Disclaimer: My birthday's coming up, do you know what I'm asking for?
There's just one more chapter after this, and it should be up within a few days. So sorry about the delay on this chapter, by the way.. it's been crazy here with family visiting and the 4th and all.
Thanks, of course, to FauxMaven, for her tireless effort on this story.
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The room was dark and cool, and the quiet helped ease the headache that began during the earlier pursuit. Brennan stood alone in the center of the room, her arms across her chest. In the next room, Booth leaned back in his chair, one leg hooked over the other, radiating a sense of casual power and control. She knew it was an act, though--from the way he had talked in the car, Booth wanted nothing more than to take out his anger on the man sitting across from him. Unfortunately, that wouldn't get them the answers they needed.
Brennan shifted her gaze to the object of Booth's ire. He was physically larger than Booth, though his posture and body language made him seem smaller and weakerHis glasses kept sliding down his nose and every time he pushed them into place, she could see Booth's jaw clench in irritation. They knew his name was Daniel Balch and that he hadmarried Alicia Balch, the owner of Ceridwen's Closet, fourteen months previously. They also knew that in June of 2005, he wentbackpacking with his then girlfriend, a young woman named Stephanie Turner. According to his story, his girlfriend had slipped on the bank of a rain-swollen river and was swept downstream. Her body was never found and an investigation resulted in her death being ruled accidental. Brennan had sent this information to her colleagues on the suspicion that their still unidentified victim might be this Stephanie Turner.
Despite his fidgeting, their suspect still refused to talk. She watched Booth stand and lean forward, his palms on the table, as he questioned the man. While she was interested in the interrogation, Brennan couldn't help thinking of how his biceps and triceps must be standing out as his arms bore his weight. She resented the suit jacket that impeded her view.
More and more lately, she had been distracted by her attraction to Booth and she was surprised that her occasional inability to focus hadn't eased once she had brought him into her bed. Granted, it had been less than a day since they had slept together, but if the last few hours were proof, her little daydreams were only more vivid now that she'd had a taste of him.
Booth sat back down and rested his forearms on his thighs, maintaining his dominant body language. She could tell he was getting impatient with the suspect's refusal to answer his questions. The suspect's fingerprints had matched prints found in the storage space and on the camping gear they had brought back from the Trail, which confirmed their assertion that this man was the one who accosted them in the woods. They had taken a sample of his DNA to match what little DNA evidence they had found on the victims, but the results wouldn't be in for several days at least. Booth's task now was to find his motive and he didn't seem to be having much luck.
Finding her own impatience growing, Brennan stretched her legs, slowly pacing the length of the window into the interrogation room. She heard Booth tell Balch that he'd be back. She turned to watch her partner gather the photos he had shown Balch, slip them into a file folder, and leave the room. A moment later, he opened the door to the observation room. She was pleased to see the easy smile that spread across his face at seeing her and it seemed that a good deal of the tension in his shoulders slipped away. He held out his hand, motioning for her to follow him out into the hallway. She slipped her hand into his as he led her into another observation room a few doors down. Closing the door behind them, Booth brought the room into near darkness. Through the window, Brennan saw Alicia Balch sitting uncomfortably at a table, her brow creased as she fiddled with the rings on her fingers.
"I'll give our suspect some time to sweat while I talk to his wife," Booth told her, inclining his head briefly towards the woman in the next room.
Brennan nodded. "It's frustrating when they don't cooperate."
"Well, not everyone makes a full confession, Bones," he grinned. "They're searching his house now, hopefully they'll find something useful."
"Do you think she knew what he was doing?"
Shrugging, Booth said, "Who knows? Sometimes women try to protect their husbands without even knowing what they've done wrong."
"Alright, well, go find out."
He chuckled. "Want to come in?"
She nodded eagerly and followed him into the interrogation room. Alicia Balch looked up at them anxiously as they entered and Brennan noted Booth's manner change. She was always intrigued by the way he behaved differently according to the situation and how much it seemed to matter. No longer was he the dominating presence he was with Daniel Balch, nor was he the self-assured flirt he was around her. He carefully kept his expression friendly, although she knew him well enough to see the tension in his eyes. His posture indicated he was trying to appear smaller, less imposing. She tried to mimic his movements but when he gave her a strange look, she stopped.
When they sat down across from her, Booth took Angela's photo of Daniel Balch out of the folder he had set down on the table in front of them. He turned the photo to face the woman and slid it across the table to her.
"Let's try this again, Mrs. Balch. Do you recognize this man?" he questioned.
She had the decency to look abashed as she nodded slowly. "That's my husband."
"I don't understand—I thought earlier you said you'd never seen him before. Seems if you're married to the guy, you should be able to identify a photo of him," he commented, almost casually.
"Well," Alicia Balch hesitated. "I guess I kind of…got confused for a minute there."
