Season 6.5 x 15: The Dominant in the Dumbwaiter ~ Written by Rynogeny
Empty hotels felt very different from empty houses, Louise Gregory reflected to herself as she stepped into the lobby of the old hotel. She'd been a realtor long enough to be familiar with both and houses, even old ones, always spoke of potential. They were future-oriented; the couples that toured residences would ask themselves, 'How can we make a home here?' But a vacant hotel simply felt creepy. There was too much past there, too many stories. And this one was no exception.
She glanced at the three potential buyers she was showing the property to and based on the weight of her experience again, judged her chances of a sale as minimal. The married couple both appeared to be in their mid-fifties and the wife's sister was a few years older. Together, they owned three successful bed-and-breakfasts in Virginia and wanted to expand into a hotel. The idea conflicted with Louise's image of B&Bs as homey and locally owned by people who lived on the property, and that was a bit disgruntling, but it still didn't mean they'd be able to convince a bank they could restore and run a hotel.
Then again, who knew what a bank would do? And if they did make an offer on it, and if a bank did agree to the loan, and the amount was anywhere near the asking price, her part of the commission might be enough for her to retire. It was time; she was tired of showing endless properties to people who'd invariably buy from someone else, tired of the economy making people think homes should be free, just …tired. Thirty years was long enough.
.
"The Hyperion was built in 1923," she said, clearing her throat. Time to get this show on the road, her feet hurt. "For many years, it was one of Washington's premiere hotels."
"It looks as if it's been well preserved," Marlene Edgar said. She was the wife and Louise had already figured out that she was the one in charge -she might as well have been wearing a sign.
Thomas Edgar, the husband, was looking at a clipboard. A mousy man, he was a few inches shorter – and quite a few pounds lighter – than his wife. "That's surprising. Says here that it was converted to condos in the 90's. I'd have expected them to wreck all the charm of the place," he muttered.
"It was converted," Louise said smoothly. "But it was bought out and restored as a hotel a few years before the economy crashed." And promptly failed, which should give anyone pause about attempting the same again, but she didn't say so.
"Fools didn't know what they were doing," Marlene sniffed.
The sister, Wilma, spoke for the first time. "Isn't there a group who's trying to get it on the Historical Register?"
Marlene spoke before Louise could. "Yes. And that will be an advantage for us."
"It will also limit the kinds of changes we can make to it," Wilma pointed out.
Marlene shrugged. "Not if we don't want to make significant changes in the first place." She looked around. "Well, let's see what's what. I don't want to spend all day here."
They walked around the lobby, investigated the grand staircase that led to the circling balcony on the second floor, then began working their way through some of the non-public areas on the first floor. It really was in good condition for its age and history, Louise thought, and the hope that she might wrangle a sale out of it grew.
They moved from the offices toward what had been the kitchens. "At one point, the Italian restaurant here, 'Angelo's', was famous in its own right," Louise said, hoping that would be a selling point, maybe they'd want to try their hand at a restaurant as well as the hotel.
Marlene made a 'hmmm' noise in her throat that sounded promising and Thomas jotted a note on his clipboard. Wilma frowned, "We couldn't do Italian," she said. "I'm allergic to tomatoes."
They walked into the kitchen, and a chill slid down Louise's spine. It was darker than the other areas they'd been in, and again, she thought it all just felt …creepy. It smelled and as she flipped the lights on she was hoping not to see any rats. She detested all furry things with long tails, they were bad for business.
The kitchen must have been renovated when they did one of the conversions, but not totally so. The enormous stove didn't look to be over fifteen years old, nor did the refrigerators. But in one corner, not particularly well-lit, there was a dumbwaiter still in the wall that looked like it had been there since Angelo was reigning supreme with his pasta.
"What is that in the dumbwaiter?" Wilma asked.
At first, Louise told herself it had to be an old Halloween decoration but as she took in the human skull, the rotting flesh, the rope, and tried desperately to convince her that that was exactly what it was. Her nose, though, said differently, and she turned away, retching as Wilma began to scream.
Regaining her composure by sheer will, Louise reached for her phone, grimly reflecting that yes, empty hotels were creepier than houses. And damn it, this was definitely going to scuttle her dreams of retirement. She looked over at Marlene, who was staring into the dumbwaiter with a thoughtful look on her face. Or maybe not.
"Hmm," Marlene said. "A hotel with a body, maybe circulate some ghost rumors. We might be able to work with that."
B&B
Booth stared into the dumbwaiter, a puzzled frown on his face. The body was in what he considered the grossest stage of decomp – plenty of bones visible, but with a lot of tissue slipping and sliding off and around. But it wasn't really the body that was holding his interest, it was the rope. There was a lot of it, wrapped and knotted all around the corpse. It wasn't just the amount, which seemed excessive given the probable size of the victim, it was the way it was positioned, and the intricate way it was tied.
"Someone took getting their knot badge way too seriously," he said before looking at Brennan. For the first time, he realized that she appeared to be more interested in the rope than in the remains, too. "What do you have, Bones?"
