The Rings in the Heart
Chapter 7 – Tobacco can be harmful to your health
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Disclaimer: BONES does not belong to me. I do not belong to BONES – it sounds fair to me!
Sheriff Dane Morgan felt every one of his fifty-two years this morning, as he eased his vehicle along the slippery service road to the crime scene. After the past seventy-two hours of mayhem that had descended upon his usually predicable patch of West Virginia, he was feeling decidedly too old for dealing with all this bullcrap. Feds, freaks, and spooks, had turned his largely predictable territory into an episode of the X-Files – except he had Dwight Preston as the Medical Examiner in the autopsy bay, instead of the beautiful Agent Scully getting all trigger-happy with her scalpel. The aging law man was disturbed from his mature-aged fan-boy reverie by Agent Booth, who was riding shotgun, and asking him a question.
"So, Sheriff. What is the history behind the town being named Tightsqueeze?" asked Booth in polite conversation.
"Well, Agent Booth. It hails back to the 1870's when local tradesmen built their places of business very close to the edge of the road. So close in fact, that wagons and carriages would have to slow to a crawl to navigate their way through the town. Hence the name" replied the Sheriff.
"I am sure that this planning reduced injuries and fatalities on the route by providing a safer road. This would have been extremely socially advanced for the times," commented Brennan from the rear seat.
Sheriff Morgan gave a bark of laughter. "It certainly would have been Dr. Brennan, if that were true. Truth is more about chivalry than public health though. The idea was to have the buildings close enough to the road, so as to allow visiting ladies to enter the shops from their carriages without having to step in the dirt and mud."
Booth laughed and said, "You've gotta be kidding me?"
"Serious as cancer, Agent Booth" said Sheriff Morgan.
"Was there some sort of cancer-causing agent in the mud?" asked Brennan trying to cobble together a causative link between cancer and chivalry.
"Say what?" said the Sherriff.
Booth turned around in his seat to explain the expression. "Bones. Serious as cancer is an expression."
"Ah, I see, employing a hyperbolic metaphor to convey sincerity. However, I was also considering the large uranium deposits in this region when I posed my question" reasoned Brennan.
"Your lady-partner is absolutely right about the uranium in these parts Agent Booth. How'd she know all that?" asked the Sheriff.
Booth sighed and said "It's a world renowned, best-selling, genius thing."
"That sounded complimentary, but I detect a hint of irreverence in your tone Agent Booth" said Brennan from the back seat, flicking Booth's earlobe in reprimand.
"Ouch! C'mon Bones! I promise to worship the ground that you walk on, okay? So long as you cut that out!" whined Booth. Sheriff Morgan gave Booth a sideward glance that said 'You are so whipped'. Booth returned a wry smile to the local law man, with a twinkle in his eye that conveyed that he was having the time of his life.
The heavy duty off-road police cruiser turned off the track and began to free-wheel across a rutted field. The horseplay was put on hold as the passengers grabbed onto the handholds to brace themselves against the rough terrain.
"Your FBI techs arrived about an hour ago" yelled the Sheriff over the guttural growling of the low range gears of the vehicle as it struggled for traction over patches of mud. After another two minutes of bouncing around and molar-shaking, they finally reached the hard-packed gravel surrounding the curing shed. As they pulled up to the front of the structure, the doors stood open with four other mud-splattered vehicles parked haphazardly.
Booth jumped out of the vehicle and opened the rear door to let Brennan out. She arched an eyebrow at his chivalrous behavior; he threw his hands up in the air in mock insult and joined the Sheriff at the rear doors of the vehicle to grab some of their equipment.
As they walked into the relative darkness of the shed, the artificial glow of bright lamps drew them toward the waiting group of technicians.
"Hey Bones! It's the 'crypt of the mummy'" said Booth in his best impression of Vincent Price. One of the techs carrying some of the Jeffersonian communication gear sniggered, but the effort was wasted on Brennan.
"Booth, the aroma in here is amazing," mused Brennan absently as they passed by rack after rack of golden brown leaves. Then she processed the anomaly in the tone of his last statement. Giving him a puzzled expression, she asked "Why are you impersonating a vampire?"
"A Vampire? C'mon, I don't do vampire. Besides, it's daytime," quipped Booth. "That was a 'classic' Vincent Price moment Bones."
"You should consider making jokes within the context of the case Booth, such as 'What kind of music do mummies like?'" she asked him with a serious expression. When it came to comedy, Bones was always the straight man.
Booth groaned and said, "I'm afraid to ask, but you'll tell me anyway."
A rare smile of innocent joy crossed her face as she delivered the punch line. "Mummies like Wrap music Booth!"
The FBI tech almost dropped his gear as he gave a cackle of laughter. Booth was shaking his head. "You've been hanging out with Parker again haven't you Bones?"
As the technician launched into another fit of laughter, Brennan waved her arm in the techs' direction and observed, "Well somebody thinks it is humorous, which clearly demonstrates that my delivery was more than adequate."
Booth rolled his eyes and proceeded to pin the FBI tech with a look. "Hey. Put a sock in it Chuckles, this is a crime scene."
"Party pooper" mumbled Brennan under her breath. Booth decided that he would be having a discussion with Parker about his relationship with Dr. Bones when he returned to D.C.
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They were waved through to the back corner of the curing shed and had to navigate through a three dimensional maze of wooden poles, which had lines attached to them, some sections with brown tobacco leaves still attached.
"Wow!" it's getting warm back here" commented Booth, wanting to remove his jacket as he felt sweat tricking into the small of his back under his FBI t-shirt.
Brennan took this as her cue to demonstrate her encyclopaedic knowledge of pretty much everything. "These sheds, or houses, as they are sometimes called, are constructed to maintain specific levels of humidity and temperature to cure the tobacco leaves to the desired consistency. The hardwood burners provide flavour to the leaf, and traditionally there would have been hot coal fires in those pits over there. They have been modernized since then with propane heaters. These conditions will have undoubtedly accelerated the mummification process in the victim."
Booth was listening whilst squeezing between two upright poles and grasping at an overhead beam that creaked loudly.
"Be careful there Agent Booth" said 'Chuckles' the tech. "One section already collapsed when the Homeland Security team removed the body."
Booth cringed at the information that the technician had disclosed, as Brennan launched into a tirade about the incompetency of government agencies that would surely have compromised the evidence. She was getting feisty and pushed past Booth to enter the brightly lit area still complaining loudly, pivoting around an upright post and looping her arm around an adjoining horizontal pole, she gave herself some leverage through the obstacle in front of her.
A loud crack rang out through the shed, followed by the sounds of straining timber, snapping lines and the rustling protestations of ten thousand tobacco leaves. Booth ducked and yelled a warning. A section of suspended leaves swung forward, knocking Brennan in the back and propelling her into the brightly lit area. Momentarily blinded she put her arms out in front of her to break her fall, but didn't see the upright pole in front of her. As her forehead collided with the hardwood pole, she saw a blood red flash across her vision; then the lights went out.
A/N: I have to disclose that this mechanism of injury actually happened to me. In retrospect, mine was much funnier, I was hit by a golf ball in the back and I was propelled forward to headbutt a tree. Yes, I was out cold – my amateur golf career ended that day… (Hey, stop laughing!)
On a serious note, I'd like to thank everyone for reading and I am blown away by some of the recent alerts, reviews and PM's, particularly for The Five Syllables piece. I'm not sure that I can pull off something like that for the finale this week…but if Hart gives us a little sugar with the angst I'll give it a go