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Chapter Seven

Booth and Brennan looked at Peter Warner through the observation room's two-way mirror as he was brought into the adjacent interrogation room, followed shortly by his state appointed lawyer.

"I've given it some thought, but I can't seem to comprehend his motive for killing Everton," Brennan spoke up, her eyes still on the suspect. "Was it just because Everton was unable to do his job satisfactorily and Warner had to do it for him instead?"

"My guess is that that wasn't the only problem. There has to be more to it. Hopefully, we'll find out when we interrogate him. I'll get it out of him," Booth replied, confidently. "As soon as Cam calls about those fingerprints."

"I also asked Hodgins to analyze Warner's work gloves as they had oil stains all over them."

Booth nodded as the door opened and agent Charlie Burns walked inside. He handed the file he was carrying over to Booth, who thanked him, then just as quickly left the room again. Booth opened the folder and skimmed the information inside.

"Hmm…"

"What is it?" Brennan asked, trying to look at the file in her partner's hands.

"Seems like Warner has a record."

"Really? When we ran the fingerprint through the NCIC database, we didn't find a match. Nor was there a match in AFIS."

"Then it probably wasn't his fingerprint."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure yet. What I do know is that he was charged with assault. No conviction, though. They probably settled. It says here that he assaulted a manager at work when he was laid off. He also tried to take a swing at a visitor," Booth read from the file. "It all happened thirty one years ago, but still…"

"So, that must have taken place at the job he had before this one. Didn't he say he'd be employed at the fairground for thirty one years next month?" Brennan remarked as her cell phone began to ring. She took it out of her pocket and answered. "Dr. Brennan."

"I have the test results from the fingerprints for you," Cam told her from the other side of the line. Brennan put the phone on speaker, so Booth could listen in on the conversation. "The prints you lifted from the air conditioner didn't match the one that we found on the wire cutter, but we did find a match in AFIS. The print belongs to your suspect, Peter Warner."

"That's great, but doesn't help us much since the air conditioner wasn't the murder weapon," Booth spoke up. "If we want to nail him, we'll have to find something that actually links him to the murder, conclusively."

"Hi Booth," Cam greeted him, realizing she was talking to the both of them. "Actually, there's more. Clark Edison had a great idea when we had the same discussion over here. He suggested that we compare the partial print from the wire cutter with the victim's fingerprint and that was a match."

"Okay. So, the wire cutter from Warner's tool belt had Everton's print on it. The wire of the air conditioner was cut and the prints on it belong to Warner, but his prints weren't on the glass or the costume."

"That's correct," Cam stated. "He probably wore his work gloves. Speaking of which, Dr. Hodgins compared the oil on the gloves with that on the evidence. Another match."

"Linking Warner to the murder," Booth concluded. "This I can work with. Good job, Cam."

"Thank you, Dr. Saroyan," Brennan said before disconnecting the call.

Booth looked at Brennan. "Time to interrogate."

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It had taken an hour of interrogating until Warner broke and finally confessed to the murder of his colleague Hugh Everton. Against the strong recommendation of his lawyer and after being given Miranda warnings, he decided to tell Booth and Brennan the whole story, giving them means, motive and opportunity on a silver platter.

"Why don't you start at the beginning?" Booth said, looking sternly at Warner. "And don't leave out any details. Be specific."

"Well, the first thing I did that day was cut the wire of the portable air conditioner in Jacob's office. I did that so I would be called in to fix it later. I just needed an excuse. Anyway, when Jacob arrived at the fairground, bringing with him the costumes, I offered to help carry them to the office. Once inside, he noticed that the air conditioner was broken and asked me to repair it that afternoon."

"So, you already cut the wire early that morning?"

"Yes. So, when Jacob had left his office for his appointment and Charles had returned his costume to the closet right before his lunch break, I entered the office myself. I cleaned the wire cutter with a rag and put on my work gloves, so I wouldn't leave behind any fingerprints. I used the tool to cut a piece of cloth from Charles' costume. I returned the wire cutter to my tool belt and stuffed the fabric into my pocket, then I left the office and went back to work."

