{chap2} Hate Crime PG
Hate Crime
Summary - Zack has returned to the Jeffersonian, just in time for a new case to solve. As they delve into the murder of a young gay man, things get a little awkward for Booth. Booth/Zack slash.
Disclaimer - I don’t own Bones. I don’t even understand half the things the squints say.
Warning - boyxboy, some controversial topics about LGBTQ
A/N - I’m going to try to make this sound as much like an actual episode as possible. I don’t know jack about forensics, so it’s going to sound a bit underdeveloped. But I think the point of this whole story is to get Booth to bang Zack so I don’t think I’ll get any complaints about scientific accuracy. ;)
-
Chapter 2
“Alright, here’s how this is gonna work,” Booth said, his hand on the wheel and his eyes not bothering to leave the road. Zack sat where Booth was used to seeing Bones’ face, in the passenger seat, with a look on his face that suggested that he was concerned for his own safety. “You get the evidence, I do the talking. When I tell you to do something, you do it. If we’re in a dangerous situation, lie low and let me take care of it.”
“It would seem that everyone is glad I’m back except you,” Zack pointed out.
“Course I’m glad you’re back.” Booth made a sharp right, forcing Zack to slide over a little in his seat. “I gave you a pat on the back when I saw you, remember?”
“Our conversation would suggest otherwise.” Zack readjusted his seat belt.
“Look, you’re important, I’m not gonna deny that,” Booth tried to say kindly. “But in my humble opinion, your place is in the lab. I’m used to doing this kind of stuff with Bones.”
“So you miss Dr. Brennan,” Zack said, as if he wanted to be absolutely clear. “That’s the reason you don’t enjoy my presence. Not because you doubt that I can retain professional capability after living in an asylum for six months.”
“Yeah.” Booth felt a little uncomfortable. He had never truly gotten over the fact that someone he had worked with, or someone who worked with someone he worked with rather, had assisted a serial killer. “Don’t take offense. Just don’t annoy me too much and we’ll get along.”
“I’m sorry I’m not an immensely attractive young woman,” Zack shrugged matter-of-factly. “I doubt that you would object to work with me if I were.”
The car jerked a little as Booth retained his holding of the wheel and said nervously, “That’s not the reason I enjoy working with Bones. She’s great at her job.”
“I know, I’m just stating that it would be no surprise to me if you found her sexually attractive as well-”
“Looks like we’re here,” Booth interrupted curtly. “Don’t push it, buddy.”
Zack peered out the window. “Run-down houses and various bits of litter. This neighborhood appears to be badly-maintained and of fairly low value…is that a school?”
“Talking about the case, finally,” Booth muttered, taking out a folder. “Alright here’s the run-through: the body was found in a field next to that high school yesterday morning when students were on their way to class. Burborn High School, not the safest school around, I hear. Police secured the area in no time. They told me to warn any squints working on the case that students might have tampered the evidence.”
“Tampered?” Zack’s tone was grave. He seemed, quite frankly, offended that anyone would dare mess with his evidence.
“Tampered,” Booth confirmed. “You know, kids fooling around with the dead body. Seeing if it’s real, going up to touch it, maybe grabbing a bone or two to show off…”
“We should’ve gotten here earlier,” Zack sighed, opening the door and going around to retrieve the camera and evidence bags.
“Complaining already,” Booth groaned, getting out of the car as well. “You better do your magic evidence-finding the way you used to, or else I’m going to stop being so glad you got out.”
“It’s not magic, it’s the scientific process.” Zack retrieved the equipment and followed Booth to the scene of the crime. Police sirens and caution tape surrounded a corner of a fenced field, with the occasional stray teenager dropping by while skipping class. “Magic is science’s unfortunate nickname during periods of history when people were less knowledgeable of the causes of natural occurrences around them.”
“You’re beginning to sound more like Bones everyday,” Booth sighed, though a very slight hint of a smile played at the corner of his lips.
“I suppose if I wore a bra and high heels, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
“What is it with you and women’s clothes?” Booth demanded suddenly.
Zack blinked. He hadn’t noticed that this was the third time he’d related to himself to a woman in some way. “I’m…not sure,” He said hesitantly. Oh dear, he thought, I hope that having homosexual desires doesn’t lead me to becoming a woman. But then, if I were a woman and I was attracted to men, then wouldn’t I be heterosexual? No, no, homosexuality doesn’t change your gender, because if it did then the homo would always consequentially turn into hetero and then homosexuality wouldn’t even exist in the first place!
