Chapter Five
Pagans
"Damn."
The catacombs were plunged into pitch darkness and stillness. So still that the only thing Booth could register were the sounds of his and Bones' breathing and the sticky, sweet smell of the decaying fruit and body in the catacombs.
"Damn."
"Saying it twice isn't going to make the lights turn back on." There it was. Bones' cool voice of reason.
"I know, but it makes me feel a little better." Frustration edged his words.
Booth scanned the area, looking for any flicker of light or sound of life. Nothing. It seemed that Sister Angela had high-tailed it out of there to pray with the living for the souls of the dead. "Can you see anything?" he whispered.
"No. And why are you whispering?"
She had a point, but Booth wasn't going to let her know that. "Because we're in church."
Dead silence for five seconds.
"Technically we're under a church."
"Same thing. And we're in a cemetery. Kind of."
He could nearly hear her eyes roll. "It's not like they can hear us. And you never whisper in the lab."
"That's because…that's because…that's because when they're in your lab, they're bones, Bones."
"They're still dead."
Two seconds of silence this time.
"It's still different," he hissed. Booth took a deep breath and steadied his thoughts. There was no other sound but their breathing and water dripping from somewhere deep inside the catacombs. He took rapid-fire mental stock of their situation:
Her camera flash wouldn't work. No light source there.
His flashlight was back in the United States in his FBI-issued SUV.
From the quiet, he could deduce that the good sister and everyone else had left them alone down here to take stock of the situation, counting on him and Bones to return to the outside when they were ready to retrieve the body.
What did they have?
Each other. That might be more than a small comfort if they ended up spending the night down here together. A certain part of Booth's body seconded that thought. He squelched any rising ideas that part might have. As attracted as he was to Bones, there was no way anything was going to happen in the catacombs. That was just too creepy.
What else, what else…
Her kit. Bones had her kit. "Hey…you have your kit with you, or did you leave it back at that altar thingie?"
"Yeah, but it's too dark to see anything." Her statement was followed by some fumbling as he heard and felt her kneel on the floor. There was the clink of the kit being opened followed by more fumbling. "Evidence bags, pipettes, petrie dishes…." She lifted the top tray.
More fumbling. Then her hands hit pay dirt.
"A laser light…the kind you put on your keychain."
Bingo. God bless the squints. They were better than boy scouts.
"Then laser us out of here, Bones."
The blue-white light bounced off the walls of the catacombs and back on her face. "Isn't that kind of like 'Beam me up, Scotty'?"
Score one for pop culture.
Three hours later found them in a forensics lab in Rome. After fumbling and stumbling their way out of the catacombs, Bones had ordered the remains of the young woman taken to a lab, along with the candles and fruit that surrounded the body for a more in depth analysis. And to a place where there would be no sudden power failures. Booth had gone along for the ride. Signor Giacomo Moretti promised to follow soon.
Bones' enthusiasm at that announcement rolled off her in waves. "He needs to stay out of this."
Booth shrugged. "This is his turf."
"These are my remains. I won't have them compromised."
He knew by the tight set of her jaw that Moretti was going to be in a life or death fight. And Booth would bet that the Signore could give as good as he got. Compromise seemed like a good angle to play at this point. "We're here at his bequest, Bones."
"We're here because our victim is an American."
Booth bit his tongue as they pulled into the parking deck of the lab. "Just promise me something."
"What?"
"Promise me you'll play nice until you have a COD. This whole thing is hinky. I know that and you know that. Let's just don't pull out the big guns until we have the facts, okay?"
Bones nodded. But as soon as she had the truth, she was going to come out with cannons blaring. Or was that blazing? She mentally shook her head as she stepped out of the rental car and into the lab. Forty-five minutes later, she was suited up and peering at the remains on a lighted table, her Roman counterparts staying a respectful distance behind her and Booth across the room.