"Again, I strongly advise you not to confess to anything else," Warner's lawyer spoke up.

"I know, but I need to do this," Warner replied and continued his confession. "So, I waited until the fairground had closed for the day and all the visitors had left, then I went over to the Hall of Mirrors to smash the mirror. Half of it fell into pieces onto the floor. I took the largest shard and wrapped it up in the bit of fabric that came from the costume. Again, I wore the gloves. Before I left the Hall, I made sure that the lights were on and found myself a place to hide until Hugh would appear. Actually, Charles came by first, but he didn't see me, I think. When Hugh came by next, he noticed that the lights were still on and he stopped in his tracks. Apparently, my wire cutter had fallen out of my tool belt when I'd left the Hall and Hugh found it at the entrance. I panicked for a moment, but then decided to take care of it later. I watched as Hugh picked up the tool and took it with him as he went into the Hall to turn off the lights. I was about to follow him inside, but at that moment, Ricky walked past the Hall. I waited for him to get out of sight, then I followed Hugh inside. He was distracted by the broken mirror and couldn't see behind him. Since he was almost completely deaf, he couldn't hear me sneaking up from behind, either. I stabbed him in the back with the glass shard. Just one stab, it was fatal. Before making my exit, I reclaimed my wire cutter, which Hugh had dropped as he fell down, and I threw it away in a garbage bin on my way over to Hugh's workplace. I entered the tool shed and hid the glass, which was still wrapped in the cloth, behind a shelf. Then, I headed over to my own workplace, where I removed the gloves and took off the tool belt. I left through the back entrance and went home. That's all."

"That's all? How can you say that? You murdered your colleague," Booth exclaimed angrily.

"May I state for the record that all this occurred in the heat of the moment," the lawyer mentioned, trying to keep the situation under control by fabricating mitigating circumstances.

"Oh come on," Booth replied, only semi-surprised that the lawyer would bring up something outlandish like that. "Cutting the air conditioner in the morning, cleaning the wire cutter beforehand, wearing gloves, smashing the mirror first, leaving the lights on so the victim would go inside to check; that clearly spells premeditation."

"Why Ringer's costume?" Brennan asked, not yet clear on that part of the story.

"To frame him," Booth explained to her.

Warner nodded in confirmation. "Everyone at work, including Hugh, had problems with Charles… now and again. I figured he would be a likely suspect."

"Not as likely as you, though. You have a prior record."

Warner seemed perplexed. "A record? Are you kidding me?"

"I never kid about murder, Mr. Warner."

"Those charges were a joke. Do you really think Jacob would have hired me, otherwise? He employed me immediately after I left my last job. Besides, that happened more than thirty years ago. I was twenty-three, then."

"Doesn't make it any less relevant," Booth told him. "So, why did you do it?"

"Yes, what was your motive?" Brennan asked the question that had been puzzling her ever since Warner had become a suspect.

"Don't answer that," the lawyer spoke up again, already fearing it would be in vain and it was.

Warner released a sigh, wondering how he could explain his reasons to them. "Look, it was Hugh's job to look after the fairground, but he was completely useless at it. You've seen it, the place has become a dump. Most of the time, I had to do all the work myself. As if I didn't have anything better to do. Jacob had hired him to take some of the workload off my shoulders, but instead his inadequacy only gave me more work to do. My niece would often go to him with suggestions for improvements as well and even offered to help him. But nothing ever got done. We all knew we would lose our jobs if we wouldn't attract more visitors, but Hugh obviously didn't care. It was so frustrating. You know, I have bills to pay, a family to support, I couldn't risk losing my job. I guess I just snapped."

"You just snapped?" Booth repeated.

"Yeah. Lost my head. I simply couldn't deal with it anymore. It had to end, somehow, someway."

Brennan shook her head. "So, you chose murder."

"I didn't choose it so much as it chose me."

"That's a load of crap," Booth told Warner, studying him for a moment. "You didn't realize when it chose you that murder would put the fairground in a bad light, keeping the visitors away, instead of attracting them?"

"Yes, that's not at all logical," Brennan agreed.

"Momentary lapse. I only thought of two things, getting rid of the negativity Hugh brought to the park and saving my job. All of our jobs."