“Zack! Zack, are you listening? Wake up,” Booth snapped his fingers in front of Zack’s face. “Remember why you’re here?” Booth gestured toward the crime scene before him. Zack shook out of his confused expression and nodded quickly.
“Male, what looks to be Caucasian judging by skin tone, though the slight yellow hue implies partial Asian or Middle Eastern descent,” Zack observed. He began snapping pictures of the corpse. It was gruesome, but then again he’d seen worse. The face was unrecognizable, the skin having been scraped off by a sharp edge, but the rest of the flesh was largely intact. The arms were outstretched, tied to the fence with what looked like common string. There was a faint trail of dried blood in the grass for Zack to follow. Just because I mentioned myself in women’s clothes a couple times, I do not wish to be a woman.
Distantly, he heard Booth calling his name. “What?” He asked, eyes fully alert once again.
“Age, Zack, you got an age?” Booth repeated in an annoyed tone.
Zack peered into the victim’s mouth. “According to the height and build and the presence of wisdom teeth, approximately sixteen to twenty. Definitely high school age.”
“Alright, I’m going to need a list of all your attendance records,” Booth informed the principal, a nervous looking middle-aged man in a gray suit and Simpsons tie. “We need to find out who’s absent today-”
“Any number of kids could skip school,” The principal interrupted.
Booth gave him a look. “Well, whoever’s teaching classes with missing students can come and help identify the victim.”
“You can’t just pull my teachers out of class!” He exclaimed, eyes wide. This definitely made Booth narrow his eyes.
“What was your name again, sir?”
A look of fearful comprehension dawned on his face. “Principal Ralph Dawson,” He stuttered. “I’m not trying to interfere with the investigation! I just want to keep my school running as smoothly as possible with this in the way-”
“This is one of your students, Principal Dawson,” Booth said rather coldly. “Nice school you’re running here.”
“Was that graffiti always there?” Zack asked, pointing to the indiscernible red lines on the fence a few feet from the corpse.
“I don’t believe I’ve seen it before,” Principal Dawson said.
“Step out of the way, please,” Zack said, walking backwards and focusing his lenses. As he looked at the paint from a distance, he felt his blood run cold. Despite the many openings formed by the wired fence, it looked suspiciously like Die Fag.
Zack stayed silent and went off to the side, out of earshot as Booth and the principal argued. A broken cell phone lay hidden beneath a mess of thorns. He extracted it carefully and placed it in a bag, planning on testing for fingerprints and giving it to Angela later for possible personal information. He wondered if trying on women’s clothes would be worth it.
There wasn’t much else to look for. Footprints were indiscernible in the grass and Zack could find no signs of struggle anywhere further than a ten-foot radius around the corpse. He gave instructions to a forensic team to cut through the fence and remove the part containing the attached victim and graffiti.
“That’s the tax-payer’s money you want cut away there!” Principal Dawson exclaimed. “Are you even allowed to do that?”
“Actually, that’s a piece of evidence directly linked to the murder victim by way of prolonged physical contact,” Zack corrected, “not money.”
“Nice people skills,” Booth muttered. “Thank you,” He added as a secretary handed him attendance records. She glanced at the body and winced, looking as if she wanted to leave but Booth stopped her. “Will you be so kind to bring me…Misters Jordan and Carry and Ms. Overlin?”
“Excuse me, I’m going to my office,” Principal Dawson sighed. “Come on, Julie, you don’t need to look at this.”
Booth eyed the two walk away. “I don’t trust that man.”
“Is that enough to bring him into questioning?” Zack wondered, his eyes following them as well.
“He’s arguing against the investigation,” Booth said, “and he seems pretty familiar with that secretary of his.”
“How would you know?”
“He called her by her first name.”
“You call me and Angela by our first names,” Zack pointed out, “and you refer to Dr. Brennan as Bones. If you’re suggesting that he’s unprofessional because he refers to colleagues by their given names, then you’re suggesting that about yourself too.”
“Alright, it’s bad enough that I have to work with you for the next couple months,” Booth said. “Don’t start lecturing me, now.”
-
“Is Zack alright?” Angela asked, craning her neck to the side only to see Zack standing by the entryway. “He has the eyes of a starving man.”
“Looks like he’s itching to be back in the lab,” Cam said as she gently removed the string from the fence and the victim’s wrists. “Ask Hodgins if he can distinguish any particles from the string and spray paint.”
