ASC12: I do not of course own Bones. My closets are free of them. Or so I thought….
So I was going to not torture Sweets again but man, it's really just too fun. And there are plenty of Booth & Brennan centered stories (like the whole show) so Sweets it is. I really should have a little more range but you know what? I don't wanna!
Disclaimer: Do not own Bones in any way.
Time: This does not follow the Emma/Hank/Victor ending from the unintended "series." This would be post Daisy.
"Hey that's a classic." Booth said slowly descending the slope towards the water bank. He stood on a dried stump sticking out of the water with the squints waded in the water with waders.
"Classic?" Hodgins asked surveying the antique car upside down in the shallow waters. "It's something."
"That's a 1956 Chevrolet Bel-Air my bug friend. That's a classic." Booth reiterated.
"Well it's been at the bottom of this pond for fifty years." Hodgins reported. "Would have never found it had this drought not brought the water level so far down. Makes you wonder how many cars are in lakes and ponds you know?"
"So what do we got Bones?" Booth asked looking at his pad of paper.
"Bones." She said.
"Yeah, that's what I said, Bones."
Brennan shook her head eager to end this cycle. "Human skeletal remains." She specified. "There are two remains in the driver's seat and one in the trunk."
"Mob hit?" Booth asked.
"It appears the two in the front seat are that of two females, Caucasian, teenagers." She explained looking at the remains on the ground above. "The remains in the trunk are that of a male, Latino, early to late fifties."
"Well that's interesting." Booth said.
"Wow, you sound like Sweets." Hodgins said checking to see if the line was secure around the car again.
"I do not..." Booth said but stopped when he realized he did.
"Where is Dr. Sweets, I thought he was coming with you. We were to have lunch after this." Brennan asked.
"I don't know, I called and he said he couldn't make it, didn't say much more." Booth said. "So are we getting all this back to the Jeffersonian then?"
"All secure." Hodgins shouted and the crane pulled the vehicle from the water.
"That would be a beauty to restore." Booth said as it went by.
"So any idea when I can get the skull?" Angela asked as Brennan examined the three sets of remains laid out on the platform tables.
"We may have the identity of one of the females." Brennan explained.
"Yeah, I found this purse in the front seat of the car." Hodgins explained showing Angela what he had found. "Luckily the quality leather and the cold mud preserved them very well."
"Well who is one of them?" Angela asked as Hodgins held up the license. "Susan Kingsley, cute kid, real girl next door type."
"Well let's see what comes up with that name." Angela said typing it in the computer in time for Booth to join them. "What, no Sweets?" Angela asked looking around.
"No, he was gone when I stopped by." Booth explained with annoyance in his voice. "He left a note about having to testify or something. I could hardly read it. Said he would catch up with us later. What do we have?"
Angela sighed as the news clipping came up with two smiling and pretty young women in what were obviously high school yearbook photos. "Susan Kingsley, 17, went missing May 7, 1961. The report reads that she was heading to a graduation party with her friend, Mary Parks, 18. They never made it to the party. That sucks, they were just starting out in life, they're so young and happy."
"Did anything come of the investigation?" Hodgins asked as Angela continued to read.
"They had no indication of foul play at the time. There were rewards for the girls issued but nothing came of them." Angela read and continued scrolling. "It does look like almost a year later an officer followed up on a call that a nearby farmer was suspected of kidnapping the girls. He had been suspected of rape in the past. They searched his property but found nothing."
"So is this even a case?" Booth asked. "Besides just a cold case."
"I believe so." Brennan said while standing over the set of one of the remains. "The remains of the male in the car indicate that his throat was slit, so deeply it nicked the bone."
She held it up but Booth was not going to argue the fact with her, he as more than happy to take her word for it.
"Okay, well let's get the remains of these two women verified so I can contact their families. And if you get a hit on who this guy is let me know." Booth said leaving.
Booth flipped thru the old case reports of the missing girls from fifty three years ago. There wasn't much more than what Angela had told them earlier. The police had done their job, they had followed up multiple leads. His assistant was in the process of tracking down any of the officers who might still be around to check on what their suspicions on the case may have been, the type of things they don't write in the reports.
His cell rang and it was Angela. "I've got confirmation, those are the girls. No word yet on the guy in the trunk."
"Great I'll track down their families." Booth said already typing away.
"Bad news there, sad news really, Susan's mom died a couple of years after the incident, her health declined after losing her daughter. The dad just died two weeks ago." Angela said unable to hide the sadness in her voice.
"That sucks." Booth said thinking of how they had died not knowing what had really happened. "What about the other girl, Mary Parks?"
"I've got an address for the mother so far. I'll text it to you."
"Thanks." Booth said and hung up. He hated to tell people their kids were dead but in this case it was almost a relief to them to finally know after so many years. Brennan was still busy with the other set of remains and if he had to drive an hour he wanted to take someone with him so he decided to see if Sweets wanted to come along, since as he realized, he still hadn't heard from the kid.
Booth headed to Sweets office and started to think of when he had last seen the kid. Booth had gone from one case right into this one with only a few hours between. He hadn't worked with the kid on the previous case either. Now it started to bother Booth some where Sweets was. He hadn't thought of it before, he didn't always see Sweets everyday but this time it felt different because he felt like Sweets was eluding him. He picked up his pace towards the young psychologists office.
Booth knocked a few times but upon no answer he let himself in. He looked around but saw no one there. Booth decided to stop by and leave the kid a note just in case he stopped in. Sweets desk was usually immaculate but Booth noticed it was a mess. Papers were everywhere and there were a lot of them form various cases. Booth hoped Sweets had just been really busy and wouldn't worry about it as he left.
"Hey have you seen Dr. Sweets?" A passing agent asked as Booth emerged from his office.
"No, I was just looking for him myself." Booth answered.
"He's supposed to be working on a profile for me but I can't get ahold of him." The agent said annoyed and Booth was instantly annoyed at anyone being annoyed at Sweets when the kid must be, in his opinion so far, overwhelmed.
"Well it looks like he's pretty flooded in work right now." The other agent picked up on Booth's tone quickly and dropped the matter.
Booth's drive to meet with the mother was irritating. He had no one to talk with to blow off some steam or work anything out with. It nagged him about Sweets. If he just knew the kid was working too hard then he could tell him he needed to just relax, they'd have a drink, he'd get the kid straightened out and everything would be fine. But until he knew that he wasn't' going to be at ease. Sweets worked way too many hours for a young person in their twenties. He didn't even know if the kid had friends. He thought about it a moment and for the first time realized the kid probably didn't. Having two doctorates at his age meant he was probably a real kid in his probably brief high school years and was probably just a young teenager when going thru college. It was doubtful he could relate to classmates. The recollection that Sweets also had no family did not add to his ease.
"This is Caroline Julian." Caroline said answering the phone.
"Caroline, it's Booth, hey, are you still in court on some case, Sweets was testifying for you?"
"I'm in court yes but I don't have Sweets testifying for me. Far as I know he's not on the docket to testify for anyone, why?"
"Nothing." Booth said his teeth starting to clench. They said good bye and Booth was further irritated that Sweets had lied to him. The irrtation changed to worry when he wondered why.