Bones: Buried Deep

by Max Allan Collins

Booth didn’t respond to Greene, but did answer Brennan: “Channels, Bones. Neither one of us went through channels.”

  “So what?”

  “So, technically, the lieutenant and I aren’t even working together. And taking along our resident anthropologist-slash-bone-expert, to confront such a dangerous suspect? Not exactly what either the FBI or the Chicago PD hand out merit citations for.”

  Brennan said, “Look, I put up with bureaucracy where I work — who doesn’t? But this is absurd….”

  “Plus which,” Greene put in, “I went and got myself shot. Bosses hate that — more paperwork. Shooting board. Union reps to deal with.”

  Brennan shook her head. “But the killer was captured!”

  Booth said, “And that’s the only reason why Greene and yours truly are not both hanging from a yardarm somewhere.”

  Turning to the FBI agent, Greene said, “Yeah, and I hate the yardarm.”

  Booth nodded. “So hard to get your shirts to fit right for a month after that.”

  “You’re making jokes?” Brennan asked. “You get dressed down for catching a killer, and you make jokes about it?”

  Booth shrugged. “I’m open to other options, should you have any.”

  She considered that, finally realizing nothing could be done about the vagaries of bureaucrats.

  And yet she saw the system’s side of it, too. Law enforcement couldn’t just go around ringing every doorbell in America looking for bad guys.

  Truth was they were lucky.

  She only hoped their luck would hold out: chances were Jorgensen’s attorney would try to turn this into some sort of harassment case and get all the evidence thrown out.

  Brennan hadn’t spent a lot of time in court, but she did understand that if you caught the wrong judge on the wrong day, your whole case could go out the window.

  “I almost forgot,” she said to the men. “I got a call from Jack right before I went into the crawlspace.”

  “Jack?” Greene asked.

  “Dr. Jack Hodgins,” Booth explained. “Member of Dr. Brennan’s team at the Jeffersonian…. A squint.”

  Booth’s favorite condescending jargon for scientific consultants like Brennan.

  “Ah,” Greene said with a nod, obviously familiar with the term.

  Booth had the ability, perhaps unintentional, to bring out the little girl in Brennan, almost never in a good way: right now she wanted to kick him in the shins. Or higher.

  Booth caught her glowering at him and said, all innocence, “What?”

  Ignoring this typical insensitivity, Brennan said, “According to Jack, our first skeleton was buried in sandy soil.”

  Booth’s eyes narrowed. “That’s good to know, but this place surely doesn’t have sandy soil….”

  “No it doesn’t,” she said.

  Greene asked, “Are you sure about that, Doc?”

  “Judging by what I was crawling around on, in that crawlspace? That dirt is clay.”

  Booth looked uneasy again. “What are you saying?”

  “That our friend Mr. Jorgensen may indeed have constructed the skeletons… but if he did, they were not put together from bodies buried under this house.”

  Greene said, “Come on, Doc — I just know we’re gonna find a shitload of skels under this place!”

  Even Booth seemed jarred by the inelegance of the lieutenant’s phrasing, but it was Brennan who said, coolly, “Be that as it may — it’s highly doubtful our made-to-order ‘skels,’ as you put it, were composed of bones found under that crawlspace.”

  Booth was trying hard to salvage Jorgensen as their man. “But he could have another burial plot, right?”

  “Sure,” she agreed. “If he was striking at transients, and gay ones at that… the kind of people who, unfortunately, are able to fall off the planet without anyone much noticing, well… he could have been extremely ambitious, over all these years. And needed, and used, various sites.”

  Booth nodded crisply, then turned to Greene, asking, “What about Jorgensen’s former residence?”

  “We get the evidence here we’re probably gonna get,” Greene mused, “we could go back there and dig some more — but back in the day?”

  By this Greene apparently meant during the first investigation of Jorgensen — the unsuccessful one that had led to a court order against the detective.

