Fic: The Senator in the Scarecrow (13/25)
Title: The Senator in the Scarecrow [Chapter Thirteen: The House Began to Pitch]
Author: ladychi
Beta Babes: katmorning, cathmarchr
Graphic Banner & Custom Icon: ladyredraven
Characters/Pairings: Booth/Brennan, Hodgins/Angela, Cam, Sweets, Wendell, Clark, Parker Booth, various OCs
Rating: M for language, graphic violence and graphic sex
Summary: It's August in western Kansas and a Senator's gone missing. When a body shows up in a field of milo, the President himself wants only the best investigating the murder. Seeley Booth and Temperance Brennan are both plucked unceremoniously from their lives and thrust extreme-rural Kansas after a year apart. Takes place immediately after the year of separation in The Beginning in the End, the S5 finale. Multi-part mystery, updated every Monday.
Previous Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve
Author's Note: Posted unbeta'd because... this weekend has been pretty epically bad. I hope this makes everyone else's Monday a little bit better.
Chapter Thirteen: The House Began to Pitch
Sweets studied the photographs of the crime scene in front of him with great interest, making notations on his pad of paper about the placement of the body, the care that was taken to make sure the corpse invoked the right cultural image.
“Lance?” Parker's curious voice interrupted his stream of thought, and he lifted his head.
“Yeah, buddy?”
“What are you doing?”
Sweets tapped his pen against the file folder. “I'm looking at details from the crime scene to see what I can tell your dad and Dr. Brennan about the murderer.”
“Like what kind of stuff?”
“Uh, well --” Sweets coughed. “Dr. Brennan, she looks at all the physical evidence, right?”
“She can look at an elbow and tell you whether someone's played football or not. It's really cool,” Parker said enthusiastically. “Not as cool as Dr. Hodgins, though. He looks at bugs all day. That's the coolest.”
“Right. Well, that's all physical stuff. I tell your dad and Dr. Brennan stuff about what the murderer is thinking, help them decide what type of person to look for in a suspect.”
Parker wrinkled his nose. “How do you figure that out?”
“Statistics, sometimes. Sometimes I can tell a lot about a person based on the murder weapon they choose to use, or how they arrange or don't arrange their victims.”
“That's cool.”
Sweets smiled. “Yeah, most of the time it's pretty cool.”
“I hope you've explained to Parker the weaknesses and guesswork inherent in your field, Dr. Sweets,” Dr. Brennan said, as she and Booth emerged from the room off the kitchen where they'd wrapped up the conference call with D.C.
“I had hoped that Parker could at least get into adolescence before I completely biased him against a legitimate scientific field of study, Dr. Brennan.”
Dr. Brennan raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing further. Sweets fought the urge to do a victory dance. His resolution not to let Booth and Brennan intimidate him any longer was well on its way to being fulfilled.
Booth's phone chirped and he flipped it open. “Booth.” There was a pause. “Oh? That's good news. Yeah. Just fax that list on over to Dr. Saroyan at the Jeffersonian. She'll know what to do with it.” Another pause. “Yeah. Thanks, sheriff. Great. Good. See ya soon.” He flipped the phone close.
“That was Sheriff Brainy?” Brennan asked, absent-mindedly reaching for one of the strawberries in a large bowl on the kitchen table.
“Sheriff Brainard, Bones. He had a list of possible victims for us. Missing persons in the age range you gave us, all in that timeframe, as well. He already knew to send it to your phone and he's passing it on to Cam, as well.”
“Good,” Brennan said firmly. “So, in the meantime we focus our investigation on the first murder victim?”
“Yes. Donaldson's leaving for Salina in a few minutes. He's going to do a follow-up there with the widow Williams, see what he can't dig up from staffers there. You and I are going to poke around this connection Helen Rettinger has to Senator Williams. Do some asking around town.”
“Why?” Brennan wrinkled her brow. “Helen Rettinger has to be at least forty-five years old, Booth. Do you really think people are going to remember anything about the circumstances of her birth?”
Mrs. Hoake entered the kitchen from the back door and laid down a bucket of potatoes near the kitchen sink. Wiping her forehead with a handkerchief, she studied the FBI personnel and little boy currently occupying her home.
“Helen Rettinger?” She asked, raising her eyebrows. “Are you talking about how she was born on the wrong side of the sheets?”
“You know something about that?” Booth asked, smirking a little at Brennan.
“Well, yeah. Before she was married she was a Trent. And everybody knows about Sylvia Trent - that would be Helen's mother. Well, everyone from around here, anyway. Poor woman.” Mrs. Hoake flipped the faucet on with one hand and started to scrub the dirt off of her hand with lemon-scented dishwashing soap.
“Excuse us a minute,” Booth said, holding up a finger. “Parker, why don't you go find some cartoons in the other room, okay?”
