He nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“Pick me up early. I want to be there first thing.”
“You got it, Boss.”
“…Booth, that wasn’t an order.”
“Kinda sounded like one.”
She tried again: “Pick me up early, please.”
“No problem,” he said, and offered a smile.
She gave him a crooked smile in return, then grabbed her bag and rolled it through the revolving door into the lobby.
Booth turned the key in the ignition and, without even thinking about it, turned the Crown Vic toward the office.
End of the day was his only chance to check up on the Musetti/Gianelli case.
The next morning, Booth was (as requested) early.
Brennan waited inside the lobby until he pulled up, then walked out and got into the car.
She wore a brown blouse with tan slacks and a clunky wooden necklace, with a brown velvet jacket to keep off the autumn chill.
When she had her seat belt on, he handed her a coffee in a paper cup with a plastic lid — as established at Starbucks last night, hot and black.
“Did you have breakfast?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He pointed to a paper bag on the floor of the passenger side.
Brennan picked it up and opened it. “Bagels — perfect.”
He drove, she ate, and little conversation ensued on their half-hour journey — Booth felt awkward, for some strange reason. Last night had been friendly, but this new day would require a professional tone that he (and for that matter she) didn’t feel like establishing.
Once again, Dr. Jane Wu was waiting for them in the Field Museum lobby, but this time Lieutenant Greene was there, too, holding a box marked POLICE EVIDENCE.
As he and Brennan approached, the doctor and the cop did not at first notice the visitors, caught up in their own conversation.
Greene was saying, “How can you be a football fan in Chicago and not be a Bears fan!”
Dr. Wu grimaced. “I went to school in Boston. Patriots rule. Bears lose.”
Shaking his head, Greene said, “Kicked your butt in ’85, though.”
“Ancient history. Who won three of the last four Super Bowls?”
Greene had no answer for that.
Brennan whispered to Booth, “Looks like you’ve been replaced.”
Booth whispered back, “Well, you don’t have to sound so pleased about it….”
Dr. Wu waved. “Morning, you two! I’ve got the room all ready.”
Booth and Brennan exchanged greetings with Lieutenant Greene, while Dr. Wu pointed out redundantly, “The lieutenant here was nice enough to bring the evidence, so we’re good to go.”
Brennan nodded. “Let’s get at it, then.”
The tables in the basement chamber were empty now, and Dr. Wu had Lt. Greene place the box on the one farthest from the door, after which she and Brennan would work at the middle station.
While the two doctors began, Booth and Greene found a coffee machine in a break room down the hall. The FBI agent bought, and the two men sat down at a small round table.
The room was empty this early in the day and neither man seemed to mind the quiet. Booth nursed the coffee — already his second of the day — not wanting to blast off on a caffeine high.
Booth asked the Chicago detective, “Did you get anything else from our homeless witness? Pete?”
Greene shook his head. “No. But I gotta say, ol’ Pete was pretty cool, as homeless guys go. Led me to the parking place used by our skeleton transporter.”
“Your crime scene unit get anything?”
Greene grunted a frustrated laugh. “Nothing.”
“What about the neighborhood?”
“Got a team checking that.”
“Cold cases in that part of town?”
Greene sipped his coffee. “My partner’s checking missing persons cases going back forty years. Your people find anything?”
“Nothing yet. But my partner, Woolfolk, is on it.”
“I thought the girl was your partner.”
Booth’s eyebrows hiked. “Don’t let her hear you calling her a ‘girl,’ Lieutenant Greene… but she’s sort of my partner on this, too — on the skeleton side of it, anyway.”
Greene tilted his head. “Something you should know — I’ve got a call into a guy I know… about a possible suspect.”
“A suspect?”
“Don’t get fired up. This is from years ago.”
“So’s part of our first skel. Hey, I don’t care if it’s from a hundred years ago — spill.”
Greene sighed and looked down at his coffee. “It was in that neighborhood. Guy lived on that same street — Orchard, I mean. This was, oh, twenty years ago easy…. I was a fresh-faced kid hardly out of the academy. Detectives were working some missing person cases… gay guys — several had gone missing from that neighborhood.”
Booth twitched with irritation. “And you didn’t say anything last night?”
Greene patted the air with one palm. “I’m getting to it, I’m getting to it…. Anyway, our guys had no real evidence, but there was this one suspect who looked good for it. Looked good to me, I mean — but who was I? Just a wet-behind-the-ears recruit fresh out of the academy.”
“Nobody else went for your theory?”
“Not really…. The suspect in question… a guy named Bill Jorgensen… was fifty then. These kids, the young men, the victims, they were all in good health, some even worked out, and none of the guys at the precinct would take my ideas seriously. Just couldn’t get them to believe that this fifty-year-old cat could take down strapping youths like these M.I.A. gays. Plus, back then even more than now, gay men were on the move — not transient exactly, but it was no shock if a gay man picked up and left. ’Cause of problems at work, say, or just the desire for fresh pastures. Lots of reasons.”
Booth nodded. “Sure. But get to why you thought this older guy could’ve taken down young dudes.”
Greene crumpled his coffee cup and made a good shot at a trash can half-a-room away. Then he turned to Booth with a steady gaze.
“This guy Jorgensen was in real good shape, especially for a guy of fifty. He hung out at gyms — he even worked at a few. Real physical fitness type.”
“Makes sense. Anything else?”
Greene shook his head. “No real dead solid evidence against the guy… but he didn’t have an alibi for the times a couple of the guys disappeared, plus he’d been seen in the bars where they disappeared from… though no one could put him with any of the guys.”
“I see.”
Greene shrugged. “Lot of circumstantial stuff, but nothing solid, and not enough to get a warrant. And as a newbie on the force, I could only push so hard.”
Booth considered that for a long moment. “You didn’t bring it up last night — why?”
“Two reasons. First, I hounded the guy so bad the first time, he got a restraining order against me…. Don’t look at me like that, Booth — I was a kid, enthusiastic, and I thought I smelled a serial killer.”
“Okay. I can understand that.”
“Yeah, well understand this — I got a write-up in my file, and almost got canned. See, I spouted off to the media, and Jorgensen damn near sued the city over it….”
“You said two things.”
“Right. Second thing was, Jorgensen moved out of the neighborhood, and I lost track of him. Hell, he’d be seventy now, at least — I don’t even know if the geezer’s still alive.”
“You could check up on him,” Booth said.
Greene shook his head. “I am, but I’m using a snitch I trust — better to do it outside the system, first step, anyway. Even after all these years, too many people would shit bricks, me sniffing around Jorgensen again.”
“Even if the feds did it?”
Greene raised both hands. “My boss, and his bosses, know we’re in this together, Booth — and it wouldn’t take Dick Tracy to figure out where you got the tip. Even those schmuck detectives who blew the case twenty years ago could figure that one out.”