Sweets was silent on the way back to the Bureau. Ever since Booth had put that hand on his shoulder in the diner, that subtle physical threat, he'd clammed up. Arms folded in defensively, he glared at Booth and Brennan from the backseat.
When Booth manhandled him out of the car, still cuffed, Sweets looked capable of the murders of which he was accused. Some of the Security team on the door recognised Sweets and murmured as he went by. Booth noticed Sweets' cheeks going red and felt a twinge of guilt, but after all, Sweets was the one who'd insisted on not coming quietly.
Besides, if he was Gormagon, he deserved a lot worse.
He took Sweets to Interrogation, and made him wait, while he and Bones figured out their game plan. He didn't want Brennan in the room, but she insisted. It was her people Gormagon had targeted this time and she wasn't going to budge. He sent for Sweets' FBI file, and watched the kid while he waited for it to arrive.
Sweets was completely still. Hands in front of him on the desk, now the cuffs were off, he just stared. He was deliberately not looking at the observation window because he knew they were behind it.
It was not helping him look any less like a serial killer.
"Let's go in, Booth." Brennan said for what was probably the fourth time. Finally the hallway door opened and the file was thrust into his hand. He flicked through it, then handed it to Bones and headed in.
He and Brennan sat down at the table.
"The first thing I need to know" Booth began, voice carefully neutral "were you assigned Bones' and my case by the FBI or did you request it?"
So we're really doing this?" Sweets asked coldly, looking first in Brennan's eyes, then in Booth's. Finally, he said in a very low, quiet voice: "You were assigned to me."
"You've done a lot of digging into the Gormagon file." Booth remarked.
"It's a ritualistic killer case. I'm a profiler."
Brennan began flipping through his file, and Sweets paled visibly.
"Booth" Brennan said. She pointed to something in the file.
He took it from her, and what he read made him raise his eyebrows. Eventually, he looked up at Sweets. "You were in foster care, growing up?"
Sweets stared past Booth like a sulking teenager.
"C'mon Sweets, you work for the FBI. You know hostility isn't going to do you any favours in this room."
"Dr Brennan, weren't you a foster kid? Maybe you're Gormagon." Sweets countered.
"Gormagon works with troubled boys..." Brennan got up slowly and walked around the table, staring at Sweets' face. Suddenly, she reached out with one hand and grasped Sweets by the cheekbones.
"Get off me." Sweets wrought himself out of her grip, and felt his face gingerly where her hand had been.
She sat back down. "He has a remodelled fracture to the zygomatic arch – a common 'backhander' injury in children who've suffered physical abuse." she told Booth.
Booth looked from Bones to Sweets, suddenly uncomfortable. He leaned forward earnestly.
"Did Arthur Graves ever handle your case?"
Sweets stared at the table.
Answer the question." Booth warned.
Sweets said nothing.
"Fine, you want this to start playing like a "bad cop" scene out of a B-grade film, that's up to you." Booth challenged. "I can hold you for 48 hours. So I'm going to. If you haven't answered my questions by sundown, you'll spend the night in general holding. Do you want that?"
"Sweets' jaw tightened, but still he said nothing. Booth pushed back on his chair, and whacked the file down loudly on the table as he stood, hoping to make Sweets jump, but he didn't even flinch.
Brennan and Booth went back to Observation to discuss their options.
"Sweets is being surprisingly stoic." Brennan noted. "It's possible that his persona up until now has been a carefully crafted facade."
"He's clever." Booth said wistfully. Part of him had never wanted to believe Sweets was guilty, and this case was getting uglier by the second.
"We don't need him to tell us about his time in foster care if we can unseal his records." Brennan suggested.
"Yeah, I'll get Caroline working on that. But I'm thinking we need a shrink to crack a shrink." he gave Bones a sly smile.
"Gordon Gordon?" Bones asked.
Booth smiled. "Gordon Gordon."
Later, Bones and Booth shared some Chinese takeout as they pored over Sweets' files, which had arrived before the senior psychologist, who had been taking leave.
"This...is quite severe." Brennan brandished a medical report. "Broken metacarpals, greenstick fracture to the ulna, dislocated shoulder...he was only six."
Booth looked a bit green and slid over some photos. "They whipped him – with an electrical cable, it looks like."