“I can't stay?”
Booth shook his head. “Sorry, buddy. Not right now, okay?”
Parker huffed, and sighed in a way that was so perfectly Rebecca it took Booth's breath away. “This is lame, Dad.”
“Yeah. We're going to do something fun tonight, though.”
“Okay.” Parker was used to being an FBI kid, Booth reminded himself, and he had a murder to solve. Just because he wanted to spend every waking moment with his son didn't mean that he was going to be allowed that privilege any time soon. As soon as the door to the living room shut, Booth turned his attention to Mrs. Hoake. “What can you tell me about Sylvia Trent?”
“Well, you know. She went to school just down the road here, and I guess... oh... about forty years or so, she met that Williams boy at a conference in Manhattan. Like... boys state, girls state... something like that. That was a little after my time, but Ethan's youngest sister went to school with Sylvia. It was the gossip of the day - this whirlwind romance between the married lawyer and the young high school girl. Sylvia couldn't have been more than... oh, just out of high school. Of course, Williams wasn't much older, but word was his wife was having troubles. Unhappy times at home, that kind of thing.” Mrs. Hoake lifted the bucket of potatoes and set it on the counter. “Folks got married younger then. I think it's probably better that people wait nowadays.”
“Anthropologically speaking, longer life expectancies ease the imperative to breed in socially accepted sexual situations, and therefore...”
“Whoa. Enough.” Booth raised his hand. “Mrs. Hoake, are you aware of the type of problems Mrs. Williams was having?”
“That was forty years ago, of course. Things like that weren't much talked about, but I seem to remember her losing a baby.”
“So. Sylvia Trent has an affair with a married Kent Williams before he was a senator, and comes back pregnant?” Booth raised his eyebrows.
“Well, they said at the time that Helen was that Bobby Reuger's daughter.” Helen shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know that many people believed that, but you know. He was taking care of Sylvia, taking care of Helen. There was no reason for anyone to object. Do you all think she might have had something to do with Senator Williams' death?”
“We can't comment on an open investigation,” Booth said, snapping his notebook closed. “I'm sorry.”
“No, it's completely okay!” Mrs. Hoake laughed. “I guess some things on TV are right, huh?”
Agent Donaldson stepped into the kitchen, his bag packed and in his hand. “Agent Booth? Just checking in before I leave.”
“Good. Hey, listen. Be careful out there, okay? Watch your back. They're giving you someone out of the KC office named Quentin. Supposed to be green, so...”
“I'll keep my eyes pealed and my head on straight, sir.”
Booth nodded. “Good. You'll give me a call this evening and brief me on what you've learned?”
“Absolutely, sir.” He turned and left the room with almost-military precision.
Sweets raised his eyebrows. “Fascinating.”
Booth turned, exasperated. “What now, Sweets?”
“How fast you can put the fear of God into people. It's really quite something, Sarge.”
Booth shook his head. “Don't call me that. And it's not fascinating, okay? People naturally want to do a good job.”
“Right.” Sweets dropped his eyes to the file in front of him, and Mrs. Hoake turned back to her potatoes.
“What do you say we get out of here, Bones? Take care of what we need to in town, huh?”
“That would be acceptable.”
“Sweets, you want to tag along, see if you can't help us ferret out folks that might know more than they're initially willing to admit?”
“Really?” Sweets perked up at the invitation. “You mean, like, in the field?”
“Well, sure. I figure we've got you housebroken now...”
“You know what? You can't bring me down now. Yes, I would like to join you, Agent Booth.” Sweets jumped to his feet and started throwing his files into his bag.
“Hey, Parks!” Booth opened the door to the living room, gesturing for Parker to join them in the kitchen. “Bones and I have to go do some work in town - ask some questions, that kind of thing. There's not much to do in town - do you want to hang out here, watch TV? Sweets is going to come with us.”
Parker shrugged his shoulders. “What is there to do out here?”
“I've got some things to do out in the garden, if you don't mind digging in the dirt, Parker,” Mrs. Hoake suggested. “Plus I think I've got a few bikes in the back shed... you could easily bike the length and breadth of town.”
“That might be cool,” Parker hedged.
“All right.” Booth rubbed his hands together. “You ready to rock and roll, Bones?”
“I am ready to leave, yes.” With a hug for Parker from Bones and Booth, they left Parker and Mrs. Hoake in the kitchen and braved the Kansas heat.
**
It was nearly noon before the rushed remains of the tin man body made it to the Jeffersonian. A small group gathered around the table where Wendell was laying out the remains. Cam and Angela discussed something in low voices to one side while Clark made minute adjustments and did an initial inspection, muttering to himself and making notations on a clipboard.
