Chapter Five

"Neal?"

"Yes?"

"Something on your mind?"

"I didn't say anything."

"That's what lead me to the question." Peter said as he kept an eye on the DC traffic that he was navigating. "You're never this quiet, particularly not when we're driving somewhere. You haven't said a word since we got in the car."

"We've barely made it five miles."

"So?"

"So is twenty minutes of silence really all it takes to make you worry?"

"About you? Absolutely." Peter confirmed. "Five minutes of silence is a rare treat when I'm with you, ten and I start to get uncomfortable, fifteen goes by and I'm outright suspicious, twenty gives me confirmation something is wrong."

"You analyze me way too much, Peter. I'm not sure it's healthy."

"It's definitely not healthy, but it's become second nature over the years."

"I have kind of forced you to always be on your toes around me," Neal smiled mischievously "but you should consider it a service."

"A service?"

"Hypervigilance makes you a better Agent."

"You were constantly getting into trouble to keep my Agent skills from getting rusty?" Peter asked doubtfully.

"Exactly."

"Thanks." Peter replied drily.

"You're welcome."

Peter smiled as Neal chuckled, but he still remained concerned. Having been called out for being quiet Neal now started telling Peter all about the Nazca skulls and the small museum/art gallery that they had been taken from that that they were currently driving towards. Neal explained that although the Nazca were most well known for their practice of elongating their skulls by placing boards and bindings on the heads of their babies they also had a general fascination with skulls and heads in general. Many skulls and mummified heads with cords protruding from holes drilled in the foreheads that were keeps as trophies had been found by archeologists in the region. They also performed trephination, drilling holes into the skulls of the living, and from evidence of healing on some of the skull it was clear that some of the victims actually survived the process.

As encouraging a sign as it was for Neal to be invested in their current case and to have clearly researched it Peter got the sense that Neal was hiding something. His willingness to launch into a detailed lecture on a tangential topic rather than talking about what had kept him preoccupied before was just another kind of silence. Peter had attempted to start a more meaningful conversation but Neal was simply too good at steering any discussion where he wanted it to go. He was like a skilled matador gracefully stepping to the side of a charging bull, which could be very entertaining to watch, unless you were the bull, in that case it just became frustrating.

Letting it go for now Peter just allowed Neal to continue the archeology lesson. He had hoped that he wouldn't have to pry or trick the truth out of Neal any more, but he realized that he couldn't reasonably expect Neal to have had a complete change in personality just because he went through the Academy. Having a new thought Peter suddenly hoped that Neal simply didn't want to share what was bothering him rather than being forced to keep quiet by Frost. Peter had spent about an hour sorting things out with the West Coast Agent when he'd been pulled back into the office last night, but he still had a suspicion that it had really been Frost looking to corner Neal alone.

"Stealing ancient ritualistic deformed skulls, sounds like bad ju-ju to me." Neal wrapped up his one sided conversation by commenting on the crime itself. "There are some things that shouldn't be stolen, human remains are at the top of that list."

"Some would argue that the fact that they were taken from Peru and placed in a museum in the first place was an act of theft."

"Now there's a thought. Particularly since this is technically a gallery with a small private run museum kind of mixed in." Neal noted. "Has anyone considered the idea that the skulls might be on their way back to Peru?"

"You might want to ask the curator if there have been any protests or threats lately."

"That's right, I'm not going to get the 'let me do the talking' speech any more."

"That speech never worked anyway." Peter shrugged.

"True."

Arriving at the off beat museum Peter took advantage of his federal plates to park on the street despite the multitude of signs forbidding it. Peter had not expected driving around DC to be more difficult than New York. The capitol city had a sophisticated public transit system but it didn't seem to keep people from owning cars in quite the same way that it did with New Yorkers. The streets themselves were not laid out on a grid either and had a multitude of one-ways that complicated navigation.

The small modern design gallery was nestled in between a high end jewelry store and a showcase store for kitchen remodeling. The first floor of the gallery held glass display cases scattered around that protected random artifacts from different regions of the world. The walls held art both old and new from locals to the regions represented by the glass cases. The idea behind the non profit gallery was a kind of global charitable organization that helped fund various causes. The owner traveled the world buying native art which provided a primary source of income for the artist, then once the work sold in the gallery the profits were then channeled to a charity that worked in that region to help the population as a whole.

Peter's training in White Collar instantly came up with about a dozen ways the gallery could be financially preying on both the artists and the people who were paying what was mostly likely highly inflated prices for street art. As much as he wanted to believe in the good that non-profit organizations could do he'd seen them used as fronts too many times to blindly trust in their altruism. However he wasn't here to investigate the business model or their fiances. A man about Neal's age with wild red hair wearing torn jeans, a rough looking orange boat neck shirt, and a clay beaded necklace approached them.