"These knots are tied in a very specific pattern, Booth."
Her expression and the very fact that she was so interested in the rope, forestalled another wisecrack. "What do you mean?"
"I would rather not speculate until I research it, but it reminds me of a pattern I saw once."
"A possible clue to the killer, then." He turned back, eyed the rope speculatively. "What do you have on the victim?"
She was frowning. "The skull suggests Caucasian male. His position, with his legs pulled up toward his torso, makes it difficult to say conclusively, as it's impossible to judge height and I can't clearly see his pelvic region." She leaned forward with her flashlight, stared intently into the victim's mouth. "Possibly in his late thirties. I'll know more once we get him back to the lab." She shone the light down what was left of the torso. "Booth."
He told himself if the body hadn't been at the stage of decomp it was in, he would have noticed it sooner. As it was, it was such a mess of flesh, rope, and bone, he was proud he noticed it when he did. "He's naked. Or what's left of him."
Brennan nodded. "There's no sign of clothing, and yet they wouldn't have decomposed if the rope hadn't."
Booth shook his head, "This is wonderful. A naked guy trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey and left in an empty hotel." When Brennan turned and looked at him with an amused smile, he looked directly at her and whined, "You know the worst part? I'm not even surprised anymore by this stuff."
Brennan's attention had again turned from the body, this time to the dumbwaiter. "We need the dumbwaiter at the lab. I'd prefer to leave the body in it and undisturbed, if possible. Taking him out will disturb the way the rope is knotted."
Booth looked at how the dumbwaiter was designed and grimaced. "Right." He motioned to the techs standing nearby. "Take as many photos and as much video as you can, especially of the rope, then transport the whole thing back to the Jeffersonian."
BREAK
"I take it you want to go back to the lab?" Booth asked as they settled into the SUV.
Brennan shook her head. "Not necessarily. Cam's back today, remember?"
He checked traffic and then pulled onto the street. "Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten that was today. Think it will stick this time?"
"I spoke to her on Friday and she sounded much more relaxed about being away from Macon."
"Are you ready for her to be back?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you know…you've been big boss in charge for a while."
Brennan gave him a bland look. "I expanded my skill set and benefited from the experience of managing the lab in Cam's absence, Booth, but it confirmed for me that I much prefer having her there. I believe she actually enjoys 'wrangling' the interns, to use her term, and making certain that Hodgins doesn't do any permanent damage. I would rather concentrate on our cases."
He suppressed a smile. "So, no need to race back to the lab to supervise her the way you were the FBI pathologist who's been doing the autopsies?"
"I trust Cam," she said primly. "The pathologist on loan to us performed perfectly adequately, but there is nothing wrong with my having made certain of it."
"Of course not," he said, his tone full of affection. "But I'm glad things are going to be back to normal."
"So where are we headed?"
"To the real estate office that has the hotel listed, to find out who's been in there lately. The woman who was showing it today wasn't from the company that has it listed, so she didn't have that information."
"I heard one of the techs say there was no sign of a break-in."
"Nope. I verified that. All doors and windows secure, and not a functioning camera on any of them."
They fell silent, and her mood seemed to shift. He tried to puzzle it out, then finally asked, "What's up, Bones? What's happening in that genius brain of yours?"
Humor lit her eyes for a moment before she gave the expected response. "A great many chemical and electrical reactions are occurring in my brain right now, as is always the case. Which ones in specific are you inquiring about?"
"What are you thinking about? Why are you so quiet?"
"The rope and the way it's knotted. The more I consider it, the more it resembles a photo I saw once of Japanese bondage."
He glanced at her. "Given his nudity…as in kinky sex bondage?"
"'Kinky' is a pejorative term, Booth. Just because it's unconventional doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it."
You'd think these kinds of conversations would be easier now that they were having sex, Booth thought, especially since not all of it was exactly conventional, he added with a private smirk. But somehow it wasn't, particularly when his imagination wanted to go in directions it didn't have any business going in when they were in the SUV. Deciding not to continue down that path, verbally or mentally, he said, "Right. Sexual bondage, though, right? Not some weird form of non-sexual slavery?"
"No, though there's a lot more to a dominant/submissive relationship than just sex."
That, too, he ignored for the moment. "Sex games that got out of control?"
"It's too early for that kind of speculation," she responded, reprimand clear in her voice. "Though if that's the case, it seems as if it would be clear from cause of death, once we've determined that."
"There was a rope around his neck. It's hard to tell from the decomp, but it didn't look tight enough to have strangled him."
"The photos I saw of Kinbaku had a loop around the neck, but no, it wouldn't have been sufficient to cause strangulation. The lower part ended in a knot above the heart before looping off around the torso."
Booth checked an address he'd written down on a note card and pulled up in front of a small, professional building. He sat for a moment, trying to remember the position of the rope on the victim. "That's sort of the way it was on the victim, wasn't it?"
"Yes. That was what caught my attention."