A quick beep-beep-beep announced the arrival of Hodgins, who took the stairs to the platform two at a time. He dropped a quick kiss on Angela's cheek and rubbed her back before he leaned over to inspect the body.
“We managed to remove some of the metal casing from the body, as you can see,” Clark said, turning to Hodgins. “Some of it, however, we'll need to remove the welding joints on.”
“I've got a plasma cutter at home that should make that task fairly easy,” Hodgins said, leaning over and bracing his hands on his knees as he looked at the body. “Wow. Whoever did this did a terrible job.”
“Well, I wouldn't be at my best if I were fitting a corpse into a metal suit. That's the kind of stuff that makes your hands shake,” Wendell observed. “Shaking hands don't make for good welds.”
“Or maybe our guy is just a really terrible welder,” Hodgins said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Okay, I'm going back to my office,” Angela announced, her hand on her back. “Wendell, you'll let me know when you're ready for the reconstruction, right?”
“Absolutely.” He lifted his head and flashed a brilliant smile at her.
Hodgins looked at her, worry in his eyes. “Everything okay?”
“I'm fine,” Angela said with a patient smile. “Just tired. My chair's in my office.”
Hodgins fought the urge to trail after her like an overanxious puppy. With Angela his general rule of thumb was to hold on loosely. Very, very loosely. To allow her as much space and freedom as she needed - for such a bright, loving and open person, she had a need for room that was unmatched by nearly everyone else he knew. Too much concern would smother her - not enough would devastate her.
Still, he felt a sort of relief when Cam walked up the stairs with her. She'd been more tired than usual lately, and he sometimes felt flashes of guilt that they'd come to back to DC from Paris, where she'd seemed so free and easy. Maybe the stress of coming back to the Jeffersonian wasn't good for her. Maybe he should have suggested staying there, instead of dragging her back to this death and destruction that he knew she found exhausting and disheartening.
“Dr. Hodgins?” Clark's voice snapped him out of his reverie.
“Yeah?” He shook his head and looked up at him.
“You're free to go ahead and take the clothing - I've done some scrapings for particulates, as well.”
“Oh. Hey. Thanks.” Hodgins smiled weakly and stood up, brushing his hands off on his jeans. He took a pair of gloves and, fitting them into place, reached for the evidence bags Clark was gesturing at, heading back to his office, still half-lost in thought.
He was preparing slides and getting ready to run some samples through the mass spectrometer when the door to his office opened and Wendell stepped inside.
“Hey man,” Hodgins said. “What's up?”
“Not much. I'm just checking on you and Angie. Everything okay?”
Hodgins shrugged. “She says it's fine.”
“Ah.” Wendell found a stress ball on Hodgins' desk and started to toss it back and forth between his hands. “But you think it isn't?”
“I think she's tired.” Hodgins removed his gloves, tossed them into a trash can and slid the glass slide under a microscope. “More tired than she'd like to admit.”
Wendell shrugged his shoulders. “Aren't pregnant women supposed to be tired?”
“Yeah.” Hodgins sighed. “I don't know, man. I don't know that we did the right thing, coming back.”
“Were things better in Paris?”
“I don't know. Maybe? Ange was an artist in Paris, you know? It was like she walked around on clouds the whole time.” Hodgins shrugged. “Maybe that would be better than being here.”
“She finds this work important, too.” Wendell found a chair and plopped down in it. “If she didn't want to come back, she would have told you.”
“I guess that's true.”
“So. Twins, huh?”
“Crazy, right?” Hodgins turned his attention to focusing the microscope. With deft fingers and the ease of long practice, he swiftly brought the sample to clarity.
“Yeah. You're going to go from zero to a hundred and twenty in like, three seconds flat.” Wendell squeezed the stress ball and tossed it in the air. “You ready for that?”
Hodgins laughed. “Yeah. It's going to be insane, but then... life with Ange has never been what I'd call easy, you know?”
“Yeah. I know.” Wendell got to his feet, set the ball down on his desk. “I'd better get back to work. Dr. Edison's a slave driver.”
“Okay. Hey, listen, man...” Hodgins lifted his eyes from the microscope. “Thanks.”
“You're welcome.” Wendell left the office, the door closing behind him.
Hodgins returned his attention back to the sample. “Now. What are you, my beauty?”
**
Sweets found himself ensconced in the backseat of the SUV, a sort of nervous anticipation settling over him - that same feeling the lonely kid gets when he's asked to join the cool kids for lunch, he thought with a self-deprecating eyeroll. Someday, maybe these two would stop making him feel that way.
Booth and Brennan took their traditional seats and with no discussion at all, Booth started the SUV and eased the truck onto the nearly abandoned main drag that ran through the town.
“So!” Sweets said brightly. “How are you two doing?”
