Author's Note.
A few of you have been asking so I thought I would let you all know I am from Britain so there may be a few British words and sayings in my stories.
On the plus side I love American T.V. I watch most of your shows – Desperate Housewives, Medium, Ghost Whisperer, House, Friends - and Bones is a favourite of mine. American T.V rules!
Once again, thanks for all the great comments. You seem to be loving this story and proving my theory the plot of 'The Meeting In The Beginning' would have made a great season four finale. Let's all petition Hart Hanson to re shoot! :)
This is one of my favourite chapter's so far. As promised lots of B & B chemistry. Happy reading :)
Chapter 10.
The Meeting Back At The Lab.
"They could be lying."
This was Brennan.
Sarah's car had been taken away for examination by an FBI forensic team.
Booth and Brennan were back in the lab.
Brennan was standing over Sarah's remains once more. Her x-rays were on a large screen in front of them.
Booth had just repeated everything he had heard from Ella and Rob to an audience of Brennan and Angela and he wasn't surprised Brennan was the one to come out with this.
"I don't think so." He said, shaking his head at her pessimism.
"Oh come on Booth, who says they're telling the truth? People lie all the time. They could have hid Sarah's car after they murdered her."
"And what's the motive?" Booth asked.
Brennan thought for a moment. "Although I'm against speculating, it's possible Sarah threatened to expose Rob's homosexuality if he didn't give her money. Rob killed her in anger. Ella, having a strong emotional attachment to her brother, helped him cover it up."
Booth rolled his eyes.
"Did you get all that from looking at the bones?" He said, sarcastically.
Brennan frowned. "I'm simply saying you can't trust what people tell you. The answers are in the bones. They don't lie. Ella and Rob could be lying about everything."
"So Ella helped to cover up the murder of her best friend?" Booth shook his head. "No way. They didn't have to show me the car in the first place. You weren't there Bones. Both Ella and Rob seemed really upset that Sarah was the girl we found. I believed them when they said they thought she'd run away."
"Because of damage to her car?" Brennan scoffed. "A scratch is repairable."
"Sarah's mum's ill." Booth replied with shrug. "Maybe Sarah didn't want to hassle them. Anyway she said her father would go mad if he knew about it."
Brennan scoffed again. "So your blaming the father now?" She accused.
"I never said that... but while you mention it he does have motive." Booth retorted. "His daughter lied to him twice. About Rob. Then about damaging a very expensive car he brought her. Maybe he found out. Then there's the topless photo. That's lots of motives in my book."
"All of this is from what you've been told. You have no proof Mr Jenkins knew about any of those things." Brennan countered smugly and Booth knew she was right.
That annoyed him.
"Doesn't mean I won't get the evidence soon." He shot back. "And I bet I get it by talking to people. Not from anything about the bones... Bones."
Brennan shot him an angry look, seething. "I told you don't call me Bones!"
There was a tense silence as they glared at each other.
Angela Montenegro was sitting at a computer a few feet from Sarah's bones and enjoying the banter immensely but she also knew she should distract the duo before one of them said or did something they would regret.
"I'd say there's only one suspect you can positively discount so far." She announced loudly and Booth and Brennan both turned to her.
Angela shot Booth a disapproving look before elaborating.
"Sarah's mother. Maggie Jenkins... her medical records are on here." Angela tapped the computer screen beside her. "She's definitely got M.E. Sarah was short but there's no way Maggie's strong enough to carry her daughter's body to the river's edge and bury her."
Booth couldn't resist.
"I never thought she was a suspect anyway." He said smugly, looking at Brennan.
Brennan never took her eyes off Booth when she replied.
"Angela wouldn't you say a sporty young man who's captain of a football team would be fit enough? Or did you mean Rob does ballet when you said he's into sports Booth?"
Booth went to retort and Angela knew she better stop the battle now before there was a war.
"Right now, I'd say I'd better sidetrack Booth so you can concentrate on the bones, before the theme tune from Mad About You starts playing."
Brennan frowned. "I don't know what that means."
Angela smiled adoringly at her. "I'm not surprised Sweetie. Look at your bones for a minute okay, while I update Booth on his CCTV."
Brennan was frowning but she did as she was told and went back to examining her x-rays.
Meanwhile, Booth got up and walked over to the computer desk Angela was sat at.
Angela elbowed him in the ribs when he got to her.
"Ow!" He moaned, rubbing his side. "What'd you do that for?"
Angela raised an eyebrow at him. "I warned you earlier to play nice." She reminded him.
"She started it!" Booth said grumpily, realising he sounded like a kid, he added "The woman has no social skills."
"Which is why you should know better." Angela retorted.
