Chapter Nine – The Second Murder

John the Baptist had never killed anyone before. He had made his list and prepared the place of repose for his first victim. But faced with the actual job, he had balked. Creeping into the private room of Most-Reverend Ernest Arneson was easy. The police patrols had grown lax after seeing nothing for three days, and the reek of smoke that still lingered around the church kept other visitors at a distance. Even the curious had stopped coming by. There was no security system in the rectory, and if they saw John they'd only have waved to a familiar face, but no one had seen him. He'd slipped in unnoticed and sat down to wait, uncertain how he would proceed and praying for guidance.

John had been in this room before, but that was years ago. He had been a child then and penitent because he'd confused the prayer or dropped something. Like most of Father Ernest's charges, John was keen to be a good altar boy and Father Ernest only took the best. He had taught them that God would punish clumsiness, but forgive them if they requested absolution and took their punishments well. Somehow, Father Ernest had also put himself in the equation, and John could remember the confusion that had followed: the mix of pleasure and shame, lies that were supposedly good while honesty was otherwise touted as supreme, sensations that were undesireable and longed for in the same breath, and loving someone so completely even while disgusted by it. The real liar had been Father Ernest, but John had never understood that until he was already soiled and detestable. And then, when at last he could see with revulsion that he had sinned, Father Ernest had rejected him. Cast out of the Garden by the Snake. No longer was he innocent enough or young enough for the devil in priestly dress. The very day that he'd been cast aside, the sermon had been about the evils of one man laying with another. John had been lost for years after that, adrift in anger, sorrow and self-revulsion.

Memories worked John into a frenzy of rage and anguish. Tears spilled down his face in a deluge, though his storm remained mostly silent. He supposed that's how it came to pass that Father Ernest didn't see him. Or maybe the old man's eyesight and hearing had begun to fail. Or perhaps Gabriel had seen fit to shield John from view so that he might continue his work. The method hardly mattered to John, for it made his task easier. Father Ernest opened the door and went right to his dresser, never seeing the solitary figure seated on his bed. When he opened a drawer, John pulled the empty trash can liner from the wicker waste basket by the bed -- a man possessed by otherworldly direction. In a fluid motion, John dropped it over Father Ernest's head and pulled it tight, pressing the old man into the dresser so that he couldn't lift his hands. John crushed him against the furniture in the same way the priest had done to his boys – probably far more names than John would ever know. But John didn't make Father Ernest suffer those other indignities. He was an instrument of God now, though his memory -- sharp and pitiless as ever -- was flooded with recollections of that time: the stabbing pain and repeated blows to his small body as he was thrust into chest of drawers or the bed frame again and again. Those moments which had cleaved his soul in two.

In his last moments, Father Ernest showed more strength than John had expected, but John was still stronger. Father Ernest tried to turn his head, his gasps and cries pitiable, his struggling fierce. The plastic was thin and might have been easy to puncture if John had given him an opportunity; he never did. John kept the liner over his head past the point when Father Ernest stopped thrashing, past the point when the last muffled cry had sounded, to the point that the old man's bowels let loose. The angel of death leaves a body little dignity. It is the soul that gets the focus after that, though John imagined that Father Ernest would see little of that where he was going to. Like Father Tom, his lechery and other sins would probably be visited upon him by Lucifer. He'd been ushered out of this world without last rights – the way it should be.

John hefted the broken shell and carried it out of the rectory. Again, no one saw except perhaps Gabriel, who John was sure helped him. He could almost see wings. Almost. Perhaps Gabriel would show himself next time.

Four days had passed. Four days that felt like an eternity. Brennan and Booth had continued to investigate quietly, but nothing came of it. Brennan slept only fitfully as though she had been haunted in her dreams by the ghost of Father Thomas. It wasn't true, of course. If she dreamed at all, they were images of work, or worse, images of insomnia. And she told no one, for she did not believe in ghosts -- or at least, she thought she didn't.

That morning, she had begun a case for the Jeffersonian, sorting bones from a mass grave near the Stonehenge dig-site. Stratigraphy had placed the resting place of the bones at around 10,000 years old. Of course, that was hardly an absolute, given that the grave would have been dug into the soil, though why it should have been dug down more than six feet, she couldn't guess. Artifacts found with the bodies had been dated to Late Bronze Age by seriation, which is only a relative method. But the discrepancy between the two dates was about six thousand years. This was causing a big headache in the archeological and anthropological communities. It was she who would have the honor of settling the matter.

Tempe's first task had been to choose and package samples for radiocarbon dating, which she had done. Results would not be back for another week. This type of assignment, while not as time sensitive as her others, usually would have been enough to keep her mind engrossed. Tempe actually found that she had no patience for it at all right now. While Zack eagerly sorted pieces of eleven skeletons from one another, Tempe's mind wandered repeatedly. She kept thinking about the soup kitchen.

Booth and Brennan had originally gone to help at the soup kitchen in order to hunt for a killer. She had approached the task with the mindset that everyone was a suspect. She wasn't sure why she and Booth had both returned twice to help out, though she was certain of one thing – she was no longer looking for a killer there. She was pretty sure Booth wasn't either, though neither had actually said as much. That was odd. If there had been one thing she could always count on in her interaction with Booth, it was that nothing was off limits. They talked about everything from childhood traumas to sex. Sometimes, if the discussion wandered into the very scientific, Booth would stare at her as if she was speaking another language. And certainly, there were times when Booth would mention some television show or rock star, and she'd feel like she'd missed a comet flying at her head. But those incidents never dissuaded either from chatting about everything. Yet their continued visits to the soup kitchen seemed to be an off-limits topic – a decision arrived at by mutual consent despite the issue never having been addressed.

