The Face with Two Skeletons
By: Tropicwhale
Disclaimer: Hehehe I wish they were mine.....but no, they're not.
Author Talk: bonus four...........intro external plot
Chapter Twelve
Monday came predictably two days after that surreal Saturday that Seeley Booth spend being friends with Zack Addy and the world within the Jeffersonian was the same as it has always been; Zack was back in limbo and Booth was half the city away in his office at FBI headquarters.
Someone had put the remains that Zack was studying back into its bin and back into the shelves. Zack retrieved the files first and then got the bin. He put on white plastic gloves and carefully removed the skull from the clear plastic box and placed it at the top end of examining table. He then carefully removed the ribs and spinal bones arranging them onto the table as well. Next, out came the pelvis, the humerus and ulna bones of the left arm and the right scapula. Then both femurs, the left tibia, the right fibula, and a patella. There was also all the bones of the right hand and foot. The last to come out were the vertebrae. Zack took his time arranging the bones carefully and correctly. When he was nearly finished, Dr. Brennan appeared in the doorway. Zack remained focused on the skeleton however and took no notice of his boss under she was standing right next to him. "Have you learned anything new about these remains?" Zack nodded and steepled his gloved fingers then used both his hands to indicate the remains.
"Yes. The subject's pelvis suggests that she was pregnant some time before death and hemorrhaging stains on the ribs and the atlas and axis vertebrae indicate drowning."
"Are you sure?" Dr. Brennan was already putting on white gloves to examine the body.
"Not since you asked that question." Zack frowned and dropped his hands to his sides.
"There's evidence of teeth marks along several of the bones." Dr. Brennan was already moving a large magnifying glass over to the examination table.
"The remains were found in a swamp. It stands to reason that she would be chewed on by possums and other fauna indigenous to the area."
"Correct." Brennan picked up the fifth rib on the left side. "However, these bite marks are too large for any species found in Alabama swamps." She put the rib back and picked up the fibula. "I recognize these bite marks. These are from an alligator."
"There are alligators in Alabama." Dr. Brennan looked at Zack. "I had a friend from Alabama when I was a teenager. He said that they were lots of them if you knew where to look." Dr. Brennan looked back at the bone in her hand.
"Hmm." She looked vaguely interested in the way that she did when she learned something new. "I did not know that."
"Learn something new every day." Zack replied. Brennan looked over at him and smiled. Zack smiled back. Just then Booth walked in.
"Hey Bones! Zack." Booth said striding over to the table.
"Booth."
"Agent Booth" the squints greeted. Dr. Brennan handed the fibula back to Zack who placed it back on the table and picked up the pelvis to examine.
"We got a murder." Booth said, trying not to smile.
"You couldn't call me and tell me this?" Brennan asked. Zack looked over at them and smiled wryly at Brennan's slightly annoyed tone.
"You shouldn't be that happy, Agent Booth." Zack pointed out.
"Shush, both of you. Come on, Bones. We got a forty minute drive ahead of us!" Brennan shook her head at Booth's actions. He was acting like a child at Christmas. Brennan was already following Booth out of Limbo when she turned back to Zack.
"Zack, put the remains away and inform Dr. Saroyan about this new case." Zack nodded.
"Yes, Dr. Brennan." Brennan walked out and Booth gave Zack an friendly, apologetic smile when Zack sighed. Of course when Booth left Zack had to sit down on the floor for five seconds because his knees gave out at that smile. When five seconds were over Zack shook his head to clear it and stood to put away the bones. There was work to be done.
Forty minutes later found Booth and Brennan at a Baltimore college looking at a bizarre statue with a human skull with mandible, arms, hands, and feet bones, rib cage with a set of skeletal wings. The bones were completely covered in what looked like rusted iron. The sculpture, without the wings stood about two feet above the ground due to the lack of legs and pevis, with outstretched arms and face pointing toward the open sky. The wings were about five feet apiece and also flexed skyward. Booth thought it looked creepy. Uniformed police from the university and the local cops were there and Booth could see several people who looked like they could be artists giving statements and being general onlookers. Booth and Brennan were allowed entrance to the scene when Booth flashed his badge.
