A/N: Well shucks, I'm plumb tickled that so many of y'all are followin' the story. :) All Southern fun aside though, I really am excited to see so many loyal readers from Foster Child putting this story on alert too! I hope you guys like this one as much as the last one... I will try not to disappoint. With that said, this chapter isn't very long, and it's mostly procedural stuff. I tried to throw in some fun too, though, to keep it paletable. Having said that... enjoy!
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The next day was equally as beautiful as Seeley Booth pulled his SUV into the Jeffersonian's staff parking garage. He watched the sun disappear as he sank farther into the twisting depths of the garage, and his thoughts drifted to Brennan. He vaguely remembered the absolute, inconsolable devastation that had overcome him that afternoon when he first heard the Gravedigger's message—that she had twelve hours to live, and Hodgins too. He had been less concerned about Hodgins.
While it was impossible to ever relive those emotions, he felt the discontented sensation wash over him as he passed by the place where Hodgins's blood had been splattered on the asphalt; where they had found the chipped-off car decal from Gravedigger's car. Maybe, Booth thought to himself as the elevator doors shut behind him, he would go back into that case file and look over the clues again. There must have been something more.
"So, what have we got?" Booth asked as he stepped up to the catwalk, putting his hand on Brennan's shoulder. She gave him a peculiar look and he removed it, wiping his palm on his pants as if he had touched something wet.
"Well, Angela is still matching dentals, but all four bodies are female, late teens to early twenties," Brennan said, looking over her clipboard at the tables, lined in two rows of two, head-to-toe with each other. Each of the skeletons was complete—they were lucky to have avoided major damage from animals or the elements.
"The only animal-related damage to the skeletons appeared to be some scavenging by birds and small carnivores, maybe foxes or possums," Brennan continued, verbalizing her thoughts. "The skeletons are all complete, but in more pieces than I would like. I'll be able to make a better assessment of the trauma once my assistant cleans the bones."
"Your assistant? Who is it this week?" Booth asked, and Brennan shrugged.
"I don't know," she said vaguely. "I don't know his name."
"Oh. Is he any good?" Booth asked, and again Brennan shrugged, squinting down at one of the skeleton's wrist bones.
"I don't know," she repeated. "I haven't had much of a chance to work with him."
"Okay," Booth said slowly. "Where is he now?"
"I don't know," Brennan repeated for a third time, this time her voice slightly edgy.
"Well, what do you know?" Booth asked, and Brennan straightened up, putting a hand on her hip and staring him down.
"What are you being so snippy for?" she asked, and Booth put his hands on his hips, mimicking her action.
"Well gee, I don't know," he said, and as Brennan opened her mouth to no doubt fire a snide remark at him, Angela swiped her card and joined them.
"Alright, turtle doves," she said impishly, laying a file of papers on a stainless steel table. "I matched three of our victims' dentals to the database, but it wasn't easy. Number one here—" she pointed to the first skeleton "—had a bottom jaw that was in six pieces, which was fun to reconstruct. She's Elaine Blackwood. Number two was missing most of her front teeth, they're probably still out in that pumpkin patch. But I checked for matches on her sinuses—"
"Her what?" Hodgins asked, approaching the catwalk with a stack of papers. The animosity between them seemed to have been long forgotten, and she rolled her eyes playfully at him.
"Sinuses, dirt boy. Human sinus cavities are as unique as fingerprints. Anyway, I matched her by her sinuses—she had a cat scan of her head taken two years ago. Her name is Jennifer Allard."
"So it looks like someone's been bashing girl's faces in," Booth said grimly. Angela shook her head.
"No, three and four's skulls were completely intact. Three came up quick as being Laura Banes. No match on number four, though."
"That makes sense," Brennan said, looking at the teeth inside of number four's skull. "I wouldn't say definitively without an x-ray of the teeth, but it doesn't appear that she has ever had any dental work done. Not even so much as a filling."
"No dentist, no dentals," Booth said, tossing a coin up and snatching it out of the air, repocketing it. "Alright, well we've got three positive ID's, that's good. What do we know about our girls so far?"
"Well," Angela said, pulling out another sheet of paper. "Number one, Elaine Blackwood, was twenty years old. She was a sophomore at Marymount University in Arlington, and she swam on their swim team. She was reported missing three weeks ago by her parents when she didn't come home for the weekend like she had planned. Interestingly, she was five foot, nine inches."
