Thank you thank you thank yoooou!!!
Without further ado, the chapter:
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CHAPTER 21
"So Bones… any thoughts on Anne Stoker and Jeanie Whitmore? Does Angela have any more ideas on how they are connected? On how Anne saw the body?"
"I don't think so… But Booth, I was thinking."
"Really?"
"Yes."
He chuckled, looking away from the road for a moment to glance at me and shake his head, smiling.
"It was an expression, Bones. I know you were… never mind. What were you thinking?"
"Has anyone spoken to Margaret Stoker? I mean… she lied to us, she mislead us on purpose, right? Is she a suspect? It doesn't seem to me that she has her daughter's best interests…"
"No, Bones." He said firmly.
"No you haven't tried to contact her or no…"
"I've got an Agent interrogating her right now if he did as he was told. I meant no, it isn't possible that that woman didn't have her daughter's best interests at heart. She loves her daughter, Bones. But she is a suspect."
"I don't understand your reasoning."
"Wouldn't be the first time… it's not logical, Bones, that's why you don't understand."
"Oh. But maybe she was lying… she looks like a really good actress, Booth."
"No, Bones. I'm right about this."
I lapsed back into silence, calculating, wondering.
"We're there, Bones."
I looked out the car window to see the Washington DC Penitentiary looming ahead of us. It was an enormous, plain, grey and rectangular building surrounded by several fences topped with barbed wire. From the car I could see a basketball hoop in the distant yard, and it felt out of place in this scenery. I sighed. There was no one outside, even though the watch tower was clearly active.
As we waited for the security guards to clear our entrance, Booth glanced at me uneasily.
"Booth, we'll be fine."
"I know I'll be fine. I'm just worried… I know you've been here before, but the visitor's wing has nothing to do with the actual cell-block. And I think Agent Keller said we went through the one of the corridors in Security Level 1 before getting to the Stoker's cell. You know, before, when he was trying to convince me not to let you come."
"Booth…"
"If one of the guards tries to do anything…"
"I'll kick his ass. Promise."
He grinned. "You'd better."
The guard came back with our ID's and Security Passes which he gave to Booth. Instead of leaving, however, he leant on the window. "You're free to go inside guys, but I'd recommend the lady stay out here."
I rolled my eyes. Men.
"Can you please just open the gate?" I said, annoyed.
The guard shrugged. "Suit yourself, babe."
Booth groaned as we drove inside. "Why does everyone keep calling you that?"
*
The jeers and catcalls began seconds after the door opened and I stepped inside the corridor. Not only the prisoners, the guards too. Booth looked positively murderous, and despite my assurances I couldn't help but feel the slightest twinge of unease. The dank smell didn't help, or the way sound carried inside this white-walled ample space.
The cell where Kevin Stoker used to be was on the second floor, but to get there we had to go up the metal steps at the end of this hallway. Security Level 1 meant that the men shouting at me had murdered someone. I shivered, disgusted.
On either side of us they banged on the walls, laughed, reached out as though to touch us. Thankfully they got nowhere near, and anyway most of them couldn't get more than their forearms through the bars. Their voices rang rude in my ears, men asking for my name, other yelling much plainer and dirtier thoughts. Some even called at Booth, which made me smirk and brought another round of louder shouting. I tried not to make eye-contact and followed the guard who was leading us forward. Booth walked right beside me, and after one particularly burly-looking man shouted: "Hey lady, come over here and I'll show you!" my partner took my hand in his. I didn't look at him and he didn't look at me, but I felt his rapid pulse and the slight tremble in his fingers, and he must have felt my own hand cling tightly to his.
When we began to climb the steps the voices gradually faded, and eventually the guard at the door stopped staring at my ass and closed it behind him.
The guard who was taking us grinned at me, but he didn't say anything insulting and at least seemed polite.
"You can take a breather if you want, and we'll go down the next corridor in a second."
I raised my eyebrows. "I don't need…"
"One minute." Booth interrupted.
The guard chuckled. "It was a bad idea to come here, honey. The prisoners haven't seen something as damn hot as you for a long time. Most of them never."
"Okay, pal, let me just stop you right there." Booth said, stepping in front of me. I fought the urge to kick him or to intervene and remind him of my ability to take care of myself. Instead, I watched.
