The next morning started with a phone call.
Well, it started with a shower that swung from too hot to too cold under his inexperienced hands, and coffee that was too strong. The phone call was still plenty early, though. Buzzing against his hip while he was still fighting his way south from Silver Springs.
It was Professor Spenser, with an ess, wanting to meet.
"You meant to sting my pride last night," he told Booth, gesturing him into a chair at the miniature table. Around them commuters bustled. Picking up coffee and turnovers; putting off going to the office. "Implying that my son was a better man than myself."
"Did it work?" Booth asked.
"Oh, yes." Spenser smiled a little, and let it slide away. "I was not entirely honest with you last night. I let you believe my son died in war. He did not."
"So?" Booth made it neutral, but he could feel the tension coiling down low. Spenser allowed himself one last second of unhappy hesitation, then gave into the story.
"Hakim earned those medals in Iraq, but he came home safe. He walked off the plane, and I cried like a child because my child was safe. I couldn't see into his spirit, though. I didn't know how much of the damage was hidden until he had stopped eating, stopped sleeping, stopped living. I took him to the doctor, and he was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder."
Spenser gave him a quick glance, but Booth just sipped his coffee. He'd had his own demons to deal with. He wasn't going to grudge another guy's because it had a name on everyone's lips.
"The doctors and the pills seemed to help. He got better, and I started thinking we'd dodged a bullet, my son and I. Then two years ago, Hakim went into the garage, put a bucket over his head, and shot himself from under the chin."
Booth straightened up, put his coffee down. Met the guy's eyes, because things like that mattered. "I'm very sorry," he said.
Spenser weighed it, then he nodded. Around them, the commuters broke like waves.
"Mr. Spenser," Booth asked, ready for this to go either way, "did you make those donations?"
Spenser watched him, all the mobile lines on his face still. Then he shook his head. "No, but suspect I know who did."
"Who?"
"David Alexanders. My son's friend since grammar school."
"What makes you think that?"
Spenser shrugged. "Nothing more persuasive than phantom doubt. Besides myself, Davy loved Hakim the best. He took his suicide very hard."
"Those donations are linked to at least two murders." Booth said.
"I can't believe that David is capable of killing, but . . . ." Spenser looked down at his swirling coffee. Booth waited, head cocked like a dog that wanted to understand. He looked up to meet Booth's own eyes.
"I looked into my son's face thousands of times, Agent Booth. Hundreds of thousands. From the moment he was born until the day he shot himself in the head. Not once did I see death looking back at me."
"In other words: sometimes we're wrong," Booth gave the guy his due. Spenser gave him a smile that was mostly sorrow, but spiced with irony.
"You have a refreshing way of simplifying things. We could use you at the university."
"I like being a cop," Booth told him, but accepted the compliment. "You know where I can find David Alexanders?"
"Here." Spenser handed him a card. It listed an address in Bethesda, Maryland.
Half an hour later he finally made it downtown to pick Bones up. Ha...okay, no. Bad turn of phrase.
To fetch Bones? No, to freaking English.
Rendezvous. Rendezvous would work. It was perfectly fucking French. Who knew what it really meant.
Standing just out of view of Brennan's fishbowl windows, Booth stopped. Grimacing at his own brain, and smoothing a hand down his tie. Across the lab, Angela caught him at it. She treated him to a long, cool evaluation, like she could see through him, and did not find him impressive. He squinted back at her, and she raised one perfect eyebrow.
Booth broke her gaze, because he wanted to, and strode casually into Bones' office. Where she stood, talking to the other half of the Hodgelastic dynamic duo.
Bones and Hodgins broke off whatever they had been talking about to give him the eyeball. He used their silence to give Bones a run down of seeing Cullen, his double encounter with Professor Spenser, and the new theories about David Alexanders, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Medicine, currently working as a researching for the National Institute of Health.
"Wow, NIH," Hodgins said with intensely blue-eyed interest. If he and Bones ever got together, they'd make babies that would give Hitler the willies. "So, are you gonna go put the squeeze on him?"
"Why are you here?" Booth asked, eyeing the guys rumpled lab-coat, and hair that looked capable of supporting insect life. Angela had said he wasn't sleeping, and wow, he looked it.
"Dude," Hodgins protested. "I'm giving Dr. B an update on stabby things."
"Did he find it?" Booth turned to ask Bones, who shook her head.
"Hey," Hodgins griped, but Booth just pointed to the door.
"Time to go, bug-boy."
Hodgins grumbled, but he went. Except now Bones was giving him the same blue-eyed evaluation. Willies. Definitely the willies.
