“Does it go with either femur?” Booth asked.
“We won’t know for sure without further testing,” Brennan said, shaking her head. “But judging by the epiphysial fusion on the pelvic bones, I’d say the right femur is the more likely candidate as a match for the pelvis… and the skull as well.”
Picking up the thread as if they had been working together for years, Dr. Wu said, “The cranial sutures are nearly fused — a sign that the skull came from an adult.”
“What about race?”
“Judging from the high-bridged nasal bones and narrow face, the skull belongs to a Caucasoid man.”
Brennan nodded her agreement. “The bony ridges over the eyes also tell us the skull is that of a man. Plus, we’ve got both jaws, which gives us something to compare to dental records.”
Booth said, “At least two people — one older, one under twenty?”
“Yes,” Brennan said. “We’ll know more after our exam, but for now… let’s concentrate on the note.”
Booth — eyes brightening like a kid just told to go sit next to the Christmas tree so presents can be handed out — moved closer.
Using her forceps for the second time today, after freshly sterilizing them, Brennan lifted the folded piece of paper from between the skeleton’s toes.
She knew better than to use her hands: once they read it, the note would be passed along to the FBI document experts, fingerprint examiners, and trace evidence specialists.
The anthropologist removed the piece of paper, moved it to another table, then — using the forceps and a pointed dental probe borrowed from Dr. Wu — she slowly unfolded the sheet.
It appeared to be a generic piece of white paper, eight and a half by eleven, nothing special… until she got it completely open.
The three of them huddled over it.
The letters were from a computer printer, and looked to be a typical font, although Brennan knew very little about such things — basically, she knew enough to type up her reports.
More esoteric uses of the computer were left to her young, brilliant assistant, Zach Addy; or — if it was really difficult, like the 3-D imaging process they could now use to help identify remains — to Angela Montenegro, the lab’s true computer whiz.
But it didn’t take an expert to see that the note was neatly typed — in all caps and double spaced.
TO THE FBI:
I HOPE MY GIFT HAS GOTTEN YOUR ATTENTION. I FIND MYSELF NEAR THE END OF MY CAREER. I HAVE SPENT YEARS OUTSMARTING THE LOCALS, BUT THEY HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO COME ANYWHERE NEAR CAPTURING ME. I THINK IT’S TIME TO BRING IN SOMEONE WHO IS MORE OF A CHALLENGE. YOUR INVESTIGATION OF THIS PRESENT WILL SHOW YOU NOT ONLY THAT I HAVE BEEN AT THIS FOR A WHILE, BUT THAT MY TARGETS WERE NOT PUSHOVERS. A VICTIM UNABLE TO DEFEND HIMSELF IS HARDLY A FAIR TARGET. THOSE BEFORE YOU AND MANY MORE GAVE THEIR BEST BUT IT WAS NOT ENOUGH. NONE HAS BEEN ENOUGH. THE CHALLENGE IS TO YOU, CAN YOU DO WHAT NONE OF THE VICTIMS AND THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO? CAN YOU STOP ME? COME SEE THE REST OF MY COLLECTION (IT’S QUITE LARGE) IF YOU CAN FIND ME.
SAM
“Sam?” Booth asked the air.
Brennan looked from the note to Booth. “I think,” she said, “you’ve got a problem.”
“You think?”
She ignored the sarcasm. “More than one, in fact. If this ‘Sam’ is telling the truth, not only have you misplaced your star witness… you’ve got a serial killer on your hands.”
Booth pursed his lips. “Maybe he’s finally showed up to do what his son couldn’t.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Brennan said.
Booth shook his head. “Son of Sam? David Berkowitz? Serial killer, gunned down half a dozen vics, wounded half a dozen more, took instructions from his neighbor’s dog? Any of this ring a bell?”
She nodded, eyes narrowed. “Yes. I read a book about it.”
The FBI agent looked even more troubled than when he had first shown up at Brennan’s hotel room door.
“You all right, Booth?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “This doesn’t look like it’s going to lead me to my missing witness.”
Brennan blinked. “Is that your only concern?”
He shook his head, chagrined. “Sorry, no. It’s just… a serial killer is the sort of case that will get my boss to let Musetti go, and drop in my lap.”
Dr. Wu looked perplexed, but Brennan got it. Booth wasn’t being selfish as much as he was considering the unfinished work he, and so many others at the FBI, already had on their collective plate.
And now a completely unrelated task seemed about to be dumped on him.
She thought about her eight-hundred-year-old corpse back in her lab at the Jeffersonian.
And knew how Booth felt.
His poise regained, Booth asked the two scientists, “When do you think you’ll have results?”
Brennan and Dr. Wu conferred for a moment.
Brennan said, “We got a late start today. Museum’s closing and my staff at the Jeffersonian will be going home within the hour. By the time we get material to the people who can help us analyze it, we won’t have anything before noon tomorrow.”
Booth closed his eyes, then a beat later, nodded.
She had figured he would be upset, want results right away like he always did; but now he said nothing, and his expression seemed distracted.
“Are you going to be a while?” he asked her.
“Yeah,” she said. “Breaking this skeleton down and figuring out exactly how many people we’re dealing with? That’ll take most of the night.”
“Can you catch a ride back to the hotel?”
Brennan had no idea.
“I’ll get her a cab,” Dr. Wu said. “It won’t be a problem.”
Booth said, “Good — that’ll give me time to go over the Musetti evidence one more time. My boss’ll have gone home for the night, time I get to the office… but first thing tomorrow, he’s gonna want an update.” He sighed. “And that’s when Musetti will become a cold case. I’ve got about twelve hours.”
Brennan watched him use her forceps to drop the note into a plastic evidence bag, then turn and go.
In all the times she had worked with Booth, she had never seen him like this. The look of him, though, the way he carried himself, the vacancy in the eyes, that she had seen before.
In school the competition for grades had been fierce, and she had seen this battle-fatigued look from those that were burning out, losing the fight.
This case was eating Booth up, he was losing the fight, and now they might be dealing with a serial killer to boot.
Looking at the skeleton on the table, Brennan knew that Booth might feel he was losing the battle now, but he was not in it alone.
If she could, she would find a way for both of them to win.
3
Right now Seeley Booth wanted to throw a punch — not necessarily at a person; a wall would do.
Controlling his temper was something Booth had mastered as a sniper — dispassion was a requisite of the job, and the art — but on days like this, even the limits of a Zen master would be severely tested.
Special Agent in Charge Robert Dillon — Booth’s boss on the Musetti/Gianelli case, and head of the Chicago office — had, as Booth had anticipated, ordered him to drop the mob inquiry and concentrate his energy on finding this apparent serial killer with the skeleton calling card.
That more than one body had been used in the construction of the skeleton was enough to convince SAC Dillon that the “apparent” part of that designation was a mere formality: to Dillon (and, truth be known, to Booth) a serial killer was at large in Chicago.
Such a matter had a higher priority than a missing mob rat, who was probably at the bottom of the Chicago River, anyway (or Lake Michigan, or God knew where). Booth understood his superior’s thinking. Hell, he would have made the same decision himself, had he been in charge.