“We are satisfactory, as you can see,” Brennan said, glancing at Booth out of the corner of her eye.
“Booth?”
“We're fine, Sweets.” Booth glanced down at the gas gauge. “I'm guessing we're going to have to get gas soon, Bones.”
Noting that attempt at avoidance, Sweets sat back in his seat. This he could handle. “It must be quite a switch, huh? To go from digging up ancient remains in Indonesia to the backroads of Kansas.”
“It has required some adjustment,” Brennan acknowledged. “However, I am not finding adapting difficult.”
“What about you, Agent Booth?”
“What part of 'we're fine' did you miss, Sweets?”
“See, it's interesting that you insist on using the plural pronoun. I'm asking how you, individually, are coping with a return to the States and your FBI work.”
“Okay, then. I'm fine.” Booth snapped on his sunglasses. “I don't know how else to say it.”
Sweets made a sound in the back of his throat, and the vein in Booth's forehead just about popped out of the skin. Brennan cleared her throat and stepped in.
“Agent Booth is coping very well, considering he has just returned from a war zone. Sweets, I think it would be more helpful if you would concentrate your questions on the case at hand. Booth and I need to focus on work at the moment.”
“That's right.” Booth nodded and shot Brennan a grateful look. “Work. Work is what's important.”
“Is it?” Sweets raised his eyebrows. “Nothing else on your mind?”
“Jesus, Sweets. What the hell do you want me to say?”
Sweets shrugged. “I'd appreciate honesty.”
There was an odd sort of pop, and then the SUV swerved. Sweets grasped for purchase on the seat of the SUV and held on for dear life while Booth muscled them off the road. When they finally came to a stop Booth's door was the first to open. Sweets followed him immediately and saw Booth crumple to the ground, putting his head between his knees. He'd gone completely white. Sweets rushed forward, Dr. Brennan right behind him.
“Agent Booth?”
Brennan was quiet, her arms crossed over her chest, but she watched Dr. Sweets with narrowed eyes.
“Agent Booth? I need you to respond to me, please.”
“What?” Booth lifted his eyes. They were still foggy.
“Our SUV blew a tire,” Sweets said evenly. “You got us off the road. Are you okay?”
“I was - I was driving and the tire went out.” Booth shakily got himself to his feet. Brennan handed him a bottle of water from the car wordlessly.
“That's correct.” Sweets watched Booth uncap the bottle. “Is this the first time you've flashed back to Afghanistan?”
“No, but...” Booth drained his water bottle. “It's under control, okay Sweets?”
“Booth, you're having flashbacks?” Brennan's voice was soft but both men could tell she was displeased.
“Not... often, okay? Just... just three since I've been home, which is good...”
“Because last time they were much harder to deal with,” Sweets finished.
“Well, yeah.” Booth shrugged. “I'll be fine. I got us safe, didn't I?”
“Yes, you did,” Brennan acknowledged.
“I think now would be an appropriate time to focus on the task at hand,” Sweets said brightly, rubbing his hands together and shucking his suit jacket. “Let's change a tire, Agent Booth!”
“I'll change the tire. You'll stay out of my way.”
“I can change a tire,” Brennan interjected. “There's no need for you to prove your alpha male prowesss, Booth.”
“You know, not everything has to be a damn feminist statement. Sometimes a guy just wants to change a tire.”
“If you want to, you certainly may,” Brennan said. “Just know that I could do it.”
“Yeah, I know, Bones. You could do anything.”
**
Hodgins knocked on Cam's office door and stepped inside when she gestured him in. She was on the phone, chatting brightly with her obstetrician-boyfriend, and he waited while she ended the conversation.
“What've you got for me, Hodgins?”
“Tetrachloroethylen,” Hodgins said. “Our second victim's clothes are covered in it.”
“Clothes with dry cleaning fluid? Not that odd,” Cam said.
“Yeah, but it's also in the scrapings we took of skin cells.”
“Wait a minute. I think I remember... in that list Brennan sent over...” Cam reached across her desk. “Tom O'Hara... owned a dry cleaning business.”
Hodgins shrugged. “That would explain the high levels of the chemical in every scraping we took.”
“I'll get his information to Clark and Wendell - they can see if his stats match up with the victim's. Thanks, Hodgins.”
“You're welcome.” He turned to leave.
“Hodgins?”
“Yeah?”
“Why don't you and Angela take off early tonight?”
“Huh?”
Cam shrugged and picked up the file. “You're both looking tired. You've done a lot of good work today and the mass spec needs to finish running, right?”
“Right.”
“So. Go home. Take a load off. Chill out.” Cam patted his back as she passed him. “You deserve it.”
“Oh hey.” Hodgins grinned. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem. Get out of here, workaholic.”
Hodgins was already taking off his lab coat. “Already out the door!”
