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“This has got to stop, Tony.” Jimmy Palmer ran his hand down Tony’s bare back. “It’s getting worse.”
Tony sighed. “No, it isn’t. It was much worse the day we met. It is variable and goes in cycles.”
Jimmy reached for a binding on the table. “Okay, yeah, fine. This is only three stitches and pulled muscles, not twenty and a broken nose.”
Tony nodded solemnly. “Plus, this time, no vomit.”
Jimmy taped down the bandage covering the stitches. “No vomit the day we met, either. That was the second time, and the fifth time, and the eighth and ninth times. I’m not a doctor yet, Tony. I’m really just a gofer right now between the various medical-legal divisions for the DC area federal agencies while I’m in med school. I can do the basics but I worry that if you let this go, one day it’ll be something I miss because of the no diagnostic equipment thing and you’ll die. Because you won’t report them and you won’t go to the hospital or even the clinic for treatment.”
Tony rolled his shoulders as Jimmy patted him on the back and grabbed his shirt from the towel rack. “You don’t get it, Jimmy. If I report it, I’m a rat. It’s just some hazing. I’ve been through it plenty of times before, in boarding school, military school, the frat, police academy, and various departments. I’m the new guy at NCIS and even though I did go to FLETC, I didn’t have to come up the ranks. Not really. Gibbs recruited a cop to work directly with him, albeit a detective, not a beat cop, but still, just a cop. And Gibbs being Gibbs, he tends to get some high profile cases handed to him. And therefore, so do I, the probie. It isn’t the MCRT but there’s scuttlebutt that Morrow wants Gibbs to head that, a proper team which the DC office doesn’t have anymore. And that would put me on it because Morrow likes how I manage Gibbs’ ... eccentricities. So, that would really push me - a lowly cop - over the heads of lots of people who have worked their asses off for years for a spot like that. It’ll get better as I prove myself, Jimmy Dean-O, believe me.”
Jimmy sighed as he cleaned up the supplies he used to stitch up his best friend. “I just worry, Tony. Because you’re right that I don’t understand. And I’m right that you’re too used to this kind of behavior from other people. Your justifying the abuse they put you through doesn’t make it okay. If it was just Agent Gibbs making you do the grunt work and the boring stuff that comes with the job and making you get him coffee all the time - I’d agree with you and let it go. Newbies get the shit end of the stick wherever you go. But I’ve had to stitch up various parts of you with a total of forty-six stitches in the last four months since we met. Not to mention the burns you got two months ago and the food poisonings - five times, or was it seven? The broken nose, over a dozen black eyes, and the dislocated shoulder three weeks ago. I don’t care how it is loose because it has happened several times to you on your left shoulder before. It is a major injury. That isn’t hazing the probie. It’s abuse of power and various kinds of assault.”
Tony shook his head as he shrugged into his shirt and buttoned it. “Agree to disagree, my man. Thanks for the patch job. The pizza’ll be here any minute and we can watch the game.”
Jimmy sighed and shook his head as he followed his friend from the brightly lit bathroom into the apartment’s living area.
==
Tony sat down at his desk along the wall in the bright orange bullpen. He stowed his gun and backpack and glanced around. Gibbs’ desk, next to Tony’s, was empty but his jacket was hanging on the back of his chair, so Tony assumed he was on a coffee run.
Tony booted up his computer and began going through his work emails. He was nearly done sorting the messages when Gibbs walked in, two cups of coffee in hand. “Tony, JAG needs me in court all day today and probably tomorrow, too. Old case got an appeal and it’s messy. Damn lawyers. Morrow doesn’t want you on active cases alone yet so work on the cold cases. Any heat up, Pacci’ll help ya out.”
“Got it, Gibbs. Good luck with court.”
Gibbs growled and downed the remains of one of his cups which then hit the trash can as he pulled on his jacket and left.
Tony shook his head and finished up the emails and the last of the outstanding paperwork from their last case before walking down the aisle to the filing cabinet filled with cold cases from the agents in the Navy Yard. He grabbed a stack of random files and made his way back to his desk, dodging an obviously stretched out foot as he went. He mentally rolled his eyes. ‘Amateur.’
Hours passed as the young agent read through the old case reports and summaries and witness statements. He didn’t find any new leads but by the end of the day, he felt like he was missing something. It wasn’t obvious; nothing jumped out about the most recent cold case as he locked the folders in his desk but Tony felt jittery.
Tony got into his car and tried to shake off the feeling until the next day when he could try to reel it in. He decided he needed to be distracted. He called Jimmy.