  “Back then,” Greene was saying, “we didn’t find a goddamn thing.”

  Booth said, “Which means he may have had an off-site burial ground, and—”

  Brennan interrupted, uncomfortable with how fast the FBI agent was moving. “Booth, he could have buried his victims in sandy soil anywhere within, I don’t know, a hundred miles. It’s useless to speculate. We’ll work what we have here, and go from there.”

  Booth seemed about to retort, but thought better of it, putting a lid on; his eyes told her he knew she was right.

  A tech arrived and conducted a sweep of the crawlspace with GPR, leaving behind yellow markers to indicate the probable location of bodies.

  Dr. Wu and her tools arrived half an hour later.

  She and Brennan donned coveralls, white paper masks covering both mouths and noses, and latex gloves; then they carted the tools into the laundry room and prepared to go down into the crawlspace.

  The laundry room looked different now — extension cords running everywhere, a motor humming from a fan she could not see but knew must already be down in the crawlspace. Light leached up through the open hatch, a sign that Lieutenant Garland had complied with her requests.

  He appeared in the doorway to the garage. “Everything all right?”

  Brennan raised a finger in a just-a-moment manner.

  Then she lay on the floor so she could drop her head through the hole and look around in the crawlspace.

  Halogen work lights were placed at intervals along the perimeter, all pointed in one direction, so they looked like they were chasing each other.

  Nice, Brennan thought.

  By not having them pointed into the middle of the crawlspace, Garland had illuminated the area without forcing Brennan and Wu to stare directly into a lamp every time they turned toward the wall.

  Two fans spun at a low setting, moving the air around, but not enough to create mini-duststorms, when the anthropologists began digging.

  Withdrawing her head from the hole, she grinned at Garland and gave him a thumbs-up. “Perfect, Lieutenant.”

  He raised a hand to his brow in a small salute. “We aim to please, Doctor. Good hunting. But it may cost you….”

  “Oh?”

  “I have your novel in the car. I want to talk you out of a signature.”

  Before she could respond, he disappeared.

  After dropping through the hole, Brennan took the tools from Dr. Wu before the other anthropologist joined her on the dirt floor.

  On their hands and knees, Brennan led Dr. Wu to the exposed portion of hand she had found before. The Field Museum rep had brought a digital camera and a camcorder, so that every step of the way, they could document what they found.

  “You want me to start here?” Dr. Wu asked, through her mask.

  “Yes. I’ll start at one of the other markers.”

  But before she did, Brennan paused to watch her colleague.

  Dr. Wu snapped a photo, then worked from the small portion of exposed hand, slowly unearthing the rest of the body.

  Though they had worked together in the lab, Brennan wanted to see how her counterpart handled herself in the field; and she found Dr. Wu to be as careful and tenacious as herself.

  For her part, Brennan started against the opposite wall, slowly working her way down with a small garden trowel.

  This was not work for the impatient.

  People thought anthropologists and archeologists just stuck a shovel in the dirt, dug around something, popping it out of the earth, dusting it off, then, presto, displaying it in the nearest museum.

  That was hardly an accurate portrayal, and wh
en you were digging up a body that had been buried with the idea of keeping it from being discovered by the authorities, the stakes were much higher.

  Many of Brennan’s peers listened to classical music, or mastered some breathing method, to keep themselves calm while they plied their trade. Brennan simply concentrated on not missing anything and doing the job with the thoroughness it deserved.

  If there were bodies down here, those people might have families who loved and missed them, and had been tortured for months or years or even decades, never knowing what happened to someone precious to them.

  Brennan could give those families closure, providing remains for society’s rituals of burial and mourning; but more than that, she could help catch the killer who had taken a loved one away.

  All she had to do was concentrate, be thorough, and not miss any clues.

  Brennan wasn’t probing long before she felt the edge of the trowel touch something that was definitely not dirt.