"Poor Sweets. I can see why growing up like this might make someone distrust the system."
"Yeah Bones, but 'distrusting the system' is a long way from killing and eating people. You were a foster kid and you managed to stay away from human snacking."
"My injuries were never this extensive." Bones muttered. "His ear drum was perforated. It must have been agony."
"A bit worse than losing at Mortal Kombat." Booth sighed. "Bones, this means he really fits the profile."
"I'm inclined to agree, but we have no hard evidence." Brennan said.
Booth rubbed at his jaw. "We'll need a confession."
"But Sweets is not talking."
"Yeah, but he hasn't asked for a lawyer, either. Maybe, deep down, he wants to tell us. We should take one more crack at him tonight, then let Gordon Gordon at him in the morning."
Brennan and Booth resumed their seats in Interrogation.
"We looked at your files. From the foster system." Brennan began. "You were badly beaten by your foster father." She slid some of the photos across the table to him. "That means you fit the profile."
Sweets looked at the photos. His eyes became watery, but his glare was fierce.
"So far, there's no evidence that Arthur Graves directly handled your case." Booth continued. "But someone high-up signed off on some documentation that allowed you to be adopted by an elderly couple. Clara and Gable Sweets." Booth flicked through the paperwork. "It wasn't strictly procedure, was it Lance? Did Graves make an exception for you?"
"You were an accelerated student at the University of Toronto." Brennan added. "You mostly took psychology classes, but in second semester of your first year, you scored 98 in your Introduction to Organic Chemistry exam. That means you have a strong enough scientific background to plan the explosion at the lab."
Sweets stayed silent.
"C'mon Bones, he's not gonna talk tonight. Let's see if he feels differently tomorrow." Booth said finally. He shot Sweets one last glance as he shut the door between them.
Booth was awoken by his mobile phone.
"It's Booth...uh, what time is it? Gordon Gordon, it's 5am! Yeah okay, keep your bow-tie on, I'll be there in 30."
He called his partner as he scrambled to get ready. She answered as he was stepping into his trouser leg. "Uh, hi Bones. Gordon Gordon is at the Bureau with his knickers in a twist." he buckled his belt "Yeah...see you soon."
When they got to holding, Gordon Wyatt was absolutely livid. "Will you please tell these buffoons to get Dr Sweets out of that cell!"
"Gordon, I know this isn't easy, but he's our prime suspect."
"Prime sus...if Dr Lance Sweets is your cannibal killer, I'm a Victoria's Secret model!" Gordon spat. "Moreover, your "suspect" is having a severe psychological reaction to being locked in there. Just look at him!"
Booth peered into the window.
Sweets was perched on the wooden bench with his back against the wall. He had his knees folded up against him, his arms wrapping them closer to his body than his six-foot frame ought to allow. He was completely rigid, not even blinking.
Booth nodded to the guard and flashed his badge. The door was opened, and Gordon Wyatt barreled past Booth and sat smoothly beside Sweets on the bench. "Dr Sweets?"
Sweets didn't move.
"It's rather good to see you again, although these are not auspicious circumstances." Dr Wyatt chatted gently away. "You'd probably like to go and have a nice warm cup of tea. Although you Americans seem to prefer that ghastly percolated coffee. What do you say, hmm? Would you like to go up to the break room in a bit and have a nice 'Cup of Joe'?"
"What is he doing?" Brennan asked Booth loudly from the doorway. Dr Wyatt shot Booth a 'shut-her-up' look, and dutifully, he shuffled her out into the hall.
"We broke Sweets." Booth told Brennan. He scratched his head. "This doesn't make sense. How could Sweets be nonchalant while his master carves people up, but have a nervous breakdown after a night in holding? Maybe he's just a pawn, and Gormogon's manipulating him somehow?"
He peered back into the room where Gordon was placing a gentle hand on Sweets', resting over his knee. "You must be rather tired from sitting like this, Dr Sweets. Maybe you could rest your feet on the floor for a moment and give your poor knees a stretch? Not that I'm not envious; I think I lost the ability to adopt that position in 1979..."
Sweets slowly, glacially, put his feet on the floor.
