Chapter 2: I have to see that
With a ping the elevator doors opened and spat out a couple with visitor's passes clipped to both their lapels. Emmy – a petite woman of Asian descent and one of the Boston morgue's clerks – watched them curiously through her retro-style glasses, as they rather slowly approached her counter. They seemed to be arguing over something. Correction: bickering over something.
The woman had wavy, auburn hair which just touched her collarbones. From her shoulder hung a canvas bag with leather straps and she was carrying a – Emmy guessed – laptop backpack. She had strikingly gray-blue eyes which were twinkling in the sun that fell through the round window of the morgue lobby on the eighth floor. They were definitely twinkling with joy, a fact Emmy frowned at. After all they had just entered the morgue, a place where more likely sadness and grief was displayed. And that was why she took a closer look at the two strangers sensing a chance to gossip.
The man was almost a head taller than the woman. He had dark hair and dark eyes. Under his long black coat, he wore a black suit with a white shirt and a Bordeaux red tie. Compared to the woman's clothes, he seemed a little overdressed.
She wore a similar coat, except for the lighter color and the women cut. Her feet stuck in black biker boots. Tight blue jeans and casual shirts in black and white with a rather low neckline completed her outfit. Around her neck she wore a – and there was no other way to describe it – chunky necklace in turquoise and coral.
"Why didn't you tell me, Bones?"
"What?" The woman stopped walking and turned to her companion, spreading her arms in front of her. "I assumed you knew."
"How should I? You told me the next nearest was in Montreal."
"That was over two years ago, Booth. Things change. Remember? Zach getting his doctor's degree about a year ago?"
"If you had told me, you could have stayed with your pretty bones back in Washington."
"Actually they were quite boring." She sighed. "Nothing spectacular about them. Only what you'd expect from about 2000-year-old bones. A murder case is always a welcome diversion."
"Oh, suddenly." His face brightened in realization. "So, that's the real reason you didn't protest?" He sent a charm smile her way, that went unnoticed, and pushed his coat back putting his hands on his hips. The movement revealed a huge belt buckle saying "COCKY" and two card aces on his tie. Okay, he was not that overdressed, after all.
"Yeah, among others." The woman with the strange nickname 'Bones' resumed walking again, a smile tugging at her lips.
"Hey, wait, Bones. What other reasons?"
Instead of answering his question, she addressed Emmy: "Hi, we're here to identify the burn victim from this morning."
"You can wait in the conference room over there and I'll get the pathologist in charge," Emmy offered. "Ms...?"
"It's Dr. Brennan and thank you."
They turned around and entered the conference room across from the counter, while Emmy picked up her phone, and waited for the pathologist to come.
"You know, Bones, I could have just shown her my badge."
"So? We'll meet the pathologist this way, too, won't we?"
"Yes, you will." A tall dark haired woman in blue scrubs worn over her street clothes entered the room. Under the right corner of her mouth was a birthmark. Her brown eyes looked a little confused at them. "Hi. Emmy – that's our clerk – told me you were here to identify the burn victim. I'm afraid there's not much left to be identified..."
"That's exactly why we're here, Dr. ..."
"Cavanaugh. I don't think I understand, Ms. ..."
"It's Dr. Brennan," she repeated, elaborating further with, "I'm a forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian helping the FBI with cases."
Realization and wariness was registering on Dr. Cavanaugh's face. She lifted an eyebrow. "And that's how you come into the game." She had turned towards Booth. "Agent...?"
"Special Agent. Seeley Booth." He showed her his badge. "Major Crime Investigation, DC." And pointing at Dr. Brennan, he added: "Bones identifies bodies for us."
Brennan glared at him. "Don't call me 'Bones'," she hissed, while Dr. Cavanaugh commented: "I believe she just said that." Surprised Brennan smiled at that little triumph. This was someone she could easily like. "So, why is the FBI interested in the victim? If I may ask."
"Booth believes that the victim is an ex-Irish-Mafia member," Brennan offered. "An important witness in some trial against the Irish Mafia."
The Special Agent sent her an angry glare. "Bones!"
Dr. Brennan turned around, looking at him. "What? You told me to be friends with the locals. Sharing information is being friends."
