(After 'The End in the End')

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I don't own Bones.

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The package wasn't very heavy and the return address was from a place in Winslow, Arizona. Carrying the box into the house, Booth shook it, but nothing seemed to move, so either the contents weren't fragile or it was well packaged. "Hey Bones, you've got mail."

Curious, Brennan left their bedroom, walked down the hallway and arrived at the front door where her husband was waiting for her. "I'm not expecting anything." Spying the return address, her curiosity was piqued. "I don't know anyone that lives in Winslow, Arizona. This is very curious."

Handing the box to Brennan, Booth walked over to the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of beer from the fridge. While he leaned against the counter sipping the beer, he watched Brennan place the box on the island and open it.

Carefully opening the box, Brennan removed the top layer of bubble wrap from the box and stared at the exposed contents. "Well, I was hoping that this would never happen again, but apparently that was a false hope."

Curious, Booth walked over to the island and looked inside the package. "Damn it! Not again." Furious, Booth removed his phone from his pants pocket and took a picture of the contents of the box as well as the return address on the lid of the box. "This had better not be another serial killer case. That didn't end well for me the last time." The last time they had received a box containing a body they had been at their 'Mighty Hut' and it had eventually led to his arrest for murder and imprisonment. He didn't think he could go through that again. "We need to take this to the Lab and find out what is going on."

Staring at the bones lying in the box, Brennan sighed. "The bones appear to be relatively clean although probably from insect and animal depredation." Closing the box, Brennan rested her hand on the top. "Even though it is Saturday, I am sure I can get Hodgins to come to the Lab and assist me . . . one of my new interns is working in Bones Storage this weekend. I'll have her stop her examination of the bones I assigned her and have her help me with this . . . Don't worry, Booth. The odds of this leading to a serial killer is astronomical." She really didn't know what the odds were, but she needed to assure her husband. The Ghost Killer case had almost caused his demise and she would make sure he was safe this time. "Christine is at her friend, Emma's house and Hank is next door playing with his friend, Bruce. If you can stay here and prepare lunch for them, I will go to the Lab and begin work. I will call you later this afternoon and let you know when I will return."

Determined not to over react to the bones in the box, Booth nodded his head. "Sounds good . . . If you need my help call me. I can get Aubrey or Angela to come over and watch the kids."

"Yes, of course." Brennan retrieved her purse, picked up the box and left the house. This was not how she had planned to spend her weekend, but someone was challenging her and she would not fail to find out what was going on.

Ooooooooooooooooooooo

Rolling up to the lift next to the platform, Hodgins called out to Brennan who was already examining the bones from her mystery box. "So, you need to stop getting bodies in the mail, Dr. B."

"I agree." With gloved hands, Brennan picked up a femur and found several small marks on the bone. "Booth was very unhappy when we discovered that there were human remains in the box. I think he's worried that we're dealing with another serial killer, but I'm certain that he is wrong. After I removed the bones and placed them on the table I found a letter at the bottom of the box along with several plastic bags. I have placed the letter on the table next to your work station."

Now on the platform, Hodgins rolled over to the table, pulled latex gloves on his hands, picked up the sheet of paper and read what was written out loud.

Dr. Brennan, these bones were found by my great grand-uncle in 1926 in the White Tank Mountains in Arizona. He was looking for gold and found these remains just inside a cave. As you can see the left tibia has a compound fracture. My uncle thinks the man died in the cave because he could not get help. He might have died of thirst or the shock of the fracture. My uncle had buried the man inside the cave and continued his gold hunting which proved to be quite successful.

I had heard stories about the body from my mother and with the help of a friend, dug up the body and sent it to you. I was hoping that you would be able to find out his identity and perhaps contact his family and arrange a final resting place for his remains.

I have enclosed, the bones I found in the grave site, pieces of what remained of his clothes, belt and shoes. I also have enclosed a bag of soil that I removed from the bottom of the grave. I hope you are successful.

"Cool, not a serial killer." Hodgins placed the letter down and rolled over to the examination table next to the table Brennan was using and picked up the bits of cloth and studied it. "Not much left, but these appear to be cotton fibers. The belt was made of leather and so were the shoes . . . If you don't need me, I'm going to go take this stuff to my Lab and analyze them." Placing the items on a tray he wheeled over to the lift to leave the platform.

As Hodgins was carried down to the floor below, Misty Winters hurried up the steps and over to the examination table. "I've cleaned up the Bones Storage area, Dr. Brennan. What would you like me to do now?"

"I would like you to take these bones and clean them Ms. Winters after you record each one. There are still some remnants of tissue on some of the bones. While you are doing that, I will be in my office doing some research. Once you are done, lay the bones out on the table in examination room number one and then let me know you are ready for me to continue my examination."

"Of course, Dr. Brennan." Misty Winters was Brennan's latest intern and she was determined to do an excellent job.

Ooooooooooooooooooooo

Once the bones were clean, Brennan examined them while Hodgins took a picture of the skull with Angela's digital camera. On the phone with his wife, he used the markers that Brennan provided and used the Angeltron to recreate the face. Once that was done, he loaded the picture into the Lab's missing person's database and ran it against several national databases and archives. He was hoping that there was an old picture in some historical database of the missing man or one of his relatives.

While that was going on, Brennan cataloged the injuries to the bones that she found and determined that the victim had probably died of a broken leg. There were signs that the trauma had killed the man. "To die alone, in agony . . ." She didn't finish her sentence.

