(The Flaw in the Saw)

Thank you for reviewing my story. I appreciate it.

I don't own Bones.

Ooooooooooooooo

Carl Stevens's job was to monitor traffic cameras for the television station he worked for. If there was an accident or a traffic tie up of some kind, he would get on Twitter and Facebook and post the problem for those who followed him and his television station.

It was 5 a.m. and his day had just begun. The sun wasn't up yet, but it would be in about an hour or so just when morning traffic would start to pick up and the morning commute for the areas residents began. Moving from one camera to the next, he found a good traffic flow and no incidents that could cause any traffic delays. As he checked each camera, he was shocked to see a man walking on the side of a road with a body in his arms. The body appeared to be that of a woman, but the area was being illuminated with sodium lights from some nearby street lights and cast odd shadows on everything. As Carl watched, the man left the side of the road and entered a patch of woods and didn't reappear.

Disturbed, Carl called 911 and reported what he had seen. He had recorded what he had witnessed on the camera, so he could prove what he had seen and offered it to the police department if they needed it. After his call was finished, he flipped through the street cameras in the area trying to see if the man would make an appearance with or without a body and he finally noticed the man walking on a street on the other side of the wood without the body in his arms. Upset, he recorded the man walk over to a parked car, enter it on the passenger side and then witnessed the car drive away. The camera didn't pick up the car's tag much to Carl's disgust.

Ooooooooooooooo

"So, I looked into it after Metro Police asked for our help." Aubrey flipped through his notebook while Booth tapped the end of his pencil on his desk impatiently waiting for Aubrey to finish his briefing. "Metro had some analysts look at the video, but the man carrying the woman was wearing a scarf around his mouth and nose . . . It's not cold enough for that, but if I was carrying a body, I'd hide my face too. Anyway, the woman's face was only partially visible, so not good enough to ID the victim."

Booth stopped tapping the pencil and placed it down on the desk. "Did you show the video to Angela or Bones?"

"Yeah, I gave a copy to Angela and she says she has a program that she can use to fill in the missing part of the face. She's supposed to get back to me about it this afternoon." Flipping to the next page, Aubrey turned his attention back to his notebook. "Metro wasn't able to get the tag number off the get-away car. Their analyst recommended that Metro contact the Lab, so they went through the FBI and that's how I got involved. I looked at the video of the man carrying the woman and the video of the man getting in a car and driving away. The whole thing was weird. Metro says there was no abandoned car on the road anywhere near where the man entered the woods. There aren't any residential homes nearby either. It was 5:16 in the morning and there were cars on the road, not a lot, but enough so if the guy had carried the body for any length of time he would have been noticed. Metro isn't sure where he came from since we only have the video of him carrying the body near the traffic camera. There are businesses in the area, but they're back from the road and the cameras at those businesses aren't aimed towards the road . . . That was pretty frustrating. Metro did what they could, but I don't blame them for asking for help from the Lab."

Turning his chair, Booth started up the video again on his PC and watched it until the man disappeared in the patch of woods. "The street lights aren't a big help. There were three cars that passed him going north bound and one passed him going south bound . . . It would have been nice if there had been witnesses on the street . . . Metro says they didn't find a body? Those woods aren't that deep and if the guy buried the body, they would have found the grave. As far as I can tell, he wasn't carrying a shovel, so I doubt he dug a grave with his hands . . . Send some techs to the woods and see if they can find the body. Nothing against Metro, but the body didn't just disappear. It has to be there."

"Got it, um, to set the record straight, they did find a pair of pants and a shirt that were new, just no body." Aubrey stood up. "What kind of idiot walks down a street carrying a body and not expect to go unnoticed?"

"Well, basically he did go unnoticed." Booth closed the video file. "The only person that called it in was Carl the Traffic Guy."

Oooooooooooooooo

Not sure whether she should laugh or cry from frustration, Angela watched the video and shook her head. "Ridiculous. If I get my hands on that idiot, I will make him pay for wasting my time." She had set aside some work on the Brewer case with permission from Cam to work on Metro's case and she now had the answer they were looking for. "Booth and Aubrey are going to be very unhappy, I'm sure."

