Bones: Buried Deep

by Max Allan Collins

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.

  But that did not make Booth any more happy as he strode down the hall from Dillon’s office, heading for his own and an appointment with a VCR.

  He had barely slept four hours.

  After leaving Brennan and Dr. Wu at the museum, Booth had returned to the office and sifted through the Musetti evidence until well after midnight.

  When he could barely keep his eyes open any longer, he’d driven to his hotel, slept from three until seven, showered, changed clothes, and gotten back in the office by eight.

  Dillon had come in not much later and Booth had briefed him on the events of the last twenty-four hours.

  Now, having found a cubbyhole of his mind in which to temporarily store Musetti, Booth entered his office, ready to track down this killer. After all, the sooner this madman was behind bars, the sooner Seeley Booth would be back searching for his missing witness.

  By the time he had closed his door, loaded the first of the security tapes from the building office, turned on the TV, and dropped into his chair, Booth was as calm as if he had just had an hour-long massage.

  The onetime sniper had acquired many skills beyond the one that had been the easiest to learn — marksmanship. Compartmentalizing emotions wasn’t just a desire, but a commandment among snipers. An emotional shooter was usually a bad shooter.

  He had survived that nastiest of nasty mil
itary assignments by finding and developing an ability to be serene, no matter what the surroundings or the circumstance.

  Picking up the remote, Booth aimed and squeezed the button.

  The tape machine popped to life. The picture on the black-and-white video was grainy and showed the lobby of the Dirksen Building from above and behind the security desk, where Barney, the night guard, sat. The shot was over Barney’s head so it was impossible for Booth to tell if the guard was at the desk or not.

  The lobby was empty, but what Booth was interested in was beyond the windows. The machine whirred quietly as he watched, his eyes straining to detect any hint of motion outside the building.

  In the corner, below the date, the time clicked off one wrenching second at a time, Booth unwilling to fast-forward for fear he would miss something crucial.

  He was seven minutes in when a knock at his door almost made him jump — serene or not.

  Punching the PAUSE button, Booth said, “What?”

  The door opened and Woolfolk framed himself there tentatively.

  As usual, the Special Agent’s hair was as immaculate as his expression was haggard. His suit was navy blue, shirt light blue, tie a conservative blue stripe, an American flag pin on the left lapel of his jacket.

  Booth, who worked hard at looking professional, always felt like the kid with his shirt untucked and his jeans ripped next to Woolfolk.

  Yet Woolfolk, easily five years older than Booth, always behaved like he was the kid and the visiting agent from Washington, DC, the old pro.

  “What is it?” Booth asked.

  The other agent’s head dipped a little in deference. “Dillon assigned me to be your wingman on the Skel Case.”

  Already a nickname for it.

  “Pull up a chair,” Booth said.

  Woolfolk did, and asked, “What are we doing?”

  “Right now, we’re watching TV.”

  Booth explained why, then hit PLAY again.

  They had been at it about ten minutes when both agents sat forward as a dark figure dragged something into the frame.

  The image was so grainy, and they were so far away, making out what was happening was difficult; but Booth noted the time on the screen’s lower corner.

  This was their guy, all right.

  The figure was dressed head to toe in black, with either a stocking cap or a hooded sweatshirt. The agents weren’t seeing any detail from this angle. The skeleton was placed in plain view, the guy moved around it for a few seconds, placing it just right…

  … then was gone.

  The whole thing had taken less than twenty seconds.

  “So we have him on tape?” Woolfolk asked.

  “Not as good as in custody,” Booth said with a nod, “but a start.”

  The tape kept rolling and the night guard, Barney, strolled into frame, then seemed to jump back a little before running out the bottom of the frame, on his way to his desk to call Booth. Five minutes of less than riveting security-cam “action” later, both Booth and Barney crossed into the frame and went outside.

  “That’s enough,” Booth said. “Put in the next tape.”

  Woolfolk did as he was told.

  This tape was an exterior angle, the security camera mounted on the side of the building, shooting down toward Plymouth Square. Booth fast-forwarded to a few seconds before the suspect appeared.

  There their litterer was, dropping the skeleton in front of the building and spreading out the extremities, then trotting away.

  This time, though, the agents saw him disappear around a corner.

  Booth hit rewind and they watched it again — specifically, the skeleton being set down and spread out.

  Booth pointed at the screen. “Did you see that?”

  “See what?” Woolfolk asked, leaning forward, squinting at the image.

  “There,” Booth said, rewinding again. He played a few seconds and paused the tape, the suspect reaching out to straighten the skeleton’s arm.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to see,” Woolfolk said.

  “Right there,” Booth said, rising, pointing at the screen.

  “Right where?”

  Moving around the desk, Booth pointed to the suspect’s arm. “His sleeve pulled up away from the glove. That white spot is his arm. He’s Caucasian.”

  Woolfolk nodded. “Yeah, yeah — I see it.”

  Booth made a face. “Really narrowing the suspect list, huh?”

