The Face with Two Skeletons

by: Tropicwhale

disclaimer: This story is based off a show that isn't my property and I'm not making money off the story no matter how popular it has/will become.

Author Talk: I'm not dead yet! I don't think.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Brennan and Booth make it to the cemetery in Howard County to find that the forensic team had beaten them to it and had located Anne Zerbrowski's car. The backseat was drenched in blood, flies and maggots. The car was tucked away in a back corner of the cemetery next to what, upon inspection, turned out to be a family plot with attached mausoleum. "Catch as many flies and maggots as possible, and also I'll need the tires, the back seat and the air filter sent to the Jeffersonian. Dr. Hodgins will be able to pinpoint time of death much more quickly as well as be able to retrace Anne's last hours. The FBI can have the rest of the car." Brennan took charge and Booth made a hand motion to the other federal agents to listen to her. The head forensic nodded and the forensic team swarmed the car. "We should look at the mausoleum. See if there are any more clues there."

"Yeah, lets' do it. Someone find me the groundskeeper or something" Booth shouted out and followed Brennan to the mausoleum. They found more blood and a pitted brass plaque at the back of the building. Booth ducked his head out of the door and hollered for forensics and ballistics.

"I'm going to need that name plate to compare the radius of the damage to the skeletons. Make sure that this is where Anne was killed and we might be able to narrow down the caliber of the gun used." Booth looked at the pitting on the brass plate.

"See that ring? It was a rifled shotgun."

"As opposed to-?"

"A smoothbore barrel. The rifled barrel is great for shoot slugs but not for firing shot."

"So did the killer know this?" Brennen was kneeling at the edge of the blood at the base of the wall. There was a streak of blood from where she was kneeling to the door.

"Someone who knows how to fire a gun but doesn't know enough about the ammunition would knock out Hector Oscarmann as Anne's killer."

"Which throws us back to square one."

"Yup. As far as we can tell Anne was kneeling or sitting there. The killer comes up behind her and pow. Blows her away." Booth cocks his fingers like he's firing a gun and then pulls out his notepad and a pen.

"And then drags her out to her car and throws her into the back seat."

"Why though? He shot her and then stuffed her into the back seat where she bled out."

"Then what? Why wasn't the car towed and reported earlier?" A police officer pops his head into the crypt.

"Agent Booth? The groundskeeper is here." Booth nodded and followed him out into the sunshine. Brennan stayed behind and examined the plate that was pockmarked by shot fragments and then she noticed something. She stood and walked briskly out to Booth who was talking to the groundskeeper, diligently taking notes. She knew his note-taking was for show. Booth had a brilliant memory and never forgot anything pertaining to an open case but found that taking notes help people open up to him more. Brennan appreciated that little bit of white lying from her partner.

"Booth? I found a fingerprint." Booth stopped in mid-question and looked at her.

"Are you sure."

"Yes, it's a clear thumbprint of the left hand."

"How do you know that it's the left hand?"

"Because of where it is and where I was."

"Will you excuse me for a second?" Booth asked the groundskeeper. The man nodded and the pair darted back into the crypt.

"See? I was kneeling here." She knelt careful to stay clear of the blood to avoid tainting the evidence. "And I started to fall forward and I went to balance myself with my left hand on the wall. And I saw it." She pointed the thumbprint in the blood splatter on the wall. It was an inch from her own. "The killer must have paused and looked at Anne's body before he dragged her to the car.

"Finally a break to this case! We can compare the thumbprint to everyone involved in the case…including Zack."

"This proves, at the very least, that he wasn't here when she died. He would never be dumb enough to leave a fingerprint. He couldn't have killed Olivia…"

"And he wasn't here when Anne died…"

"Zack didn't do it."

"I knew that."

"I know. I just wanted to say it out loud. I am very excited about this fingerprint."

"That mean the FBI gets the plate before the Jeffersonian?"

"No. Lift the fingerprint here and send the plaque to the Jeffersonian."

"I figured." He didn't know why he ever asked.