"There now, that must feel better." Gordon approved. He held Sweets' hand loosely. "Do you think you could squeeze my hand for me?" he said absently, as though he were asking Sweets to hand him a spare pen.
Sweets squeezed it.
"I see, you are in there. Once for 'yes', twice for 'no' then? Do you think you might be ready to go and have a warm drink?"
Sweets squeezed his hand once.
"Goodo. Well, Dr Brennan and Agent Booth are going to clear away from the door there, and you and I are going to stroll hand-in-hand to the break room. I know, I know, people might talk, but you've read enough Freud to know what people who carry guns for a living are obsessed with." Dr Wyatt nattered harmlessly as he edged Sweets into the corridor, putting himself between Sweets and Booth. This early in the morning the Bureau was quiet, and in no time at all they'd gotten to the lifts. Sweets flinched as the doors closed, and again, when the bell sounded for their floor.
Booth and Brennan looked at each other.
They let Sweets and Dr Wyatt get settled in the room, Gordon easing Sweets into a chair and getting him a cup of tea with two sugars. Sweets wrapped his hands around it, but didn't raise it to his lips.
"Now, Dr Sweets, I am just going to step out into the hallway with Dr Brennan and Agent Booth here, and tell them in no uncertain terms what nincompoops they've been. Then, when you're ready, I'm sure they'll be back to apologise." He was all smiles until he was out of line of sight, then he turned on Booth and Brennan with school-marmly efficiency. "Your office." He barked at Booth. "Now."
Dr Wyatt was last in and closed the glass door.
"What's wrong with him?" Booth asked.
"Aside from the fact that the two people dearest to him in the world just tossed him in jail, at his own workplace, for a crime he didn't commit?" Dr Wyatt asked with faux enthusiasm. "His physical symptoms are a manifestation of extreme anxiety."
"You can't know that he didn't commit the crime." Dr Brennan began.
"Well, what evidence is there?" Dr Wyatt turned his gaze on Dr Brennan.
"He is the only recent addition to our working environment. He is of the right age, gender and social background to be the apprentice, and he displayed both interest and insight into the Gormogon case. He may have links through the foster care system to Arthur Graves, a known Gormogon associate. He confessed to Booth in the diner, and he's been refusing to answer our questions ever since." Brennan reported.
"He confessed?" Dr Wyatt furrowed his brow.
"He uh, might have been being sarcastic." Booth admitted.
"I see. And everything else you have is entirely circumstantial?" Dr Wyatt asked.
There was a long pause.
Brennan knit her brows. "What did we do, Booth?"
Booth stared at Dr Wyatt glumly. "We were doing our jobs."
"Is it possible that you felt so hurt by the notion that young Dr. Sweets might have betrayed you, that you acted in haste, letting your emotions cloud the facts?" Dr Wyatt asked.
"We were foolish." Brennan admitted. "What can we do now?"
"These are the files we have on Sweets." Booth tossed over the foster care records.
Dr Wyatt read silently for a while, and then audibly sighed. "Did you talk to him about this?" he gestured to the photographs.
"I showed them to him." Brennan said, lip quivering.
Dr Wyatt shook his head slowly. "Memories of his ordeal plagued him long after his permanent placement." Dr Wyatt said. "He suffered from selective mutism for over a year after he was rescued. If that was his coping mechanism the last time he felt himself in peril, it's possible that he has done the same thing here."
"Selective mutism is an inability to speak. There's nothing wrong with their vocal chords, or the temporal lobe of their brains, they just...can't." Brennan explained to Booth.
"Yeah, I got that Bones. So he...in the interrogation, he wasn't answering me because he couldn't?"
"Precisely."
"How long does it last?" Booth ventured.
"It's impossible to say. It could dissipate within a few days as his life gets back to normal, or it could remain an ongoing problem. Although it would probably help if you told him he was no longer a suspect."
"I can't actually say that, Gordon. I mean, we've got nothing to hold him on, but even if he's not the actual murderer, he still is a suspect. Technically we all are." Booth scratched his head.
"Well, maybe it would be best to start with an apology." Dr Wyatt advised.
They all traipsed slowly back into the break room. Dr Wyatt was pleased to note that Sweets made eye contact with him as they filed in.
"Dr Sweets? Agent Booth has something to say to you."