“We broke up months ago and everyone’s still treating me like his postal service,” Angela snorted, taking the tray with no real malice as she walked away. Cam allowed herself a small, amused smile before getting back to work.
“Any progress?” It was Booth from behind her shoulder. Dr. Brennan stood next to him, pulling on her gloves and taking her first look at the body.
“I only just started,” Cam said. “Look at Zack, he looks like he wants to be a part of this. He brought us all the evidence and he’s not allowed to touch a thing.”
“Nothing I can do about it,” Booth said. “Potential hazard to the lab, remember? It was your idea to keep him out.”
“If Zack and I were to literally switch roles, he would still spend a considerable amount of time in the lab,” Dr. Brennan said. “There’s no harm in letting him look at the remains. Unless you don’t think that a sniper-trained, military-hardened FBI agent like yourself can handle it.”
“Oh yeah, kissing up to me, that’s definitely going to do it.”
“I was actually trying to insult you, but whatever works.”
“Zack, get over here!” Booth called, getting fed up. Zack jumped, his eyes widening slightly with surprise and joy. “Come on, get up here and play around with the body.”
“I don’t intend to play,” Zack said eagerly, pulling on gloves.
“No messing with any chemicals, Gormy,” Booth added gravely, watching Zack stoop over the body.
“Booth!” Both Cam and Dr. Brennan exclaimed indignantly.
“What? First you want me to keep him away from the lab. Then you invite him over. Then you tell me to keep an eye on him. Then you get offended when I tell him to be careful!” Booth narrated the complications from the last two minutes with various frustrated hand gestures.
“I don’t take any offense,” Zack said, fully involved in examination. “Dr. Saroyan, would you mind turning the victim onto his stomach?”
“Sure, but why?”
“The torn areas on his clothing suggest sexual assault. I would like to examine his anus.”
“Can you not say-” Booth tried to say without wincing.
“On the count of three,” Cam was already preparing.
Booth looked away as Cam, Brennan, and Zack all stooped over the victim’s rear end. He really didn’t enjoy the nastier parts of this work. He liked dealing with real people. Live people. And he liked looking at their faces, not their bums.
“Torn tissue and dried blood and semen,” Cam observed. “Nice call, Zack. We can definitely get a DNA match out of this.”
“Did any teachers recognize the body as one of their students?” Dr. Brennan asked.
“None of them wanted to talk,” Booth sighed. “We got three teachers down who had male, Caucasian students absent but they all claimed not to recognize the remains. I mean, the victim’s face was cut off, after all.”
“Three teachers?” Dr. Brennan practically shouted. “That’s terrible!”
“What, that they all kept their mouths shut?”
“That three classes have absent students,” Dr. Brennan explained. “And given the number of other classes and ethnic groups that could be attending Burborn, that would imply that a lot of students skip class.”
“I used to skip class,” Zack frowned, looking slightly offended by Brennan’s negative tone.
“That’s probably because you already knew everything being taught,” Cam said. “I don’t blame you though, high school can get pretty boring. I’d skip too once in a while.”
“Oh, don’t even get me started-” Booth began with a grin, ready to recount his glory days playing hooky, when all three interrupted with dead-panned unison, “We know you were a jock.”
“Well,” Booth cleared his throat, adjusting his tie, “fine. Shutting out the social guy again. Squints through and through.”
“Zack,” Dr. Brennan said, a thoughtful look suddenly enlightening her features, “May I see the pictures of the crime scene?”
Zack opened the files on the computer and pointed them out. Brennan immediately zoned in on the graffiti. “Does that say what I think it does?”
“I’m afraid so,” Zack murmured.
Brennan glanced back at the victim. “The semen found here is obvious evidence leading to the rapist and potential murderer of this victim. In past cases when we’d find such apparent evidence, the bodies were found in situations that suggested that the murderer tried to dispose of the victim, therefore telltale signs that would lead to the murderer weren’t important because they were assumed to deteriorate along with the body.”
“That’s great Bones, what are you getting at here?” Booth encouraged.
“This victim was tied up and left on display. The manner in which the victim’s hands were bound is not only sexual but a means of asserting power over him. The murderer wanted to let others know that he deserved what he got. The remaining semen could even be read as a victory flag of sorts.”
“Why would anyone deserve this?” Cam frowned. There were bruises all over the body. The anus hardly looked like a part of a human body anymore.
“The graffiti on the fence says Die Fag. I have good reason to believe that this is a result of a hate crime against a young gay man,” Dr. Brennan concluded. “That should give you a lead, Booth.”
