(Widow's Son in the Windshield)
It's been awhile since I've updated this story and so I thought I would work on it at least once in awhile. I haven't received very many reviews for this story; so, it doesn't look like it is very popular. My interest in the story kind of waned because of that; but, I have received several PMs lately about this story and I thought I would see if anyone is still interested in reading it. Reviews are the only way I can tell; so, if you don't want this story abandoned then please let me know. Thanks.
This story is being told from Booth's point of view.
I don't own Bones
Oooooooooooooooooooo
Bones had been avoiding me for months and getting her to go out into the field with me was getting ridiculous. I wasn't totally sure why she was treating me like persona non-grata; but, it was getting on my nerves.
Some pot heads were driving down a highway and a human skull flew into their windshield. If that didn't bring Bones out of her Lab then I didn't know what would. I went over to the Jeffersonian to talk her into coming with me to the crime scene. When I got there I found out she was testing some guy to replace Zach. Zach had been gone for three months and she was dragging her feet replacing him.
I managed to get her to go out to the crime scene with me; but, as soon as we got there she wanted to go back to the Lab. We weren't working as a team anymore and it was really starting to worry me. I mean what if she didn't want to work with me anymore? She was using Zach's absence from the Lab as an excuse for not going out with me into the field. Cam said that she'd had a lot of good candidates come in for Zach's job; but, Bones wouldn't hire any of them. I even asked Bones if she wanted to work with me and she said we do work together. She just wouldn't tell me what was going on. It's like she was punishing me because Zach wasn't there.
I showed her the skull in the windshield and that seemed to catch some of her interest. At least she wanted to talk to the witnesses. The driver of the car told us that the skull bounced off of a truck in front of them. I saw the overpass behind us and I figured out that someone had dumped the skull off of the overpass onto the truck and it bounced off of the truck and hit the windshield of the car. This was going to be a weird case. I was glad too because it seemed the only way I could get Bones to work with me was on something a little out there.
I managed to get Bones to take the skull back to the Lab and look at it for me. In the meantime I had some leg work I had to take care of for a case I had just closed and I was taking care of that when Bones called me about the skull. I had stopped to get me a little snack when she had called me. I should have ate my snack and then called her back; but, it had been weeks since she had actually called me; so, there was no way I was going to tell her that I was going to call her back.
She started talking about the skull which was fine with me. She told me she had found some scoring on the skull. Scrapes, I got that; but, then she told me that something had chewed on the skull. I figured a dog or a bear or maybe rats; but, Bones and Cam set me straight pretty quickly about that. Cam said that the chew marks were from a human and then Bones decided I was dense and had to say it clearer. She told me the victim had his face chewed off by a cannibal. God, why me? I hate cannibals. I hated it when we had that case in Washington State and I knew I was going to hate this one. A perfectly good snack and there was no way I could eat it, damn it.
Charlie and I went over to see Caroline. I needed to shut down the Salisbury municipal landfill and Charlie helped me compile enough evidence for me to get a warrant to do that. I figured that if someone was dumping body parts over overpasses into dump trucks then the rest of the body that belonged to the skull must be at the landfill. It was going to take a lot of work to sift through tons of trash to find the body; but, I needed the rest of the skeleton. Caroline agreed and got me the warrant.
You wouldn't believe how much bones you can find in a landfill. I had my techs send over anything that looked like a bone to the Jeffersonian and then I went over to see if Bones had found any human bones in that pile of mess we sent to her. When I got there I found out that the new guy was still there. Clark was looking through the stuff my techs had sent over trying to find the rest of my skeleton. Bones told me that she was going to have to look at it all to see. Clark offered to do it; but, Bones said it would take both of them days to do the job. I asked Clark if that was true; but, the guy wimped out on me and said that I was putting him in an awkward position. Zach would have told me and I told Clark that too. I hate it when people are so wimpy. I knew Bones was just using that as another excuse to stay in the Lab; but, I couldn't prove it. Whatever I did to piss her off, she wasn't telling me and that was bugging the shit out of me.