  Now she slowed even more, her trowel moving inches at a time. She moved the dirt out of the hole and looked down to see a bare patch of white skin…

  … the front of a shin, tiny strands of brown hair barely visible in the dirt.

  Jorgensen was apparently still in the serial killer business, despite his age, judging from the remains they had found so far.

  Neither of these bodies was far along into decomposition. Brennan was amazed and appalled that a man of seventy — granted, one in phenomenal physical condition — had killed and buried at least two more victims.

  Of course, this “old man” had not so long ago nearly dispatched a Chicago cop, an FBI agent, and herself as well. Feisty, an adjective she usually associated with active seniors, did not begin to cover William Jorgensen. The only concession he seemed to have made to his declining years was in the mode of his burials: the victims were surprisingly close to the surface.

  As she uncovered more of the body, she soon found out why.

  The body had been doused with lime.

  Brennan knew that many killers who tried to dispose of bodies by burial believed that lime sped up the process of decomposition. She did not know the origin of that particular urban legend, but she knew the exact opposite was true.

  Not only did lime not promote decomposition, at shallower depths, like these, lime actually impeded it.

  At the end of eight hours, with midnight drawing near, the two anthropologists had exhumed the two bodies they’d been working on, and found signs of three more.

  They took a break until daylight, then came back and started again.

  And by the end of the day, they had reclaimed the other three bodies, found a sixth, and excavated that as well. Another sweep of ground-penetrating radar confirmed that they had gotten everything.

  None of the bodies was reduced to bone, none had been in the ground for more than a couple of years, and although some decomposition was present, these victims all went straight to the coroner for autopsy.

  Several things had become clear to Brennan when, for the last time, she left the crawlspace.

  William Jorgensen was a serial killer who had been at it for quite some time, six bodies within the last two or three years for sure. Of this there was no doubt.

  She and Dr. Wu had excavated all the bodies that were in the crawlspace and yet something did not jibe with this case, in terms of Jorgensen being part of the assembled skeletons that had led them here.

  None of the bodies in Jorgensen’s house was as old as the bones that had turned up at the FBI and the Biograph.

  Where were the other bodies?

  Plus she had a sense that she was missing something, something obvious, and this feeling nagged at her like an aching tooth.

  These victims of Jorgensen’s may have wound up in shallow graves, but the answer to the mystery of the two reconstructed skeletons remained buried deep.

  In the yard with Booth and Greene, Brennan watched the loading of the last of the bodies into the coroner’s van.

  As the vehicle drew away, Dr. Wu approached. She had removed her coveralls and stood before them in faded jeans and a vintage Rolling Stones tee shirt, looking more groupie than scientist.

  “I’m outa here, people,” Dr. Wu said. “It’s been… unique.”

  Brennan gave the woman a brisk handshake. “Thank you for all your help.”

  “Thanks for the opportunity to dig in next to you. An honor and a privilege.”

  Brennan grinned. “Back at ya.”

  Booth and Greene each shook hands with the doctor, and as she walked away, Greene gave them a wave and followed after her, both casting long shadows in the setting sun.

  Soon Brennan and Booth were alone in the yard. The crime scene unit would be going back down into the crawlspace, but Brennan and Booth were done for the day.

  She felt both tired and restless. As usual after a hard dig, she craved some alone time. Though she liked Booth, and if pressed would admit to enjoying the man’s company, the last thing she wanted to do now was spend an hour in a car with him commuting back to the hotel.

  She looked up at him. “Booth, I need a favor.”

  In the gathering darkness, Booth gazed at her. “Anything.”

  “Call for a ride, and let me borrow your car.”

  “Well… no.”

  She glared at him. “Not ten seconds ago, you said, ‘anything.’ ”

  “That’s why I didn’t say ‘hell no.’ ”

  “Give me one good reason, why ‘hell no.’ ”

  “For one thing,” he said casually, “you don’t know your way around this city.”

  “How would you know whether I do or not?”