Summary - Zack has returned to the Jeffersonian, just in time for a new case to solve. As they delve into the murder of a young gay man, things get a little awkward for Booth. Booth/Zack slash.
Disclaimer - I don’t own Bones. I don’t even understand half the things the squints say.
Warning - boyxboy, some controversial topics about LGBTQ
A/N - I’m going to try to make this sound as much like an actual episode as possible. I don’t know jack about forensics, so it’s going to sound a bit underdeveloped. But I think the point of this whole story is to get Booth to bang Zack so I don’t think I’ll get any complaints about scientific accuracy. ;)
-
Chapter 2
“Alright, here’s how this is gonna work,” Booth said, his hand on the wheel and his eyes not bothering to leave the road. Zack sat where Booth was used to seeing Bones’ face, in the passenger seat, with a look on his face that suggested that he was concerned for his own safety. “You get the evidence, I do the talking. When I tell you to do something, you do it. If we’re in a dangerous situation, lie low and let me take care of it.”
“It would seem that everyone is glad I’m back except you,” Zack pointed out.
“Course I’m glad you’re back.” Booth made a sharp right, forcing Zack to slide over a little in his seat. “I gave you a pat on the back when I saw you, remember?”
“Our conversation would suggest otherwise.” Zack readjusted his seat belt.
“Look, you’re important, I’m not gonna deny that,” Booth tried to say kindly. “But in my humble opinion, your place is in the lab. I’m used to doing this kind of stuff with Bones.”
“So you miss Dr. Brennan,” Zack said, as if he wanted to be absolutely clear. “That’s the reason you don’t enjoy my presence. Not because you doubt that I can retain professional capability after living in an asylum for six months.”
“Yeah.” Booth felt a little uncomfortable. He had never truly gotten over the fact that someone he had worked with, or someone who worked with someone he worked with rather, had assisted a serial killer. “Don’t take offense. Just don’t annoy me too much and we’ll get along.”
“I’m sorry I’m not an immensely attractive young woman,” Zack shrugged matter-of-factly. “I doubt that you would object to work with me if I were.”
The car jerked a little as Booth retained his holding of the wheel and said nervously, “That’s not the reason I enjoy working with Bones. She’s great at her job.”
“I know, I’m just stating that it would be no surprise to me if you found her sexually attractive as well-”
“Looks like we’re here,” Booth interrupted curtly. “Don’t push it, buddy.”
Zack peered out the window. “Run-down houses and various bits of litter. This neighborhood appears to be badly-maintained and of fairly low value…is that a school?”
“Talking about the case, finally,” Booth muttered, taking out a folder. “Alright here’s the run-through: the body was found in a field next to that high school yesterday morning when students were on their way to class. Burborn High School, not the safest school around, I hear. Police secured the area in no time. They told me to warn any squints working on the case that students might have tampered the evidence.”
“Tampered?” Zack’s tone was grave. He seemed, quite frankly, offended that anyone would dare mess with his evidence.
“Tampered,” Booth confirmed. “You know, kids fooling around with the dead body. Seeing if it’s real, going up to touch it, maybe grabbing a bone or two to show off…”
“We should’ve gotten here earlier,” Zack sighed, opening the door and going around to retrieve the camera and evidence bags.
“Complaining already,” Booth groaned, getting out of the car as well. “You better do your magic evidence-finding the way you used to, or else I’m going to stop being so glad you got out.”
“It’s not magic, it’s the scientific process.” Zack retrieved the equipment and followed Booth to the scene of the crime. Police sirens and caution tape surrounded a corner of a fenced field, with the occasional stray teenager dropping by while skipping class. “Magic is science’s unfortunate nickname during periods of history when people were less knowledgeable of the causes of natural occurrences around them.”
“You’re beginning to sound more like Bones everyday,” Booth sighed, though a very slight hint of a smile played at the corner of his lips.
“I suppose if I wore a bra and high heels, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
“What is it with you and women’s clothes?” Booth demanded suddenly.
Zack blinked. He hadn’t noticed that this was the third time he’d related to himself to a woman in some way. “I’m…not sure,” He said hesitantly. Oh dear, he thought, I hope that having homosexual desires doesn’t lead me to becoming a woman. But then, if I were a woman and I was attracted to men, then wouldn’t I be heterosexual? No, no, homosexuality doesn’t change your gender, because if it did then the homo would always consequentially turn into hetero and then homosexuality wouldn’t even exist in the first place!
