he reached around Abby and put his hand on the keyboard. They stood like that for a couple of seconds, as Abby didn't want to move. She enjoyed being this close to McGee she could smell his aftershave. It was an odd scent for a man like McGee to have. It was strong and reminded Abby of the men's changing room at a boxing arena. She had visited that place a lot with one of her past boyfriends who was a boxer, but never quite saw McGee fitting in there. She liked it though, it suited McGee in her eyes. Abby suddenly realised that she had not moved out of the way and quickly hopped to the side.
"Sorry" she said, fearing that McGee would have guessed and things would become weird.
"For what" said McGee innocently, turning his head to look at Abby. He had enjoyed that moment, being that close to her. He enjoyed all the little moments that they had. It made him feel attached to Abby in some way and that was comforting.
"Nothing" said Abby trying to play the while thing down and turned to watch the screen as McGee did his thing. "I'm telling you there is nothing on a Mandi King anywhere"
***
Now he'd managed to get everyone out of the room, Gibbs took the stairs to the directors office two at a time. He burst through her door to find an empty office. He backtracked a few steps and walked towards and lent over Director Sheppard's assistant's desk.
"Where is she?"
"She's in MTAC at the moment sir, if you'd wait…" Gibbs was gone. He paced himself over to MTAC's door and let himself in. He walked down the aisle and sat in the seat behind Director Sheppard.
"Good afternoon Jethro" She said before Gibbs had a chance to talk. He smiled, just like himself she was a damn good agent.
"Morning Jen"
"What can I do for you?" said Jen. Gibbs laughed quietly
"I mean what can I do for you right now Jethro" she repeated smiling.
"I want info on Carrie Lockhart. I would ask the team but I don't want them to know just yet and you know me and computers…"
"Carrie Lockhart?" said Jen
"She's assisting us on the case and there's something about her"
"She's dodgy you mean"
"No, quite the opposite in fact. There's something about her that tells me that she's better than her job allows her to be" said Gibbs. This turn it was Jens turn to laugh quietly.
"I see where this going Jethro, you've taken a shine to her"
"So what if I have?" said Gibbs
"I'll see what I can do," said Jen still quietly laughing.
"Oh and you left this at mine" said Gibbs smiling as he handed Jen a small silver earring in the shape of a heart.
"I was wondering where I'd left that," she said smiling as she slipped it into the front pocket of her jacket.
***
When Gibbs returned to the bullpen, Carrie was sitting behind his desk. He threw her a stern look and she stood up.
"I was warming it up for you Gibbs" said Carrie innocently. Gibbs said nothing but his face softened slightly.
"Got anything for me?"
"Yep, love letters sent by email between Alex Parker and a woman named Mandi King"
"Who's that?" said Gibbs
"Abby and Tim are working on that now Gibbs" As she said that, the doors to the elevator opened and McGee and Abby walked out.
"We can't find Mandi King because there is no Mandi King," said McGee. McGee paused but Gibbs didn't say anything. He gave up on McGee and turned to Abby.
"What McGee meant was that we searched all records and there is no records of any Mandi King ever being born, married, going to school, owning a bank account etc. I could go on…" said Abby. Gibbs turned back to McGee
"We did however manage to track the place where these emails where coming from. We narrowed it down to an Internet café not far from here. If we could get the surveillance tapes from the café and cross reference them with the dates and times that the emails were sent then we could get a picture of who's pretending to be Mandi King" Gibbs was still looking at McGee and McGee hesitated "What…?" he said nervously "did I miss something out or mispronounce something" he said turning to Abby for support.
"I think he wants us to do what you just said," replied Abby and McGee turned to face Gibbs.
"Boss…?" Gibbs looked amazed.
"You think?" he said loudly.
"On it boss." said McGee and him and Abby quickly walked towards the elevator. Gibbs turned in his chair to face his computer screen, the look of amazement still on his face. As McGee and Abby entered the elevator they bumped into Kate and Tony coming out. Gibbs looked up to face them.
"Big fat zero Boss," said Tony.
"None of the other officers said anything unusual about Officer Carter. He was just a normal sailor. And, none of them knew who this Alex Parker guy was" continued Kate. Both her and Tony sat down at their desks.
"Don't know what else to do Boss" started Tony. Gibbs just looked at him. "On the other hand I'm sure I can find something to do here" he sad routing around his desk "I'm sure there's some paperwork or something…" Kate laughed at Tony and Gibbs turned to face her. Kat face straightened and she also rummaged around her desk.
"Yeah…paperwork" she said quietly and pulled out a small pile of papers. Gibbs returned to looking at his computer screen.
"And me?" said Carrie
"Go down and see Ducky," Said Gibbs "He's in the morgue on the bottom floor"
"Right" said Carrie as she headed to the elevator.
***
Carrie entered the morgue and saw Ducky leaning over a body. He was mid flow through one of his longwinded reminiscences to Palmer. Palmer held a fixed face, which he had practised to perfection; you could only tell that he had actually in fact stopped listening by looking at his eyes, which had glazed over. Carrie walked over to Ducky and decided to save Palmer from the rest of the inebriating speech.
"Ducky!" she said cheerfully. Ducky turned to see who had entered the lab and Palmer snapped out of his trance. "What have you got on the body?"
"Hello, my dear, its nice of you to come down here and save me a trip up to see Jethro" Carrie smiled at him. Ducky smiled back thinking how lovely that smile was. ‘Excellent dental work' he thought to himself ‘Quite remarkable'
"I aim to please" replied Carrie still smiling
"Well I've taken a close look at the body and come to the conclusion that officer Carter here was hit very powerfully with a large round glass object" said Ducky
"Like a massive crystal ball?" said Carrie not quite understanding
"Not really, more a glass bowl. There's were shards of glass in the wound and also what appeared to be dried orange peel"
"Orange peel?" said Carrie now really confused "there wasn't anything like that at the scene, maybe a fruit bowl?"
" Could be, the murderer must have taken it with them if there wasn't one at the scene. If I were you, I'd start looking for what was missing from the scene," replied Ducky.
"Thanks Ducky, anything else?"
"Not really, apart from the fact that he seemed too well groomed for a night in"
"What do you mean?" said Carrie again confused
"Well there are the clothes for a start. He was wearing a clean smart shirt and pressed black trousers, hardly sofa attire my dear is it. He was also freshly shaven around the time of his death and you can still smell a faint trace of aftershave even now! He must of put a lot of it on. In my opinion, I do believe this young chap had a lady friend that he was going to meet up with that night"
"Or did meet up with" said Carrie quietly
"What was that my dear, hearing not quite what it was I'm afraid," replied Ducky. Carrie looked up at him.
"No worry Ducky just thinking aloud" she said smiling
"Yes I often do that myself" said Ducky "I do fear that young Palmer here gets a little tired with me sometimes" Palmer just looked at Ducky
"Not tired Doc, …I find it quite informative actually…quite…"
"Yes alright Palmer" said Ducky. Carrie thought that this was perhaps a good time to leave.
"I'll just go and report to Gibbs" said Carrie backing towards the door. "Thanks Ducky" and she turned and left the morgue just slow enough to hear Ducky reply,
"It was nice to see you again my dear" as she the door shut behind her.
***
Author's Chapter Notes:
Evidence mounts in the Officer Carter case and Gibbs has something of Jens