  “Oh, well, for starters, in the car? Going from the airport to the Biograph? You didn’t know squat about Old Town.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll call a cab.” She turned to stomp off, but he moved and blocked her path.

  “Bones! I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

  “Look, Booth,” she said, her voice icy. “I’m an adult, I have an above-average IQ, and I’m literate enough to read signs and a map. By myself, I found my way to mass graves in Guatemala, Bosnia, and half a dozen other countries around the globe. I don’t need you to take me anywhere.”

  Booth backed away. “Whoa… why so testy all of a sudden?”

  She flushed. “Sorry. End of a long day.”

  “Right. So I’ll drop you at your hotel.”

  He started toward the car, and she moved with him.

  Trying not to sound whiny, she said, “I don’t want to go anywhere. What I want is some time alone.”

  He stopped and she stopped and he studied her for a long time without saying anything.

  Finally, he reached into his pocket and got out his cell phone. He dialed a number, his eyes never leaving her face. He wasn’t just looking at her — he was looking… deeper than that.

  In fact, his stare was so intense, it made her uncomfortable.

  “Woolfolk,” he said, “I’m at the Jorgensen house — I need a ride. Come get me.”

  A pause and squawk from the cell.

  Booth frowned. “Just come and get me, all right? That’s what partners are for.”

  Another pause, then Booth clicked off and dropped the cell phone into his pocket. From the other pocket, he withdrew the car keys and handed them to her. “The map’s in the glove box.”

  The keys felt warm in her hand.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I guess I owe you one.”

  He nodded. “At least one…. Get out of here.”

  She turned to leave, feeling a little guilty leaving him standing there alone, but knowing that she needed to be by herself right now.

  Booth’s voice came from behind her. “Pick me up in the morning.”

  Smiling, she turned and said, “Is that an order?”

  He grinned. “Damn straight. I’ll be in the lobby at seven a.m. Don’t be late.”

  “Don’t you be.”

  The car started easi
ly and she pulled away from the house, watching Booth watching her leave.

  Had his words to Woolfolk — That’s what partners are for — really been meant for her?

  Whatever the case, it felt good to be driving, to be in control, to be alone and to be free.

  She drove aimlessly at first, sticking to the surface streets, avoiding the expressway. She rolled down the window, the cool autumn air blowing her hair as she cruised along the long stretches of road.

  Out here in the far suburbs, city and country mixed and mingled. She could travel long stretches seeing nothing but shadowy woods, and an occasional set of oncoming headlights.

  Other times, the world was mile after mile of big retail stores, restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores, and strip malls filled with coffee shops and other small businesses.

  She turned off her brain, let the cool air rush over her, and just drove, forgetting about the bodies, the defacement of the corpses, all of it. Letting go of the sadness that had crept in when she thought of the families these bony reminders of humanity represented.

  Then, slowly, her mind turned to other things.

  She thought about her friends back in DC, and then various thoughts about Booth traveled through her mind, in particular the case he had been working on here in Chicago, before she arrived… searching for the missing informant Stewart Musetti….

  And then she had an idea.

  7

  The map in the glove compartment led Temperance Brennan to Oak Brook, a suburb of high-end stores, businesses, and nine thousand or so citizens.

  As she rolled along the road around a ritzy open-air mall, she saw what she was looking for.

  Just beyond a Cheesecake Factory loomed a formidable freestanding one-story structure with white stucco walls and an orange tile roof, all meant to put the visitor in mind of the sunny shores of Sicily.

  The sign on the front said SIRACUSA.

  Famished suddenly — and for some strange reason, just dying for Italian — Brennan pulled into the lot and found a spot for Booth’s Crown Victoria.

  Even for someone who worked out as regularly as Brennan, opening the restaurant’s darkwood door with the wrought-iron handle was like lifting the heavy weights. This conveyed an old-fashioned, the man-gets-the-door mentality that suited the Old World design of the exterior.