As soon as she could arrange it, Angela arrived at the Hoover to meet with both Booth and Aubrey in the conference room. When she entered the room, she placed a box of apple fritters on the table and sat down. It didn't take long for the agents to join her. "I have some answers about the man supposedly carrying a body down the street yesterday morning."

"Supposedly?" Aware that words had meaning, Booth sat down across from Angela and stared at her. "Wasn't he carrying a body?"

Pushing the box of fritters towards Booth, Angela almost laughed when Aubrey intercepted the box and sat down next to Booth. "He wasn't . . . let me explain." She opened up a folder she had on the table in front of her and withdrew a picture placing it on the table so that it faced Booth and Aubrey. "I used an algorithm that fills in missing facial features and this is what I got."

Puzzled, Aubrey studied the picture and commented. "Why does her face look like that?" He bit into an apple fritter and chewed it while he waited for Angela to explain.

"Her face looks like that, because she's not a she." Angela watched Booth lean forward and move the picture closer to him. "That isn't a real human being. It's a doll . . . a big one that's for sure, but it is a doll."

Unamused, Booth stared at the picture and exhaled deeply. "I want this guy, Angela. Do you know how many man hours Metro Police and the FBI wasted on this bullshit?"

"Believe me, I want you to talk to him too. I wasted a few hours I could have spent on the Brewer case." Angela picked up a few pictures from the folder and placed them on the table facing Booth. "We can't see the man's face, but he's approximately 5 feet 8 inches, about 160 pounds, his hair is blond, but I wouldn't assume race because the hair could be dyed. He's wearing a University of Virginia jacket, which may not have been the brightest thing he could have done . . . The car he got into was a Toyota Corolla, the sodium lights hid the color of the car, but I ran it trough a filter . . . it's a red car. The traffic camera on the street didn't allow anyone to see the tag number, but I started looking at businesses on that street and street cameras and I finally saw the car pull into an 'On the Run' store. I contacted the business and picked up their store video a couple of hours ago." She pulled out two photos and laid them on top of the other pictures. "The camera at the register recorded the two occupants of the car, these are their photos and this photo shows their car and them standing next to it talking to each other in the parking lot carrying a Coke and a breakfast sandwich. It matches what they bought inside the store."

Aubrey grabbed the photos and nodded his head. "Do you have ID yet?"

"I sure do." Angela glanced down at a sheet of paper left in the folder. "Their names are Christopher O'Quinn and David Morton. They're students at the University of Virginia . . . They're psychology majors."

His eyes glinting, Booth stared at the image and a sinister smile appeared on his face which caused Angela to shiver. "I think Mr. O'Quinn and Mr. Morton need a visit from the FBI."

"Um, I'll leave the folder and the pictures with you, Booth." Angela stood up. "It was probably just a prank. They're just kids."

"Not kids, Angela." Booth was angry. "They're adults and they will treated like adults."

Ooooooooooooooooooo

Nervously picking at the cuff of his shirt sleeve, Christopher O'Quinn stared at the two FBI Agents who had just entered the room and felt his heart rate increase involuntarily. "Why am I here?"

"Why are we here?" David Morton had been pulled from his class, handcuffed and taken from the University to the Hoover and he was afraid and embarrassed.

Ignoring the questions, Booth and Aubrey sat down and stared at the suspects for a few seconds. Booth opened a folder, fanned out some pictures on the table in front of him so the two men could see them and leaned forward on the table. "Two days ago, a man was caught on a traffic camera carrying what looked like a woman's body on the side of a street. That man ducked into some woods and when he came out on the other side, he wasn't carrying anything."

His nervousness increasing, Christopher swallowed. "What does that have to do with me?"

"What does that have to do with us?" David was starting to get annoyed with his companion. After all, they were in this together.

Placing his hand on the picture of Christopher holding the doll, Booth shook his head. "Carrying a dead body has a tendency to upset law enforcement and the general population. Murder is a nasty business . . . We have video of you carrying the body and of you two at an 'On the Run' store a few minutes after you got into David's car. Same car, same clothes, same hat, same scarf Christopher. You were the one carrying the body. Tell us what you did with her? Maybe we can take the death penalty off the table."