Still rubbing his side, Booth thought it best not to argue.
"What did you say about my CCTV?"
Angela shrugged. "I thought I'd take a look. Someone from the FBI said you'd already got the footage from the park so I requested them to email it to me... I hoped you wouldn't mind if I was a bit nosy."
She sent him a sheepish smile. Then turned back to the computer and tapped a few keys on the keyboard.
Footage from the park appeared on the screen.
The camera looked down from high up, capturing in it's frame the entrance to Welding's Park.
The archway embossed with it's name, a portion of the black railings which ran around the outside of the park, a segment of the pavement and a street lap were visible.
"I asked the computer to look for people with Sarah's features." Angela explained. " Blonde, under 5 foot 3 in height and white - between the time we know she left the house – 11.00 PM - and Hodgins's estimated time of death – 12 to 2AM. Luckily there isn't many people around that late at night and walla -"
She clicked the mouse and an image appeared on the screen.
It was the same scene as before but with one noticeable difference.
Sarah Jenkins was walking into Weldings Park on Saturday May 15th, the night she died.
She was wearing the clothes Mrs Jenkins had described – short skirt, black boots and a hot pink low-cut sweater that was the most vivid thing on the grainy image.
The time on the corner of the screen said 11.26 PM.
"This is the only image of her." Angela said. "There's not one of her walking out again."
"So she was meeting someone." Booth said aloud. "Have you got any images of people going into the park after her?"
"I've got various people walking past the doors... " Angela shrugged. "I've got this guy... [Angela freeze framed an image which showed an elderly man]... he's the caretaker who closes the park at night." Booth watched him closing the park gates and putting chains on them in slow motion. "Apparently he always closes up at 12 PM... keeps drunk kids out."
"That means our killer must have left before 12pm to get out." Booth said.
"Yes but the strange thing is that no-one goes in or out after Sarah." Angela said and Booth frowned.
"There is however, this..."
Angela rewound back the park footage to a time of 10.53pm on the screen.
"This guy goes in half an hour before Sarah." Angela said, tapping the screen with her fingernail.
Booth leaned in for a closer look.
A figure was walking into the park gates.
The picture quality was poor though.
Booth could make out someone wearing a black mac with the hood pulled up. He couldn't tell if it was a male or female.
"I can't tell much from this." He said in frustration.
Angela pressed a few buttons and the image on the screen began to get bigger, bit by bit.
It got to a certain point and the image went fuzzy. Booth frowned in annoyance.
"That's worse."
Angela sighed and clicked the mouse back a frame. "This is as far as I can enlarge the image before we lose the pixels altogether." She said.
"It's still not good enough to get details."
Angela nodded. "I know but it's all I've got at the moment."
She clicked a few more buttons and the frame began to move to the left, bit by bit.
"I think an idea might be to focus on this." She pointed at the ground, at the shadow cast by the figure.
"I'm going to try and get the computer to work out the height of the person from the shadow in this street lap. I could also try and enhance this bit-"
Angela tapped her finger against one bit of the shadow – a tiny portion of it was an odd shape, something thin and slightly curved.
"There appears to be an object here. It appears as though this guy is holding something. Maybe I can get the computer to have a guess at what."
She turned to him.
"I'm sure if anyone can do it, it'll be you Angela." Booth grinned at her.
Angela smiled at him. "If you said more things like that to Brennan we might be able to negotiate peace talks."
Booth laughed.
"What are you two laughing at?" Brennan called, frowning at them.
Booth looked at Angela, smiling. "We were discussing the need for peace talks in Timbuktu."
"Are they at war?" Brennan asked, completely seriously.
"It was a joke Bones." Booth said, grinning.
"It's not time for jokes." Brennan said, in a tone of disapproval. "I've got cause of death."
Booth got up and Angela followed him over to where Brennan was examining the bones.
"I thought you said she'd been beaten up." Booth objected.
"She has been." Brennan nodded, she pointed with her finger to the x-rays she had displayed on screen in front of them. "Seven of her ribs are fractured. She was punched seven times in the chest here... here... here...here... here... here and here. The angles of the blows suggest a strong, right - handed attacker."
"Like most of the population." Booth put in unhelpfully and Brennan scowled at him.
"She was also kicked four times in the legs. Three times in her right, once on her left. All of the damage is to the backs of the legs so it does look as though she was kicked as she tried to escape her attacker. She also defended herself. There are defensive wounds to the metacarpal bones of her wrist and arms... here... and here where she tried to defend herself against the blows."
"So she was beaten to death." Booth interrupted.
Brennan shook her head. "No. She would have been hurt... these blows are vicious but these little shards here... [she pointed at the tiny bones fragments on the screen] are from her fourth rib."
