Work Text:
“This one is a weird one, boss,” Tony murmured.
Gibbs grunted.
“Who would use carolers to rob people?” McGee protested.
“How are the robberies even happening? The carolers never go in the house,” Ziva pointed out.
“Someone is really good with their prestidigitation.” Tony shrugged.
The entire team frowned. Normally, Christmas carolers singing Christmas music either annoyed those they visited or brought enjoyment to them, but this year they were clearly bringing the criminal element. Tony had to admit that posing as Christmas carolers or taking advantage of Christmas caroler routes was a great plan for distraction, but that wasn’t going to stop them from finding the people who were doing this to the poor unsuspecting public.
The police were stumped and NCIS had gotten involved once a sweet petty officer and his wife had also been robbed. It wasn’t limited to Navy people. Just some criminal element who was great at taking advantage of people.
Tony suspected they would have to figure out how the criminal masterminds were picking these caroled houses over a million other caroled houses. It wasn’t the same carolers every time, so figuring out the pattern was proving difficult. Once they had the pattern they could set themselves up in one of the victim’s houses and catch them in the act.
McGee and Abby were both hard at work trying to figure out the pattern and Tony was going for out of the box ways that this might be being set up. Finally, they had the breakthrough they needed and caught the ones abusing the Christmas spirit. Christmas was safe again.