"She's with me, get it asshole?" as he said this he snaked an arm possessively around my waist, drawing me closer. "Enough with the flirting and the looks. Just take us to Agent Keller and his team and shove the fuck off, all right?"
So we were a couple in here as well. Fantastic. When would Booth learn that I didn't need protecting? I was independent and strong enough.
"Relax, dude. She's hot, you must be used to this sort of thing."
"I never get used to it. Now let's just get this over with." And to my (and the guard's) surprise, Booth let go of me, shoved the man to the door and then proceeded to lean against the wall, looking like a dangerous animal about to attack.
Talk about over-protective alpha-male.
So we finally walked past more shouting prisoners and I saw Agent Keller and his techs outside Stoker's cell. Booth took my hand again as we walked, and a couple of the interns yelled louder because of that, but we ignored them.
"Booth."
"Hey John. What have you guys found so far?"
He hadn't let go of my hand yet, but I pretended that he had so that I could focus on the facts before us.
"You're not going to believe this Booth." Keller said, motioning for him to go inside. He hadn't even glanced at me, and I knew why. Keller was a veteran Agent in his mid sixties (which in FBI speak was very old, or so Booth said), and he'd been against taking me (a squint) into the field from the start. This was obviously part of 'the field'.
"Have you found Stoker's remains?"
"See for yourself."
The two techs inside the cell stepped out to give us space, and I saw what Keller had meant immediately. There were two bunk-beds, and the sheets and pillow had been removed from the bottom one. The stench I knew too well filled this small enclosure, and I wondered for how long this cell mate had expected to hide the body without being found out. It had taken us four days.
One of the techs had cut the top off of the mattress horizontally, so that I was looking at a thick foam rectangle that had been patchily hollowed out… and stuffed inside; the body of Kevin Stoker.
There was a surprising lack of blood, which suggested death by asphyxiation the most likely scenario. Stoker had been dead before being put inside the mattress, however, because there were no claw marks or signs of a struggle. How often did they clean the inside of a cell in here? Had it been as easy as hanging a sheet so that no one saw what happened, and then hidden the body? There had to be more accomplices, prisoners to corroborate the alibi for the cell mate or create more confusion for the guards. Maybe even one of the guards was helping. And did no one know how to search a six square meter room anymore? Although the smell admittedly wouldn't have been there on the first day, surely it should have been noticed?
"This prison has a pretty big security problem." Booth said.
"They all do, Booth." Keller replied from outside.
"So where's the cell mate? He's the main suspect, right?"
"Yeah, and the only one. No one else could have done this."
Booth nodded, looking away from the corpse.
"Okay, is he admitting to the murder?"
"He hasn't said anything yet, but I'm sure it won't take much."
"Good, call me as soon as we know something."
After demanding the remains be shipped to the Jeffersonian so Cam could examine them properly, I decided to leave with Booth. We all had to speak with shouts because the chorus of men around us was too loud, and I wanted to get back to the lab anyway.
"Updates as often as possible, okay John?"
"Sure thing, Booth."
"Goodbye." I said politely to Keller. He nodded my way, which was something, and Booth took my hand again as we walked away. The contact, as innocent as it was, reminded me of something that wasn't: our hands intertwined as I lay naked on top of him, safe from the cold for a few moments as he whispered in my ear…
I wrenched my hand out of his.
To my surprise, he flashed a look of… anger… at me and snatched it back. "No. You don't get to do that, Bones." He said firmly, staring straight ahead.
I looked at him, forgetting for a moment where we were. He didn't turn to meet my eyes, but there was a hint of a smile tugging at his lips and I leant slightly closer, so that when we walked our arms brushed.
Suddenly Booth's phone rang. He answered immediately, let go of my hand and went running ahead to hear what the other person was saying.
"What?" I heard him shout. And then. "What!"
"Booth!" I yelled, striding fasted. "What's wrong?"
"Shit!" he shouted, punching the wall next to the door we were waiting the guard to open. "I trusted you to do this, Finn!" He yelled into his phone. "Organise a search immediately! Fuck!"
I reached him just as the guard opened the door. As soon as the door was closed I rounded on my partner.
"What's happened? Booth, what's wrong?"
"Margaret Stoker has disappeared."
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Come on, there was a holding hands moment! How is that not fluffy?
…
Fine. So this chap wasn't exactly Booth bathing in whipped cream. But the fluff will come, don't you worry.
Although probably immersed in angst somewhere.
;)
Kidding.