"Hmm." Turning his mind to the more immediate task, he looked more carefully at the building. The sign in front proclaimed they were 'Roberts' Realty: Commercial and Residential Professionals.' "Well, let's go see what they can tell us."
The lobby was small, neat, and attractively decorated. The young woman at the desk greeted them, but her smile faded when Booth introduced them and flashed his badge.
"Oh, is this about Rod?"
Rod? Booth filed that away. "No, we need to speak to someone about the Hyperion Hotel," he said, "and we need a list of everyone who's been on the premises."
Her expression turned to relief. "Oh," she said. "I'd still need to get Clare for you," and hurried out of the room.
Brennan turned to him. "That's unusual office protocol, is it not? To leave the room to fetch someone rather than notifying them by intercom or phone?"
He'd been thinking the same thing but before he could say so, the young woman came back in followed by a second woman. She was older than the receptionist, she looked as though she was nearing forty but with dark hair cut in an attractive bob and a dark red suit, she was still striking. Then he took a close look at her face, noticed the strain around her eyes.
"I'm Clare Roberts," she said. "Erin said there's a problem with the Hyperion?"
"Roberts of Roberts Realty?" Brennan asked.
"Yes. I own the company."
"How many people have had access to the property in the past few weeks?"
"Given the economy, more than I'd hoped for when we listed it," Clare said. "I'll check my records, but I believe it's been shown six times – twice by my agents, and four times by other companies. Come with me to my office, and I'll get the names for you. There was an appointment this morning, actually." Motioning them to join her, she continued, "To tell you the truth, most of the showings have been curiosity-seekers rather than serious buyers. There's a lot of history in that hotel."
There was about to be more, Booth thought as they followed her out and down a hall into a well-appointed office. At her computer, she tapped a few keys and then turned back to them. "It will take the printer a moment to warm up. What is this about?" She rubbed her forehead. "I'm sorry. I should have asked that before, but I'm rather distracted right now."
"The realtor and her clients who were in the hotel this morning discovered a dead body in the kitchen area."
Clare simply stared at them." I'm sorry. It sounded like you said a dead body was found there? Are you sure?" Before either of them could speak she shook her head as if trying to clear it. "Of course you are. You're the FBI." She looked a bit lost and Booth had the sense that it wasn't a common condition for her. "I'm not sure where to begin. Who was it? What do you need?"
They'd already told her what they needed, but before Booth could say so, Brennan did. "As we indicated, we need the list of everyone who's been on the property."
"Oh. Right. Of course." Clare reached behind her to a printer and then handed them a sheet of paper. "That's the realtor, company and contact name for the six people who've shown that property since we listed it. Two of them are my agents, though neither of them are here at the moment."
"There didn't appear to be any security on the building." Booth noted.
"It's an empty hotel, Agent Booth." She sounded a bit tired now. "There are cameras on some entrances from the last attempt to use it as a hotel, but they don't work."
He motioned with the paper. "How do they gain access?"
"Lock box." She opened a drawer, pulled out a device with a keypad on it. "This is secured to a door, with a key to the building inside. Only authorized individuals are given the code to access the key."
"That's a very insecure system," Brennan said. "What's to stop them from giving the code to someone else?"
"Professional ethics and common sense." She gave them both a pointed look. "Something goes wrong; they know who the authorities will look at first."
Booth glanced at the sheet of paper. "The last showing prior to this morning was two weeks ago." He exchanged a look with Brennan.
"Yes, well, empty hotel, bad economy. It wouldn't be getting most of those showings if not for the curiosity factor." She stood. "Unless there's something else, I need to call the hotel's owner."
"Who would that be? Who owns it?" Booth asked.
"A real estate development company." She turned back to her desk, looked something up on the computer, and then jotted a note on a piece of paper that she handed to him. "That's my contact name. He's based in New York."
"Thanks." Booth nodded, and they turned, started back out toward the reception area.
They'd just reached the desk, and he was turning to thank Clare for her help, when the door opened.
The woman who stalked in glanced only briefly in their direction before focusing on Clare. "You haven't called me today. I was worried."
Clare pinched the bridge of her nose. "The day's not over yet, Barb. And I've not heard anything. I swear, you'll be the first person I tell when I do."
"There's no need to take that tone. I'm worried about you. It's in the sister job description when your estranged husband vanishes."
Clare appeared to be gritting her teeth. "We're not estranged."
"He left you. Sure looks like it to me." Barb turned and saw Booth and Brennan, her gaze focusing on Booth's sidearm. "You're the police?"
"FBI," Booth said. "What is this about?"
"They're not here about Rod, Barb. It's another matter." Clare sighed and turned to Booth and Brennan. "I'm sorry. My husband is missing and things are a bit tense. This is my sister, Barbara Culver."
"What happened?" Brennan asked.
"No one's seen him for days," Barbara answered. "It's obvious that he left her. She needs to file for divorce."
"Ten days." Clare said in a controlled voice. "It's been ten days." She glanced from Booth to Brennan and back. "He just didn't come home one night. I spoke to him that afternoon and things were fine. I've filed a report with the police, but there's nothing to go on."