Brennan had put on her overalls and was in the process of putting on white gloves to better examine the supposed remains. "HEY!" One of men talking to the cops darted away from his assigned officer and toward Brennan, pointing angrily. Booth stepped into his path to protect his partner so she could do her job and examine the sculpture. The guy was at least as tall as Booth with a black tee-shirt and dreadlocks down to his waist. He had a series of earrings along the cartilage in one ear and on in his right nose and one on the side of his lower lip. He also had a tattoo on his neck that Booth recognized as a combination Chinese symbol for harmony and fire. There was a flaming skull on the inside of his right forearm. "She shouldn't touch that!"
"She's a forensic anthropologist. Who are you?" Booth said, folding his arms and purposely making his jacket strain over his arm muscles. The guy dropped his arms for a brief second before clasping them back on the top of his head.
"I'm the artist of that piece." Booth pulled out his pad of paper.
"What's your name?"
"Michael Santi." The guy was looking at Booth but really watching the woman handling his sculpture. His hands were clutching his hair frantically.
"She's not going to hurt it. Focus on me, Michael." Michael looked briefly at Booth but his eyes soon traveled back to Brennan.
"That's my thesis. I've been working all semester on it." He whined.
"It's definitely human." Brennan's voice called over. Booth turned so he could look at Brennan but keep Santi in his line of sight. "Caucasian, age is difficult to determine. I'm going to need to take it back to the Jeffersonian to clean the remains and-"
"NO!" Michael was distraught.
"Where did you get the bones, Santi?" Booth asked.
"I found them in the garbage. They were really white and clean so I figured somebody just threw away an old anatomy skeleton!" Brennan walked over to the two men.
"What did you use on the skeleton to make it look like metal?" She was all business.
"It's this special paint-glaze thing that I mix up. It has a high content of iron filings so that it will rust and give an aged look to the piece."
"Do you know how to remove it?" Brennan asked.
"I don't know…paint thinner? I never tried. My thesis…." Michael's eyes traveled to the officers starting to pick the sculpture up and carry it to a waiting van. "Can I at least take a few pictures of it to show my teacher the progress I made if you have to dismantle it?" He pleaded. Brennan and the other officers looked at Booth.
"Yeah, sure. Go ahead." Michael started toward the statue then stopped short horrified.
"I don't have a camera!" He wailed. Booth was starting to get tired of this guy. A woman with pink hair and a green shirt ran over to Michael from the sidelines, holding a pink camera up.
"Here Michael, you can use mine." Michael grabbed the girl by her left hand and, kissing the palm, took the camera out of her other hand. "You're also going to need the initial police report to get Guiler off your back." She added. Michael nodded and took what seemed to be several hundred pictures of the sculpture. Next, he nodded to the two police officers to take the statue away and took pictures of them loading it into the back of a police van. Booth rolled his eyes as Brennan just watched passively.
"Hold on!" Brennan called out suddenly then walked over to Santi. "Did you find all the bones or just the ones in the finished sculpture?"
"It's far from finished." Michael protested.
"Answer the question. Please." she insisted.
"I-I found bits and pieces. Some made into the sculpture and some I threw out again."
"Did you find and keep the pelvis?"
"Uh, yeah. I painted it as a tester and then gave it to my roommate to hang in our dorm."
"I'm going to need the pelvis to figure out gender." Brennan turned back to Booth. "He's going to need a police escort to his dorm to retrieve the pelvis and any other bones he might have." She turned back to Michael who looked resigned.
"That might be a problem. I gave them away. Everyone in the department has a bone or just about."
"Michael's glaze mixture is very impressive. It was sort of a first for everyone to see." The girl said.
"And who are you?" Booth asked.
"Sandra Novak. I'm a painting track. Michael gave me half a gallon of the paint to finish my project for Landscaping class."
"You landscape in an art class?" Booth asked.
"I paint landscapes in an art class." She corrected, being snotty about it too. "I'm using Michael's paint to show how our industrial based society can take over everything through use of dark and stormy paint colors. I'm painting a field. I wanted the hills to have a rusty look to them so I asked Michael! God, you scientific types take things so literally! Michael, just get the camera back to me when you can!" With that, Sandra Novak stormed off.
"Geez, I heard that artist types were high-strung but this is a little crazy." Booth whispered to a uniform. The officer nodded in agreement.
Then, apparently deciding that her job was complete, Bones walked back to federal issue SUV parked in the faculty parking lot. Booth, who was watching Michael Santi back to making a scene over a grade, glanced over to notice his partner wasn't anywhere to be seen. He looked around to find her walking over to the SUV and had to jog to catch up.