Bones FF: The girl in the video
Thanks to Kim for betaing.
And this chapter was written in November so there's no way I could know about the M.J. thing...
Chapter 1: I'll be there
"Wow, someone really wanted that person dead," Hodgins said when he saw the burned bone- fragments on the table on the platform. It looked more like a pile of black rocks than human bones and they still smelled of fire. Beside the table where the bones lay, sat several containers with earth that needed to be sifted for smaller bone fragments and a tray with soil samples. An evidence bag with a backpack in it lay on another table, the contents of it spread out beside it.
"I think it's more likely that someone wanted to prevent that the victim from being identified and was very thorough in his attempt," Brennan corrected him but Hodgins just kept grinning, shook his head and took a closer look at the bones, then the soil samples.
"What do we know so far?" Cam asked and took the file that Booth handed her when she arrived on the platform. She didn't open the file though but looked at Booth, who was leaning against the banister, knowing that he could tell her a summary much faster. While the others all wore their blue lab coats, Cam hadn't changed yet that morning and was still wearing a black pencil skirt and a burgundy sweater, her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
"Human remains found in a little neighborhood garden last night. Seems like the body was hacked up and then burned, we don't know yet with what exactly," he said and gave Cam a once-over, stopped when he found what had irritated him. She was incredibly tall that day, but when he saw the four-inch heels she wore he knew why. He raised his eyebrows, wondering why she wore those shoes for work. Sure, she always wore heels, but not such heels. Who was the guy, he wondered but she just grinned back at him and shook her head, signalized him that she wouldn't tell him what he wanted to know.
"I'm on it," Hodgins said in an answer to Booths summary and took a cotton swab from the table beside him so he would get the particulates and the ash off the bones and could analyze them.
"In a dumpster not too far away we found a backpack that was also burned, or at least one tried to burn it, but it was one of those fancy "they outlive you anywhere in the world" backpacks so one tried to get rid of it by throwing it in the trash," Booth went on and pointed to the lilac colored backpack. "Inside the backpack was a USB drive, an old newspaper and some pens. No notes, no purse, no cell phone," he finished.
"Any other indications who that might be?" Cam wanted to know and pointed to the remains.
"So far we don't even know yet if "that" is male or female," Booth sighed and crossed his arms in front of his chest, already annoyed with this case. Sometimes he just couldn't wrap his head around what people were able to do.
"Mr. Bray will assemble the bone fragments while I reconstruct the skull," Brennan said and picked up the biggest fragment from the table, the pubic bone, the only bone still intact. "But the pubic bone suggests that the victim is female, hasn't given birth yet," she went on squinting at the bone.
"Can you give me an age or an age range at least?" Booth asked and pulled out his notepad and a pen.
"At this point I would say young, early twenties to mid twenties," Brennan replied.
"Ok, so Hodgins will analyze the particulates, you two have enough work with the bone fragments and I will see if I can get any tox- results from what is left. Angela, maybe you should take a look at the USB drive, hopefully that will get us something," Cam decided.
"It's burned and melted, but I can try," Angela shrugged and took the Petri- dish with the USB drive on it.
"Ok," Cam nodded; pleased that everyone had something to do and they would hopefully have some results soon. She wanted to walk off when Booth stopped her.
"How's your dad doing?" he asked referring to her two-week absence because her father had had a heart attack and she had looked after him.
"Good, better. It wasn't like he really needed me there in the first place, but you know how my Aunt Sally is," she relied and rolled her eyes.
"How old is she now? 110?" Booth grinned, obviously knowing what she was talking about.
"Oh god, don't let her hear that. She's 78 now, dresses like 30 and acts like 18," she laughed.
"So nothing changed," he laughed with her.
"No, nothing changed," she shook her head and for a second that strange look came over her face that she always got when she thought about her family. Was it pain? Regret? It was the usual look she got whenever she remembered her mother, Booth knew. He had never met her but from what he had been told Cam and her mother had been very close and her sudden death had been extremely hard for her oldest daughter.
"Felicia is still picking on you, your dad watches TV all day long, your grandma isn't speaking to you and aunt Sally is the drama queen that brings home the young studs," he summed it up with a smile and hoped he would distract her from the painful memory of losing her mother.
"Exactly," she nodded with a pained expression, but the humor was back in her eyes.
"Why is your grandmother not talking to you?" Angela asked curiously while she cleaned the USB drive carefully with a cotton swab and some water.
"That's the big family secret, no one knows," Booth said jokingly.
"Ok, ok, I'll tell you so you finally shut up," Cam said with a lecturing glance in Booth's direction. "When I was sixteen I stole money from her to buy a record I really wanted. Ever since then she thinks I am not trustworthy," she confessed and everybody laughed.
"What record was it?" Angela wanted to know curiously.
"Bad," Cam smiled.
"Michael Jackson," Booth nodded and did something that was supposed to be the moonwalk, but failed miserably what made Brennan only raise her eyebrows.
"Speaking of teenagers: How is Michelle?" Hodgins wanted to know and Cam was a bit surprised by his question.