“Hey, I need to get out of my work headspace, badly. Want to hit McGregor’s, get some wings, find dates to take home for the night? I’ll play wingman for ya, Jimbo.”
Jimmy laughed. “You mean you’ll turn some down and I get to help them get over their rejection.”
Tony started his car and put his phone in hands-free mode. “Tomato, toe-mah-toe. Seriously, even if I don’t get laid, I need to get my mind off this. I’m missing something and it just won’t come to me.”
“Since you don’t need my future profession tonight, no problem, Tony. Wings and beer and maybe sex for one or both of us. Just not together. You’re a great friend and I love you but -“
Tony hummed. “I know. Threesomes aren’t your style. You don’t know what you’re missing, future doc.”
Jimmy sighed. “I’m not a prude, Tony. I’m not dismissing something I haven’t tried. And I didn’t like it.”
Tony pulled out of the Navy Yard. “Do tell: deets, Jimmy, deets. Or pics. Pics or it didn’t happen, my man.”
“I don’t kiss and tell, Tony. I’ll just say I’ve had threesomes with two girls, with a guy and a girl, and with two other guys. I enjoyed them fine. It was sex but not enough to want a repeat. I prefer one on one attention.”
“Fair enough, kid. Meet at the bar in forty minutes?”
“See you then.”
==
The next morning Tony headed back to work, refreshed and with new eyes. He had gone home alone as the bar had been a bust for hookups, not overly surprising on a Wednesday night. But during his rambling conversation with Jimmy about life and basketball and movies, the thought that had been niggling had blared at him. There was an odd connection between a few of the cases.
Tony got the dozen files out of his desk and spread them out. He removed nine of them and placed them back in the drawer before he looked at the remaining three. They were all murders, they were all investigated over the course of two months by four different agents or teams, and they were all oddly alphabetical.
Marine Lieutenant Banford Bitman had been found with a slit throat in Brentwood. Navy Petty Officer Elizabeth Eames had her head bashed in and her body dumped in Eckington. And Navy Admiral Dennis Denning III was found poisoned in his home in DuPont Circle.
The public reason given when all leads led to dead ends had been an accidental ingestion of a toxic substance when drunk. It was still open because that was the cover story. The public bought it because Denning was a bit of a problem for the Navy. He was a drunk and tended to cause minor scandals with women, married women, prostitutes, barely legal co-eds, public sex. He had been a mess and the public accepted it but the case was still open though cold since he wasn’t actually drunk when he died. It was murder and NICS knew it and so did the Navy and other Powers That Be. But no one could find a killer who would fit. But now...
Disregarding the ranks, it was BB found in B. EE found in E. DD found in D. Within two months. As Ian Fleming put in it Goldfinger: “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.”
Tony mulled it over. Three letters, B, D, and E. And they took place in alphabetical order in time. He turned on his computer and ran a search for similarities matching the pattern of letters and time frame and within ten minutes he had it.
The first murder was Marine Corporal Amy Adamson in Anacostia. It looked like a mugging gone wrong. The second was Branford Bitman. Then the third was Doctor Carmine Carver, a psychiatrist, husband to Navy Captain Melanie Carver. He was found with his neck slit in Chevy Chase. Then number four was Denning and five was Eames. Then the final one Tony could find matching the pattern was Marine Sergeant Frank Ford, stabbed in Forest Hills.
The agent who worked the third case had a strong suspect in one of the doctor’s patients with a delusional interest in him, Alicia Carrington. But she was eventually cleared due to a slightly shaky alibi that placed her across town during the time of the murder.
Just for kicks, Tony ran her through the databases and discovered she was currently institutionalized and had been since three days after the fourth murder. And her middle name was Beverly. ABC, an insane mental patient with personal ties to one of the victims. But she was a red herring - or a patsy - as she was secure for the final two murders.
Tony spent the rest of the day combing through the evidence from all six cases and had a theory. He ran searches in the database and made several calls before biting the bullet.
“Hey, Chris?”
Special Agent Chris Pacci sat across the aisle from Tony’s desk and they had worked together several times when Gibbs was unavailable. He wasn’t a dick like some of the others and had an open mind.
“What’s up, Tony?”
“Can you go with me to the conference room? I need to show you a theory and need room to spread it out.”
Chris nodded. “Sure. I just finished my open case an hour ago and was just working on the paperwork.”
Tony grabbed the six files and the men walked to the room on the other side of the bullpen. Tony laid each folder out, a post-it note with the names and locations and dates bright on the front of each one.
“First, just look at those.”
Chris reached his hand for the first folder and Tony laid his hand on it. “For now, just the covers.”