"Why is that interesting? She was tall," Booth said. Angela held up a finger.
"Wait for it," she said, continuing. "Number two, Jennifer Allard, was eighteen. She was a freshman at Virginia Commonwealth, didn't play any sports but dabbled in modeling throughout high school. This is her." Angela held out a photograph, which Booth took. The girl in the picture was stunning—long blonde hair wound into tight curls, round brown eyes and a row of very white, very straight teeth. Teeth that were presently lying in a pumpkin patch. He felt his stomach flop, and gave the photograph back to Angela.
"She was reported missing three weeks ago also, out of Richmond," Angela pressed on. "She was five feet, eleven inches."
"Tall girl," Hodgins noted. Angela nodded.
"It gets better," she said. "Number three, Laura Banes, age twenty. A sophomore, also went to Virginia Commonwealth. She was a member of VCU's student government, and part of the Pre-Law society. Reported missing a week ago. She was five feet, nine inches."
"That is interesting," Brennan said, seeing the pattern. Angela nodded.
"While we don't have a positive ID on the fourth victim, I can estimate that she probably stood between five feet, eight inches, and five feet, ten inches," Brennan said, eyeing the unidentified skeleton.
"Another tall girl," Booth said, his brows furrowed. "So what's our connection between the crimes, they're all tall?"
"So far," Angela said. "They were also all very pretty." She withdrew from the folder a handful of photographs downloaded from the missing persons system and laid them out on the steel table—all three, as Angela had said, were very pretty young women. Jennifer, the blonde model, was accompanied by Elaine, a befreckled redhead with a sweet smile, and Laura, whose short brown bob did not betray her very feminine features. Booth chewed on the inside of his cheek, gears turning inside of his head.
"Was there any sign of sexual assault?" he asked. As if to answer his question, Cam entered the room, carrying nothing in her hands.
"No sign of assault," she said loudly, joining the growing crowd atop the catwalk. "Sexual, I mean. Somebody beat these girls up, but whoever they were, they didn't rape them. No semen, no saliva, nothing."
"Well that blows my bind-rape-and-kill theory," Booth said grouchily, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Brennan made a disagreeable noise, and he looked up. She was still eyeing the wrist of one of the skeletons, now revealed to be Laura Banes.
"I wouldn't throw out the binding part, anyway," she said. "I've been looking at their wrists, and they all show the same damage to the outer ulna and radius, and the carpal bones. The damage is consistent with trying to escape tight bindings."
"I'll take a sample of the flesh from the area, see if I can't identify what material was used to bind their wrists," Hodgins said. "Speaking of identifying material, from the samples I took earlier it looks like all of the bodies were carried inside the trunk of the same car from wherever they were killed, to the place they were dumped. That at least ties them all to the same killer. Sorry, bad word choice."
"You know, they say puns are subconsciously thought out linguistic patterns created by the brain," Angela piped in. "Not accidental at all."
"Thank you, Angepedia," Hodgins said with a wry smile. Angela grinned back. Cam coughed loudly.
"Great," she said. "While Hodgins takes those samples, I'm going to run tox screens on our ladies and see if they were into anything on the nights they were murdered. Two were reported missing three weeks ago, one of them a week ago. What about our unidentified fourth body? Hodgins, how's that coming along?"
"I'm still hatching pupae," he said. "Once they hatch, which should be later tonight or tomorrow morning, I'll know exactly how long each of them has been dead."
"Great," Cam said. "Booth, what about you and Dr. Brennan?"
"Well, we'll go on what we've got. First off, we have to tell the victim's families. Ready, Bones?" he said, and she nodded.
"Sure, I wouldn't want you to get caught without a translator," she said, to which he replied with a short grunt of disproval.
"Yeah, yeah," he said. "Yeehaw, giddy-up, whatever. Let's go."
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A/N: Like I said... not a biggie, just some stuff to keep in mind as the story progresses. So what are your thoughts so far, on the case and on the fic in general? I've got a week before Halloween, and while I know I won't be anywhere near finished with it by then, I'm hoping to get some of the spooktacular stuff in by that point. So, love it or hate it... please review it. :) And PS... there is a particular reason I mentioned the Gravedigger at the beginning of this chapter. Any guesses?