"Got confused?" Brennan asked.
"Maybe confused isn't the right word," she admitted.
Booth was quiet, watching the woman sitting across from him. Brennan followed his lead and waited.
After a minute, Alicia Balch spoke again, though her gaze remained fixed on the ring she was relentlessly turning on her finger. "Okay, so I panicked. I know it was stupid." She paused. "What's he done?"
"He's suspected in the murders of seven people," Booth said quietly.
She looked up sharply, aghast. "Murder? He murdered seven people? No, that can't be right."
"Not to mention that he assaulted both of us," Brennan added.
Her expression was clearly doubtful. "You must have the wrong man. Dan's not like that—he's a good guy, a good Christian, there's no way he would hurt someone."
"Your husband is Christian?" Booth asked. "I thought you—well, your store..." he trailed off.
Alicia Balch nodded. "I'm not Christian, but my husband is. It's been a source of tension," she confessed. "But he's very devout. He was raised to be God-fearing, which I think is a shame, personally, forcing your fanaticism on your kids, but we don't really talk about that anymore."
"Fanaticism?" Booth queried.
"Yeah, his dad was really strict, from what Dan's told me. Always telling him how he was going to go to Hell for stuff like playing instead of reading his Bible."
Brennan tried to give Booth a significant look, but he avoided her gaze, continuing to question the woman.
"How often does your husband go hiking?"
"Hiking? I don't think he's ever been," she told them, puzzled.
Booth looked at the woman thoughtfully. "Has he been away at all this past week?"
"Yes, but he was away on business. He's a regional sales manager."
"Which days was he gone?"
"Let's see...he left Wednesday morning and came back on Friday. He was supposed to be gone until Saturday, but he was able to come home early." She paused for a moment, looking a little lost, then asked, "Do you really think he killed seven people?"
"All the evidence points to him, Mrs. Balch," Brennan answered her.
Booth rose from his chair, gathering the photo and file folder. Brennan stood as well.
"Thank you, Mrs. Balch. That'll be all for now," Booth said, then led Brennan toward the door with a hand on her back.
With the door closed behind them, he turned to her and said,"Let's get some coffee."
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As Booth reclined in his chair behind his desk, Brennan studied his face. His skin was bruising surprisingly fast and anxiety flitted through her as she pictured where a fracture might lie underneath his contusion. She watched his lips purse as he took a sip of his coffee and when he glanced her way, she smiled. When a romantic relationship with Booth had only been a possibility, she had worried about whether it would be awkward, trying to be partners and friends while also having intimate knowledge of each other,but she was finding it remarkably comfortable. She supposed she had grown quite accustomed to him during their two-year partnership, and this familiarity helped ease their transition from friends to lovers.
"I don't think the wife knew anything," Booth said abruptly.
"No, I don't either," she agreed. "She'll still be in trouble for lying to you, though, won't she?"
He nodded.
"Where's their lawyer?"
Shrugging, he said, "I think he's coming from Baltimore, he should be here soon. They've both been Mirandized, though, and know they don't have to talk to us if they don't want to."
Minutes passed in comfortable silence as they drank their coffees and enjoyed just having a few moments where they weren't pursuing criminals, or interrogating suspects, or trying to seduce each other. They were interrupted by a knock on the door, and Brennan looked up to see a young and slightly nervous-looking agent hovering in the doorway.
"Agent Booth? They've finished searching Balch's house and they're on their way back with the evidence. Sounds like they found some interesting stuff."
Booth arched an eyebrow at the other man. "Oh?"
The agent shrugged. "I don't know the specifics."
"Okay. We'll be down in a few."
The other agent took that as a dismissal and hurried down the hallway out of view. Booth turned to her and opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the ringing of Brennan's cell phone. She fumbled through her bag before pulling the phone out and answering the call.
"Brennan."
"Dr. Brennan, you told me to call you as soon as we had any information regarding Stephanie Turner," Zack said, leaping straight into the conversation without preamble.
"Okay, Zack, what did you find?"
"The unidentified victim's dental records match Stephanie Turner exactly, and two old fractures in her left tibia and left distal radius match childhood injuries listed in her medical records."
"Thanks, Zack, good work." Brennan disconnected the call and dropped her phone into her bag. "Well, we have a match. The Jane Doe is definitely Stephanie Turner," she told Booth.
"Well, I guess that explains why it took so long to make the I.D."
Brennan nodded. "Right. Because she was already declared dead, she wasn't in the missing persons database."
"What say we go check out what they found in Balch's house?" he suggested as he stood, tossing his empty coffee cup in the wastebasket. She nodded and after he smoothed his clothes, he led her out into the hallway, his arm draped across her shoulders.