LINE BREAK***

Booth and Brennan decided to continue working through lunch due to the wonderful lead of the thumbprint of the left hand of their killer which meant they need two things. First they needed Booth's office computer with access to FBI files and two, they needed food. They solved both by getting carry-out from the Diner and set to work and lunch in Booth's office at FBI headquarters. Forensics had lifted the bloody print under Brennan's henpecking eye perfectly and preserved it between two slices of what looked like stiff plastic wrap. At least that's what Booth thought it looked like and he wasn't about to ask what it was exactly under the fear and suspicion he would get a squinty answer that he didn't want to listen to when all he needed was the thumbprint. He had the forensics team process the print first and scanning it into the computer so Booth could compare it to all the thumbprint he had so far. Anne's was first thanks to a DUI three years ago and to discount her as the owner right away. Hector Oscarmann and James Zerbrowski were next. Then, after Booth took a bite of his cheeseburger for fortification, he ran Zack's prints. Then he ran Jared Jensen's prints and Sarah Seville's. There were no matches. Brennan didn't believe him so he ran all the prints a second time. She pouted the second time around. It was actually kind of cute.

"What the hell?" Brennan asked loudly. Booth flinched. He was glad he had shut the door. "So we went from possibly having a lead to having no leads? That's not fair."

"That's how it goes sometimes, Bones." Booth leaned back on his chair. "Sometimes you think you're an inch from breaking the case and bam!" He clapped his hands "Square one." The wheels on his chair slid and he feel backwards an inch from slamming his head on the cabinet behind his desk. "Ow." Seeley rolled out of the wreak behind his desk. Brennan was on her feet, trying not to laugh.

"Are you okay?" She asked, her eyes wide as he stood.

"Yeah. Well, ow." Seeley's back twinged. He froze, placing a hand carefully on the edge of his desk. He breathed carefully as Brennan came around the side of the desk. She righted the chair and touched his elbow. He attempted to straighten and immediately regretted it.

"Do you want me to straighten your spine?"

"Um…" Seeley considered it. It was a good idea. "Yeah." He slowly straightened up and crossed his arms the way Brennan had taught him. She came around his back and wrapped her arms around him and bent him backward and there was an audible crack as his back realigned. The pain was gone and Booth exhaled. "You'd think I'd be smarter than that to lean back on a chair like that. I've probably told Parker a hundred times not to do it."

"At least he gets the tendency honestly through genetics." Booth tilted his head and looked at his partner.

"There are times where I wonder why I work with you."

"You work with me, Booth, because I am the best in my field. I read bones the way you read people and am a statistical balance to your intuitive nature. Also, I can fix your back."

"Very logical, Bones." She smiled. She knew she won. Women always know when they win, even if they don't know that they're fighting. Brennan went back to her seat across the desk and her salad. Booth carefully sat down and picked up a French fry. "Okay. So now that we can't get any further with Anne until the lab test come back and that plate is delivered to the Jeffersonian which should be sometime this afternoon which case do you want to focus on? The bombing of Zack's apartment or Olivia's case?"

"Um, Zack's apartment. I'm more emotionally invested in that than Olivia's murder I'm almost ashamed to say." Brennan stated between bites of food. "Did the bomb squad figure out anything?"

"Don't be. This guy attacked two of our own. It's personal. As far as the device goes, the bomb squad can tell there were multiple explosives hooked into a cell phone as a trigger."

"A cell phone?"

"Yeah, apparently it was rigged to go off on an alarm setting or possibly an incoming call." Booth liked it when he knew something Brennan didn't. It made him feel smart.

"So it's possible that the bomber was in the area and had seen Zack and Angela pull into the driveway?"

"Very possible."

"But why Zack? Why not go for the main house and get Hodgins as well and why not wait for Zack to be in the apartment before blowing it up?"

"I don't know. Why not blow up you or me? We're the ones investigating the murders. Zack's an assistant." Brennan said.

"Except Zack has something to gain if Anne's dead and he had reasons to want Olivia dead as well."