"So, are we going to put the squeeze on him?" she asked, but she did it while switching from lab, to outdoor coat, so Booth tried to cool his jets. It wasn't easy though. The sourness in his veins wanted to just keep rolling.
"No, we're going to go ask him some questions about his good friend Hakim."
"So, we're going to be sneaky about putting the squeeze on him?" she clarified, smiling at him as she flipped her hair out from underneath her collar. Booth couldn't help but smile back.
"Yeah, Bones. We're being sneaky about it."
Despite the good start, she sat silent for the entire car ride. Looking out the side window, wearing an expression he'd bet money she wasn't aware of.
"Everything okay?" He asked.
"Yes," she told the buildings sliding by.
"Okay, cause, usually you're talking my ear off here."
He was paying attention to traffic, but he didn't miss way she squared her shoulders before looking at him. Shaking something off.
Once, he would have pressed her. Nibbled and niggled until she gave in, with a smile, or without. Now, now he didn't know how to start. It all felt incredibly overwhelming, and it was too late anyway. She was looking at him again, everything extraneous tucked away.
"Sorry," she said. "I didn't get much sleep last night."
"Ahhh," he said knowingly, tapping his temple. Trying to lightening whatever heavy thing had snuck in. "Couldn't get the gerbils to stop?"
Bones stared at him, a crinkle between her brows. "I find you very strange," she told him.
He slid his eyes sideways, waggling his eyebrows. She looked sideways back, but she gave into a little smile.
"I didn't get much sleep because I spent last night reexamined Dana Marquez' remains."
"And?" he asked cautiously. He hadn't realized she'd stayed so late.
"And," she sighed, glancing down. "I found nothing. If the killer really is this Alexanders, he's good." She looked back up. "He's really, very good."
"Well, that why we're going to catch him, because you and I, we're the best." For whatever reason, it was the right thing to say, because Bones gave him a full on grin. Her closed off feeling eased, and Booth relaxed his grip on the steering wheel.
"By squeezing him," she said, some satisfaction sparking deep behind her eyes. Like maybe they really would beat the crap out of the guy.
"Yup," Booth agreed.
Once they got to the Hoover, he installed Bones in the observation room, and continued on to the interrogation side. Sitting in a chair, his quarry looked very average. Average height, average build, average dark hair.
"Mr. Alexanders," he said, shutting the door firmly and smoothing his tie as he sat. "I'm Agent Booth. Thanks for coming in. Sorry about the accommodations, but all the conference rooms are full."
Behind him, Bones would be frowning over the lie. For all that she'd just told him to use psychological warfare, she probably had no clue how it worked.
"Doctor Alexanders," he corrected.
"Sorry," Booth apologized. Alexanders just blinked at the far wall. Booth thought he could probably hear the ticking of the clock in the other room.
"So, uh, did the escorting Agent give you the heads up?" He made the question jaunty, and showing lots of teeth. Contrasting the implied threat of the interview room with a non-judgmental demeanor increased, rather than decreased feelings of discomfort. At least that was Sweets' ten league explanation for having to sit there while some asshole smiled at you while he dangled the other shoe.
He tried to ease the muscles between his shoulders. Sweets was a whole 'nother topic. Across from him, Alexanders had conceded to one very faint forehead wrinkle.
"Heads up?" he asked.
"Tell you why we wanted you to come down."
"No."
O-kay. Booth looked his suspect over. Alert, but he seemed to have a hard time keeping his eyes on Booth. They kept flicking away. The only action on the guys otherwise stiff face. It wasn't fear, though. It was something else.
"Well," he said once the silence had dragged to discomfort, "we're looking into a string of identity thefts."
"I haven't had anything stolen," Alexanders told him, loosing the eye battle. Looking straight at the far wall, giving the impression he was talking to it as well.
"Hakim Spenser," Booth said, and felt a mean little satisfaction when Alexanders pinched in towards himself.
"Hakim is dead," Alexanders finally said. Something in his voice, something, but Booth couldn't tell what. He didn't like it.
"I want to know why you had me brought here," he demanded, all the arrogance that had ever existed inside Bones coming out in that single sentence. Booth felt his teeth try to lock together.
"We're just trying to figure out what's going on," he said. "Someone's using Hakim Spenser's name to make donations to charitable foundations."
"Why are you investigating? Isn't that a job for the Fraud Squad?"
"Well, you know, those guys, they rhyme" Booth told him, but Alexanders just stared at him. Didn't even sully himself with that awesome mix of exasperation and puzzlement the other squints, his squints, were always giving him.
"Look, we brought you in to see if you had any insight into who might have had access to Hakim's personal information. His dad said you were his best friend."