Booth shuffled his feet. "Sorry I got so tough on you, Sweets. I was doing my job, but I should have remembered you're one of the good guys." He tried to smile at Sweets but the kid wasn't making eye contact with him.
"Dr Brennan?" Dr Wyatt prompted.
"Sweets, I believe strongly in the merits of the judicial system, including the presumption of innocence. I allowed my emotions over the injury to my intern to affect my rational thinking, and for that I apologise." Dr Wyatt was curling his lip at how dry the apology was when Brennan launched herself into the chair, throwing her arms around Sweets.
Sweets went rigid, then, wordlessly, he put his arm around her and rubbed her back gently. Dr Wyatt had to bite his own quivering lip – Sweets was a dear thing, even when beleaguered.
Booth's phone rang in his pocket and he answered it. "Booth...how long ago? Are you sure? No...we'll be right over." He hung up, and Brennan disentangled herself from Sweets to hear the news.
"We might have a new suspect for Gormogon's apprentice." Booth blinked, still dazed by the news. "That was Angela. She was on night shift in Zack's room, and the last thing she remembers is Zack encouraging her to eat one of those hospital pudding cups. She woke up four hours later with a hangover, and Zack was gone. Hodgins took a look and found a needle mark in the foil. He suspects the pudding cup was drugged."
"You think Zack is Gormogon's apprentice?" Brennan asked.
"That's what Angela and Hodgins think." Booth corrected.
"What if Gormogon kidnapped him? We should search the hospital for evidence."
"Hospital security have already cordoned the area off. I told Angela we're on our way." He looked pointedly at Dr Wyatt. "Can you stay with Sweets until we get back?"
"I think we might have some work to do here. But be back before evening, won't you Booth?" Dr Wyatt said.
"Sure thing, Gordon Gordon."
The pair relocated to Dr Wyatt's office. It looked a lot like Sweets' office, only he had a couple of peace lilies by the window, and some fine cuisine magazines strewn over his desk.
"Now, Dr Sweets, do you feel like you could type to me on a lap top?"
Sweets squeezed his hand.
"Excellent." He withdrew one from his desk and sat beside Sweets on the couch so they could both see the screen. He opened a blank Word document.
"Have you suffered from selective mutism before?" Dr Wyatt asked innocently.
You know I have. Sweets typed. Dr Brennan and Agent Booth would have showed you my file."Ah, yes, I'm afraid they did. However, I don't want to pressure you to talk about the contents of that file if you don't want to." Dr Wyatt said.
I've talked about them before. I went through therapy.
"And yet, this relapse suggests that you might have more to work on." Dr Wyatt countered.
Sweets didn't type anything for a moment. Then: Yes.
"Why do you think Booth and Brennan's interrogation set you off?" Dr Wyatt asked.
Booth tries to physically intimidate me all the time. It's his way of challenging the authority of our sessions. I try to take the higher ground, not back down, but when he arrested me it was like he won. He grabbed me and cuffed me and pushed me around, and part of him enjoyed that, and I was powerless to stop him.
"Do you think, in some ways, Booth reminds you of your foster father?"
Of course. I'm mute, I'm not stupid.
"Quite right, Dr Sweets. It's interesting, then, that you chose to defy Agent Booth in the interrogation by not answering his questions."
You know it wasn't really a choice. It was a coping mechanism. When I was a kid, talking back made it worse. Sometimes not talking made it worse too. But it felt like it wasn't my fault if I didn't say anything to provoke it.
"You're well aware, Dr Sweets, that it was never your fault, regardless of anything you said or did."
Sweets audibly sighed. I know that.
"I understand that Dr Brennan showed you some pictures of your injuries."
Yes. She examined me too. She could tell that I had been hit in the face just by feeling the bone. You think you've left all that behind. It's creepy that someone can just walk up and touch your face and know. That you're carrying it with you all the time and it can just surface.
"Not anyone can just walk up to you and 'know' as you put it, Dr Sweets. A world-renowned anthropologist deduced this, not the common man on the street. Indeed, the fact that both Agent Booth and Dr Brennan were so surprised to uncover your past suggests that you're rather talented at hiding your experiences." Dr Wyatt did not sound altogether approving.