Tempe picked up a jumble of carpal bones and began to study each, trying to sort them. Four skeletons had been inexpertly marked from the dig. Perhaps they were lying on top of one another, and the archaeologist or assistant that found them had failed to note them properly. Or worse, perhaps a novice shoveled a bunch out, then screened them together. She'd seen that before, though hated to think of anyone conducting a dig in such an unprofessional way.

Her mind began to wander again while she sorted. Always, when she thought of the soup kitchen, she thought of that little girl with the frightened blue eyes and the terrible burn scars. She called herself Pennsylvania, though it was a very unlikely name. She was probably ten or eleven – far too young to be on her own. Both Booth and Brennan had remarked that Child Services should come and get Pennsylvania, and yet neither had called, again almost as if by mutual consent. Pennsylvania was the darling of the group. She didn't have responsible parents, and yet everyone from the "Bridge" Community looked after her. When Booth had asked Father David why no one had called Child Services for her, Father David had said that her burns were the result of her last foster family and that he didn't think Child Services could get within ten feet of her again. Brennan knew there were good foster parents out there, but she also knew how many bad ones there were. And if she were Pennsylvania – when she was like Pennsylvania – she wouldn't trust blind luck either. A runner stayed a runner until there was good reason to stay put. In the meantime, Fathers David and Samuel looked after the kid. They'd taken her to the clinic twice when she was ill, and made sure she was tucked in somewhere warm when the nights were cold. Father David had even managed to get Pennsylvania to attend school at Holy Redeemer. Father David had said that he felt she was slowly coming round and that it wouldn't do any good to call Child Services if she'd only run away again. It was his plan to convince her to stay at the school as a live-in, but he said she wasn't yet ready. The part of Tempe that wanted Pennsylvania safe with a family was halted by the part of her that wanted some assurance that Pennsylvania wouldn't be sent to the wrong family. Perhaps it was the same for Booth.

In fact, they hadn't called Child Services to the soup kitchen at all. There were other children too. Booth had reported a few of them based on their regular haunts, but never mentioning the soup kitchen. It seemed reasonable that Booth would see anything belonging to the church as untouchable sanctuary. Tempe shouldn't see it thus, and yet she must admit that's how she was treating it.

So the case was stalled, and Brennan was slowly being dragged back into the one part of society she'd had good reason to avoid. That subculture of the homeless that she'd never wanted to study was taking her time anyway. Her one small consolation was that Booth seemed to be there with her. For all her education and training, she didn't think she could have handled it alone.

"I don't think that one belongs." That was Zack – his voice so soft, student correcting teacher. It broke through her thoughts as if it had been shouted.

"No, you're right." She took the distal phalange back from the collection. "The problem is that it doesn't seem to go with any of these. Unless I've made another mistake." She looked back over the tables where the jumble of bones was slowly being sorted into four distinct skeletons. Zack followed her gaze, his eyes settling on the hands one-by-one. Sometimes one skeleton could be sorted from another by simply looking. The bones of one body would be naturally darker than another, the size or densities would be obviously different. This time it was going to be much harder and each tiny piece might have to be carefully examined using a microscope, or, worst case scenario, DNA sampling.

Tempe yawned and looked up at the clock. 5:00 p.m. "Oh, it's no wonder I'm starting to make stupid mistakes, Zack, we've been at this for hours. And don't you have a date?"

Zack looked surprised, raising his brows ever so slightly. "There are no secrets in this lab, whatsoever," he observed.

"And you've only now figured that out?" Tempe grinned. She began to clean up quickly, pushing the metal examining trays back to the cooler. It was important to keep the bones in darkness when not working on them. UV light of any sort could break down the proteins. Fluorescent lighting was no longer used in the Jeffersonian for that very reason.

When Tempe and Zack were done cleaning up, she wasn't surprised to see Booth walk through the door. For the last few days he'd come in and hung back, his hands in his pockets, his mood pensive. They hadn't explained to anyone at the Jeffersonian where they were going each evening. So maybe there were still some secrets at the lab. This time, Booth was not carrying himself in the usual way. He looked anxious. His phone rang while he was waiting and he flipped it open in the way he always did when consumed by a case – as if he couldn't get it to his ear fast enough. "I'm getting Doctor Brennan now," he said into the cellular. "Did you already call Doctor Saroyan? You realize you're going to owe them both an apology, right?" Booth pulled his head away from his phone and stared at it, amazed. Then he cursed under his breath. "He hung up," Booth grumbled, looking straight at Tempe. "He expects everyone to jump now, but he won't apologize from being an ass. And then, he hung up!"

Cam burst into the lab. "Did Davis just call you?" She asked Booth.

"Yeah. Bastard hung up when I told him he needed to tell both of you he was sorry."

By now Tempe was starting to feel left out. "What has happened?" She looked back and forth between Cam and Booth.

"Mysteriously another body has appeared at the church. It's posed to match what was in the stained glass window it is beneath, only the window was one that burst in the fire," Booth explained.

"It's all over the news," Cam added. "A group of volunteers that were being covered by the press found it. Davis probably got his head handed to him."

"Better than his dick," Booth observed. That made Cam snort.

"So his problem is our problem?" Brennan snapped. "I thought we were off the case. I've moved on to something else." She could see by the expressions around her that she wasn't fooling anyone.

"Yes, I think I want the apology," Cam remarked.

Zack, who had remained the silent observer, finally said, "But if you're ordered to do something…"

"This isn't the military," Booth interrupted. "However much Davis would like it to be. He can boss me around, but not them." He indicated Tempe and Cam. He hit a couple of buttons on his phone and pressed it to his ear.

"Do they know when the body was placed?" Tempe asked. "And didn't anyone notice more fire, or wasn't it burned this time?"

Booth's call must have been answered. They heard him say, "Sir, about that apology…"