"I appreciate that." Dr. Cavanaugh said and as much as she disliked the FBI for always taking their cases she already started to like the forensic anthropologist in front of her. She reminded her a bit of herself. Except she didn't take things so literally and wasn't that socially awkward. Hopefully.
Brennan returned her gaze to Dr. Cavanaugh. "Can I see the remains now?"
Wow, this woman isn't even going to take the body from us. She liked her even more. "Of course. Let me just call the detective in charge," she readily offered.
They followed her past Plexiglas boxes displaying hundreds of butterflies and beetles to her office and waited outside the door.
"Those butterflies are beautiful," Booth said. "And I'm sure Hodgins'd like to have some of the bugs. He'd love it here."
"Probably. I mean I tend to like this place." Brennan stated. "It's different from the other morgues I've been to. Light and up above the city, not hidden under it. Remember when I told you, how the FBI tends to hide its morgues?" Not waiting for an answer and head winning over heart again, she added, "Then again those are more practical. It's colder under the earth." She looked out through the window to the right of the door to Dr. Cavanaugh's office. Down in the streets cars the size of beetles were slowly moving their way in a downtown traffic jam.
"But it can't keep up with the Jeffersonian."
"There's a difference, Booth. The Jeffersonian is a research facility and a museum. This isn't."
"Meaning?"
She looked back to her partner. "We get more money, being additionally sponsored by private investors, whereas this Medical Examiner's office is solely run by state money."
"So, it's basically Hodgins who guarantees your jobs and your outer space equipment."
"The equipment is not from 'outer space'..." Booth gave her an as-if-I-didn't-know-eye-roll. "...but yes, the Cantilever Group is the biggest donor."
Dr. Cavanaugh opened the door again. "Detective Hoyt is on his way. He will be here soon..." She, too, cast a glance out the window. "...er or later." Looking at Brennan again, she added: "Do you need a surgical gown or something?"
"A lab coat would be nice."
"You can hang your coat in there, while I'll get you something to wear."
"Thank you." Brennan stepped into the small room and let her bags slide to the ground beside the couch.
"Why is she ignoring me?" Booth wondered.
"She doesn't like the FBI, I guess." She hung her coat on the hook beside the door.
"How do you know? I thought you hated psychology."
"I do. She went wary, when I mentioned you were FBI." She sat down on the couch, while Booth went to the window behind the desk. "I learned that from you."
Booth smiled at that. "Why doesn't she like the FBI?" He turned back around to Brennan and picked up a photo of Dr. Cavanaugh and a man with brown hair and very blue eyes, who had put his arms around the doctor. They both smiled at the camera, his face showing deep dimples.
"That I don't know."
"Jor..." A tall man about Booth's age entered the room. He had strikingly blue eyes. Both Brennan and Booth turned to look at him. It was the man from the photo. "You don't happen to know where Dr. Cavanaugh is?"
"She went to get me a lab coat," Brennan said.
The man's forehead wrinkled. "Then you must be the one's from the FBI." His face showed the same wariness as had Dr. Cavanaugh's.
Brennan stood up. "He is." She pointed at Booth. "I work at the Jeffersonian."
"Yeah, Jordan mentioned that."
"So, you're the detective in charge of the burn victim." It was no question. Brennan stated it as a fact as had the man.
The detective nodded. "Hoyt's the name."
"I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth," Booth said and then pointed at Brennan. "And her name is Dr. Temperance Brennan." They shook hands.
"At last. I'm not the only one with an unusual name." And on Brennan's questioning frown, he added: "My parents named me Woodrow." He smirked. "They had a thing for presidents. My brother's name is Calvin."
"Woody! How did you make it that fast?" Dr. Cavanaugh – Jordan – had returned and handed Brennan a plain white lab coat. "The traffic down there looks horrible."
"Wisconsin Magic." He grinned, showing the deep dimples from the photo.
Brennan, meanwhile, had put on the lab coat and now looked down on the white fabric. On the left breast side Dr. Cavanaugh was stitched. Jordan saw her gaze. "I generally don't wear it anyway," she commented. "Now let's get to work."