"Because he doesn't want there to be."
"Barbara!" Clare said sharply and then pointed to the door. "Out! I'm done listening to that right now."
"Fine. I'll be here when you figure it out, just like I've always been."
With that, she flounced out and Clare grimaced "I'm sorry about that," she said to Booth and Brennan. "The relationship between my husband and my sister is difficult at the best of times." She rubbed her forehead. "If there's nothing else, I really need to go call the property owners. They'll need time to figure out how to respond to the publicity when the media finds out."
"You expect a lot of publicity from this?" Brennan asked.
"Me personally? No. But it's a candidate for the Historical Register. If it's a slow news day, yeah, the media will run with it."
B&B
While Booth went to the Hoover to begin chasing down the realtors, Brennan dropped her bag off in her office and then went to the platform. The body had been removed from the dumbwaiter and Cam was beginning the autopsy while Angela and Hodgins piled the rope onto a tray.
Cam glanced up. "There's evidence here of significant trauma to the heart, or what's left of it."
"Blunt force?" Brennan asked.
"Knife wound."
Brennan nodded and looked at the ropes. They'd been cut off in a way that would preserve the knots, she saw.
"Brennan, the knots and the way the rope was tied has significance." Angela reported.
"Japanese Kinbaku?"
Apparently unsurprised that Brennan was familiar with it, she nodded. "I spent time in Japan after college and explored BDSM relationships." She smiled at Hodgins. "During the wild years."
"Baby, you're still wild enough for me," he said without missing a beat.
Brennan glanced over at Cam. The other woman remained focused on what she was doing, but her expression hinted at a smile even as she shook her head.
Brennan turned back to Angela. "Were you the dominant partner, or the submissive?"
"Both," Angela said. "I was in two different relationships. In the first I was the dom, in the second I was the sub." In response to Brennan – and Cam's – looks of confusion, she added, "Roles can change from one relationship to another depending on the individuals. It's really about trust and the needs of the couple. The sub wants and needs to be able to trust, while the dom needs to be trusted, needs to feel worthy of that level of trust."
"Trust in a relationship is bi-directional," Brennan said, sure of herself on that point.
"It is," Hodgins said. "The dom trusts the sub to trust him or her." Something passed between him and Angela, something Brennan couldn't interpret.
B&B
"I heard there's a case?" Sweets said from Booth's door.
Booth looked up from the notes he was jotting. "Been talking to Turner, Hooch?"
Sweets rolled his eyes, but came in and dropped into the seat facing the desk. "Woof."
"As long as we all know our places…yeah, there's a case. Victim found in an empty hotel. I've got your better half running the realtors who've had access to the property."
"She said the body was in the dumbwaiter?"
"Yeah. Naked, tied up. Bones thinks the way he was tied is significant. The knots just said 'thorough' to me, but she recognized them as being from some weird Japanese bondage thing."
"BDSM?" At Booth's look, he clarified, "Bondage-discipline-sado-masochism?"
"I know what it means," Booth said irritably. "And yeah, I guess that's what she meant, though if she took me to task for thinking it might be sex games gone awry, assuming it's S&M sex games gone awry is even a further leap."
"BDSM is an expression used to describe a continuum of lifestyle choices. Not all of them involve sexual gratification from giving or receiving pain," Sweets noted. "Many couples who experiment with or choose clearly defined dominant/submissive roles do so with minimal or no reference to physical pain."
"Yeah, well, someone dies tied up like that in a dumbwaiter, 'pain-free' probably wasn't high on the priority list for the murderer."
"Claudia said the hotel had no surveillance, but the doors and windows were secure?"
"Yeah, so at this point, the only real direction we have to go in are the realtors who had access. That's what Turner's chasing down. But I think it's going to a bit closer to home than realtors from competing agencies who showed the property."
"You think you know who it is?"
"I got a hunch... We'll see if it plays out." Booth turned his monitor so the other man could see the screen. "This is Rod Roberts, husband of the woman who owns the agency who listed the property. -He's been missing for ten days. I just got off the phone with DC Metro police and they have nothing - no car, no bank activity, and no credit card usage."
"All likely indicators that the missing man is actually dead."
"Yeah. The wife's sister thinks he left her but when people vanish, there's usually some indication of how they're feeding themselves. His co-workers said there was no sign at all that he was troubled. He's a geek. A programmer who was about to finish a big project and was excited over that. And he and his wife were anticipating an upcoming vacation."
"Not looking good, then. What about the wife?"
Booth frowned. "Some distress there, but she appeared to be holding it together pretty well. Seemed genuinely shocked at the news there was a body in the hotel."
"Or she was shocked he was found so soon?"
"Why would she be when her company controls access to the building and she knew people would be in there today?"
"Well, either she's a good actress or she didn't do it, despite the building evidence to the contrary," Sweets said reasonably.
"Yeah, that's how it's looking." Booth dropped his pencil. "I went ahead and requested his dentals be sent to Cam. If it's him, we'll go from there. If not, we've at least ruled him out."