"Good. A bit scared by my extended family now, but good," she answered and took another file from the desk by the computer. "I'm in my office if anyone needs me," she said then and left the platform.
~*~
"Hey you," Angela said later that day when she walked into the bone-room where Wendell was working. "How's it going?" she asked. He was squinting at a bone he held between his index finger and thumb up into the light.
"It's hard. There are thousands of Bones fragments and I can't clean them yet because Hodgins hasn't given his ok," he sighed and turned a bone fragment the size of a quarter from one side to the other, then placed it where the other "spine" fragments lay. "Did you need something?" he asked when she just stood there and watched him, hands buried in the pockets of her lab coat.
"I thought we could spend lunch break together," she replied and her voice got that silky undertone that gave away only too easily what she had in mind and it had nothing to do with "lunch". When she came to him, slung her arms around his neck and smiled at him seductively it was hard to resist.
"You know I would love to, but the rules Dr. Saroyan set are pretty clear on that and I'd hate to lose my job here," he replied, reminding her of the no-making-out-rule Cam had introduced after Hodgins had found them kissing in her office. To say that he had freaked out was an understatement and after a speech about being a team, Cam had applied the new rules.
"You're no fun," she pouted and let her arms drop to her sides.
"She has a point. My jaw still hurts where Jack punched me," he shrugged but looked apologetic.
"Jack is fine with us now, we even all went out together the other night," she told him, not willing to give up that easily.
"Talk to Dr. Saroyan about the rules," he replied then stopped and started to grin. "Or we could just go to this small hotel a few minutes from here," he got an idea.
"Oh, I like that idea," Angela smiled brightly and slung her arms back around his neck and kissed him.
"People, what did I tell you? You want me send Hodgins in so he can punch your lights out again?" Cam's voice suddenly came from behind Angela and they quickly broke apart.
"We were just discussing lunch break plans," Angela said sheepishly while Wendell blushed.
"I hope they either include eating food or a room far, far away from the institute," Cam replied with raised eyebrows and crossed her arms in front of her chest.
"I better get back to my video," Angela excused herself with a small smile and Cam turned to Wendell who was still staring on the floor.
"Anything new here besides lunch plans?" she asked him.
"From the cut marks on the bones I'd say someone sawed her in three big parts, hacked her up with a normal ax and then burned the remains," he replied and showed her some of the bones fragments under the magnifier.
"Have you found cause of death yet?" she asked and examined the bone shards.
"At the moment I'd say the saw and the ax are a pretty good guess," he shrugged.
"Ok, I'm gonna go and talk to Brennan and what she has so far," she nodded and walked to the door. She was nearly out when she stopped and turned back around. "Mr. Bray, I'm not doing this because I am opposed to you and Angela together. I applied those rules because I have to look out for the whole team. Hodgins is your friend and he still hasn't got over the break-up. Keep that in mind before you and Angela make out right in front of his eyes the next time," she said, couldn't just keep it to herself. Wendell only nodded and the thoughtful look on his face told her that maybe her little speech hadn't fallen on completely deaf ears. She still doubted though that Angela had got a hearing aid meanwhile, although it was absolutely needed.
~*~
For the rest of the day and the next they all worked more or less quietly and for themselves, each occupied with their own work. It was hard getting any results this time when everything was hacked into pieces and burned.
The morning of the third day Brennan was finally able to finish the reconstruction of the skull. Angela had been waiting for it because she couldn't do much while the computer was rendering to get the data of the burned USB drive.
~*~
"Dr. Saroyan, I found cause of death," Brennan said, entering Cam's office. She had just brought the skull to Angela and stopped by her boss on her way out, because Booth was already waiting for her, so they could interview the man who had found the remains.
"Oh, really? Great! What was it?" Cam said and looked up from her papers.
"A blow to the back of the head with a sharp object, most likely a fire ax or a machete," Brennan said and showed her the x-rays. Cam looked at them and scrunched up her face when she saw the large cleft on the back of the skull.
"Any progress on the rest of the body?" she wanted to know and placed the x-rays in the folder that contained the other things linked to the case.
"So far we have the complete skull, the right hand, parts of the back and the legs," Brennan replied and Cam nodded. "The bones of the hands show no signs of a struggle, no fractures," Brennan went on.
"Did she see the blow coming?" Cam wanted to know.
"No. Angela was able to show us the blow on the Angelator and by the angle it is unlikely that she saw it coming," Brennan shook her head.
"Killed with an ax, hacked up... the murderer sure liked his ax," Cam summed it up and used her humor to deal with the gruesomeness of human nature. For her it came down to sarcasm or empathy most of the time and she couldn't afford compassion very often. There was only so much she could take.
"I'm going to interview the man who found the remains with Booth now. I'll be back later," Brennan excused herself and was off and left Cam alone with her paperwork.
~*~
"Hey Bren?" Angela asked later the same day when she entered the office of her best friend.
"Angela?" the anthropologist looked up from the report she was writing.
"Just a quick question: The victim is Caucasian right?" she asked.
"Yes, did I forget to put it in the report?" she asked back.
"No, it's just that I don't get any hits of the missing persons data base, no matter what hair or eye color I insert," Angela said.