I took Cam out to dinner to see if she could hurry up hiring Zach's replacement; but, she told me that it wasn't her call. I told her the reason that I thought Bones was having a problem with me was because I'd arrested her father. Bones had told me that she didn't have a problem with that and I told that to Cam; but, Cam told me that she didn't really think Bones could be that rational about it. That just worried me more. I was losing my partner and I couldn't stop it.
While I was out with Cam, Bones called me to tell me she had ID'd the victim. She had found out that the victim was Gavin Nichols. He was a violinist who had disappeared about a month ago. His last performance had been at the Library of Congress. He was supposed to meet up with his girlfriend after the concert; but, he never showed up. The kid owned a three million dollar violin. Bones was a little skeptical that the kid was a victim of a cannibalistic violin thief who eats faces; but, damn what did she want? That's what the evidence was pointing to. I tried to get Bones to go with me to interview the girlfriend; but, she put the brakes on and wanted to look at some grit she found on the skull. Grit is Hodgins department. She was giving me another load of shit.
I ended up taking Angela with me to the interview instead. I interviewed Amelia Trattner at the Hoover while Angela watched in the observation room. That way Angela could give me advice through a mike while I wore an ear piece.
Amelia had brought a scrap book of Gavin Nichols. Amelia is a cellist with the National Symphony and that's how they met. Angela watched the scrapbook while the pages were turned and helped out with the questioning. Angela thought it was weird that Amelia was playing around with a nineteen year old; but, Amelia said that Gavin had actually pursued her. I asked her if she thought the violin was the reason that Gavin was killed; but, she told me that the thief wouldn't have been able to sell it. That was a good point. She told me that every violinist in the world probably wanted Gavin dead because of his talent. She told me that the little finger on his left hand had been insured for ten million bucks. Can you believe that?
I was going to end the interview; but, Angela noticed an interesting picture of Amelia and Gavin and wanted me to ask Amelia about it. I looked at the photo with Amelia and it dawned on me that she looked sad like she had lost him to someone else. Amelia showed me in the scrapbook who she had lost Gavin to. Worse luck. It was Rona Sumner. Rona is the wife of the Deputy Director of the Secret Service.
Hodgins emailed me to let me know about what he had found out about the stone grit in the skull and he said it was kind of rare in this area. He sent me a list of sites in the D.C. area that had used this stone.
Caroline and I interviewed, Rona Sumner along with her husband, Leo Sumner. That couple had to the creepiest couple I've ever interviewed. Rona admitted up front that she was having an affair with Gavin and Leo said that he knew about it. In fact, Rona told me that Gavin wasn't the only one she was fooling around with and Leo said he didn't give a damn. If anything, it looked like Leo liked his wife screwing around. Rona told me that she was an arts patron and she was the one who found the money to buy Gavin his violin. She said they slept together a couple of times a month. She then said that she had last slept with him on the night he had disappeared. Rona and Leo were creeping me out; but, I wasn't sure if I bought their story or not and I told them so. The pervs had brought a DVD with them as proof. Let's just say it showed Rona having sex with Gavin and Leo was sitting in some closet having sex with himself while he watched his wife. The whole thing pissed me off and I arrested Leo Sumner for voyeurism. If I could have arrested Rona for something I would have, the bitch. I felt absolutely dirty after talking to those two.
Charlie did some research for me and found out that the pink rock that had been found in Gavin's skull probably came from an old bank located near the Anacostia River. I went over to the Jeffersonian and told Cam and Bones about it. Cam got it right away. I had to help Bones see why it was probably the murder site, a big deserted bank, isolated. I wanted her to come with me; but, Bones didn't want to go with me to the bank. Cam talked her into going with me.
The Capital Mutual Bank is listed on the D.C. Building Conservancy list so there is security responsible for the building. I contacted the security company responsible for the bank and they sent out a guard to let Bones and me into the building to look around. The guard said that they don't have problems with break ins or squatters. The guard showed us the bank vault in the basement and Bones thought it would be an ideal place for a murderer to do his thing. I had one of my techs come out and open the vault.