B&B
Brennan checked the time on her PC's clock again. She should have stayed with Booth. There was nothing case-related for her to do until Cam completed the autopsy, and the last time she'd gone to check on her the progress, Cam hadn't even looked up at her, but had merely pointed at the door.
"Hey," Angela said from the door. "Hodgins finished analyzing the rope. It's jute."
"The type of rope most common in Kinbaku."
"Along with sisal and occasionally hemp, but yeah, it's consistent. Someone knew what they were doing. He also says that from what he has so far, insect activity puts death at between eight and twelve days ago."
Brennan ignored the latter information. "I was doing additional research on Kinbaku," she said. She studied Angela. "Is your experience common?"
"What? Where I was the dom in one relationship, the sub in the other?"
"Yes. You are a very confident and assertive individual. I would not have anticipated you being the submissive one in any relationship."
"It's less dependent on personality than many think. The idea that subs are weak or lacking in confidence is a stereotype." She walked over, leaned against the desk. "Although we call them 'roles,' it's not like it's scripted behavior, despite the traditions – like the type of rope – that many follow. Kinbaku is very unique and specific to the couple."
"I don't understand what you mean about it being less dependent on personality. Isn't that the point?"
Angela thought for a moment, and then shook her head. "Sweets might be able to explain it better than I can, but… we're a little different in all our relationships, Bren, because the other person affects us. They're supposed to. We're still us but how we express who we are reflects that influence."
"I hate psychology," Brennan muttered.
Angela's smile was affectionate. "That's you and consistent." Then she sobered. "Something else that affects it is that there's an aspect of dominance and submission in all our relationships."
Brennan shook her head. "Booth and I are equals."
Angela laughed. "You go right on thinking that."
Before Brennan could respond, Cam came in. "Cause of death was a stab to the heart. But also of interest was the amount of flunitrazepam in his system."
"That's Rohypnol, the date rape drug, isn't it?" Angela asked.
"He would have crawled in that dumbwaiter of his own accord," Cam responded. "And believed himself to be happy."
"So even if it were sex games gone amiss, he wasn't a willing participant," Brennan said.
"No need to give him a roofie if he was," Angela agreed.
Cam turned to leave. "Oh, and Rod Roberts' dental records arrived and I've got Clark working on them. I'm going to go take another look at the heart. Between the damage and the decomp, it's going to be difficult to get a fix on what he was stabbed with. But there's no doubt that he was, several times."
"Sounds like someone was pissed," Angela commented.
B&B
Across from Brennan at the diner, Booth bit into a french fry. "So he was drugged, stripped and persuaded to climb into the dumbwaiter before being stabbed?"
"I see no way for him to have been tied up and positioned in such a way without at least minimal cooperation from him."
"And eight to twelve days ago, huh?" Booth shook his head. "It's going to turn out to be the realtor's husband. Timing and location's too convenient. Cam says he was stabbed not just once, but several times?"
"In the heart."
"Minimal blood, minimal mess. But there's a calculation to it." He waved the french fry at her. "Sweets is going to say this wasn't a crime of passion, regardless of how it looked."
Brennan reached out, nipped the French fry from his fingers and bit into it. "According to Angela, it looked completely accurate."
"But he had to be drugged to participate."
"Was he unwilling to do so at all or did he just object to the location and partner?"
Booth shook his head. "Sex games are one thing, but even if you were going to have a party in an empty hotel, why the kitchen? There are what, a hundred rooms upstairs?"
"The murderer wanted him to be found?"
She was reaching for another fry, so he pushed the plate toward her. "That's my take. If he'd been left in one of the guest rooms, he wouldn't have been found until the hotel sells and renovation begins."
"Angela says all relationships have aspects of dominance and submission in them," Brennan blurted.
"What? What does that mean?"
"She didn't have time to finish explaining it, but I think she was saying one person is always dominant while the other is submissive."
"No. That's just wrong, Bones. A healthy relationship is one where the partners are equals."
"Angela has been both, in different relationships."
"Both what?"
"She's been both dominant and submissive, but it was two separate relationships. I wonder if it's possible to be both in the same relationship, at different times?"
"I'm not submissive," he said flatly. "And neither are you."
"We can't both be dominant at the same time." Her tone was reasonable. "You frequently put my desires ahead of your own, even when I know you'd rather not. Isn't that being submissive?"
"No. Its love, and you do the same thing for me. Eat your fries and let's get back to work."
"They're your fries."
B&B
Booth was still scowling when he stalked back toward his office from the elevator. He hated this case. Submissive, my ass, he thought to himself.
"Agent Booth?"
He looked over and saw Turner heading toward him. "Did you find anything?"
"No sir, not really. Or at least not yet. Two of the agents have solid alibis – they were out of town during the period of time the murder occurred. I've still got several interviews to set up. But only one of them said anything interesting when I made the phone call."
"Interesting, how?"
"He wanted to know if the press had been notified. People have been murdered for worse reasons than generating publicity."
