Booth sipped the last of his coffee, mulling all this.
Then he said, “This might be a pretty big leap to be taking.”
Greene grunted another laugh. “Well, why don’t we go after your suspect?”
Booth blinked. “What suspect?”
“Exactly,” Greene said with a grin. “Give me a better idea, buddy, and I’ll sign on with you.”
Booth mulled it some more. “Well… it wouldn’t hurt to look at this Jorgensen.”
“Like I said, I’ve got a guy I should hear from sometime today.” The cop took in a deep breath, held it, then finally blew it out. “You think we’ve got a chance in hell of catching this guy? If it is Jorgensen, he hardly even got on the radar, back in the day… and the only one who got in trouble was yours truly.”
Booth studied the detective. “This isn’t twenty years ago — you’re an old pro… and I’m damn good, too.”
“Plus, there’s that ‘girl’ of yours,” Greene said impishly. Or as impishly as a Chicago cop could say anything.
Booth said, “That ‘girl’ is a kind of genius, yeah, and in fact we’ve got good people all over this case — the best equipment, the best support, the best period.”
They sat in silence for a moment, each drinking his coffee, lost in his own thoughts.
Greene said, “And yet this prick literally dumps his victim on your doorstep.”
Booth nodded. “And the second one came pretty close to your doorstep — your turf, anyway.”
The detective’s upper lip curled. “If this is Jorgensen… the bastard’s blowin’ a Bronx cheer at both of us.”
“Well, then — we’ll just have to show him how foolish that was.”
Booth and Greene stood around for most of the next four hours, alternately drinking coffee and talking football, both men periodically checking in by cell phone with colleagues on the case.
Finally, Brennan called them over to the table where she and Dr. Wu had laid out all the bones from the bag.
“Two hundred six bones,” Brennan said. “Another complete skeleton.”
“One person this time?” Booth asked.
“Not hardly,” she said. “Our do-it-yourselfer is at it again. The femora?”
“The two big bones in the thighs,” Booth said, glancing at Greene.
Brennan asked the FBI agent, “Notice anything different about them?”
Booth’s eyes immediately went to the epiphyseal lines, which were both completely fused.
“No,” Booth admitted.
Greene said, “One’s longer than the other.”
Seeing that now, too, Booth felt a twinge in his gut.
He was not about to let himself be drawn into a pissing contest with his new colleague — showing off for these two attractive women in this case. That kind of junior high nonsense had no place here, and, anyway, he and Greene would just wind up looking like testosterone-addled fools with these women, both of whom had more education than he and Greene put together.
Focus on the case, he told himself.
When his eyes rose to Brennan’s, she was watching him; and Booth had the most unsettling feeling she could read his thoughts….
“Both men had reached full adulthood,” she was saying, “but one was ten centimeters shorter than the other.”
“Ten centimeters,” Booth mused.
Greene piped in with, “Four inches.”
Not rising to the bait, Booth asked, “Meaning?”
Brennan gestured with an open palm. “Meaning, with this difference in femur length? Either the man was seriously deformed, or we’re dealing with more than one body again.”
Greene, interested, asked, “When you say ‘man,’ do you mean… man?”
“The brow ridges on the skull indicate a male, yes,” Dr. Wu said. “More prominent than in females.”
Brennan added, “The pelvic bones are male as well.”
Nodding, Booth asked, “Anything else?”
“The fingers,” Brennan said.
Booth looked down at the skeleton’s hands.
The fingers were of differing lengths, which of course was normal; but, in this case, in an unnatural way — the left index finger longer than both the middle and ring fingers, one thumb long, one short, and another fingertip did not look quite right to Booth.
He asked, “Are you sure you’ve got the bones in the right places?”
Immediately he wished he hadn’t said that, but he had said it, and earned Brennan’s withering gaze.
He muttered, “Just asking.”
“We do indeed have the bones in the right places,” Brennan said.
Greene asked, “Walk us laymen through, would you?”
“Glad to,” Brennan said. “The fingers are made up of several bones.”
She pointed to each one as she ran down the list.
“There are the metacarpals,” she continued, “the proximal phalanges, the middle phalanges, and the distal phalanges.”
She held up her own hand.
“This is what a hand should look like, more or less… and as you can see, these two hands not only don’t match each other, the fingers of each hand line up incorrectly.”
Both Booth and Greene nodded in understanding.
Brennan went on: “Your suspect has used at least two bodies… and my guess is more… to build this specimen.”
“Jesus Jones,” Greene said.
“Same is true of the feet,” Dr. Wu said, and she too gestured as she went. “Although all the bones are here, they obviously don’t belong to just two feet. The wear and tear on them is all wrong.”
Booth asked, “What about the end of this ring finger?” He pointed to the finger that had struck him odd.
“Broken,” Brennan said. “A long time ago. That’s one of the reasons we know that this finger came from at least two fingers — the distal phalange is practically smashed, while the middle phalange is perfectly normal.”
“Why?” Booth asked. “Is that impossible?”
“No,” she said, “but it’s extremely rare… especially considering the extreme damage to the distal.”
Brennan turned to Dr. Wu. “These two bones came from two different people.”
Dr. Wu indicated her agreement.
“So,” Booth said, “can we tell if any of these parts belong to any of the bones from the first skeleton?”
“Yes,” Brennan said, “but not without more testing — I’ll know more when I get it back to the Jeffersonian.”
“You want to go with it?”
“Yes. This facility is fine, and I appreciate Dr. Wu’s help and hospitality, but I can do a much—”
“Can’t let you go, Bones,” Booth cut in, shaking his head. “We’ve got two skeletons in two days — do you really think our madman’s going to stop?”
Brennan’s brow creased, and she thought for several long moments, but she didn’t argue. “Then we’ll package this one up and get it to the Jeffersonian ASAP.”
“Good,” Booth said. “What about the first skel?”
“I haven’t checked in at the Jeffersonian this morning yet.”
Brennan got her cell phone out of her purse and hit speed dial.
Angela picked up on the second ring, and Booth’s sniper-sensitive hearing picked up her side of the conversation: “Sweetie, what’s up?”
“Getting ready to send you a second skeleton.”
“You’ve been busy. Where are you, Chicago or Sarajevo?”
“Still Chicago.”
“This another reassembly job?”
“It is — I already detect at least two sources for the bones. Did you get the first skeleton yet?”
“First thing this morning — we’ve started DNA testing, and Jack is working on soil still attached to the bones.”