"See that's what I don't get…why kill Olivia? Why not go straight for the man that killed Zack's boyfriend? And I thought that we were focusing on the explosion?" Brennan redirected the conversation back on track. It didn't help that they were focusing on the 'Zack angle' of the case and it was giving them all a bad case of tunnel vision. Booth shook his head.

"We were. Sorry, I got distracted. So, Anne's body is discovered and identified and then Zack's house is blown up."

"What if Zack nor Anne was the target. What if Zerbrowski was?"

"How do you mean?"

"He was completely broken up when I went to see him."

"When you told him about his wife's death?" Opps. That was a slip of the tongue if there ever was one. Booth thought fast.

"No…I went back…I wanted some information about Zack and thought it be best to try and get it with as few people knowing as possible. It was fairly personal and I didn't want to put you through any stress just in case he started bad-mouthing Zack again."

"Again?"

"When Zack and I went to tell him about Anne Zerbrowski started ranting about how Zack wasn't worth killing for and stuff like that. It really broke Zack up. If Zerbrowski started in on stuff like that in front of you I didn't want you to haul off and punch him like I wanted to. The guy's a lawyer and I didn't need him suing you over assault charges."

"That's fair and not to mention very logical of you. I probably would have punched him. I did not like that man."

"Neither do I. I can't see how Zack could have slept with him."

"No better prospects?" Brennan postulated.

"Maybe. Zack still deserves better. Anyway, when I went back Zerbrowski was drunk off his ass and ranting about how his firm dumped him and his life was in shambles because the two people he cared about the most were gone."

"Gone?"

"He dumped Zack. Anyway…if the point of the bombing was to get Zack to break up with Zerbrowski after Anne was dead…it left Zerbrowski completely alone." Booth swiveled back and forth in his chair. He didn't like to be still for so long.

"I see. The target could have been Zerbrowski…a revenge sort of thing. We should look into that. After lunch." Brennan popped an olive into her mouth with a grin to prove her point.

"Now, what about Olivia?" Booth started to lean back on his chair but thought better of it. He shouldn't push his luck twice. Falling off a chair was not like a lightening strike...it could happen to a person more than once.

"She was on the run, assumed a false identity, disappeared and her bones were left on her porch in a cardboard box."

"That's incredibly personal. Both women were incredibly personal kills. Shot to the chest, close to point blank range with birdshot. The fact that the killer made the point to get Olivia back to Hector but didn't make the same attempt with Anne and James indicates a connection to the Oscarmanns more so than the Zerbrowskis." Booth started tapping his fingers on his desk. God, he was antsy today. One would think with all the sex he's had in the last twenty-four hours would have calmed him down.

"Is it possible that the killer followed Olivia's bones to D.C?" Brennan asked.

"Kinda like stalking her even after he killed her?"

"Yes. If the killer gave back Olivia to her husband maybe even hoping to expose Hector for the liar that he was but he foists off the remains as a Jane Doe." Brennan really got into her tale. Booth took a moment to smile. Usually it was Seeley coming up with the story behind the murders. "This frustrates the killer and he tracks the bones up to the Jeffersonian because the murder isn't being given recognition."

"Where he encounters Zack playing with his masterpiece, trying to figure out who she was."

"He stalks Zack and sees a woman who is identical to Olivia."

"He wonders 'how is she alive' and goes after her and the man who she is married to in every way possible because whoever this woman is married to deserves to suffer, which includes trying to kill the man with whom the husband is having an affair." Something wasn't sitting with Booth right about the story. Something was missing or off. It just might be his grammar; it got better after hanging around Brennan for so long. Sometimes he listened to himself speak and it threw him.

"But why send Anne's boyfriend the pictures of the affair?" Brennan drew out the word 'why' and balled up her napkin in one hand.

"Control. Our killer wanted her to leave the spa and kill her before she got home so when she went to the graveyard instead of going directly to confront her husband it was just a really great moment to kill her. Opportunity plus motive. equals a dead Anne." Booth played with a french fry with one finger. He was too involved with the story to eat.

"Do you think he was planning on waiting to see how the realization was going to affect Zerbrowkski?"

