Chapter 5:

Brennan sat at her desk, waiting for Cam to bring the new information she found. Booth stood beside Brennan. It was always like that. She was the one sitting, he was the one standing. It really was like having a body guard. Brennan was ususally an independent person. She did things on her own, she could fight for herself, and she didn't like the idea of people having to protect her. But for some odd reason, with Booth, she didn't mind at all.

Cam strode into the office, one hand holding the file, the other on her hip. "Okay, put your heads together and hear me out you two."

Puzzled, Brenna got out of her chair, and walked towards Booth. "Hey," she wisphered to him, "squat down a little, we have to put our heads together." She attempted to reach her partners hight by standing on her toes, trying to lean in so their heads can meet.

Booth looked at her with bewilderment, and exploded in laughter.

"What? What's so funny?" asked Brennan, confused. She looked at Booth, who was having a laughing fit, and then at Cam who had her "okay, now I'm lost" expression on.

"Bones, Bones" Booth said, in between breaths, "she didn't mean that literally. Sometimes, you just…" and he tore into laughter again, leaving his partner totally clueless.

"Okay you two, I don't know what is so funny, but listen up." She looked from Brennan to Booth, sternely. Booth tried to contain his laughter, taking a quick peek at his partner, who was still totally clueless.

"When I was doing the autopsy on the body," started Cam, " I found really high concentrations of acid in the victims oral cavity, and esophugus."

"Did you run a test on the acid to determine what the type was?" questioned Brennan.

"Yes," nodded Cam, "and here's the disturbing part…" she held out a chart for the partners to see, "traces of hydrocloric acid were left behind in the victims digestive track and mouth… and get this… the PH of the hydrocloric acid is a perfect match to the PH of stomach acid."

Booth looked from Cam to Brennan, sickened. "So, he... what? Drank a jug of acid and died?"

Brennan took the chart from Cam, and studied it carefully as Cam continued explaning.

" Then when the toxic screen test came back, it all made perfect sense… traces of Ricinus communis were found in the victims blood stream. It was a large enough dose to poison him to death."

Now, Booth was the clueless one. "Ricinus what?!"

"Ricinus communis," repeated Brennan, "it's Latin for castor bean plant- a native tropical plant cultivated in several warm countries. A large enough dose of this plants bean can be very fatal."

"So, he died from a bean?" Booth questioned, attempting to understand.

"Yes," nodded Brennan. "He was poisoned by the plant, started vomiting as a side effect, chocked, died and was put in a freezer. The only question now is who is he? And who could do such a thing?

"and why?" added Booth.