Brennan transferred her visitor's pass to the lab coat, tied her hair into a pony tail and then grabbed her bag again, leaving her backpack on the floor. They all followed Dr. Cavanaugh past doors marked with PRIVATE, TRACE, AUTOPSY, CRYPT,written in black letters on sometimes clear, sometimes milky glass. Jordan lead the way to one of the doors marked with AUTOPSY. She pushed the door open and invited them in. "So, this is him."
In the room it smelled heavily like burnt flesh and hair. "Aw, this is bad." Woody wrinkled his nose again. Booth just stood stoically at the side of the table.
Jordan handed Brennan a pair of surgical gloves and then snapped some on herself. Brennan walked around the table and studied the remains intensely. "Badly burnt male," she finally stated, standing at the pelvis. "Age unknown." She noted an index finger was missing, clearly severed after the fire. "Was there enough left for fingerprints?" She directed her question at Jordan.
"No, I'm afraid there wasn't. We took the best preserved finger and tried to rehydrate it, but it was too heavily burnt."
Brennan went on with her tour around the autopsy table. "Visceral cranium as well as neurocranium crashed. Therefore race unknown." She looked up at Jordan again. "Have samples been taken from the remaining tissue and the remaining clothes?"
"Yes. Nigel – one of our criminologists – is running tests on them. We x-rayed him, too."
"Okay, the flesh seems to be pretty much carbon, nothing to help identify him left. Let's remove all the flesh and particulates we can and then macerate him. Do you happen to have any Dermestes maculatus here?"
"I'll have to ask Bug – our entomologist." Jordan laid evidence bags on a table to the side of the room and got a tray with scalpels, tweezers and forceps.
"Thanks. Then I'd like to have a look at the x-rays, while they do their job."
Jordan nodded and left the room tossing her gloves into the red biological hazard bag by the door. Even though she liked the forensic anthropologist, the woman made her feel like the young medical assistant she had been during her practical education at the cardiology. She was glad she hadn't become a cardiologist. It would have meant constantly having the life of your patient in the hand, quite literally. A fact she head learned, when she had first met her current boss Dr. Garret Macy. A patient had died due to a mistake of her mentor, when she had known it better.
Woody frowned at Jordan's readiness to follow the orders of someone else. She usually had a serious problem with authorities and orders. Irish stubbornness. He shook his head and leaned closer to Booth. "What's she talking about?"
"I heard those words once before. Derme-whatever. Flesh-eating beetles. Pretty disgusting, but fascinating, too," Booth answered.
"And the best way to clean the bones of a burn victim," Brennan cut in without looking up from the remains. She took a scalpel and tried to loosen remains of organs from the bones, careful not to scrape into them. It would speed up the maceration by the beetles. Concentrated she cut out what once had been the heart, the lungs, stomach, liver and the other organs and put them into evidence bags. Her gloves soon were black with soot.
"Bug has those beetles you asked for, but we'll have to transfer the remains into his entomology lab," Jordan said as she pushed the door open and let it swing back again.
"Good. Give me a hand with the head. It's important we retrieve as many of the bone fragments as possible."
Jordan put on new gloves and then they both picked debris of the skull from the remains of the brain with plastic tweezers. Finally they finished their task and put the major part of the brain into an evidence bag. When they looked up, they realized that Booth and Woody had left somewhere along the line.
"When did they leave?"
"I don't know." Brennan looked down at the skeleton. "Let's feed the beetles." By now her lab coat as well as Jordan's scrubs were soot stained. They exchanged their gloves again and then pushed the table to the entomology lab, where they transferred the remains carefully into a large Plexiglas box.
When Brennan had placed the last fragment of former life inside it, a man of Indian origin wearing a white lab coat entered the room. In his hands he held two round glass containers teeming with little brown beetles.
"Right on time," Jordan commented.
"Thank you, Dr. ..." Brennan looked at his chest and lifted her eyebrows, before saying in one flow, "...Vijayaraghavensatyanaryanamurthy." She had read and heard names worse.
"I'm impressed, Dr. Brennan." Jordan nodded appreciative. "Bug. This is Dr. Temperance Brennan. Dr. Brennan works at the Jeffersonian Institute."
"Dr. Brennan." He put the container in his right hand down and shook hands with Brennan. "Call me 'Bug'. Everyone does. Or if you're more comfortable with formality, call me 'Dr. Vijay'."
"Thanks. It's Tempe or just Brennan."
