8. Thinking Out Loud
Okay, two shorter chapters but at least they are both in the same day!
Dean becomes involved in helping to find out what is happening to the missing prisoners. The team realize Sweets is missing. Dean fakes a heart attack to get into the hardly monitored infirmary.
"Okay people you've all got coffee. Now tell me what we've got." Booth said as they all stood in a huddle over the exam table though nothing but papers - instead of remains - were in front of them.
"Sweets left for vacation after the Cromwell case three, almost four weeks ago." Brennan said setting the time line at a starting point.
"I can't believe that we didn't notice Sweets was gone for all this time." Cam said with a heavy note of disbelief in her voice.
"After the Cromwell case I think we all just wanted to give him some space." Hodgins said thinking back.
Booth nodded. "I knew things had gotten out of hand when I found Sweets in his office with all the lights off working under his desk."
"You think he snapped?" Cam asked surprised. She hadn't known the details of how things had gotten for Sweets, she had only seen the end result.
"No, he hadn't snapped." Booth said definitely. "He was way too in tune with the guy. He had enough files and profiles on his desk, walls and floors to look like a serial killer himself. Every time another body rolled in the door - mutilated like it was Sweets got further into the work, finding out what made the guy tick. He went down that rabbit hole after Cromwell but it was a dark path."
"Yeah the psycho was one of the worse we'd seen. I think we all wanted to nail that bastard." Hodgins said.
"Sweets figured him out, found out what made him tick, led us right to him." Cam recalled.
"And what was the cost?" Angela questioned. "Did we really think a vacation in the Caymans was best for Sweets?"
"Well we know he didn't make it there." Brennan said trying to bring their focus back to the work before them.
"Do you think Sweets, maybe he…the case…" Angela was afraid if she said the word 'suicide' it would somehow jinx it into being true.
"Dr. Sweets wouldn't." Cam said with a certainty they all questioned. Why was she so definitive?"
"Well he fueled up twice on the way." Angela said looking at the evidence before them. "The second time was at a gas station in Northern Louisiana, Jackson County."
"And that is where the car was impounded?" Cam asked.
"Yeah, they said it was found on the side of the road." Booth said, it was picked up and towed away. After I called they checked the trunk, Sweets' suitcase was in it, untouched."
"So somehow Sweets filled up, then his car is towed from the side of the road not far from that gas station." Cam said.
"I've checked, we had no cases in that area that we worked on, no links to any of us." Angela said.
"Still, the name sounds familiar." Booth said unable to shake it.
"Well this was of interest." Angela said bringing up an image on the screen. The last gas station that Sweets filled up at was about ten miles from where a state trooper was shot."
"Killed?" Hodgins asked.
"No, he was shot but in a coma. They caught the guy that shot him though, Kale Mallory." Angela explained.
"That name sounds familiar too." Booth said. "He tried to call me!"
Angela punched a couple of buttons and his mug shot came up. "He's been arrested a dozen times for various petty crimes. Huh, he sort of looks like Sweets."
"Yeah like a scruffier and more dangerous version of Sweets." Hodgins said looking at the screen.
"So what do we think, Sweets tried to intervene when the trooper got shot?" Cam grasped at guesses.
"Yeah but then why haven't we heard from Sweets?" Brennan asked not wanting to think of the obvious but Cam voiced it anyway.
"So the shooter could have killed Sweets whose body has not yet been recovered and maybe no one knew was missing so no one was looking. The cops assume the car is just abandoned and so they tow it away, not knowing there's a connection."
"It sounds logical but I don't like it." Brennan said.
"It doesn't feel right." Booth said. "Why is this Mallory guy trying to call me then?"
"Well maybe he's calling to confess or maybe bargain if he knows where Sweets body is at." Cam said but shuddered after she said it. She wouldn't have shuddered if it were a case, not their friend.
"I've tried to call this Jackson County Correctional place." Angela said. "They won't put a call thru to any prisoner."
"They'll talk to me." Booth said and left.
"Better hurry up or you'll miss breakfast." Sweets eyes opened to hear who talked to him and looked over to see Dean on the edge of his own cot.
Sweets sat up too quickly in surprise and hit his head on the bed above.
"Hey easy there." Dean said with a grin. "I have that affect when people see me."
Sweets yawned but smiled.
"Hey yawning when you get up means you didn't get enough sleep."
"Yeah, I didn't fall asleep till a little bit ago." Sweets said having finally succumbed to exhaustion after hours of tossing and turning.
"Yeah they just sent me back. Let's get some grub, I've got lots to share." Dean nodded and Sweets was filled with a great anticipation of what Dean had learned.
"Oh look, Oatmeal goop today." Dean said looking down at his plate. The grumble among the prisoners was growing over the food.
"It's going to be hard to put in a full day's work on this." Sweets said sitting down to look at all the empty compartments on the tray and the one small pile of goop."