"I don't know any of Hakim's other friends."
"Right," Booth muttered to himself, watching the cannon ball of flattery bounce off the castle wall.
"You're a neurologist?" he picked a topic at random.
"Yes, with the National Institute of Health."
"What do you do there?" Routine filler question, but Alexanders creased his forehead into the same faint wrinkle and sighed huffily through his nose.
"You wouldn't understand. May I go now?"
"No," Booth snapped. He cleared his throat, and tried again. "No, I'm sorry, but I still have a few more questions. It's very important we find out what's going on."
"Why?"
Booth made a grab for his temper, but he still slapped the pictures down too hard. One of the pale haired Sam, one with Dana wearing a conical party hat. "Those donations charged to Hakim's card were made in the names of these two kids, just after someone murdered them."
"The death of children is always regrettable," Alexanders leaned to study the pictures. Booth tried to read whatever small messages were in the timber and pitch of his voice, but there was nothing.
"Anything you can do to help," Booth probed, but Alexanders shrugged.
"I'm sorry, I don't know them."
Booth watched him watch the photos, waiting for the predator to peek out. The dark slithery thing that been inside Howard Epps, and Kevin Hollings. Inside every single baby killing sonvabitch since the monkey picked up the stick and howled about it.
There was nothing. The monster wasn't hiding, or peeking, or even whiffling through the tulgey wood. Just nothing. Booth clearing his throat against his own unease. Picking up a piece of paper, just so he wouldn't have to look at the guy. "It says here that Hakim joined the Army at twenty-seven. That's kinda late to enlist. Was he chasing trouble?"
"Are you implying Hakim was running from some kind of problem?"
Booth just looked at him.
"Hakim didn't enlist to avoid jail. He did it because he lived according to the dictates of his own conscious," Alexanders told him, sounding a little spun up for the first time.
"What do you mean?"
"Hakim thought every citizen has a moral obligation to serve the greater good, each according to their individual conscious and abilities. He thought his obligation was to serve."
Jesus, it pinched. Why couldn't Hakim been like all those other swinging dicks? Signing on the dotted line to get laid, coming out with some sense of duty and a good future. Instead he'd signed for duty, and ended up on a slab.
"Except he went there, and it wasn't about glory, or fairness or serving humanity. It was about trying to hold back the rain and moping up chunks of people. There was no greater good, and it ended up killing him."
"Yes," Alexanders said, voice far away. "He couldn't take that." Then he blinked, and the window was shut again. Too quick to understand what was beyond. "Why do you want to know these things?"
"Just trying to collect all the information we can. You never know when something will drop into place," Booth said, stuffing the pictures back into the folder.
"I'm sure," Alexanders said, standing up, but shying away from the hand Booth offered. "Am I free to go?"
"Yeah, the Agent outside the door will escort you down. Thanks for taking the time to come in," Booth said, but Alexanders was already striding briskly down the hall. Like he couldn't wait to get back to all those pickled brains, or something.
So Booth went back to Observation, and of course goddamn Sweets was there, trying to hide behind Bones. Seeing him made something try to pulse behind one of Booth's eyes.
"Agent Booth," the kid started, but Booth just rode over the top of him.
"Shut up," he snarled, not even caring about Bones reproachful look. "Just tell me what the hell's wrong with that guy."
()
"Oh," Sweets said, and looked at his feet.
Brennan looked at him a little more closely, puzzled. He had looked strange when he'd first showed up. Poking his head through the door and giving the room at large a rapid look before he came in. She'd snapped at him over the lozenge of light that had obscured the purposefully darkened one-way mirror. He'd shuffled in with apologies, darting little looks into the corners. Now he looked equally discomforted, his posture was very reminiscent of the omega in a wolf pack.
"He, uh, he appears to be suffering from flattened affect," Sweets stopped cringing. "That's what Agent Booth assesses, the intuition he calls his gut reactions," he told them, gaining assurance. "He's actually reading micro-expressions. Very small changes in expression, that happen extremely quickly. Most people can't pick up on them, but the ones who can are unusually adept at detecting lies."
"Okay, what about it?" Booth demanded, arms still crossed.
"Dr. Alexanders doesn't seem to have any. That's why you found him so alien."
"Why."
"Lots of things can cause blunted affect. Traumatic brain injury, Schizophrenia, a sensory processing disorder. I can't possibly diagnose him based on one ten-minute interview performed by someone else." Sweets managed to scrape up some indignation.
Underneath his jacket, Brennan saw Booth's muscles swell. Fighting the urge to hit. Instead he just reached out and gripped the lapel of Sweets jacket, towing him rapidly towards the door.