"Maybe no one reported her missing," Brennan replied logically.
"Everybody should be missed. And she was... beautiful, no matter what hair color I give her. Big eyes, high cheekbones, small nose, even facial structure," Angela said and became sentimental, like every time she had to deal with a very gruesome case.
"Maybe she was an illegal prostitute that someone got rid of," Cam's voice came from the door and she and Hodgins entered the lab.
"I can't help much on this case though, there's no flesh and all my analysis come out with zero results. The fire damaged too much," she shrugged apologetically in Angela's direction.
"And all I can say is that she was burned with ethyl alcohol, " he said to Angela who nodded.
"Anything on the USB drive yet?" Cam asked the artist.
"It's an 8GB USB drive and it's completely full with data. I am not sure how much I can recover though. Looks like its all video and sound files," Angela informed them.
“Porn?” Hodgins asked from behind with a grin on his face.
“How I missed your inappropriate comments, Hodgins,” Cam said sarcastically but smiled.
“Good to know you missed me,” he replied cheekily.
"I can see what we have so far," Angela said, now smiling as well about the banter. She walked into her office, Cam and Hodgins following her and clicked some buttons on her computer. "Looks like part of one video is restored," she said then and hit the play button. She looked at it without that the others could see it yet and wrinkled her forehead.
“When I did the facial reconstruction Brennan and I assumed that the victim was Caucasian, so I drew her that way and we didn’t get any hits, no matter what hair or eye color I put in. I just talked to her about it. Now looking at the video I'd say she's mixed race. I think our victim just got a real face, although slightly younger. It was recorded in 1999,” she replied and started the film, this time on the big screen so the other two could see it as well. She also turned on the sound.
A home video started showing an empty chair in a living room in front of a PC. The PC camera was one of the better ones but still the quality wasn’t great. The camera swayed and music set in and a second later a teenager showed up and sat down in the chair. The girl was maybe 14, had long dark, curly hair and big blue eyes. It was hard to tell what nationality she had and the room behind her looked luxury but didn’t give any indication where she could be. She wore jeans and a tight red T-shirt; her curls fell loosely over her shoulders.
“She’s really good,” Angela said just before the girl started singing I’ll be there. She sounded young but she had an incredible voice and hit all the right notes, what seemed, effortlessly.
“She really is,” Hodgins agreed and looked to Cam who had remained silent so far. He found her frozen next to him, her hands clutching the folder in her hands so hard her knuckles were white. “Cam?” he asked what provoked Angela’s attention. She looked questioningly at him, then back at Cam. When her boss still wasn’t reacting she placed a hand on her arm.
“Cam you’re ok?” she asked and slowly Cam turned her head to look at her.
“The victim is not the girl in the video,” she said with a toneless voice that scared Angela. She sounded convinced against better judgment and without any proof- Like she just needed to be right on this one.
“Her facial features match,” Angela insisted softly, and eyed her boss warily, not sure why she was reacting so strangely.
That seemed to snap Cam out of her daze and frantically she opened the folder and flipped through it. When she found the picture she was looking for she held it with trembling hands and stared at the rendering Angela had done of the victim. In this picture the young woman still had straight, blonde hair.
Cam shook her head slowly from side to side then stilled, her eyes returned to the screen. Her mouth stayed slightly open while her eyes widened, her pupils dilated like she wanted to take in everything, understand what she was seeing, make sure she wasn’t mistaken.
I’ll reach out my hand to you, I’ll have faith in all you do. Just call my name and I’ll be there
That girl, those eyes, the curls, the smile on her face… Cam turned her head to the side, away from the screen and looked in the direction of the lab and the table there, knowing the remains were up there, in a state that made it hard to realize this had been a human being. Yet, it was her. The girl on the video. A young woman now. Burned. Hacked into pieces. Dead.
I’ll be there with a love that’s strong. I’ll be your strength, I’ll keep holding on.
She looked back to the screen, her brain refusing to accept that the girl in the video was the victim out there, those remains. She didn’t notice that her hands had started shaking, that her whole body was trembling until the folder she had held in her hands dropped to the floor, the papers falling out with a rustling sound. She looked down slowly before her eyes went back to the screen.
“Cam?” she heard Angela ask but it didn’t register in her head that the artist was really talking to her. She couldn’t process that information, couldn’t react anymore. Her world seemed limited to the screen in front of her, the smile on the girls face, her voice in her ears. Dead.
Togetherness, well that’s all I’m after. Whenever you need me, I’ll be there.
Suddenly the voice was gone, the smile froze- Angela had stopped the video.
Her eyes still glued to the screen Cam felt a pain in her chest unlikely anything she had ever felt before. She gasped in pain, felt like she was being ripped apart in the middle. Her breathing quickened and her left hand flew to her chest. She couldn’t stand this pain, she couldn’t breathe. She squeezed her eyes shut and the girl disappeared in front of her eyes. With one hand she tried to open the top button of her blouse but didn't succeed. She needed air. She felt a wave of nausea overtaking her, cold sweat broke out. Then the pain stopped and everything went black.
TBC