  “Gotta start somewhere,” Woolfolk said with a shrug.

  They played the tape a couple more times, but gained no new insights. Through the series of tapes from other buildings and traffic lights, they managed to track the suspect’s movements from three blocks away to the Dirksen Building, then back.

  In the end, though, the perp always rounded a corner and disappeared.

  And none of the views showed them much more than a figure in black — the only significant upgrade was ruling out the stocking cap and identifying the perp’s headgear as the hood of a sweatshirt.

  “Where the hell did he go?” Woolfolk asked.

  Booth rewound the tape, played it again, rewound it, played it, and then again.

  Finally, he said, “Tapes don’t tell us, and I don’t have a guess.”

  “Well, he had to go somewhere.”

  They watched various tapes several more times.

  “Somewhere around that building,” Woolfolk said, pointing to an ornately styled structure at the corner of Adams and LaSalle.

  In the paused black-and-white video, Booth knew the other agent couldn’t see the burnt orange masonry that made the building easy to identify, even if you weren’t an architectural buff, or a local.

  “The Rookery,” he said.

  “Why have I heard of that?” Woolfolk asked.

  “You work in downtown Chicago, you oughta have.”

  “I didn’t grow up here, Seeley. I’ve only been in this post since February.”

  Booth leaned back in his chair and cast a condescending smile at his new partner. In his best tour guide voice, he spoke.

  “The Rookery sits on the site of the temporary city hall after the Chicago Fire. Place used to draw a lot of pigeons. When the building went up, it got dubbed ‘the Rookery’ and the name took. Home office of architects Daniel Burnham and John W. Root, who designed any number of famous buildings in the city.”

  Woolfolk’s tired eyes had woken up. “How in the hell do you know that?”

  Booth shrugged. “Kind of an architecture buff. Wanted to be one when I was a kid.”

  “Somehow I didn’t see you as an architect.”

  “Yeah, and that’s how it worked out; but it’s a great field — all about turning something in your head into something real, something that can shelter people… a building, a home.”

  Woolfolk pondered that, then said, “Maybe it’s not that different from what we do.”

  Booth had never made a connection and said so.

  Woolfolk explained. “We look at evidence and keep arranging the pieces until they suggest a picture; and we work our asses off taking this abstract idea we have, and turning it into something concrete enough to catch a bad guy… and put him away.”

  Booth chuckled. “Josh, you have depths I never dreamed of.”

  Woolfolk summoned a rumpled grin. “Same back at you. So what picture are you assembling in your mind, Seeley, from this grainy video?”

  Booth gestured toward the frozen image on the screen. “Suspect disappears… either inside the Rookery, which should have been locked up at that time of night… or down an alley or manhole or… something.”

  “Next step?”

  “Find me more videotape from that area, the Rookery’s security video, and interview their night guard.”

  Woolfolk was already on his feet. “And what will you be up to?”

  “I’ve got to check in with our science squints at the museum, and see if they’ve come up with anything on the skeleton…. When I get back, we’l
l start finding anything we can about missing men and serial killers in the area, particularly the variety that challenges the authorities to catch them.”

  “Roger that,” Woolfolk said.

  “Remember, sooner we catch this guy, sooner we’re back on Musetti.”

  With a quick nod, Woolfolk slipped out.

  When Booth arrived at the Field Museum, he had to wait for an employee to escort him through all the locked doors until he once more found himself in the basement with Dr. Wu and Brennan.

  If the anthropologists hadn’t changed their clothes, Booth might have thought they’d been down here all night.

  Brennan looked crisp and fresh in black slacks and a gray blouse. Dr. Wu wore gray slacks and a blue sleeveless turtleneck and appeared equally alert.

  Booth gave the doctor a big smile, which she returned.

  “Good morning, Dr. Wu — Bones. What do we know?”

  Brennan raised both eyebrows and her smile wasn’t exactly a smile. “We know for starters that calling me ‘Bones’ gets the day off to a bad start.”

  “Sorry,” Booth said halfheartedly.

  Dr. Wu folded her arms. “Sherlock Bones would be more like it — with all the detective work she’s been doing since you saw her last.”

  Booth grinned and Brennan’s smile morphed into a real one.

  Back to business, Booth asked, “So, what can you tell me about our skeletal door prize?”

  Dr. Wu glanced at Brennan, who led them closer to the worktable.

  The skeleton had been cut apart, its puppet strings snipped and all the connecting wires in a pile on the next table over; on this surface, the bones were laid out in the form of the body.

  “Why cut the wires?” Booth asked, his instinct being that evidence should be preserved.

  “All strung up like a Christmas turkey,” Brennan said, “it was hard to examine.”

  She gestured to the pile nearby.

  “We saved the wires and were careful to wear gloves while we handled them,” she said. “My guess is they’re clean of prints, but you should send them to your lab, of course. Maybe they’ll get lucky.”

  “Done,” Booth said.

  Brennan’s eyebrows raised again. “As for the remains themselves? You knew already that the femora told us there were at least two different bodies.”