Chapter 1 -- Stiff Cooperation

"…don't you have anything else pressing at this moment, Agent Booth?"

Booth pulled the cell away from his face and stared at it, imagining himself saying a few choice profanities to his supervisor. He swallowed the insults, took a breath, and put the phone back against his ear. "Sir, this is where you want me. There's press crawling all over this. In a few short hours, the local police will kick it up to the FBI, who will kick it up to you. I figure it's best if I get a jump on things before the morning news hour."

Assistant Director Davis was silent, never suspecting he was getting echoes of a conversation Booth had had with Davis' predecessor about two years before.

"This is a popular church, A.D. Davis; there will be public outcry. If the deceased would happen to be a priest, a lot of angry parishioners are going to want answers," Booth added, just as he saw Brennan's car pull up in front of him.

Davis sighed heavily. "All right, all right. You've convinced me. Find the killer and find him fast, preferably before anyone in the press hears we're looking into it. Keep a low profile."

"Yes, sir," Booth said. He hit the end button. "You fucking putz," he added, trusting that Davis couldn't hear, just as Brennan's head emerged.

She stood there, arms resting on the roof of the car and the edge of the car door. She looked very tired. "Booth," she started hesitantly. Was that compassion? He didn't want that from her.

"Brennan, thanks for coming out in the middle of the night." Booth suddenly wasn't sure he'd done the right thing. It might have been better to call Cam first, but Cam would be sympathetic and he didn't want that. He wanted to stoke his outrage, not his grief. Things between himself and Brennan had been strange since Christmas, he had thought she'd be all business. Caroline Julian had insisted on being "puckish" and the resulting kiss hung between Booth and Brennan like something supernatural they both refused to acknowledge. "You'll want a hot suit," he said.

"The church burned down?" she asked, blinking in disbelief as she grabbed her field bag.

"Not all of it," Booth replied. "Just where the body is. And you know the rules. It's an old building. We've got to do everything by the book." Of course, Booth had already broken a few of the rules, but he had no intention of sharing that information.

Brennan looked at him sideways and bristled slightly. "I always follow investigatory rules when approaching a crime scene."

Awkward. It had been that way for two months, though this was the first time he'd actually appreciated it.

Both put on "hot suits", protective gear that crime scene investigators in the DC area now wore whenever entering a fire zone where unknown chemicals might exist among the rubble. This rule was only six years old – something that came after the 9-11 attacks and the resulting illnesses that rescue crews suffered from working at ground zero without gas masks and protective clothing. Booth wanted the added symbolic insulation that came with the gear, but not to protect him from something outside.

The pair walked back into the crime scene, flashing their credentials for the policemen guarding the tape barrier and ignoring shouted questions from the media. Brennan turned a questioning look on Booth that he could just barely see through her mask. "Why are there still police on scene?" she asked into his headset. "Hasn't the FBI officially taken over yet?"

"There's a bit of a jurisdictional conflict," Booth answered. "AD Davis said he'd have it resolved in a few minutes. In the meantime we should gather as much information as we can." He saw Brennan's steps falter only briefly as she absorbed this.

There was no longer a door to Saint Patrick's. The stones had not been burned, so the narthex and vestibule appeared intact, though charred. Inside the nave was appalling destruction. Booth swallowed a lump that had formed in his throat, just as he heard Brennan gasp into her headset. The sound enraged him further, because her shock did not come out of respect for his church and what it stood for – she was probably bothered by the damage to a historic building. At least, that's the way he preferred to view the sound she'd made at that particular moment.

"Booth, it's so…"

"The body is over there," he interrupted, pointing to where the body had been positioned beneath the stained-glass window. He could have shown her crime scene photos and provided her the body, but he believed there might be things she'd spot from the scene – things that would give him the jump on the sonovabitch that had defiled his church.

Then he watched her as she got to work, marking things, observing things, measuring things. All the while he seethed, building his hatred for the perpetrator.

It was then that the police crime scene team arrived. Booth smiled in satisfaction. "Too little, too late," he muttered to himself as he turned to greet them.

Brennan, who had heard him on her head set, asked, "What did you say, Booth?"

"Just keep doing your magic," Booth replied, cringing at the words he'd chosen. Brennan would probably misconstrue that and point out that her "magic" was science. "I've got another jurisdictional misunderstanding to straighten out."

To his surprise, Brennan only said a quiet, "Okay."

"When did this become priority of the Feds?" the crime scene team leader was asking.

Booth approached him just as three cell phones rang at once, including Booth's. He pulled his out and glanced at the display, spotting the donkey picture he'd assigned to his supervisor's phone number. He answered with, "Agent Booth," knowing that he was about to get the official assignment. Simultaneously, he heard Brennan muttering to herself over his headset, "What is that?"