"People are killed every day for no reason at all, Turner. But that's good. Bring him in first."
His phone rang, and he answered, motioning for Turner to wait when she would have walked away. "That's good, Cam. Fast work on that. Thanks."
He hung up, looked at Turner. "Dentals confirm the victim was Rod Roberts. Go over the agents again with a view toward how that changes things, given the company that had the property listed."
"Yes, sir."
B&B
Sweets stood in the observation room watching the woman sitting alone on the other side of the glass. Clare Roberts appeared calm, her gaze wandering around the room. Her only sign of nerves was in the near-constant toying with her wedding ring.
The door opened behind him and Booth came in.
"She didn't ask for a lawyer?" Sweets asked.
"Nope. Didn't seem to occur to her." Booth walked over and watched Clare for a moment.
"There's still no direct evidence tying her to the murder, right? It's all circumstantial?"
"Yeah, but it's piling up. Wife, access… I just got off the phone with Turner. She finished the search of their house and found rope in their bedroom, books on bondage in the closet. She's a confident, successful woman who owns her own business, he's a geek who was content to work in the background at his job. His boss says he could have taken over leadership of their team two years ago and didn't."
"So, something went wrong and she killed him?"
"That's how it looks." Booth shook his head. "But it just doesn't feel right," he muttered. He turned, started toward the door. "Let me know if you notice anything useful."
Clare looked up at him when he came in, but didn't say anything. He dropped a file on the table and settled in front of her.
She was pale, but composed. "Agent Booth, I have to ask…you're sure the victim is Rod?"
"I'm sorry but dental records confirm it. There's no mistake."
She swallowed. "I guess I knew that, on some level. He would never have left me."
"Tell me about your relationship."
"What do you mean?"
"Was there anything about your relationship that was our of the norm?"
For the first time, she looked away from him and spots of color appeared in her cheeks. She swallowed and glanced back at him. "What do you mean?"
He studied her for a moment, and then looked down at the folder. He'd planned to show her the crime scene to see what kind of reaction it shocked from her. But watching her, he found he couldn't. Too much wasn't adding up, and damn it, she wasn't acting like a murderer. "Your husband was naked and bound before being stabbed, and my experts tell me that both the rope pattern and the knots were perfect examples of Japanese bondage."
Clare swallowed hard and went chalk white.
"We found rope and books on the subject in your home, Clare. Sex games gone awry?" But Booth knew it wasn't that, the deliberation of the stab wounds and the Rohypnol spoke otherwise on that point.
She'd regained her composure and gave him a scathing look. "I'm a professional real estate broker, with my own company. Yet you think I killed my husband in a vacant property? One that would obviously point back to me? For the love of God, why?"
Booth sighed, that had been the sticking point for him too but sometimes you had to dance the dance through to the end. "You tell me. Were you having problems?"
She sighed. "It's not like that, at all. And no, we weren't having any problems." She again looked down at her wedding band and turned it around on her finger. "We were going away in a few weeks, for our anniversary. Rod's been planning it for months." She struggled for a moment, blinked back tears.
"Perhaps he was getting tired of dancing to your tune? Maybe he didn't want to be the one who was tied up?"
"Your experts don't actually know all that much, do they?" The question was both weary and resigned.
"Tell me how it happened, then."
"Rod's murder? I don't know. But no, he wasn't 'tired of being tied up.'" She slumped back and this time, didn't fight the tears that leaked out." You don't get it, Agent Booth. I wasn't the dominant in our relationship, Rod was. And no, I didn't kill him because I was tired of being tied up." She sounded weary rather annoyed. "He was my rock, my support. I not only didn't kill him but now I don't know what I'm going to do without him. I'm not sure I want to try."
"I believe her," Sweets said in his ear.
Booth nodded in agreement with Sweets and passed Clare a box of tissues.
He gave her a few moments, then said, "If you didn't kill him, help us figure out who did."
Clare swallowed, and wiped her face. "I'd like to, but I really have no idea."
He changed the focus, hoping to dislodge something. "What did you do the night he didn't come home?"
"I made supper – it was my turn to cook. I kept thinking he'd got caught up at work – it happened sometimes, to both of us. It was sort of weird that he didn't call me, but I kept expecting him to. My calls to him went straight to voice mail, though, and that was even weirder."
"What did you do while you waited? Did you talk to anyone? Your sister?"
Her lips compressed. "Barb? No. We're not particularly close any more. I was online. Rod and I are part of an online Dom/sub community and I was chatting with some of them. They convinced me to drive to his office and see if everything was okay."
"Did you?"
"Yes, and that's when I knew for sure that it wasn't. His car was gone and the guard said he'd left at the usual time. I drove around for hours, looking for him and trying to figure out what happened. When I ran out of places to look, I called the police. But they wouldn't even talk to me that night."
"Do the people in the online group have real names? Will they verify your actions?"
She nodded. "Some of them, at least. There are people I don't know as well, but Rod and I have actually met a few of them in person."