"Well let's say that this is the least of our worries." Dean said in a low voice.
"Did you find something?" Sweets asked, voice equally as low. Both were glad that Chet was out of sight this morning. "I was afraid you'd get caught sneaking out of the infirmary."
"Nah, it's like we thought, no doctors on call, they forgot I was even there. Plus the warden was out. I found it fast and was in and out."
"So you did find something." Sweets said with growing anticipation.
"Yeah, do you want the bad news or the really bad news?"
"Gosh, it's hard to pick." Sweets said sarcastically while trying to take a bite of the toxic goop.
"Well things usually go from bad to worse so we'll start there. I found a list of people, about two dozen, names checked off, Madere is one of them. There's another name after him, remember Wegenka? Yeah me either, he was a quiet guy but after I saw his name on the list I realized I hadn't seen him in a couple of weeks."
"I haven't heard any shots or anything." Sweets said thinking back.
"And no one would have except for the fact you were in the box that day." Dean reminded him. "I've been thinking about it - you said the warden said that wasn't the plan. I think they load these guys up to tell them they're going to the big house, shoot them en route so no one sees anything, hears anything, bring them back to bury them on the grounds where no one's going to be looking."
"No one ever actually gets transferred there." Sweets said realizing the truth.
"Yeah, but if you hadn't heard that shot that day, Gerald hadn't screwed up on telling you where to bury the dog, we wouldn't have known." Dean pointed out.
"Right." Sweets said. "We gotta tell someone."
"Yeah well I had the phone in my hand last night but you have to have some sort of code to call out and it wasn't nine." Dean said trying some of the vial breakfast.
"Crap, we're really stuck here." Sweets said.
"Yeah but I didn't get to the worst parts."
"Oh goody, what's that?" Sweets asked rubbing his head.
Dean cleared his throat. "Your name is next on the list."
Sweets tried to keep his mind on the hole he was digging along the side of the road but he couldn't help but leave his mind to wander to who would be digging his hole after Wallace had him shot.
"Hey it's not gonna happen alright?" Dean said reading Sweets thoughts as he worked beside him. "I've got a phone call tonight."
Sweets had wondered why Dean hadn't acted so worried since having told him about his place on the list.
"Yeah, who are you going to call that's going to listen to a couple of prisoners?" Sweets asked.
"I've got friends." Dean said with a winning smile. "Don't worry okay?"
"Right." Sweets said the shrugged his shoulders. "I guess I've seen worse."
"Worse than these bastards? I mean they dip at the bottom of the whole humanity barrel. What have you seen that's worse?"
Sweets eyes darkened for a moment and he paused in shoveling but then shook his head and continued digging. "It's nothing."
"Come on, enlighten me. Or at least get my mind off digging this damn hole." Dean said.
Sweets shrugged, anything thing to get their minds off this work.
"Recently, there was this case, Dr. Ivan Cromwell." Sweets said feeling his mind slipping back into the case but he continued to dig. "Bodies came up, not just dead bodies - mutilated. The guy made Jack the Ripper look like he was playing Operation and the nose kept going off."
Dean wanted to smile but he could tell this wasn't a joke or story or fan fiction.
"The guy didn't stop either, bodies kept coming in. He left them where they could be found, places like school playgrounds, convents, you get the idea, but no evidence to who he was or where he was working."
"Well you know his name so…"
"Yeah, we found him." Sweets said, mood still dark and his digging still methodical. "After fifteen bodies had piled up, nearly one every other day for a month."
"How did you get him?" Dean asked sensing the darkness of Sweets involvement and confirming what he suspected, that this man was not Kale Mallory.
"I went after him." Sweets said. "Not with a gun - I left that to Boo….other people. I looked at him, his profile. I got into his mind, figured out how he worked and what made him tick, what made him kill and why."
"Sounds like a dark path." Dean said slowing on his digging.
"Yeah, well after that you have to take some time off."
"Like here?" Dean joked with the intent of pulling Sweets back from the dark place Dean could see him going into.
Sweets smiled and Dean could see he was back - away from that place.
"Yeah, this is a cake walk after that." Sweets said digging with a strange happiness - anything better that that case.
"Well, you got one hell of a work out in the deal." Dean said and Sweets took a second to stop thinking about inmates being murdered, corrupt drug dealing guards and imminent deal to look down at himself. His time in the shower was spent looking just about everywhere but himself. In the last month of physical labor Sweets had developed quite the striking physique.
If I get out of this one I really will go to the Caymans. This time I might even take my shirt off. Oh, right, if I don't get shot and buried first.
So what is up with the warden? And what's Dean's deal? Will they in fact talk to Booth? Will there be another statement with a question? Nope. ;)
Hope you enjoyed. Thank you for reading I do sincerely appreciate the faves, follows and reviews!