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They sifted through stacks of notebooks, all crammed into cardboard boxes. The notebooks were all surprisingly similar and rather disturbing. Most of the pages were filled with drawings that matched the mural in the storage space. The blue-inked images had been retraced several times on each of the drawings, conjuring a visual in Brennan's mind of the artist's hand moving obsessively over the page. Here and there a page was filled in with a barely legible scrawl rather a fevered drawing and Brennan had to squint to make some of it out. Most of the writing seemed to be descriptions of the drawings, referring to bleeding trees and the hooded man offering a cup filled with blood. From what she gathered, this scene was either a dream or hallucination, but she couldn't be sure which.
After a quarter of an hour looking through the notebooks in silence, Booth spoke up.
"Here's something different," he said.
Brennan moved beside him to read over his shoulder. It was more writing, but this time he seemed to have been ranting about the devil tempting him with some sort of berries.
"'Berries'? Am I reading that right?" Booth asked.
"I think so."
"Why berries?"
She squinted hard at the page, reading as much as she could of the scrawled babbling. There was something about a trick the Devil played on him, being punished for giving in to temptation, and terrifying visions of Hell. Visions and berries jogged something in her brain and after a moment of thinking, she looked up at Booth, a knowing smile on her lips.
"He's talking about Atropa belladonna , Booth."
"What, the same stuff that I was drugged with?" he frowned.
"Exactly. The berries are quite toxic and can produce the same symptoms you experienced." She pointed to the section where he spoke of horrible visions. "Doesn't that sound like hallucinations?"
Booth nodded. "So he thinks that the Devil, what...makes people eat Belladonna berries?"
"I don't know," she shrugged. "Although from what he's written, it sounds more like a personal experience."
"What does the Devil have to do with it?"
"Well, some claim that only the Devil can harvest Belladonna, and that anyone who eats the berries, or any part of the plant, I suppose, will be killed by the Devil. Although, obviously you can see the roots of that belief lie in the symptoms of Belladonna poisoning resembling what demonic possession is supposed to be like, and Belladonna poisoning in children is frequently fatal. Also, it was believed that witches used Belladonna to enable them to fly."
Nodding slowly, Booth sighed. "Okay, thanks for the info."
"You did ask," she complained.
"I know, I know. I've got to stop doing that."
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Once again, Brennan waited in the darkened observation room, watching Booth interrogate their suspect. He had started with a few easy questions and now she was waiting for him to mention the notebooks. It was clear from the Balch's writing that he was quite disturbed but she still didn't understand why he had been compelled to murder so many people. As she thought of the long passages in those notebooks describing his terrifying visions of Hell, she wondered how he had been able to hide that from his wife. Doubt wriggled inside her as she watched Booth, worried that she would someday become as blind as Alicia Balch, unable or unwilling to see fault in the man she loved.
Absorbed in her own thoughts, she was only dimly aware of Booth mentioning something about the Devil and belladonna, but Balch's reaction brought her back to the interrogation. He sat forward, his eyes bright, palms down on the table in front of him.
"Can you see him?" Balch asked, his expression more animated than she had seen him even on the Trail.
"Him?" Booth questioned.
Balch gave him a look that Brennan couldn't read. "The Devil. I thought you said you know what he does."
Booth's brow furrowed subtly as he paused. Then he said, "Yes, I know about belladonna."
A look of relief swept across Balch's face. "He did it to you, too, then?"
Making a small noncommittal noise, Booth asked, "How did it happen to you?"
"I was little. Maybe six, I think. My father had always warned me about temptation and the Devil, about the danger of idleness. But one day the Devil made me go out and play, he must have, because I always listened to my father. I was in the woods behind the house and it was nearly lunchtime, and I was so hungry."
She watched Booth nod at the suspect and she had a feeling that she knew where this story was going.
"Well, there were these little berries, and like I said, I was so hungry. I ate a few and would have had more, but I heard my mother calling me. She sounded so worried, warning that my father was coming home, that it wasn't safe. I started feeling sick. My mother thought I had a bug, but when my father got home, it had gotten much worse…" Balch paused, his eyes glassy. "My father recognized what it was, though. I was thrashing and yelling, and the things I saw…" Again he hesitated, but when he spoke again, his voice was much stronger.
"The Devil had possessed me. It was horrible. It was days before I recovered. My father was really angry. He…taught me to better resist the Devil's temptation after that."
"Taught you?" Booth asked.
"My father wasn't afraid to punish us. He said it made the lessons stick better."
Booth nodded tightly. "So what happened after that?"
"Well, he reminded me of my lesson often. I was always careful to obey after that, but at night, I still had these terrible visions. You know what I mean, right?"
Again, Booth nodded. "The trees, and the hooded man."
"And the blood. Always the blood. It tastes…" Balch grimaced, then was silent for a minute. When he spoke again, it was in a whisper. "The Devil never really left me."