You feel I should have casually mentioned my childhood to my co-workers and clients? Wouldn't that be highly unprofessional?
"I think if your clients knew what you have experienced and coped with they would have a far greater respect for your abilities as a psychologist. And Agent Booth and Dr Brennan are more than merely you co-workers, aren't they? They're your surrogate family."
Sweets paused for a moment. Some family.
"Well, my dear Dr Sweets, you picked them. And up until now, you haven't been entirely honest with them. Perhaps rather than seeing this selective mutism event as the unfortunate surfacing of your past, it could be an opportunity to truly and openly connect with Dr Brennan and Agent Booth."
I'll get right on that. Soon as I can talk.
"You can talk, Dr Sweets. You just have to let yourself."
At the hospital, Brennan was running her UV torch over the bedding to see if Zack had been injured in a struggle. There was some evidence of blood and other fluids on the floor and walls, but nothing fresh. When she examined the window, though, an array of marks appeared under the sill.
"No!" she cried.
"Bones! What is it?" Booth was at her side in a second, reading the scrawl:
Dr Brennan, I'm sorry. I caused the explosion. If you don't believe me, check the bones again. Zack
"What is that written in?"
"Saliva." Brennan answered. "This isn't proof, Booth. I have to get back to the lab." She breezed past Booth and out of the ward.
By the time Booth had finished up at the hospital scene, and gotten back to the Jeffersonian, Brennan was sitting in her office, staring vacantly at a skull with four missing teeth.
Booth knocked on the door.
"Zack lied to me." Brennan said, not turning to look at him. "The bite marks on the bones weren't made by regular dentures, but by a specialised set made entirely of human canines. He stole them from Limbo. Zack must have made the dentures for Gormogon." She turned to look at him. "He is the apprentice, Booth."
"I'm sorry, Bones." Booth leaned against the door frame.
She sighed and put the skull back in a tray on her desk. "I suppose we should go and tell Sweets he's no longer a suspect."
"Yeah, let's do that."
"The point of this exercise is to help Dr Sweets speak, by reminding him that trauma and its associated emotions are not taboo topics. We are going to achieve this by giving voice to some of our own childhood traumas, and then Dr Sweets is going to type out his, and we are going to read them aloud."
"This is a real shrink technique?" Booth said dubiously. They were seated in four lounge chairs, facing each other, in Dr Wyatt's office.
"It's called Systemic Desensitisation. I assure you, it's quite a regular therapeutic approach."
"I don't know about this." Booth shifted uncomfortably in his armchair.
"Come on, Booth, we agreed." Brennan chided.
"Yeah I know. We broke him, we're gonna help fix him." Booth nodded to Sweets, who gave him the ghost of a smile.
"I'll begin, shall I?" Dr Wyatt asked. "When I was growing up, my family lived in an old tumbledown family estate in Berkshire that was rather spooky. My older brother had me thoroughly convinced that the place was haunted. He said that one ghost had been blinded, but if I made any noise, even the sound of snoring, after midnight, the ghost would hear me and come groping after me." Dr Wyatt shuddered theatrically. "Needless to say, I was terrified to fall asleep, in case I snored. I developed a terrific case of insomnia, and even wet the bed on several occasions, because I worried that if I got up, the floorboards in my room would squeak and attract the ghost."
"Your brother was horrible." Brennan commented.
"Well, he was twelve, and our concept of morality isn't really firm until age thirteen to fifteen." Dr Wyatt noted. "But yes, he was horrible. Have you got a story to share, Dr Brennan?"
"Whenever I had done something wrong, my foster parents would grab me by the hair and drag me, either to make me re-examine the chore I had done incorrectly, or towards my punishment." Brennan swallowed. "It seemed...logical at the time, that if I cut off all my hair, my foster parents would have nothing to grab. They saw what I had done as an act of defiance, and they hit me, but in the end, my strange haircut was what alerted my caseworker to the fact that I was being mistreated."
"Bones." Booth said, eyes dark with pity.
"I feel I should add, that you had done nothing 'wrong' as you put it, by failing to live up to your foster parents' draconian standards." Dr Wyatt added. Sweets nodded in agreement.
"Agent Booth?" Dr Wyatt prompted.