Wisely, Ms. Winters didn't say anything and continued to examine the phalanges of the victim's right foot.

After a few hours, Brennan ordered her intern to box up the remains and to record the box number in the file she had opened for the victim. Curious about what Hodgins was doing, she left the examination room and walked down to his office. "Have you had any success yet?"

Hodgins looked up from the belt he was examining and shook his head. "Not so far."

"I have some information to add to your database. The man was approximately 35 to 45 years old when he died . . . Caucasian . . . he suffered from tuberculosis . . . considering there was no cure at the time, it was likely he would have died within the year from the disease. I am certain that he died from the compound fracture. It would have been a very painful death . . . if he was alone, then he had no way to get help. If he had friends with him, then they made no attempt to give him aide . . . I prefer to think that he was alone . . . He was not buried until after his bones had been cleaned by animals and insects. The person who buried him had found bones not a body. I did a carbon 14 test and I believe that the victim died during the last decade of the 19th century. Perhaps you might have some luck searching genealogy databases."

"I used his picture and tried two genealogy databases, but I can add the information you gave me and see if anything matches . . . Maybe we can use some DNA from one of his teeth and run it through. We might find a close match . . . if we're lucky either one of his descendants or a descendant from a brother or sister has submitted their DNA for testing."

Staring at the picture of the victim that was being displayed by the Angeltron, Brennan nodded her head. "Yes, we can do that . . . I have been thinking about why the unknown person in Arizona sent me the skeleton and yet didn't sign his name to the letter."

Curious, Hodgins moved a little closer and looked up at his friend. "And did you come up with any conclusions?"

"Perhaps my reputation as the best forensic anthropologist in the world or the reputation of the Lab." Brennan continued to stare at the image on the screen and decided that the image seemed familiar to her. "I have seen that face before . . . well, I should say, I have seen a similar looking face before."

Not really surprised, Hodgins clasped his hand together and leaned back against his chair. "Really?"

"Yes." Turning to stare at her friend, Brennan suddenly laughed. "What is going on Jack? Do you know who this man is?"

Slowly nodding his head, Hodgins smiled, rolled over to his desk, removed a folder and rolled his chair over to where Brennan was standing. "I told Angela you'd figure it out . . . I know it's not your birthday until next week, but Happy Birthday Dr. B . . . In 1893, my great-grand uncle, Norman Hodgins went out to Arizona to do some gold hunting. He had heard about the Lost Dutchman's mine and he wanted to see if he could find it. He took a train out west, rented some mules and hired a guide and they began to search for the mine. They didn't really expect to find anything, but Norman was a restless man, a man of action and he needed a purpose. Finding the mine was important to him . . . people become obsessed really." He got a distant look in his eyes, shook his head and returned to the present. "The family never heard from him again. A cousin went out west a year later to try to find him, but he didn't have any success. The family was frantic, but there was nothing they could do about it. They placed some ads in local Arizona newspapers offering rewards for Norman's return, but no one contacted them at the time."

Brennan could see this was going to be a long tale, so moved over to the chair next to Angela's computer and sat down. "Continue."

Facing Brennan, Hodgins smiled. "So anyway in 1926 someone contacted the family and said they'd found a skeleton in a cave in White Tank Mountains. He remembered his father talking about a big reward for anyone that could find some dude from back east and he was hoping that the skeleton he had found was Norman Hodgins. After the discovery, he had checked old newspapers and found out the name of the missing man and the name of the family offering the reward . . . The family sent my great-grand uncle Clyde out to check into it and he was taken to where the skeleton lay in the cave. There wasn't really any proof that the man was Norman, but Clyde gave the finder a reward anyway. He thought the man should be rewarded for his efforts. They buried the skeleton in the cave and placed a rock cairn over it. When Clyde came back he told the family about the skeleton and they decided it probably wasn't Norman and they didn't think anything else about it . . . A few years ago, right after my uncle Prentiss died, I went through some of his papers and I found an envelope with a letter in it from the finder of the skeleton and a copy of the ad he had found in an old newspaper. I've always been curious and I began to wonder if my family had been a little too hasty and that the body really had been Norman's. The man had been very wealthy and yet he never came home, he never wired for money, he never wrote . . . It was just too weird."

Fascinated, Brennan motioned for Hodgins to continue his story.

"I never had a chance to go out and look for the grave, but a few months ago, I decided that if Norman really had been buried in that cave then he needed to be returned home. I hired someone to dig him up and had his bones sent to me. I was going to bury them in the family crypt, but Angela really wanted to know if the guy was Norman or not. I mean, I was going to just place him in the family mausoleum, but then I realized that I had the means to find out who he was. I was going to bring in his remains and run some DNA tests, but then I realized that your birthday was coming up and you'd had a hell of a last couple of years and you deserved to have a special birthday present and what better present could I have given you than a mystery to solve?"

It had been an interesting tale and Brennan appreciated the effort that Hodgins had put into giving her such an interesting birthday present. Standing, she moved over to where her friend was sitting, leaned over and hugged him. "Thank you. It was a unique birthday present and I appreciate the planning put into it . . . Of course, Booth is going to be relieved that it isn't another serial killer."

"No kidding." Hodgins knew that Booth would probably have a few words to say to him, but the smile on Brennan's face was worth it. "Happy Birthday Dr. B and thank you for confirming that the victim was Norman Hodgins. I knew I could count on you."

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