Booth tried to imagine that kind of meeting and when he did, he quickly changed the subject. "As I said, it appears that Rod was tied up very accurately. If some of your rope was missing, would you know?"
"Yes. Caring for my bindings is part of our ritual. Ours has been undisturbed." She frowned. "What kind of rope was it?"
He had to open his notes. "Jute."
"It's no one who knew us, then, not really."
"Why?"
She slipped her jacket off, rolled up her sleeve, showed him a slight scar on her wrist. "I'm allergic to jute. We never used it after we realized that. Rod wouldn't have it in the house."
B&B
Sweets turned to him as he walked back into the observation booth. "You think someone tried to frame her?"
"I don't know. If so, they did a poor job," Booth said. "The idea with framing is to make someone look guilty and this goes too far in the other direction. If Clare killed him, but didn't want to go down for his murder, why do it in a building she had access to, in a way private to both of them? And if she did want it known that she did it – if she was angry or delusional enough not to mind being caught, why do it with a rope they never used?"
"She's not delusional," Sweets said. "But you're right. It doesn't add up."
"Gee, thanks." Booth smirked at him, and then sobered. "Does what she describes of their relationship sound right?"
"That Rod was the dominant partner, despite their real-world personalities? Yeah."
"Angela told Bones that how dominant or submissive we are can vary from relationship to relationship."
"She's right. For some people, the roles are fixed but for others it depends on the person they're with."
"She's a very confident woman," Booth said. "And yet she refers to him as her rock."
"He probably was. Dom/sub relationships can be very complicated, but the stereotype, of one partner repressing the other, physically or emotionally, is seldom true, at least not in a healthy relationship."
"Oh, come on, Sweets. He tied her up. She apparently let him. How is that healthy?"
"I'd need to talk to her a lot more to say for certain, but at a guess? The knowledge that she had someone in her life she could trust that much factored heavily into that confidence. She could take risks - including everything entailed in opening and running her own real estate company when the market sucks - because he was behind her. Letting someone tie you up is very different from someone forcibly doing so. It's an act of trust and since they had been together for a significant period of time, I'd assume he never failed to be worthy of that trust."
"Okay, fine. What does he get out of it?"
"The knowledge that he's worth that level of trust, that a beautiful and successful woman needed him? That was what he got out of it. It sounds like he wasn't particularly dominant at work, but he didn't need to be. His identity and his confidence came from knowing what he was with her."
"It sounds like a very symbiotic relationship."
"That's exactly what it is. They meet each other's needs."
Booth's phone buzzed with a text. He read it, and then looked at Sweets. "They've got something for me at the lab." He motioned his head toward the interview room. "Make sure she knows to stay close, but spring her. See what you can do for her."
B&B
Booth swiped his card to access the platform, where nearly the entire team was gathered. "What do you have for me?"
Hodgins looked up from where he and Clark were examining the dumbwaiter. "Found a hair, man."
Booth motioned to the dumbwaiter. "In that?"
"Yeah. Caught in the side."
"Cam's running DNA on it," Brennan said. "But it's too long and the wrong color to be Clare Roberts'."
Booth shook his head. "Yeah, she didn't do it. Too many things not adding up."
"The bondage?" asked Cam.
"No, she confirmed that. And Sweets said it sounded like a healthy relationship to him."
"You don't look convinced, big guy." Angela's voice held both humor and affection.
Booth scowled. "Relationships are about both people."
"They are," Angela agreed. "But to greater and lesser amounts and in different ways. We're not all alike, so why would we need the same things from our relationships?"
"But to be that uneven? To be that much about just one of them?"
"You do know that the one who really controls the relationship is the submissive, right?" She laughed at his expression. "The dom is all about the needs of the sub."
Thinking of Clare and Rod and what Sweets had said, Booth frowned. "It just sounds wrong," he said irritably.
"I don't know why, because if anyone's a natural dominant, it's you." Before he could respond, Angela continued. "You've always been about Brennan. If she needed to be in control, you'd give it to her. Whatever it was, even if she didn't know she needed it, you were figuring out how to provide it for her."
Uncomfortable, but unable to deny what she said, he looked over at Brennan, half expecting an explosion. Instead, she looked intrigued. Angela turned to her and grinned. "Of course, that means you're the sub."
"I've been researching it," Brennan said. "And it makes sense anthropologically. Culture requires some type of organization to function and some form of hierarchical leadership – dominance – is most common." She looked from Booth to Angela, a troubled expression settling on her face. "But am I not all about Booth, too, in the same way? Isn't that what a healthy relationship is?"
Hearing the vulnerability in her voice, he moved over to stand next to her, his hand brushing down her back. But before he could speak, Angela started to laugh.
"What? What is so amusing?"
"Oh, Brennan. Do you two see what happened there? I said something which upset you and Booth immediately moved to your side. But to answer your question, yes, of course you're about him. But in a different way."