I tried to talk to Bones about her father; but, she didn't want to talk about him. I figured she really did blame me for arresting him; but, she wouldn't admit it. I tried to get her to admit that something had changed between us; but, she wouldn't even admit that.
My guy got the vault open so Bones and me went in and had a look around. When we walked into the inner cage I saw a red LED light blink and I heard a beeping sound; so, I figured it was a bomb. I threw Bones onto the ground and laid on top of her waiting for the bomb to go off; but, nothing happened. Bones thought I was just being silly because it was just a transmitter. How was I to know that? Anyways, she didn't appreciate my attempt to save her life.
That transmitter told us that someone knew we had entered the vault. That didn't help my nerves one bit. There were all kinds of old stuff in the vault, most of it religious. While Bones was looking at that stuff, I walked further into the vault and found something that made my blood run cold. It was a silver skeleton with some human bones in it. It kind of freaked me out. I'd never seen anything like it. It was in a weird pose. Bones was pretty sure that the bones were Gavin Nichols' bones. She'd found his violin while I was busy finding the skeleton.
I called Caroline and the Squints and asked them come down to see our find. Hodgins went nuts and started talking about some secret society. Caroline didn't take him any more seriously than I did. Bones took a closer look at the skeleton and said that the human bones in the silver skeleton weren't all from the same person and they all looked like they had teeth marks on them. Great.
Caroline actually was a little excited about our find. She thought a cannibalistic serial killer was pretty juicy. I didn't. She wanted to know who had access to the vault. That was easy enough. The only ones with access were The Building Conservancy and the Security Company guarding the place. Bones wanted to move the whole bank vault to the Jeffersonian and Cam said they had room in the basement so Caroline agreed to it.
I worried that once the vault was moved over to the Jeffersonian Bones would never go out into the field with me again. She'd have the perfect excuse to stay away from me. All that old stuff, the silver skeleton, the human bones in the skeleton. None of this pointed out to a good outcome for me. I was going to lose my partner and I couldn't stop it.
I went over to the Jeffersonian to talk to Bones and I found her on the platform with Cam and all the squints already fooling around with some bones that they had found in the vault. I couldn't believe it. I'd been trying to get Bones to admit for weeks that something was wrong with her or us and now she was getting help avoiding me. It pissed me off. I tried to tell her too; but, no one was listening to me. Zach walked into the Lab and everything I said was out the window.
Zach was back from Iraq. I wasn't sure why he was back so I asked him if he was wounded; but, he said no. Whatever the reason was, he was back at the Jeffersonian and Zach's replacement was out. I knew Clark was out and Clark knew he was out. Bones and the squints were pretty cold about it too. I mean, Clark was standing right there and Bones asked Zach when he could start back at the Lab. I like Bones, hell, I love Bones; but, she can be unthinking. Clark saw the writing on the wall and left. I left too. I know when I'm not needed or wanted.
I was in my office working on paper work when Bones showed up in my office. She and Zach had figured out that the cannibal we were looking for had a diamond inset in one of his teeth. All we had to do is look at all of the employees at the Conservancy and see who fit the bill. Finally, I had something I could use to catch Gavin Nichols killer.
Bones surprised the Hell out of me. She told me that she wanted to help me interrogate whoever the suspect was. I'd been trying to get her to go out with me on cases for months and all it took was for Zach to come back from Iraq. I wasn't sure why; but, I didn't give a damn why. Not really.
We found our guy. His name was Jason Harkness. He was some rich teenager who was bad news. He'd been kicked out of six private schools for attacking people. Bones and I tried to get him to tell us how he got into the vault; but, he wouldn't tell us. Bones figured he must have found the combination in the bank somewhere. I got a warrant to get a dental impression of his diamond tooth so Bones asked him to bite some wax to get the impression. He tried to show his ass by refusing. I told him to do it or I'd make him do it. I didn't care which way it happened as long as it happened. He wanted to know why; so, Bones told him his tooth had made a mark on the skull.