**
Chapter Fourteen: The Lollipop Guild
Author: ladychi
Beta Babes: katmorning, cathmarchr
Graphic Banner & Custom Icon: ladyredraven
Characters/Pairings: Booth/Brennan, Hodgins/Angela, Cam, Sweets, Wendell, Clark, Parker Booth, various OCs
Rating: M for language, graphic violence and graphic sex
Summary: It's August in western Kansas and a Senator's gone missing. When a body shows up in a field of milo, the President himself wants only the best investigating the murder. Seeley Booth and Temperance Brennan are both plucked unceremoniously from their lives and thrust extreme-rural Kansas after a year apart. Takes place immediately after the year of separation in The Beginning in the End, the S5 finale. Multi-part mystery, updated every Monday.
Previous Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve
Author's Note: Posted unbeta'd because... this weekend has been pretty epically bad. I hope this makes everyone else's Monday a little bit better.
Chapter Thirteen: The House Began to Pitch
Sweets studied the photographs of the crime scene in front of him with great interest, making notations on his pad of paper about the placement of the body, the care that was taken to make sure the corpse invoked the right cultural image.
“Lance?” Parker's curious voice interrupted his stream of thought, and he lifted his head.
“Yeah, buddy?”
“What are you doing?”
Sweets tapped his pen against the file folder. “I'm looking at details from the crime scene to see what I can tell your dad and Dr. Brennan about the murderer.”
“Like what kind of stuff?”
“Uh, well --” Sweets coughed. “Dr. Brennan, she looks at all the physical evidence, right?”
“She can look at an elbow and tell you whether someone's played football or not. It's really cool,” Parker said enthusiastically. “Not as cool as Dr. Hodgins, though. He looks at bugs all day. That's the coolest.”
“Right. Well, that's all physical stuff. I tell your dad and Dr. Brennan stuff about what the murderer is thinking, help them decide what type of person to look for in a suspect.”
Parker wrinkled his nose. “How do you figure that out?”
“Statistics, sometimes. Sometimes I can tell a lot about a person based on the murder weapon they choose to use, or how they arrange or don't arrange their victims.”
“That's cool.”
Sweets smiled. “Yeah, most of the time it's pretty cool.”
“I hope you've explained to Parker the weaknesses and guesswork inherent in your field, Dr. Sweets,” Dr. Brennan said, as she and Booth emerged from the room off the kitchen where they'd wrapped up the conference call with D.C.
“I had hoped that Parker could at least get into adolescence before I completely biased him against a legitimate scientific field of study, Dr. Brennan.”
Dr. Brennan raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing further. Sweets fought the urge to do a victory dance. His resolution not to let Booth and Brennan intimidate him any longer was well on its way to being fulfilled.
Booth's phone chirped and he flipped it open. “Booth.” There was a pause. “Oh? That's good news. Yeah. Just fax that list on over to Dr. Saroyan at the Jeffersonian. She'll know what to do with it.” Another pause. “Yeah. Thanks, sheriff. Great. Good. See ya soon.” He flipped the phone close.
“That was Sheriff Brainy?” Brennan asked, absent-mindedly reaching for one of the strawberries in a large bowl on the kitchen table.
“Sheriff Brainard, Bones. He had a list of possible victims for us. Missing persons in the age range you gave us, all in that timeframe, as well. He already knew to send it to your phone and he's passing it on to Cam, as well.”
“Good,” Brennan said firmly. “So, in the meantime we focus our investigation on the first murder victim?”
“Yes. Donaldson's leaving for Salina in a few minutes. He's going to do a follow-up there with the widow Williams, see what he can't dig up from staffers there. You and I are going to poke around this connection Helen Rettinger has to Senator Williams. Do some asking around town.”
“Why?” Brennan wrinkled her brow. “Helen Rettinger has to be at least forty-five years old, Booth. Do you really think people are going to remember anything about the circumstances of her birth?”
Mrs. Hoake entered the kitchen from the back door and laid down a bucket of potatoes near the kitchen sink. Wiping her forehead with a handkerchief, she studied the FBI personnel and little boy currently occupying her home.
“Helen Rettinger?” She asked, raising her eyebrows. “Are you talking about how she was born on the wrong side of the sheets?”
“You know something about that?” Booth asked, smirking a little at Brennan.
“Well, yeah. Before she was married she was a Trent. And everybody knows about Sylvia Trent - that would be Helen's mother. Well, everyone from around here, anyway. Poor woman.” Mrs. Hoake flipped the faucet on with one hand and started to scrub the dirt off of her hand with lemon-scented dishwashing soap.
“Excuse us a minute,” Booth said, holding up a finger. “Parker, why don't you go find some cartoons in the other room, okay?”
“I can't stay?”