"Yeah but why didn't he send proof of her affair to Zerbrowski? Why the one way?" Seeley was still trying to figure out what wasn't fitting. There was something. He just couldn't lay his finger on it.

"Maybe the killer knew the Zerbrowski didn't care that his wife was sleeping with another man because Zerbrowski was sleeping with another man as well-"

"-which is the bigger lie." Booth finished. The killer had something against liars. But why? And what set him off?

"Exactly."

"But why? What did James Zerbrowski do that-"

"Not Zerbrowski…Hector…Hector Oscarmann killed his own son and then escaped from prison, forged papers, and impersonated a police officer." Brennan got excited.

"That's a long list of crimes and a lot of them include lying. So we need to figure out which one set our killer off and who he is."

"Yep."

LINE BREAK*************

Zack looked at Hodgins. What was Jack getting at? Asking him to move in with him and Angela now was illogical. Zack had a place to stay. Something in the situation must have changed according to Jack's perception. "No, I'm staying here with Booth."

"What?" Hodgins was incredulous. Zack was turning down staying with his friends in order to hang out with Booth some more? Booth hated him.

"I said no. I am staying here with Agent Booth. I feel safe here."

"I could keep you safe, Zack."

"It was on your property that Angela and I were nearly blown up, Hodgins."

"That's harsh, man."

"It's the truth."

"Truth or not you didn't have to state it so blatantly."

"I have found that speaking to you in a non-forthright manner only breeds confusion and anger. Anger and confusion shuts down the channels of communication without which lost we would all be."

"Thank you, Yoda. Why would you want to stay here?"

"Booth has been a very good host."

"And how long do you think that will last? He's not known for been an easygoing guy, Zack, especially not when it comes to you."

"I know that."

"Then why stay here?"

"I told you I feel safe and he's been a good host."

"Those are weak excuses, Zack, and you know it."

"Why do you want me to come now?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's been a few weeks, Hodgins. Why are you asking me to come live with you and Angela now?"

"Because you were really hurt and I could only deal with taking care of one of you at a time." Hodgins sighed. "And you were mad at me. I didn't want you to think that I was only offering to take care of you because I felt sorry for you."

"So you no longer feel sorry for me?"

"No."

"So you still feel sorry for me?"

"No, I mean no I don't feel sorry for you. No sympathy or empathy for you whatsoever."

"So you do not care that I was nearly blown up in the explosion that resulted in me losing my home, dumped, and then nearly shot by the man that killed the only person I've ever loved within the space of a few weeks?"

"No, I care about that. I just….dammit Zack, why do you have to be so logical?"

"Because logic has yet to fail me and you're changing the subject."

"You're right. I am. Okay. Zack?"

"Yes?"

"Is there a reason you want to stay here rather than come and crash on the futon at Angela?"

"You and Angela are probably going to have sex."

"Yeah, and?"

"Do you not remember the movie night that she came over with you and we watched 'Interview with the Vampire' when I first got back from Iraq?"

"Yes?"

"By the time Claudia died you and she went to have sex on my bed. You were loud."

"Well, I'm good in bed, Zack. Ang' just can't help it sometimes."

"I didn't say Angela was loud. I said you were loud. It was very awkward for me to sit and try and watch the movie when you were screaming obscenities to God and asking for more. I ended up sleeping on my sofa for a week while I waited for a new set of bed sheets to be rush delivered from Target's website."

"Oh."

"I think I'll stay with Booth."

"Yeah. Okay." Hodgins stood and started to leave. He turned back, opened his mouth, shut it and started cleaning up the Chinese food. "I'll just take this." Hodgins cleared his throat. He was almost out the door when Zack stood.

"Hodgins?" Jack turned abruptly. "You're still my best friend. We're….good? Right?" Jack smiled at his younger friend.

"Yeah, we're good." Hodgins nodded and left the apartment.

Author After Talk:

So I know this is a long time coming because well, you keep sending me reviews telling me exactly how long it's been since I've update. I'm a horrible person. I've been busy writing sex scenes…including drafts for the one in the next chapter…this is the long warning for that. I just got three reviews in three days. And here I thought people forgot about this fic.

Tropic