"Oh, for…" Clark put down the light he'd been using to examine the dumbwaiter. "I've never seen a group of people more capable of talking something to death and still not getting it. You're over-thinking this." He pointed first to Brennan, then to Booth. "You switch back and forth. In some settings, he's the dom, in other settings, she is. It's not that hard. It's not rocket science, people. There's probably a term for it. Ask Dr. Sweets."
Silence fell and Clark suddenly looked horrified. "This place causes temporary insanity," he muttered and went back to examining the dumbwaiter.
Before anyone else could comment, Cam scanned her badge and came up the steps. "I got the results back for the hair. It's a match for a close female relative of the wife. Most likely sister, if she has one."
Booth looked at Brennan. "Oh, yeah. She has one."
B&B
While Booth, Brennan and Sweets watched, Barb Culver sat in the interrogation room, apparently completely relaxed. She tapped her fingers on the table, but it was more idly than nervously.
"She must be pretty sure of herself," Sweets said. "Because there's no nerves there."
"Oh, it's her," Booth said. "We've got the hair, she's got no alibi…and she works for a pharmacy supply company that seems to have encountered some accounting discrepancies with a certain controlled substance."
"Rohypnol?" Sweets asked.
"That's the one. And for the extra-credit bonus round, your girlfriend ruled out the other realtors. All that's left is motive." He motioned to Brennan and she preceded him into the interrogation room.
They settled across from Clare's sister. "Thank you for coming in, Ms. Culver," Booth said. "We have a few things to clear up."
"Of course. I want this whole distasteful thing behind Clare, so she can move on. But I'm not sure what I can tell you. I didn't know Rod that well and, to be honest, I didn't want to. I'd be looking at those perverts he insisted they hang around with."
"Perverts?" Brennan asked.
"Some S&M group they met online. You have to understand – he looked mild mannered, but he controlled my sister, dominated her. I couldn't prove it, but I suspect he beat her. I'm glad he's dead. I hope it hurt."
"You believe he physically abused her?" Booth paused, ran through every encounter he'd had with Clare - there hadn't been any indication of abuse.
Barb was looking at them as if they were dimwitted. "Read the definition of sadomasochism in a dictionary, why don't you? He beat her, and probably worse."
"She told you this? You saw bruises?" Brennan asked.
"No," Barb huffed impatiently. "Of course not. He made her hide it."
Booth shifted, a tragic picture of ignorance and bias was forming. "How do you know about their lifestyle?"
"Clare told me when they first got together. Said they were exploring BDSM. That's what she called it. I just called it what it was – demeaning and kinky. And then I found books, ropes and all-sorts of filthy sex paraphernalia in their closet while I was house-sitting for them one time." She shuddered. "Someone needed to save her. She wouldn't listen to me."
"So, you weren't trying to frame her, but one of their friends," Booth said smoothly.
"Rod was a silent partner in Clare's company – his savings provided the startup for it when she opened the office. So, he had access and it's not a stretch at all to think one of those whackos they spent time with online could have killed him."
Booth sat back in his seat and stared at Barbara, she was cleverer than he'd given her credit for, discussing the murder without confessing to it.
"Are you Clare's only sister?" Brennan asked.
"Yes. That's why it was up to me to save her."
Booth and Brennan exchanged a glance and he smirked, "Well, while you were busy 'saving' her you actually screwed yourself."
Brennan slid the lab report over to Barb ,"You can see here that we found a strand of your hair in the dumbwaiter or more accurately, at the murder scene."
Realization was followed by annoyance as Barb squared her shoulders and calmly said, "I want a lawyer."
"Of course you do," Booth said and stood.
She looked up at him. "I'm not sorry. If I have to pay for it, I will. But I liberated her."
Booth thought of her sister's despair. "You keep on thinking that," he said. "But for now, you're under arrest."
B&B
Booth took a sip of beer and looked at Brennan sitting next to him at the bar of Founding Fathers. "Some cases take more out of you than others," he said.
"That does seem to be true."
They were silent for a moment and then Brennan said, "I asked Sweets about what Clark said."
"That two people can switch back and forth in terms of who's dominant and who's submissive?"
"He said it's quite common."
"You're frequently the dominant one in our work," Booth admitted. "It's your field of expertise."
"Just as you are in our private life, where I am still a novice. Is that what he meant?"
He leaned over, bumped her shoulder with his. "You know, Bones, I don't know. And I don't think it matters. It works for us and that's enough for me."
A companionable silence fell between them again, and then Brennan said, "I've been wondering something."
Booth looked up, noted the smile lurking. "What's that?"
"Despite your tendency to label things, you're much more open to unconventional sex play than I might have anticipated." She cast him a sideways glance filled with promise and something else he couldn't identify. "Would you be …open to experimenting with bondage?"
His throat went bone dry and he took a swallow from his bottle. He eyed her speculatively for a moment, intrigued, and grinned.
"What exactly did you have in mind?"
Break
An apple a day may keep the doctor away but it's no match for Creeps McGee. Join us next week when the team tackles the case of one woman's tragic death at the hands of their twisted and elusive nemesis in The Apple for the Teacher by Squinttoyou.