Booth shook his head. “Sorry, buddy. Not right now, okay?”
Parker huffed, and sighed in a way that was so perfectly Rebecca it took Booth's breath away. “This is lame, Dad.”
“Yeah. We're going to do something fun tonight, though.”
“Okay.” Parker was used to being an FBI kid, Booth reminded himself, and he had a murder to solve. Just because he wanted to spend every waking moment with his son didn't mean that he was going to be allowed that privilege any time soon. As soon as the door to the living room shut, Booth turned his attention to Mrs. Hoake. “What can you tell me about Sylvia Trent?”
“Well, you know. She went to school just down the road here, and I guess... oh... about forty years or so, she met that Williams boy at a conference in Manhattan. Like... boys state, girls state... something like that. That was a little after my time, but Ethan's youngest sister went to school with Sylvia. It was the gossip of the day - this whirlwind romance between the married lawyer and the young high school girl. Sylvia couldn't have been more than... oh, just out of high school. Of course, Williams wasn't much older, but word was his wife was having troubles. Unhappy times at home, that kind of thing.” Mrs. Hoake lifted the bucket of potatoes and set it on the counter. “Folks got married younger then. I think it's probably better that people wait nowadays.”
“Anthropologically speaking, longer life expectancies ease the imperative to breed in socially accepted sexual situations, and therefore...”
“Whoa. Enough.” Booth raised his hand. “Mrs. Hoake, are you aware of the type of problems Mrs. Williams was having?”
“That was forty years ago, of course. Things like that weren't much talked about, but I seem to remember her losing a baby.”
“So. Sylvia Trent has an affair with a married Kent Williams before he was a senator, and comes back pregnant?” Booth raised his eyebrows.
“Well, they said at the time that Helen was that Bobby Reuger's daughter.” Helen shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know that many people believed that, but you know. He was taking care of Sylvia, taking care of Helen. There was no reason for anyone to object. Do you all think she might have had something to do with Senator Williams' death?”
“We can't comment on an open investigation,” Booth said, snapping his notebook closed. “I'm sorry.”
“No, it's completely okay!” Mrs. Hoake laughed. “I guess some things on TV are right, huh?”
Agent Donaldson stepped into the kitchen, his bag packed and in his hand. “Agent Booth? Just checking in before I leave.”
“Good. Hey, listen. Be careful out there, okay? Watch your back. They're giving you someone out of the KC office named Quentin. Supposed to be green, so...”
“I'll keep my eyes pealed and my head on straight, sir.”
Booth nodded. “Good. You'll give me a call this evening and brief me on what you've learned?”
“Absolutely, sir.” He turned and left the room with almost-military precision.
Sweets raised his eyebrows. “Fascinating.”
Booth turned, exasperated. “What now, Sweets?”
“How fast you can put the fear of God into people. It's really quite something, Sarge.”
Booth shook his head. “Don't call me that. And it's not fascinating, okay? People naturally want to do a good job.”
“Right.” Sweets dropped his eyes to the file in front of him, and Mrs. Hoake turned back to her potatoes.
“What do you say we get out of here, Bones? Take care of what we need to in town, huh?”
“That would be acceptable.”
“Sweets, you want to tag along, see if you can't help us ferret out folks that might know more than they're initially willing to admit?”
“Really?” Sweets perked up at the invitation. “You mean, like, in the field?”
“Well, sure. I figure we've got you housebroken now...”
“You know what? You can't bring me down now. Yes, I would like to join you, Agent Booth.” Sweets jumped to his feet and started throwing his files into his bag.
“Hey, Parks!” Booth opened the door to the living room, gesturing for Parker to join them in the kitchen. “Bones and I have to go do some work in town - ask some questions, that kind of thing. There's not much to do in town - do you want to hang out here, watch TV? Sweets is going to come with us.”
Parker shrugged his shoulders. “What is there to do out here?”
“I've got some things to do out in the garden, if you don't mind digging in the dirt, Parker,” Mrs. Hoake suggested. “Plus I think I've got a few bikes in the back shed... you could easily bike the length and breadth of town.”
“That might be cool,” Parker hedged.
“All right.” Booth rubbed his hands together. “You ready to rock and roll, Bones?”
“I am ready to leave, yes.” With a hug for Parker from Bones and Booth, they left Parker and Mrs. Hoake in the kitchen and braved the Kansas heat.
**
It was nearly noon before the rushed remains of the tin man body made it to the Jeffersonian. A small group gathered around the table where Wendell was laying out the remains. Cam and Angela discussed something in low voices to one side while Clark made minute adjustments and did an initial inspection, muttering to himself and making notations on a clipboard.
A quick beep-beep-beep announced the arrival of Hodgins, who took the stairs to the platform two at a time. He dropped a quick kiss on Angela's cheek and rubbed her back before he leaned over to inspect the body.