She turned back to Booth.
"This rib is shattered into pieces, not just fractured. It takes a great deal of force to do that."
Booth raised an eyebrow. "So what does that tell us?"
"It's a stab wound." Brennan admitted.
Booth pounced. "Earlier you said-"
"I know what I said." Brennan cut him off, tartly. "I didn't have the x-rays then."
She turned back to the screen and continued. ""It's not a knife wound. I think she was stabbed with something else. To actually shatter one of her ribs as it went in, it must have been brutal."
She pointed at the shards on the x-ray. "As she was stabbed the weapon shattered Sarah's rib and punctured her left lung. Her lung filled up with air and blood. This, as well as the multiple fractures she'd already suffered on her other ribs, put too much pressure on the right lung and her heart and she couldn't breathe."
Brennan looked at Booth.
"Sarah Jenkins suffocated. It would have taken about a minute to kill her. She would have spluttered and fought for breathe. She would have felt terrible pain. She knew she was about to die."
"Yes okay Bones... I get the picture." Booth said gravely.
He looked down sadly at the bones on the table.
Angela's thoughts were along the same sad line.
"She was only 19." Angela said aloud. "Why would anyone want to hurt her?"
She said it to herself really but Brennan spoke up.
"We already know Sarah had an enemy."
Booth sighed. "Yeah... and we know she'd changed over the last year and she been lying to her parents lately and she'd made some 'silly mistakes'." He used air quotes. "But who'd be so angry about a bunch of 'silly mistakes' to punch and kick a 19-year-old girl and stab her so she suffocated in her own blood?"
No one was meant to answer but Brennan did again.
"Anger is irrational." She said, flatly.
"So is murder." Booth told her, fiercely. "People aren't rational. Most people don't think like you."
"Maybe the world would be a better place if they did." Angela said suddenly and she smiled at Brennan.
Brennan sent her a grateful smile back.
They were all distracted by the sound of the door swinging open and Hodgins walked in.
"Your gonna love me." He announced. He was smiling broadly and did not notice the atmosphere.
He saw Booth and said simply, "I'm Hodgins. You're that angry cop from earlier."
"And your the bug guy." Booth retorted back.
"Bug and slime guy." Hodgins corrected. "And I'm guessing your still angry!"
He stepped over to the group and added "It's a good thing I have something that may cheer you up."
He pulled out a small vial from his pocket and handed it to Brennan.
"Your gonna love me." He repeated. "Check it out."
Brennan held the vial up to the light.
"It's a hair." She said.
"Sure is. This is a hair I took from the remains at the crime scene."
He continued talking as he set up a microscope on a neighbouring table.
"It looks like it's our victims own natural hair- it's the same dirty yellow colour..."
He took the vial from Brennan and opening the top he placed the hair on a slide and put it under the microscope.
"I thought I'd have a look just in case we got lucky and it wasn't one of the victims hairs and on closer inspection..."
He waved his arm to indicate they could look.
Brennan bent down and looked into the microscope.
"What am I looking at?" She asked.
"Your looking at a hair from a cansis lupus familiaris." Hodgins said triumphantly.
"Which is what, a big-foot?" Booth put in.
He was frustrated he didn't understand what was going on.
Hodgins rolled his eyes. "It's a dog hair." He told Booth.
"A dog?" Booth repeated, stepping forward.
"Yes... a labrador to be exact."
"Sarah Jenkins doesn't own a dog." Booth said aloud.
Hodgins, Angela and Brennan looked at him, smiling.
"Exactly." They said in unison.
"But it's a park-" Booth objected. "There's got to be thousands of dogs... the journalist who found the body was walking her dog-"
Hodgins shook his head. "That was a poodle, different hair structure. This hair was absorbed into Sarah's lung and tissue as she decomposed. I found it in the indentation of her shattered rib. If it wasn't on the murderer, then it was on the murder weapon." He finished with a flourish and bowed.
"It's just a shame lots of people own labradors." A dull voice said.
Everyone looked up.
Zach Addy was standing in the doorway.
As everyone looked at him, Zach shifted, uncomfortable with their attention.
"I mean, logically speaking, it's not evidence that would hold up in court unless you can match it's DNA to the actual dog and even then it would only prove the murderer's dog was at the scene, not the murderer."
There was silence while everyone looked at Hodgins.
"It's still a clue." He said in his own defence.
He looked at Zach and grumbled. "Nice way to rain on my parade Zachy boy."
"I didn't come in to rain on your parade." Zach replied, flatly. "I came to tell Dr Brennan she has a visitor."
All eyes turned to Brennan as Zach added:
"Mr Jenkins is waiting in your office."