"Huh? Right. Well, my old man, he was a drunk. He had the temper that goes with being a drunk." Booth fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve while he talked. "One time, I came home from school, and he saw that I had bruises on my arm. He asked me how I got them." Booth laughed quietly. "I thought it was a trick question, since he'd given them to me himself the week before. So I lied and told him a kid at school beat me up. He looked me up and down, then he told me: 'You should've defended yourself'. What makes me really mad, when I think back, is, I'm still not sure if he knew there was no kid at school."
"You did more than defend yourself, Booth." Brennan said. "You defended your mother, and Jarred. Your father had no right to say that."
"Thanks Bones." Booth said. "I know."
"Your turn, Dr Sweets." Dr Wyatt said pleasantly. "Dr Brennan, would you –
" – I'll read it out, okay Sweets?" Booth stepped in. Dr Wyatt smiled at how willingly Booth would do something that made him so uncomfortable in order to save the feelings of his partner. He shuffled his armchair closer to Sweets so he could read over his shoulder as he typed.
My foster parents weren't good people. Booth read aloud. I think they both had nervous disorders. The wife would set the husband off, and she would deflect the blame onto me. Some of it I genuinely don't remember – I have scars I don't remember getting. Booth looked up at him, brow furrowed.
"Oh, Sweets." Brennan breathed.
"He's still typing Agent Booth. Keep reading." Dr Wyatt said.
"Right...the time I was most scared, we were in the kitchen, and he grabbed the skillet from the stove top. I remember sizing it up and realising if he hit me with it, I'd be dead. Booth's eyes flicked to Brennan's and Wyatt's at the idea that a six year old had so much experience with beatings, he could gauge the damage before it happened. Wyatt gave him a sad, imperceptible nod.
Booth continued.
He chased me though the house and I could hear it knocking into the walls. They had an outhouse in the backyard so I ran in and bolted the door, but he attacked the door and walls so violently I thought the whole thing would fall down. He got tired, eventually, but he yelled through the door that if I ever came out, he was going to kill me. I stayed in the outhouse for three days.
"Is that when you got removed from their home?" Brennan asked.
Booth looked expectantly at the screen, but Sweets wasn't typing. Finally, he wrote No. My foster mother lured me out by reminding me that I was missing school. I liked school. A while after that I got taken to the nurse by my second-grade teacher because I couldn't speak, and she thought I was having trouble hearing.
"Your perforated ear-drum." Brennan guessed.
Sweets nodded. The nurse tried to examine me and I wouldn't let her touch me. That's when they twigged that something else was going on. They contacted social services who took me to hospital, and shortly afterwards I was removed from the home.
"Your injuries were quite extensive. You must be very brave to overcome those experiences and still attain such a high level of academic and professional success." Brennan ventured.
"Yeah. Very brave." Booth echoed.
Sweets blushed. "Thanks, guys." He mouthed.
"You know, we're failing to look at the upside of this situation." Booth said, smiling at Brennan. "I can offer you all the pie I want now, and Sweets won't be able to make anything of it."
"I still don't like pie, Booth, but I do look forward to being able to correct you without being told I'm 'hyper-rational' and that I should 'have more regard for other people's feelings'."
"Well, I happen to agree with Sweets on that one, but Bones, you know what the best part is?"
They exchanged a meaningful look.
"No therapy homework!" they chanted in unison, laughing.
"Guys, you do know I'm still in the room." Sweets said.
Dr Wyatt raised his eyebrows.
"And welcome back, Sweets." Booth grinned, and clapped him on the back. "I think we fixed our shrink."
Sweets smiled and furrowed his eyebrows. "You tricked me."
Brennan smiled. "So when we do it, it's a trick, but when you two do it, it's therapy?" She looked at Dr Sweets and Dr Wyatt expectantly.
"Touché, Dr Brennan, touché." Dr Wyatt said. "I think this calls for a celebration. Perhaps we could all go to that diner you frequent?"
"Dr Brennan, you could get some pie." Sweets teased.
"Hey, if pie means what you think it means, you shouldn't be offering it to Bones." Booth said, frowning as everyone reached for their jackets.
"That's your job, right?" Sweets challenged. Booth gulped, searching for words.
"Tricked you back." Sweets said with that insufferable grin.