"Good morning, Gentlemen, can I help you with something or are you just looking around? There's no admission fee for the museum portion, although donations are accepted, anything that is for sale has a price near it. All proceeds go to various charities, this month's featured charity is Heifer International, they provide live stock for impoverished families to help them with a sustainable source of food and income. This floor is mostly African art, upstairs…"

"We're looking for the owner." Peter interrupted.

"That's me." The redhead smiled brightly. "Joshua Fitz."

"FBI," Peter announced displayed his badge for Fitz in a well practiced move "Special Agent Peter Burke, this is my partner Agent Neal Caffrey."

Peter looked to Neal who just looked back at him for a second before he suddenly realized that Peter was waiting for him to show his own ID. Neal was used to just standing by while introductions were made. This was the first time he was being introduced as an Agent rather than a consultant. Smiling brightly Neal reached into his inner breast pocket and proudly flashed his badge for Fitz.

"FBI, wow, I have to say I was not expecting you guys to get involved in this." Fitz admitted.

"We're from the Art Crime division." Neal offered.

"I figured that, I'm just surprised this wasn't kept off your desk. I mean I already told the cops who did it."

"Really?" Neal asked confused. "I read the report there wasn't any mention that there was a suspect."

"Now that part doesn't surprise me." Fitz sighed. "The Bone Baron has friends in high places, people who donate large amounts of money to local law."

"The 'Bone Baron'?" Peter questioned.

"James Arvid, he has the largest collection of human bone on the Eastern Seaboard outside of the Mutter Museum."

"Do you have any evidence against this 'Bone Baron'?"

"Evidence…uh…no."

"That's why they kept his name out of the report." Neal guessed. "Anyone who's friends with law enforcement isn't going to end up in an official report on just hearsay."

"It's not just hearsay, trust me he has a ton of illegal human remains locked up in that terror vault his calls a house."

"You seem pretty against displaying human remains for someone who bought two skulls of his own." Peter pointed out.

"I didn't buy them, they were a gift from my last trip to the Nazca Province in Peru after helping with an irrigation issue." Fitz corrected. "All of the artifacts that I display as part of my gallery are gifts and no gift is ever for sale. Something that I explained to Arvid on three separate occasions."

"What kind of money was he offering?" Neal asked.

"Two hundred thousand for just one of them, and then he offered five when I said 'no' the second time."

"Half a million dollars," Peter said impressed "that's a serious offer."

"Some things aren't for sale at any price."

"You don't have the best security here." Neal noted as he looked around. "The angles on your cameras have way too many blind spots."

"The art I have isn't very valuable on the black market, the work is beautiful but the artists are all unknowns. The artifacts I have aren't really something that thieves would target mostly being just pottery and tools. The skulls were the only things I had that had of any real monetary value, and even then only something you could sell to a very specific crowd. I've never really had to worry about security. I can show you what I did catch on tape."

Fitz lead Neal and Peter back into his office and pulled up the digital surveillance from the night in question. The footage wasn't particularly useful, whoever it was knew where the cameras were and never showed his face despite the fact that it wouldn't have matter either way since he had a ski mask pulled over his hair and features. Having come in through the back door of the gallery they went directly to the case with the skulls on the second floor without any hesitation. Picking the lock on the case had taken mere minutes and after carefully packing up the oddly shaped skulls the man was gone.

"Do you keep the cameras on during the day?" Neal asked.

"Yes, but I don't really see how that helps."

"Whoever this was cased you first, if you can give us a copy of the footage from the past few weeks we'll probably find someone who is looking at cameras not art."

Fitz hunted down a small USB drive and downloaded two weeks worth of footage onto it, any footage older than that was automatically erased from the harddrive if it wasn't purposefully saved. Neal thanked Fitz and told him that they would keep in touch. Peter tapped on his own breast pocket to remind Neal to give Fitz a business card. Neal reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the cards that Peter printed and waiting for him the week before he graduated. Neal gave the card a quick glance with a smile before handing it over to Fritz.

Returning to the car Peter was relieved to see that Neal's general mood was a lot brighter than during their ride over. Getting into the car Neal pulled out the USB drive Fitz had given him and looked it over as if the drive itself could tell him something about the case before he slipped it back in his pocket.

"What do you think?"

"I think it's weird to have business cards, I've never had business cards…at least not with my actual name and contact information on them."

"You did well. Not that I'm surprised, this isn't exactly our first time out in the field together."

"Far from it, but it's different now."

"Yes it is." Peter agreed. "So what's our next move?"

"Are you making me lead on this?"

"Of course."

"In that case I want to look into this Bone Baron even if he isn't our guy."

"Sounds like a good job for tomorrow." Peter said. "Are you coming over for dinner tonight?"

Neal's improved mood instantly vanished. Peter waited a moment as Neal took a breath to say something several times. Eventually just settling into an uncomfortable silence Neal reached up and pressed his hand against his shoulder.

"Neal?"

"Sorry, Peter, I can't tonight."

"Plans?"

"Something like that." Neal replied vaguely.

"Frost?"

Neal just nodded.

"Do I want to know?"

"...I don't think you do."