"Yes, very noble of you," Booth replied sarcastically. He pushed his chair back, got up and walked around the table. "Peter Warner, you're under arrest for and will be charged with the murder of Hugh Everton. So, instead of saving your job, you're looking at thirty years to life. I guess we'll see you in court."

Brennan glared at Warner. "It's over."

Defeated, Warner could only nod his head.

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"Another case closed," Booth said, as he and Brennan left the interrogation room and walked out into the hallway after Warner had signed the confession and was taken into custody.

"Yeah, case closed. I have to say I'm impressed with the way you interrogated him. You didn't give up, even though it took an hour before he was willing to confess."

Booth looked at Brennan, a bright smile on his face. "You're impressed? Really?"

"Yes."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," Brennan told him with a nod. "Although, there's still one thing I don't understand. Why did Warner throw away the wire cutter, instead of putting it back into his tool belt? He wore gloves the whole time, so his fingerprints weren't on it."

Booth shrugged. "Everybody thinks they have a plan till things start to go wrong. He panicked and did the first thing that came to mind. He got rid of it." He looked at his watch. "I better inform Caroline about the case right now. I think she's still in the building."

Brennan nodded, looking at her own watch. "Yeah, you do that."

"You're not coming with me?"

"I can't, I have to leave now."

Booth frowned. "That means we're not going to the diner to celebrate, either? We always…"

"I have other plans," Brennan told him before he could even finish his sentence.

Booth abruptly halted as though he'd just run full face into an invisible barrier and turned to look at her. "A date?" he asked as casually as he could.

Brennan was surprised he would even think it was a date. After her debacle of dating two guys at the same time—even if she herself wouldn't have used the term dating to describe what had been going on; she'd had social intercourse with one and sexual intercourse with the other—she wasn't planning on dating again any time soon. Their rejection had hurt and, for the moment, her surrogate relationship with Booth was the safer, more comfortable choice.

"An appointment with my publisher," she informed him before her thoughts went back to the therapy session with Sweets where they had discussed said debacle.

During that session, Booth had told her that there was someone for everyone, someone she was meant to spend the rest of her life with and he'd somehow convinced her to wait for that one special person, especially since she'd gotten the feeling he'd been talking about himself. On top of that, Cate Pritchard's advice was still running through her head, as well. The Scotland Yard inspector had been right, she now comprehended. She did not want to forego Everest. Unfortunately, there was a small avalanche of tension, which prohibited her from climbing that proverbial mountain. She had her hiking gear ready, however, and would patiently wait until the time was right. Until the line that separated them would be erased and she could reach the top of Mount Everest, planting her flag with the intention to stay.

"Oh, okay," Booth replied, clearly relieved by her answer. "Don't forget to fill out the questionnaire, though."

"I'm already halfway done. How about you?" she asked somewhat smugly.

"Yeah, haven't started yet…" Booth confessed and Brennan sent him a glare. "I will do my homework, I promise. Don't want to disappoint Sweets." He rolled his eyes at the mention of the therapist's name.

"Just Sweets?"

"And you," Booth added quickly. "You know I value our partnership, but I don't always value the kid's opinion."

"You're just afraid he's going to find out something you don't want anyone to know."

Booth looked at her, pointedly. "Yes."

Brennan looked back at him, inviting more information. Booth didn't elaborate, however. He wasn't going to let her know he was afraid his answers would show his true feelings for her. That was why he hadn't started on it in the first place. He was still undecided whether he would fill out the questionnaire honestly and what exactly Sweets would be able to deduce from his answers if he did.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then?" he asked instead. "Case reports?"

"Sure. You know where to find me," Brennan replied, then her brows puckered in thought. "That is, if I'm at the Jeffersonian. Of course there is always a small chance that I might be asked to assist in the identification of deceased individuals or oversee a dig, then you'll have to call me to find out my whereabouts."

Booth smiled. "I'm FBI, Bones, I'll always know where to find you."

Brennan nodded, then headed for the elevator. Booth blew out a breath of air and went to find the acerbic Assistant United States Attorney.

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