"Why don't you go spend some time figuring it out," Booth said, propelling the slighter man outside. Sweets tried to whirl, but Booth firmly closed the door in his face.
"Why are you being so mean to him?" Brennan demanded. Suddenly out of patience with whatever secret thing was making Sweets and Booth exchange hostilities.
In the door way, Booth sucked a couple breaths, and shrugged his jacket back down. "It's nothin', Bones," he told the door, and she didn't need his expression, micro or macro to tell he was lying. "Just, let it go, okay?"
"Did you have a fight with Catherine?" she asked. Trouble with personal relationships could often spill over into professional life. It didn't sound like Booth, but she hadn't had many opportunities to observe him while he was in a relationship.
"Of course not," he muttered, apparently to himself. Then, louder: "No, I did not have a fight with Catherine," in that pedantic tone that meant she'd annoyed him. She felt her own ire rising. She hadn't done anything wrong.
"I don't understand what's going on," nor did she particularly like the plaintive tone in her own voice, but it seemed to make Booth soften.
"Hey, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you. There's nothing going on; just a tough case."
He had on his conciliatory smile. The one that crinkled the edges of his eyes and softened the lines of his mouth. Brennan felt it working into her irritation, trying to dissolve it. She fought against it. She opened her mouth to demand he tell her what was going on, but instead the door slammed open, and Caroline Julien steamed in.
"Seeley Booth!" she barked. "What the hell is this?"
"Caroline!" Booth yelped, trying to move behind Brennan, same as Sweets had done earlier. She rolled her eyes, and stepped aside. The woman wasn't that imposing, nor did she feel particularly sheltering right now.
"It's a request for a search warrant," Booth said in an extremely reasonable voice.
"Exactly what kind of stupid are you?" Caroline demanded, thrusting a paper at the unshielded Booth. He shot Brennan a betrayed look, but Caroline just rattled the paper in his face.
"On this warrant, did you list any physical evidence?"
"No, but - "
"Shut up. What about eye witnesses, did you list anyone who picked the suspect out of a line up?"
"No," Booth ground out, and Brennan felt he'd probably suffered enough. Even when she and Russ had been fighting, they had known when to present a united front.
"Booth is very certain it's him. I've come to trust his instincts with these sort of things. He's very reliable," she told the other woman. Booth beamed at her, but instead of being reassured, Caroline's glower deepened.
"Oh, you're certain it's him?" she asked, and Brennan realized that she'd mis-stepped.
"It's him, Caroline," Booth defended them both, re-drawing Caroline's bead.
"Well, never mind then," she said, an about-face that Brennan was fairly certain was really sarcasm. "We'll just go tell the judge that Seeley Booth is sure this guy is guilty. He'll be locked up before dinner." Caroline slapped the papers against Booths pectorals. He gave a little woof, and cradled them automatically.
"Find me some evidence," she ordered them, spinning on a heel and leaving. Brennan watched her stride off. Beside her, Booth clutched the now disorganized papers against his chest. He looked unapproachable, entire body hard and alien. Looking down, he shuffled the papers together, setting them on the table. Then he slammed his fist against the wall.
"Booth!" She rushed in, even before the blood from his split knuckle had started to well. He let her cradle his hand.
"You could break a knuckle, doing that," she admonished him, probing underneath where the skin had split.
"Jeeze, Bones," he hissed, yanking his hand free and glaring. "That fucking hurts!"
She let her hands drop, feeling a dangerous disregard for consequences that used to rise up so often. It felt good. "Why are you so mad."
Booth clutched his hand to his chest, his expression layered with things she'd never, never be able to parse. "Booth?" she asked softly, everything that had been anger abruptly draining away into something that felt hollow inside her chest. "What?"
"Bones, just let it go, okay?" he said again, blood blooming on his shirt, reproach in his voice. She took a step back.
"Sorry," she apologize, horrified at the awkwardness that had engulfed them. Horrified by the realization that was washing over her. He tried to say something, but she fled. Back to the lab, with its reassuringly straight lines, and contained things.
Angela was standing at Jack's lab bench when she walked in. Leaning against his back and watching as he carefully pipetted liquid into a vial. They both looked up when at the doors whooshing open. Hodgins eye sockets were smudged dark, but Angela's face felt as unknowable as Booth's had been. Making an assessment she couldn't understand.
Across the quiet space, Brennan shook her head, hardly understanding what she was negating. There was no evidence, no progress on the case. There was also no longer any touching, no sharing of secrets. On his stool, Jack slumped and looked away, but Brennan was the one who broke Angela's gaze.