“Zack! Zack, are you listening? Wake up,” Booth snapped his fingers in front of Zack’s face. “Remember why you’re here?” Booth gestured toward the crime scene before him. Zack shook out of his confused expression and nodded quickly.
“Male, what looks to be Caucasian judging by skin tone, though the slight yellow hue implies partial Asian or Middle Eastern descent,” Zack observed. He began snapping pictures of the corpse. It was gruesome, but then again he’d seen worse. The face was unrecognizable, the skin having been scraped off by a sharp edge, but the rest of the flesh was largely intact. The arms were outstretched, tied to the fence with what looked like common string. There was a faint trail of dried blood in the grass for Zack to follow. Just because I mentioned myself in women’s clothes a couple times, I do not wish to be a woman.
Distantly, he heard Booth calling his name. “What?” He asked, eyes fully alert once again.
“Age, Zack, you got an age?” Booth repeated in an annoyed tone.
Zack peered into the victim’s mouth. “According to the height and build and the presence of wisdom teeth, approximately sixteen to twenty. Definitely high school age.”
“Alright, I’m going to need a list of all your attendance records,” Booth informed the principal, a nervous looking middle-aged man in a gray suit and Simpsons tie. “We need to find out who’s absent today-”
“Any number of kids could skip school,” The principal interrupted.
Booth gave him a look. “Well, whoever’s teaching classes with missing students can come and help identify the victim.”
“You can’t just pull my teachers out of class!” He exclaimed, eyes wide. This definitely made Booth narrow his eyes.
“What was your name again, sir?”
A look of fearful comprehension dawned on his face. “Principal Ralph Dawson,” He stuttered. “I’m not trying to interfere with the investigation! I just want to keep my school running as smoothly as possible with this in the way-”
“This is one of your students, Principal Dawson,” Booth said rather coldly. “Nice school you’re running here.”
“Was that graffiti always there?” Zack asked, pointing to the indiscernible red lines on the fence a few feet from the corpse.
“I don’t believe I’ve seen it before,” Principal Dawson said.
“Step out of the way, please,” Zack said, walking backwards and focusing his lenses. As he looked at the paint from a distance, he felt his blood run cold. Despite the many openings formed by the wired fence, it looked suspiciously like Die Fag.
Zack stayed silent and went off to the side, out of earshot as Booth and the principal argued. A broken cell phone lay hidden beneath a mess of thorns. He extracted it carefully and placed it in a bag, planning on testing for fingerprints and giving it to Angela later for possible personal information. He wondered if trying on women’s clothes would be worth it.
There wasn’t much else to look for. Footprints were indiscernible in the grass and Zack could find no signs of struggle anywhere further than a ten-foot radius around the corpse. He gave instructions to a forensic team to cut through the fence and remove the part containing the attached victim and graffiti.
“That’s the tax-payer’s money you want cut away there!” Principal Dawson exclaimed. “Are you even allowed to do that?”
“Actually, that’s a piece of evidence directly linked to the murder victim by way of prolonged physical contact,” Zack corrected, “not money.”
“Nice people skills,” Booth muttered. “Thank you,” He added as a secretary handed him attendance records. She glanced at the body and winced, looking as if she wanted to leave but Booth stopped her. “Will you be so kind to bring me…Misters Jordan and Carry and Ms. Overlin?”
“Excuse me, I’m going to my office,” Principal Dawson sighed. “Come on, Julie, you don’t need to look at this.”
Booth eyed the two walk away. “I don’t trust that man.”
“Is that enough to bring him into questioning?” Zack wondered, his eyes following them as well.
“He’s arguing against the investigation,” Booth said, “and he seems pretty familiar with that secretary of his.”
“How would you know?”
“He called her by her first name.”
“You call me and Angela by our first names,” Zack pointed out, “and you refer to Dr. Brennan as Bones. If you’re suggesting that he’s unprofessional because he refers to colleagues by their given names, then you’re suggesting that about yourself too.”
“Alright, it’s bad enough that I have to work with you for the next couple months,” Booth said. “Don’t start lecturing me, now.”
-
“Is Zack alright?” Angela asked, craning her neck to the side only to see Zack standing by the entryway. “He has the eyes of a starving man.”
“Looks like he’s itching to be back in the lab,” Cam said as she gently removed the string from the fence and the victim’s wrists. “Ask Hodgins if he can distinguish any particles from the string and spray paint.”