"Then I guess I should offer my first name, too. It's Jordan." She looked from Brennan to Bug. "So, let's get started, Bug."
Bug opened the container he still had in his hand and poured the beetles into the box with the remains. When he had repeated it with the other container, he closed the cover of the box. "Enjoy your meal."
"Can I have a look at the x-rays now?" Brennan asked.
"Of course." Jordan waved a hand for her to follow.
By now it was noon and half the staff of the morgue sat in the break room to eat what they had brought from home or ordered in. Nigel Townsend – a tall man with almost shoulder long black hair – was among them. On the table in front of him stood a bowl of self-made strawberry yogurt. In his right hand he held a spoon that wandered regularly from the yogurt to his mouth. He was putting it only down to turn the page of the book he held in his other hand.
"So I was just about to run after him, when he slipped on the wet floor and fell. The purse came flying right into my direction. I caught it and handed it back to the old lady," Sidney – one of the younger MEs, a man of average height with milk coffee brown skin – told him and Nigel looked up, laughing. "Wait, it gets even better. I helped him up from the floor and walked with him to the department store detective and..."
Suddenly Nigel stopped laughing, looked down at the back cover of his book and then back up again. Outside the window of the break room the author of the book he was currently holding in his hand walked past. She was following Jordan through the corridor.
"Hey, are you still listening?" Sidney waved his hands in front of his friend's face. Nigel held up his right index finger to Sidney, stood up and left the break room. "Nigel!" Sidney tried, calling disbelievingly, but the tall Briton just followed the duo on the corridor to Jordan's office.
"Dr. Brennan!" Nigel grinned happily. "I'm a huge fan of your books."
Brennan turned around. "Thank you."
"Would you sign my book for me?" Nigel held it to Brennan.
Brennan took a pen from Jordan's desk and opened the book on its first page. "To whom?"
"Nigel Townsend."
"The criminologist," she commented starting to write, gaining a surprised look that she didn't notice. Then she handed the book back.
Nigel opened it again. "To Nigel," he read out loud. "Keep on fighting them. Temperance Brennan." He looked back up at Brennan. "Thank you." He beamed her one of his wide smiles.
"Nige?" Jordan had watched their conversation silently. Now she handed Brennan a brown envelope with x-rays and asked Nigel, "Anything on the samples yet?"
He stopped smiling and turned back to work mode. "Not yet. The machines are still working. But I'm running every test, I could think of."
"Any fire accelerator?" Brennan said, studying the x-rays intently, holding one after the other against the light falling in from outside.
"Love, I said every test."
"Just asking." She let her arm sink. "This one should be easy to identify. Multiple healed fractures, at least some attended to. Probably a bullet in the pelvis. Judging from the Blumensaat's line, I'd say probably Caucasian. Indications of arthritis between the vertebrae put him late thirties to late forties." She put the x-rays on the desk and started digging in her bag. "I'll check with Booth, if he has any medical records on this ex-Mafioso."
"You can use my telephone," Jordan picked up the x-rays herself. "I can see the fractures, the density in the pelvis, you suspect to be a bullet, and the signs of arthritis, but how can you tell that he is white from this?"
"The lateral view of the femur?" When Jordan held the right film against the window, Brennan pointed with the left index finger, while dialing with her right, the receiver between her right cheek and her shoulder. "It's the angle of the line here, between the condyles, that says rather white than black. ... Yeah, hi, this is Brennan. Do you have any medical records on this ex-... ... That's a pity. Where are you anyway? ... Okay, we'll wait." She put the receiver down into its cradle. "Booth and Detective Hoyt are coming here." She took a deep breath. "Booth said the FBI's still trying to get medical records on Jim O'Connor. So, it's DNA and facial reconstruction."
"Facial reconstruction?" Jordan didn't believe her ears. "You've got to be kidding me. The skull is pretty much pulverized."
"Not even nearly," Brennan stated no-nonsense. "And I've already reconstructed much worse fragmented skulls. And we got an ID based on it."
"I have to see that." Nigel turned to Jordan. "How badly fragmented is the skull?"
"Pretty bad. You remember the guy from last month who jumped from the 10th floor almost head first?" After Nigel's nod, she continued, "That bad bad."
"Sweet Nancy. I have to see that."