"The remains are female….late teens to early twenties…." she began, "Approximately five feet, five inches in height…." Another peer, this time even closer. "There are no eyes in the orbital sockets and little left of the organs or soft tissue, putting the time of death about six weeks ago."
Booth nodded. She was "in the zone," seeing nothing but the bones in front of her and working the jigsaw puzzle to see if she could come up with some answers. So far, they had found nothing they didn't know before. The girl was young. The girl was American. The girl was Olivia Daniels.
Olivia Daniels from Hoboken, New Jersey who had died a very strange death.
"Pelvis and pubic region indicate she had never given birth…"
"Her mom said Olivia was a good girl…"
"And she was about three months pregnant."
Booth swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbed uncomfortably against the collar of his shirt. "What did you say?"
Bones met his startled glance with her own cool gaze. "Good girls have sex, Booth," she explained patiently. "Olivia obviously had sex with someone because there are fetal bones in her abdominal cavity. The size of the bones indicates the fetus was approximately three months along in gestation."
Holy Mary, Mother of God, Booth thought and fought a desire to cross himself. Another soul for Sister Angelica to pray over.
Another layer to the catacomb mystery.
Booth had excused himself from the lab after Bones had announced that Olivia had been pregnant at the time of her murder. After giving the lab assistants directions to clean the bones and examine the fruit, she washed up and went in search of her FBI counterpart. He wasn't far, just outside the lab doors, leaning against the wall, his face about the same color as the paint that decorated the white interior of the Laboratorio italiano di dialettica a Roma. Cases involving kids were always the toughest. This time, the case involved two and it wasn't getting any easier.
"Come on," she told him, gently jostling his elbow. "I'll buy you a coffee."
Hesitation. "I don't think I could stomach any coffee from vending machines right now, Bones. But thanks."
Temperance shook her head. "I know this killer espresso/cappuccino stand within walking distance. Has the best Timarasu in the world." It wasn't pie, but it was a close second.
This time he let her lead him out of the lab and to the tiny coffee shop, true to her word, less than a minute away from the lab. Two cappuccinos and two Timarasus later, Booth felt minutely better. He stretched his legs out in front of him as they sat outside, each of them hashing and re-hashing their find in their heads. The body was telling them half the story. The decaying fruit would yield no fingerprints, but may lend up some DNA. Same with the candles. That is, if they were lucky.
"She was pregnant," he began.
"And from the estimated TOD, she had to have conceived while living here in Rome. Her medical records indicate she had to have a physical before leaving the United States – that was part of the requirements for her study abroad program – and there was nothing in them about any elevated HCG levels."
Booth sighed. "I told you. Students go abroad to have flings, Bones. A hot accent and an exotic location, and BAM! Everything the parents tried to teach them at home goes out the window."
Temperance stared down at her coffee cup for a moment. She was much better at logic. Give her the facts and the evidence and she could run miles around any defense attorney in the country and any crooked DA from any other country. It was the matters of the heart that gave her issue. That was unfamiliar territory. Even her own heart remained foreign to her at times, not trusting the emotions she couldn't quantify and measure. Especially concerning the man that was beside her. But to think that a straight-A, honor student would put everything on the line for a fling – especially one like Olivia appeared to be — didn't register as right with her. "She could have loved him, Booth."
Booth snorted and opened his mouth to reply when a voice cut him off.
"Ciao Booth dell'agente e Dott. Brennan." Signor Giacomo Moretti appeared before them, bowing slightly in the late afternoon sun. "I hope I am not disturbing?"
Booth nudged Bones' knee under the table with his own. She clamped her mouth shut. He did the talking. "Of course not, Signor."
"May I sit?"
Booth nodded. Bones minded her manners.
The Signor lowered his short body into a chair across from them and eyed them both carefully before continuing. "I believe I may have solved this little mystery for us."
Bones bit her tongue. Booth took off his sunglasses. "You have?"
Signor Moretti nodded. "Pagans."
