Post season 8.
Disclaimer
Reviews are welcome and appreciated! They motivate me to write more and helps to know people are reading and enjoying. When I don't see them I figure no one's reading and I should stop as I don't have much else to gauge them on. I do appreciate the suggestions and the catches too. I'm not a technical person, I really like to focus on the story so sorry if the lack of detail offends. You're welcome to insert it in your own mind as you read lol.
The Murder in the Family
By ASC12
"Dr. Brennan?" A guard asked approaching the platform. Brennan looked up over her microscopic glasses and away from her 862 year old historical catalog remains.
"Yes?" She asked as she hated to be bothered when she was working.
"Where do you want these?" The guard asked having pulled a cart behind him with a parcel on it. Two other guards waited impatiently with two similar carts.
"Cam?!" Brennan called and Cam soon appeared. Brennan went back to her work.
"What do we have here?" Cam asked with a sigh. She preferred her discussion she had been having with Arastoo in regards to their weekend get away.
"I don't know mam, we were just told to bring them to Dr. Brennan." The equally annoyed guard asked.
"Okay, well there's a process to drop off any remains. Did these come from the FBI?" Cam asked assuming that was the answer.
"No mam, they were delivered here. Here's the paper work." He said handing it to her.
Cam flipped thru the papers which at a quick glance appeared to be a run of the mill set of paper work but upon closer inspection she had some questions.
"What's going on, what's with the carts?" Angela asked approaching.
"Angela, do me a favor, run these names." Cam said handing her the papers.
"When did you say these arrived?" Cam asked.
"This morning, the dock was busy, trash going out and shipments coming in." The guard said now keenly aware that something must be amiss.
"I'm not getting anything Cam, these all appear to be dummy companies, though this is very well laid out to look legit." Angela said.
Cam looked at the parcels, red flags flaring up.
"They were scanned mam, they do have human remains inside." The guard assured her.
Brennan's interest was now piqued. "Well if they are remains we should investigate."
The parcels were placed on the tables, a commotion that added Hodgins to the mix of the interested parties.
"What kind of container is this?" Hodgins asked admiring it. "It looks to be pretty old, I'd guess 1930's."
"I'd guess it to be a Lucite, which is pretty remarkable considering it is often brittle and prone to cracking." Brennan said.
With care the group opened the first of the lids to uncover what was no surprise of human remains.
"The victim is male and though there is a considerable amount of decomposition to the skeletal remains, I would estimate he was Caucasian, age around his seventies." Brennan observed. "I do not see an immediate cause of death."
"Are you sure someone didn't just forget to deliver this someplace else?" Hodgins asked.
"No, the dummy papers say that these three parcels were to be shipped directly here. Someone wanted us to see them." Angela explained.
"This body was never embalmed. It would appear this man was murdered and placed in storage." Brennan said. "Based on several key factors that Dr. Hodgins can confirm, I suspect this man was killed roughly some 80 years ago."
"What?" Angela asked. Hodgins came forward with increased interest, now that a conspiracy might be brewing.
"While I need to run some tests I would preliminarily concur with Dr. Brennan's findings."
"Do I want to know what's in the next box?" Cam asked as their eyes all went to the next in line on the table.
They soon removed the lid from the similar box to find another body.
"Victim is male, I would say a teenager." Brennan said.
"He was pretty fashionable." Angela said noting his black boots and what remained of the rolled denim blue jeans. His white tee had mostly deteriorated but a part remained that was still reddish in color.
"I would say this victim was shot in the chest." Cam said observing the stain and then the hole in the tissue.
"This container is newer than the others." Brennan observed. "Based on decomposition, I would guess these remains to be from the 1950's."
"One more box of vintage bodies?" Angela asked.
The group turned to get a preliminary look at them as well and removed the lid.
"Victim is female, estimated age to be her early 30's." Brennan observed.
"I would estimate her death to be in the 1940's." Hodgins suggested and they looked at him questioning his determination.
He pointed to the "v" shaped winged pin on her lapel. "These were very popular during WWII to wear to signify you had a loved one serving in the war. V was for victory."
"I'd agree, her clothes, well, what's left of them, remind me of that style, sort of like a waitress." Angela suggested.
"So these remains would post date the previous one by ten years but after the young male." Cam surmised.
"So we have an old guy from the 30's, a woman in her 30's from the 40's and a teenager from the 50's." Hodgins said.
"Sounds like a mystery." Angela said and found herself somewhat detached from the murders due to their distance in the past.
"Did someone say mystery or murder?" Booth asked approaching the platform. Once he saw the bodies he was surprised. "Hey don't you people even call me anymore?"
"Sorry Booth, we just received these and were doing preliminary work." Brennan explained.
"Well I'm guessing lunch is off." Booth said looking at them. "What do we have, enough for a case?"
"The bodies are from 1930-1950." Hodgins explained.
"Oh, so this is like a Jeffersonian thing." He said bummed there was no case.
"Except they were all delivered, today, with dummy paperwork." Angela offered.
"Now that my friend!" Booth said excitedly. "Sounds like a case."
"Yeah, but who drops off bodies from over a half a century ago?" Angela pondered.
"I guess that's the mystery and the murder." Brennan suggested going back to the bodies.
"So it is actually murder." Booth asked to clarify though he had enough to go on with just the dummy paperwork, murder helped, for it to be a real case.
"The young male from the 50's was definitely shot." Cam said examining him again.
"I think the old guy here was stabbed." Hodgins said examining that body. "I see a rip in the clothing and some nicks on the bones." Arastoo joined them on the platform and examined them as well.
"Yes, I would at this point suggest he was stabbed, by a pretty long knife too." Arastoo suggested.
"And what about her?" Booth asked pointing to the body Brennan was examining.
"After examining…" Brennan began.
"Bones?" Booth asked in a tone that suggested she could skip the expensive medical mumbo jumbo.
Brennan sighed. "She was strangled."
"Isn't that a sign of passion or something?" Booth asked.
"Well we don't know enough of these bodies to know much of anything for sure." Brennan said keeping booth from jumping to conclusions. "We will need some identification."
"I'll get on that." Angela said turning to gather her camera.
"This should help." Hodgins said pulling a leather wallet from the old man's pocket.
"Chester Winfield." Angela read on his id card. "He was born in 1859."
"These remains seem in pretty good shape." Booth observed.
"Yes." Cam agreed. "It looks like someone preserved them in the perfect climate."
"Another mystery." Hodgins said continuing to work.
"So let me get this straight." Booth said writing the facts down. "Someone killed these people, all ten years apart?"
"Looks that way." Cam said.
"And then waited until now to send their bodies here?" Booth asked.
"Also, looks that way." Cam said again.
"So suggesting this person was even 16 at the time of the first murder, and assuming that was around 1930…" Booth began.
"That's a lot of assumptions Booth." Brennan said uncomfortable with such a course of suggestions.
"Point is if the murder sent them over he would have been born in about 1914 if he were even 16 so he's what, a hundred now?" Booth explained.
"Maybe someone found them and wanted to get rid of them. Like if they were in a basement of a house and didn't want it to hurt them selling it?" Angela suggested.
"Then why do such extensive work to hide the drop off with the paper work. They could have just dumped them." Hodgins suggested.
"Right, they wanted us to get these." Cam said. "And I not trying to discriminate the elderly, but I have a hard time finding a 100 year old person making up dummy documents on a computer."
"Wow." Hodgins said out loud. "This is weird."
They all looked at him with a 'you think?' look on their faces and they went back to work.
"Okay, well call me as soon as you get some ID's or more information." Booth said turning to leave. "I'd heading back to the office to find out what baby boy shrink has to think about this."