“We broke up months ago and everyone’s still treating me like his postal service,” Angela snorted, taking the tray with no real malice as she walked away. Cam allowed herself a small, amused smile before getting back to work.
“Any progress?” It was Booth from behind her shoulder. Dr. Brennan stood next to him, pulling on her gloves and taking her first look at the body.
“I only just started,” Cam said. “Look at Zack, he looks like he wants to be a part of this. He brought us all the evidence and he’s not allowed to touch a thing.”
“Nothing I can do about it,” Booth said. “Potential hazard to the lab, remember? It was your idea to keep him out.”
“If Zack and I were to literally switch roles, he would still spend a considerable amount of time in the lab,” Dr. Brennan said. “There’s no harm in letting him look at the remains. Unless you don’t think that a sniper-trained, military-hardened FBI agent like yourself can handle it.”
“Oh yeah, kissing up to me, that’s definitely going to do it.”
“I was actually trying to insult you, but whatever works.”
“Zack, get over here!” Booth called, getting fed up. Zack jumped, his eyes widening slightly with surprise and joy. “Come on, get up here and play around with the body.”
“I don’t intend to play,” Zack said eagerly, pulling on gloves.
“No messing with any chemicals, Gormy,” Booth added gravely, watching Zack stoop over the body.
“Booth!” Both Cam and Dr. Brennan exclaimed indignantly.
“What? First you want me to keep him away from the lab. Then you invite him over. Then you tell me to keep an eye on him. Then you get offended when I tell him to be careful!” Booth narrated the complications from the last two minutes with various frustrated hand gestures.
“I don’t take any offense,” Zack said, fully involved in examination. “Dr. Saroyan, would you mind turning the victim onto his stomach?”
“Sure, but why?”
“The torn areas on his clothing suggest sexual assault. I would like to examine his anus.”
“Can you not say-” Booth tried to say without wincing.
“On the count of three,” Cam was already preparing.
Booth looked away as Cam, Brennan, and Zack all stooped over the victim’s rear end. He really didn’t enjoy the nastier parts of this work. He liked dealing with real people. Live people. And he liked looking at their faces, not their bums.
“Torn tissue and dried blood and semen,” Cam observed. “Nice call, Zack. We can definitely get a DNA match out of this.”
“Did any teachers recognize the body as one of their students?” Dr. Brennan asked.
“None of them wanted to talk,” Booth sighed. “We got three teachers down who had male, Caucasian students absent but they all claimed not to recognize the remains. I mean, the victim’s face was cut off, after all.”
“Three teachers?” Dr. Brennan practically shouted. “That’s terrible!”
“What, that they all kept their mouths shut?”
“That three classes have absent students,” Dr. Brennan explained. “And given the number of other classes and ethnic groups that could be attending Burborn, that would imply that a lot of students skip class.”
“I used to skip class,” Zack frowned, looking slightly offended by Brennan’s negative tone.
“That’s probably because you already knew everything being taught,” Cam said. “I don’t blame you though, high school can get pretty boring. I’d skip too once in a while.”
“Oh, don’t even get me started-” Booth began with a grin, ready to recount his glory days playing hooky, when all three interrupted with dead-panned unison, “We know you were a jock.”
“Well,” Booth cleared his throat, adjusting his tie, “fine. Shutting out the social guy again. Squints through and through.”
“Zack,” Dr. Brennan said, a thoughtful look suddenly enlightening her features, “May I see the pictures of the crime scene?”
Zack opened the files on the computer and pointed them out. Brennan immediately zoned in on the graffiti. “Does that say what I think it does?”
“I’m afraid so,” Zack murmured.
Brennan glanced back at the victim. “The semen found here is obvious evidence leading to the rapist and potential murderer of this victim. In past cases when we’d find such apparent evidence, the bodies were found in situations that suggested that the murderer tried to dispose of the victim, therefore telltale signs that would lead to the murderer weren’t important because they were assumed to deteriorate along with the body.”
“That’s great Bones, what are you getting at here?” Booth encouraged.
“This victim was tied up and left on display. The manner in which the victim’s hands were bound is not only sexual but a means of asserting power over him. The murderer wanted to let others know that he deserved what he got. The remaining semen could even be read as a victory flag of sorts.”
“Why would anyone deserve this?” Cam frowned. There were bruises all over the body. The anus hardly looked like a part of a human body anymore.
“The graffiti on the fence says Die Fag. I have good reason to believe that this is a result of a hate crime against a young gay man,” Dr. Brennan concluded. “That should give you a lead, Booth.”