“We managed to remove some of the metal casing from the body, as you can see,” Clark said, turning to Hodgins. “Some of it, however, we'll need to remove the welding joints on.”
“I've got a plasma cutter at home that should make that task fairly easy,” Hodgins said, leaning over and bracing his hands on his knees as he looked at the body. “Wow. Whoever did this did a terrible job.”
“Well, I wouldn't be at my best if I were fitting a corpse into a metal suit. That's the kind of stuff that makes your hands shake,” Wendell observed. “Shaking hands don't make for good welds.”
“Or maybe our guy is just a really terrible welder,” Hodgins said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Okay, I'm going back to my office,” Angela announced, her hand on her back. “Wendell, you'll let me know when you're ready for the reconstruction, right?”
“Absolutely.” He lifted his head and flashed a brilliant smile at her.
Hodgins looked at her, worry in his eyes. “Everything okay?”
“I'm fine,” Angela said with a patient smile. “Just tired. My chair's in my office.”
Hodgins fought the urge to trail after her like an overanxious puppy. With Angela his general rule of thumb was to hold on loosely. Very, very loosely. To allow her as much space and freedom as she needed - for such a bright, loving and open person, she had a need for room that was unmatched by nearly everyone else he knew. Too much concern would smother her - not enough would devastate her.
Still, he felt a sort of relief when Cam walked up the stairs with her. She'd been more tired than usual lately, and he sometimes felt flashes of guilt that they'd come to back to DC from Paris, where she'd seemed so free and easy. Maybe the stress of coming back to the Jeffersonian wasn't good for her. Maybe he should have suggested staying there, instead of dragging her back to this death and destruction that he knew she found exhausting and disheartening.
“Dr. Hodgins?” Clark's voice snapped him out of his reverie.
“Yeah?” He shook his head and looked up at him.
“You're free to go ahead and take the clothing - I've done some scrapings for particulates, as well.”
“Oh. Hey. Thanks.” Hodgins smiled weakly and stood up, brushing his hands off on his jeans. He took a pair of gloves and, fitting them into place, reached for the evidence bags Clark was gesturing at, heading back to his office, still half-lost in thought.
He was preparing slides and getting ready to run some samples through the mass spectrometer when the door to his office opened and Wendell stepped inside.
“Hey man,” Hodgins said. “What's up?”
“Not much. I'm just checking on you and Angie. Everything okay?”
Hodgins shrugged. “She says it's fine.”
“Ah.” Wendell found a stress ball on Hodgins' desk and started to toss it back and forth between his hands. “But you think it isn't?”
“I think she's tired.” Hodgins removed his gloves, tossed them into a trash can and slid the glass slide under a microscope. “More tired than she'd like to admit.”
Wendell shrugged his shoulders. “Aren't pregnant women supposed to be tired?”
“Yeah.” Hodgins sighed. “I don't know, man. I don't know that we did the right thing, coming back.”
“Were things better in Paris?”
“I don't know. Maybe? Ange was an artist in Paris, you know? It was like she walked around on clouds the whole time.” Hodgins shrugged. “Maybe that would be better than being here.”
“She finds this work important, too.” Wendell found a chair and plopped down in it. “If she didn't want to come back, she would have told you.”
“I guess that's true.”
“So. Twins, huh?”
“Crazy, right?” Hodgins turned his attention to focusing the microscope. With deft fingers and the ease of long practice, he swiftly brought the sample to clarity.
“Yeah. You're going to go from zero to a hundred and twenty in like, three seconds flat.” Wendell squeezed the stress ball and tossed it in the air. “You ready for that?”
Hodgins laughed. “Yeah. It's going to be insane, but then... life with Ange has never been what I'd call easy, you know?”
“Yeah. I know.” Wendell got to his feet, set the ball down on his desk. “I'd better get back to work. Dr. Edison's a slave driver.”
“Okay. Hey, listen, man...” Hodgins lifted his eyes from the microscope. “Thanks.”
“You're welcome.” Wendell left the office, the door closing behind him.
Hodgins returned his attention back to the sample. “Now. What are you, my beauty?”
**
Sweets found himself ensconced in the backseat of the SUV, a sort of nervous anticipation settling over him - that same feeling the lonely kid gets when he's asked to join the cool kids for lunch, he thought with a self-deprecating eyeroll. Someday, maybe these two would stop making him feel that way.
Booth and Brennan took their traditional seats and with no discussion at all, Booth started the SUV and eased the truck onto the nearly abandoned main drag that ran through the town.
“So!” Sweets said brightly. “How are you two doing?”
“We are satisfactory, as you can see,” Brennan said, glancing at Booth out of the corner of her eye.