Chris nodded and looked at them one at a time and then backed up and did it again. He looked at Tony. “That’s not a coincidence. Not that close together. Good catch, probie. But you didn’t need the conference room for that.”
Tony shook his head. “Nope. I wanted the conference room because I have a theory on who did it. This theory is out there but I checked it out as well as I could. It isn’t hard proof yet but it’s a starting point.”
Chris sat back and nodded. “Okay. I’m listening, Tony. Lay it out for me.”
“The alphabet thing caught my eye when I was looking through some random cold cases yesterday but it didn’t really click. I knew something was up but had no idea what I was seeing, then. It was last night when I was at a bar with a friend and we were talking about movies and I realized what it reminded me of. The Alphabet Murders, 1965, starring Tony Randall and Robert Morley as Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings, based on the 1936 Agatha Christie novel The ABC Murders. And when I came in this morning with it in mind and dug into it, I found the other cases and even a suspect who couldn’t have done it in two of the cases, whose initials are ABC, just like the book and movie.
“The plot is simple and convoluted like all good Agatha Christie novels are. But in the end, it all comes out that most of the murders were to cover up one of the later ones and were random other than fitting the alphabetical pattern. And that was only a pattern because the main victim had a double initial and lived in a town beginning with that same letter.
“So, I looked at the suspects and various beneficiaries of the victims and found that two of them got a good bit of money due to insurance and inheritances after the deaths. But they had totally airtight alibis for the times of the murders. And I mean rock solid, twenty foot thick concrete alibis. Suspiciously so.
“And with my mind already thinking about connections to movies, I had a thought about another famous murder mystery story: Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 classic Strangers on a Train. What if Admiral Denning’s little brother, Ramone, and Petty Officer Eames’ husband, Michael, had met and started talking. They swap targets like the Hitchcock movie and add others to flesh out a pattern to hide the relevant targets just in case, like the Agatha Christie story.”
Chris tilted his head, “A bit far fetched but possible, I suppose. An admiral’s brother and a petty officer’s husband aren’t likely to cross paths normally. Different social circles.”
Tony nodded. “But they did. Five weeks before the first murder both of them were on the same cruise to the Bahamas. It was in their financial statements provided when they were suspects. And I contacted the cruise line. Their rooms were within three doors of one another and they were at the same assigned table for dinner.”
Chris looked over the evidence. “Still not proof but it is enough to take this theory to Morrow. We can’t just run with it, not with an admiral’s brother a prime suspect.”
==
Three months later, Tony was sitting with his feet up and watching an old movie when his doorbell rang. It was Jimmy, bearing a couple of pizzas.
“Thought I’d check in. Make sure you weren’t bleeding out from a hazing incident that you wouldn’t report. You’ve been busy lately.”
Tony nodded. “Sorry, man. Since we solved that serial slash spree killer case that Admiral Denning was a victim of and Morrow moved Gibbs, Pacci, and me to be the Major Case Response Team, things have been insane. And I can tell you, it won’t be slowing down. Morrow pulled me into his office at the end of the day. My probationary period is officially over and he wanted to tell me. He wants the MCRT to be a full team, actually more along the lines of a unit, like the Feebs, actually. Senior Special Agent Gibbs and Senior Special Agent Pacci will split the team lead duties, sometimes handling two or more cases, and taking parts of the teams each, sometimes working as a whole team on the really big cases. And I was promoted to full Field Agent but will be carrying a lot of the duties of a SFA. I get to wrangle the newbies and probies. Training, yay. Eventually, we’ll get three or four more agents, at least one of them a probie, the others junior agents. Lots of work ahead.”
Jimmy grabbed a slice of pizza. “I bet. But no stitches? Food poisoning?”
Tony shook his head. “Nope. I told you. I had to prove myself. And I did with that case. And then when it turned out that Ramone Denning had liked the killing a bit too much and kept going after the agreed time, just moving to civilian targets along the Middle Atlantic but sticking to the alphabet theme? And we only caught that because of my contacts with the police departments in Baltimore and Philadelphia? They've backed off, Jimmy. Just normal teasing now.”
“Well, that’s good. Hopefully, it taught them a lesson about the worth of cops, too.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath on that. But I am not thinking about that. I can’t do anything about it and we’re getting a liaison officer tomorrow from the FBI to fill out the team to four members. An Agent Blackadder. Hopefully, she will mesh well. Then in a week, we’ll be getting a junior NCIS agent and when the next FLETC class graduates, we’ll get one of them. Lots of possibilities for disaster but, it could be great, too.”
Jimmy nodded. “Hopefully. Now, what is this movie you were watching when I interrupted?”
Tony grinned. “I’ll start it over. It’s a classic. 1945-“