His voice a squeak, Christopher's eyes bulged. "Death penalty?" Clearing his throat, Christopher was envisioning his last moments of life in an electric chair. "No, no, you've got this all wrong. It was a doll. I didn't kill anyone."

"Chris!" David was furious. "Don't say anything. They don't have anything on us."

Amused, Booth leaned back against the chair with his hands on his thighs. "We can place you on the road with the body, Christopher and we can place you both with the car. I may not have the body, but I have enough evidence to go after you for murder."

"I want a lawyer." David was afraid and he realized that he needed professional help.

"I don't need a lawyer. This was a joke." Christopher wasn't going to trial for murder if he could help it. "We're studying psychology and we wanted to do an experiment. David bought the doll and the plan was for me to walk down the street in front of the traffic camera and see if the passing cars would ignore me and if anyone that watched the cameras would report me. Most people don't want to get involved when it comes to something dangerous and me carrying a body would signify danger. It's called Dangerous Instincts. Their gut tells them I'm dangerous and they will keep driving. I had several cars pass me and no one stopped and confronted me. We expected that . . . the people monitoring the traffic cameras could react because I was far away from them and not an immediate threat. They could contact law enforcement and not be afraid of the consequences . . . When I got in the woods, I undressed the doll, threw the clothes away and rolled up the doll and stuck it high up in a tree. This was just an experiment. David and I are going to write a paper on it. It was an assignment for Professor Reed. It's supposed to make up about a third of our final grade."

His eyes cold, his face expressionless, Aubrey slapped the palm of his hand against the top of the table causing the two you men to jump in their seat. "So, it was an experiment? You thought it would be funny to try to terrorize some people, to tie up the Metro Police Department looking into the possibility of a killer on the loose, the FBI, the scientists at the Medico-Legal Lab at the Jeffersonian institute? You thought it would be okay to force law enforcement to use up valuable time on an experiment instead of letting those officers of the law work on real cases? Really?"

A shiver running down his spine, Christopher licked his lips and tried to remain calm. "Look, maybe we didn't think this through, but we needed data and that meant real time not class room experimentation. I'm sorry that everyone is upset, but no one got hurt."

Disgusted with the two young men, Booth leaned on the table. "If you think you're going to walk away from this you're wrong. You caused a lot of trouble, a lot of wasted man hours when we have more work than we can handle already . . . It's up to the prosecutor. If a person willfully and knowingly gives or causes a false report of a crime to be given to any law enforcement officer or agency he is guilty of a misdemeanor. Since you involved multiple agencies it could be considered a felony."

David couldn't believe this was happening. "Look, call my father. He's the deputy AG for the state of Ohio. He's not going to let anything happen to me . . .This is just a big misunderstanding."

"This is the District of Columbia not Ohio. Your father has no say in what's going to happen to you . . . threatening a Federal Agent is a felony, just in case you don't know that." Booth stood up. "A federal prosecutor is on the way here to talk to you. She doesn't have a sense of humor." With Aubrey behind him, Booth left the interrogation room and walked over to the observation room.

"So, I don't have a sense of humor?" Caroline studied her favorite FBI agent and waited for him to respond.

Unafraid, Booth leaned against the glass separating the interrogation room from the observation room. "Not when it comes to threats. I'm pretty sure you can handle the Deputy AG from the state of Ohio."

"Hm, you better believe it." Caroline glanced at the two young men arguing in the next room. "I won't charge them with a felony, but they will be charged. If I don't then the punks of this world will try to use law enforcement in their YouTube videos or social experiments and sooner or later someone will get killed or hurt and they'll blame the police."

Aubrey witnessed David stand up and push Christopher from his chair. "I guess I better go back and separate those two idiots."

Watching Aubrey charge in to the interrogation room and cuff David, Booth shook his head. "Well, I wonder if they'll get an A on their paper."

"Not if I can help it." Caroline walked over to the door. "I'm going to call Professor Reed and ask him about this. If he's setting up experiments like this for grades, the AG in Virginia and the FBI both might have a few things to say to him."

Oooooooooooooooo

Let me know what you think of my story. Thank you.