Chapter Twenty-Six
Abby and McGee sat watching the program work its way through the various cases that the team had worked over the last year. They’d decided on a year because they didn’t want to go too far back and search through too many faces, but at the same time they didn’t want to only go back a few weeks and miss someone vitally important, so they had decided on a year and so far it had come up with five matches, all cases that Tony had been involved in so they at least had a list of viable suspects to start with.
“I think I should call Gibbs and tell him we’ve got five suspects to start with and see what he wants me to do,” McGee said, breaking the silence that had fallen over the lab.
“You just don’t want to sit here with me, doing the boring part of the job,” Abby told him.
“It’s not that Abs, I just…we need to start tracking this guy down before he gets wind of the fact that Tony has given us a pretty good description and we know what he looks like.”
“You make it sound like he tried to kill Tony, it’s not like he knew that raping him would make Tony take an overdose,” Abby told him, trying to get him to see how stupid he sounded.
“Yeah, but what if he heard that Tony did. I mean, he knew which shoulder of Tony’s was injured so he must have some idea what goes on in Tony’s life, how do we know that he doesn’t know that Tony took an overdose and nearly died?”
“Because he’s probably not the criminal mastermind you make him out to be. He’s probably some drug user looking for a way to score some cash.”
“That would make sense if he’d mugged Tony, but he didn’t. Tony’s cash was left untouched and he had every opportunity to take it, but he didn’t. Also, if he was going to mug Tony, why rape him first?”
“Sounds like you have a lot of questions but not many answers, McGee.”
“Exactly, which is why I think I should call Gibbs.”
“You know he can’t use his phone in the ICU, too many monitors.”
“Then how do I get in touch with him?”
“You don’t. You wait for it to spew out every match, then you and Ziva go through how many of them have alibis or were out of town or whatever and when you’ve narrowed it down, then you call Gibbs, that is if he hasn’t called first.”
“That doesn’t solve the problem of how we call him.”
“Simple, you call Bethesda and ask to be put through to their ICU and one of the nurses will get Gibbs for you.”
“Then why can’t I call him now?”
“Because he’ll just tell you to do what I just said and be pissed that you didn’t think of it and then you’ll have to call him again when you’ve done it. Might as well show some initiative, Timmy and do it all first,” Abby said, smiling as the program kicked out yet another match.
“Fine, I’ll do it your way,” McGee agreed, thinking that she was probably right and it was best not to annoy Gibbs right now, not when he was already on edge because of Tony.
They both sat and watched the program as it sped through the faces of potential suspects, hoping that soon it would be done and then the real work could begin.
~*~
Whilst Abby and McGee were doing their thing in the lab, Ziva was going through the case files that Tony had worked recently, looking for anyone who may have held a grudge. She’d gone back a year - the same distance as Abby and McGee - because anything before then had seemed to long to hold a grudge and then act and also because the shoulder injury was a recent thing that only a handful of people knew about. That was unless Tony had a stalker or something, but she didn’t think that was possible.
As a trained NCIS agent, Tony would have realised he was being followed or stalked and he would have mentioned it long before he was raped. He also would have recognised whoever raped him immediately, not from a sketch that Ziva had produced from a description Tony gave - a vague description at that.
She looked over case after case and managed to compile a list of potential suspects, which she planned to cross reference with the list that Abby’s program complied and see if there were any matches. She knew that they had a lot of work ahead of them and that it would probably be a late night as they worked to track down and confirm alibis and anyone who could have been Tony’s attacker.
She knew for sure that it was someone who had known about the injury Tony obtained from his last case before he took sick leave because of the way they had manipulated that knowledge to keep Tony on the ground whilst they raped him. Ziva shuddered at the thought of it. She couldn’t imagine being violated in such a way with no way of fighting back. She was a born fighter, had been since she was young and in some ways still did in her every day life, but being held down and raped and knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop it? She knew that if it had happened to her, she probably would have reacted the same way Tony had - by trying to take her own life.
She had been working for three hours when she next looked up to see McGee walking towards her desk. In his hand was a printout that held the names of those suspects that had matched on the facial recognition software. It was more a case of hit and miss as it had been a sketch and not a photograph or film.
“How’s it going, Ziva?” McGee asked. “Abby and I managed to pull off fifteen possibles, what about you?”
“I went back a year and found five possibilities. I guess we need to cross check our lists to see if they are any repeats?” Ziva replied.
“That sounds like a good plan. I’ll also check and see if we have any hits on the BOLO,” McGee said, heading over to his desk to look on his computer. There were none. “No hits, but I guess we were hoping for too much when we thought someone might have seen him and brought him in already.”
“Where do we start?” Ziva asked, disappointed by the lack of activity on the BOLO.
“From the top I guess.” Ziva got up and pulled her chair over to McGee’s desk so that they could work with both lists and narrow down their suspect field. Once they were done with that, they would have to investigate every possible suspect and see if they had an alibi, were in the area in question two nights ago and if they held any grudge against Tony or would have known about his injury. It was going to be a long night.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Who will catch DiNozzo when he falls?
Chapter End Notes:
Sorry for the late posting, I spend every other Wednesday at the hospital getting IV treatment - a bit like chemo but it isn't. Hope you like the latest installment!