“Booth?”
“We're fine, Sweets.” Booth glanced down at the gas gauge. “I'm guessing we're going to have to get gas soon, Bones.”
Noting that attempt at avoidance, Sweets sat back in his seat. This he could handle. “It must be quite a switch, huh? To go from digging up ancient remains in Indonesia to the backroads of Kansas.”
“It has required some adjustment,” Brennan acknowledged. “However, I am not finding adapting difficult.”
“What about you, Agent Booth?”
“What part of 'we're fine' did you miss, Sweets?”
“See, it's interesting that you insist on using the plural pronoun. I'm asking how you, individually, are coping with a return to the States and your FBI work.”
“Okay, then. I'm fine.” Booth snapped on his sunglasses. “I don't know how else to say it.”
Sweets made a sound in the back of his throat, and the vein in Booth's forehead just about popped out of the skin. Brennan cleared her throat and stepped in.
“Agent Booth is coping very well, considering he has just returned from a war zone. Sweets, I think it would be more helpful if you would concentrate your questions on the case at hand. Booth and I need to focus on work at the moment.”
“That's right.” Booth nodded and shot Brennan a grateful look. “Work. Work is what's important.”
“Is it?” Sweets raised his eyebrows. “Nothing else on your mind?”
“Jesus, Sweets. What the hell do you want me to say?”
Sweets shrugged. “I'd appreciate honesty.”
There was an odd sort of pop, and then the SUV swerved. Sweets grasped for purchase on the seat of the SUV and held on for dear life while Booth muscled them off the road. When they finally came to a stop Booth's door was the first to open. Sweets followed him immediately and saw Booth crumple to the ground, putting his head between his knees. He'd gone completely white. Sweets rushed forward, Dr. Brennan right behind him.
“Agent Booth?”
Brennan was quiet, her arms crossed over her chest, but she watched Dr. Sweets with narrowed eyes.
“Agent Booth? I need you to respond to me, please.”
“What?” Booth lifted his eyes. They were still foggy.
“Our SUV blew a tire,” Sweets said evenly. “You got us off the road. Are you okay?”
“I was - I was driving and the tire went out.” Booth shakily got himself to his feet. Brennan handed him a bottle of water from the car wordlessly.
“That's correct.” Sweets watched Booth uncap the bottle. “Is this the first time you've flashed back to Afghanistan?”
“No, but...” Booth drained his water bottle. “It's under control, okay Sweets?”
“Booth, you're having flashbacks?” Brennan's voice was soft but both men could tell she was displeased.
“Not... often, okay? Just... just three since I've been home, which is good...”
“Because last time they were much harder to deal with,” Sweets finished.
“Well, yeah.” Booth shrugged. “I'll be fine. I got us safe, didn't I?”
“Yes, you did,” Brennan acknowledged.
“I think now would be an appropriate time to focus on the task at hand,” Sweets said brightly, rubbing his hands together and shucking his suit jacket. “Let's change a tire, Agent Booth!”
“I'll change the tire. You'll stay out of my way.”
“I can change a tire,” Brennan interjected. “There's no need for you to prove your alpha male prowesss, Booth.”
“You know, not everything has to be a damn feminist statement. Sometimes a guy just wants to change a tire.”
“If you want to, you certainly may,” Brennan said. “Just know that I could do it.”
“Yeah, I know, Bones. You could do anything.”
**
Hodgins knocked on Cam's office door and stepped inside when she gestured him in. She was on the phone, chatting brightly with her obstetrician-boyfriend, and he waited while she ended the conversation.
“What've you got for me, Hodgins?”
“Tetrachloroethylen,” Hodgins said. “Our second victim's clothes are covered in it.”
“Clothes with dry cleaning fluid? Not that odd,” Cam said.
“Yeah, but it's also in the scrapings we took of skin cells.”
“Wait a minute. I think I remember... in that list Brennan sent over...” Cam reached across her desk. “Tom O'Hara... owned a dry cleaning business.”
Hodgins shrugged. “That would explain the high levels of the chemical in every scraping we took.”
“I'll get his information to Clark and Wendell - they can see if his stats match up with the victim's. Thanks, Hodgins.”
“You're welcome.” He turned to leave.
“Hodgins?”
“Yeah?”
“Why don't you and Angela take off early tonight?”
“Huh?”
Cam shrugged and picked up the file. “You're both looking tired. You've done a lot of good work today and the mass spec needs to finish running, right?”
“Right.”
“So. Go home. Take a load off. Chill out.” Cam patted his back as she passed him. “You deserve it.”
“Oh hey.” Hodgins grinned. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem. Get out of here, workaholic.”
Hodgins was already taking off his lab coat. “Already out the door!”
**
Chapter Fourteen: The Lollipop Guild