Jason didn't even try to pretend he didn't know what was going on. The little bastard said that humans taste like beef except for the face. It tastes sweeter and babies taste like fish. I wanted to beat the Hell out of him. I didn't though. It would have upset Bones and my bosses; so it wasn't worth it.
I was home asleep when Bones called me to tell me that Zach needed to see us at the Jeffersonian right away. I hurried up and got dressed and met Bones at the Jeffersonian. We went in to the Lab together to find Zach. When we walked up onto the platform I saw Zach lying on one of the tables that Bones uses to look at dead bodies. I wasn't sure what was going on; but, I ran over to Zach and put my ear next to his chest to see if I could hear his heart beat. He was asleep. I woke him up and he was all bothered that I had listened to his chest. I told him that I thought he was dead. He didn't get why I was concerned. The guy is a flake, I swear to God.
Bones and Zach started talking and I didn't have a clue what they were talking about. I had to ask several times before they would tell me. Zach had found a bone that had two different sets of teeth marks on it. Jason wasn't working alone. From the marks on several of the bones, Bones figured out that we were looking for someone older that Jason. She was pretty sure that someone had invited Jason into their little personal Hell.
Bones and I drove over to the jail to talk to Jason. It was really early in the morning, night really and no one would let us see Jason. We decided to stick around until someone would let us. While we were waiting to see Jason, I decided to talk to Bones. I think I had finally figured out why Bones had been punishing me for the last three months. I told her that I knew too. She had been mad at me because I didn't stop Zach from going to Iraq. She admitted it too. She wanted to know why I didn't stop Zach; so, I told her. Zach is a man. He wanted to leave the Jeffersonian and see the world. Who was I to try to stop him? It was his right to leave and it wasn't up to me to make him stay.
The guards at the jail finally let us see Jason; but, it wasn't how we wanted to see him. The guy was dead. Jason was naked in his cell with a dagger in his chest. He was posed against his cell door like that damned silver skeleton in the bank vault.
Bones and I decided that it was time to talk to Hodgins. He's a conspiracy nut; but, he knows his stuff when it comes to ancient cults and stuff like that. We had Cam and Angela join us with Hodgins in the vault for a little conversation. I believed that Hodgins conspiracy theories might be real, Bones didn't. Hodgins said the pose is based on the Rapture. That I got. He said that the Free Masons call the pose the Widow's son. Cam said that Gavin's Dad died when he was twelve. Gavin was a widow's son. I figured that Jason killed himself to keep his secret society a secret; but, Hodgins figured that Jason could have been sacrificed. Well at least we knew what we were dealing with.
It was pretty early so Bones and me went over to the Reflecting Pool for coffee. We needed to talk. Bones was pumped and was talking non-stop about the vault and what was in it. She almost burned herself on her coffee because she wasn't paying attention to me or her coffee. I had to put my hand over the top of her coffee to keep her from gulping the stuff. It was funny because it was like she kissed my hand. She didn't think so; but, I did.
I really needed to find out from her if we were solid, that our partnership was whole again. The last three months had been bad and I had thought our partnership was over; but, now it looks like we're back to where we should be and I needed to know if she was with me, if the squints were with me. I can't work on this serial killer thing by myself. I need Bones and her squints. I told her we were the center and she agreed that the center had to hold. We had to hold. Thank God I have my partner back. I hope I never have to go through that again. These last three months have been Hell for me and I don't want that to happen again. I need Bones to be my partner.
I really do need her. She 's the only thing that lets me keep control. Without her, I think I'd start gambling again. That really scares me. The only thing that really helps me to walk the straight and narrow is Bones and that worries me more than I like to think. What if someday she gets tired of working with me? God, I really need to get a grip. I've been to so many meetings lately that I practically live at them. Now that Bones is working with me again, maybe I can relax a little.
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CBH – I've read the FBI files about the Widow's Son case and I can tell you, it gave me the creeps when I read about it. I didn't know Mom and Dad were having trouble at this time in their partnership. I hope this was the last time they had trouble like that.