Previously on Bones: The Man on Death Row

[paladinsuitsyou]

When was the last time you looked him in the face? Amy Morton asks Booth, and he doesn't answer.

He knows she notices the tension in his jaw. Watching her leave, he unclenches it, wiggles it from one side to the other, and looks at the old photo of a killer.

It's been six years since Agent Seeley Booth went to see Howard Epps. Six years of murder, arson, terrorism, and more murder. Six years of autopsies, hearings and trials. And he still remembers that face. After all, it's the face of the first man he helped send to death row.

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It was his first lead investigation at the Bureau. They'd given it to him, fresh off his two-year probationary period (his record was exemplary), because it had seemed fairly straightforward: A girl, raped and murdered in a federal park. Find the rapist, find the murderer.

Not that they let him do it alone, of course. His partner was an old hand at this kind of thing, a veteran of the Bureau named Daniel Waters. Still, it was an exciting position for Booth, and Waters, while competent and thorough, was lacking in the imagination department. Booth could supply sufficient amounts of that, however.

Of course, the assignment was based on a flawed premise: that the girl had been raped. When it came to light that she hadn't been, there were noises about taking the newbie off the case, putting him on something a little more clear-cut, but Waters had gone to bat for Booth, and they'd stayed on the case.

They had followed the evidence and their gut instincts to find Howard Epps, to determine that he bashed April Wright's head in with a tire iron. There are loose ends, though, evidence they can't account for, and the murder weapon was never found.

Waters told him to let it go, that that evidence doesn't matter. All that matters is that they found Epps, had enough to tie him to the scene and to the girl. The pubic hair they can't identify, the consensual sex with an unknown male, the gravel in the girl's hand, the shards of bone in her clothes - these are only distractions, Waters says. The judge will throw them out. They're irrelevant.

Booth figured he was right. Waters was a pro, an old hand at the game, but it bugged him all the same. He hates loose ends, hates the unexplained. Sometimes, though, it's just a fact. Sometimes you don't get the tidy package.

He knows that. That doesn't mean Booth doesn't want it anyway.

That's part of why he went to see Epps after the sentencing. He thought maybe Epps could give him some idea about the mysterious hair, the consensual sex, but all he got was the same earnest, blank look and the avowal of earnestness.

Booth looked into those dead, dark eyes and knew, just knew he was looking into the eyes of a killer. It occurred to him, as he hangs up the phone and turns to leave, that April Wright might not have been the first girl Epps killed.

He doubted he'd ever know the truth, and wondered if he will be able to live with that.

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Maybe that's why he went to see Epps again, to remind himself of who and what Howard Epps is.

After a short, disturbing conversation about innocence and the pain of the death penalty, Booth hangs up the phone and walks away.

He's still confident that Epps killed April Wright. But the loose ends still bug him, and he knows what he has to do.

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At the Jeffersonian, he manages to convince Bones to investigate the case. You're one of her stones, Bones notes.

Please, do me a favor? Please? he says, and she assents.

Flipping through the file, she tells him what she needs and asks How much time do we have?

Howard Epps will be executed in 30 hours and 28 minutes.

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The squints talk science, go over the autopsy results and the evidence found on the body.

They break down April Wright's death:

She was a dancer or a runner.

She tried to defend herself.

Her head was beaten in with a blunt object.

The squints find anomalies, find particles lodged beneath her fingertips.

Booth knows a lot of this already. He also knows that she was blonde. Pretty. Smart. A cheerleader. That the tire iron from her car was missing and probably used to kill her.

Further investigation finds that her parents' lawyer had sex with April the night she was killed. He claims she ran off, that he looked and couldn't find her.

When Brennan and Booth go after the murder weapon in the wetlands near the Chesapeake Bay, they find, in addition to the tire iron, two bodies. Females. Young. Blunt trauma to the skull.

We got played.

When Brennan tells him how long the women have been dead, he knows it was Epps, that the whole thing was a ploy to postpone the execution. Booth knows Epps abducted Amy, killed her in the marsh, and then took her back to the park to frame the lawyer. He also knows that Epps is scheduled to die in thirty minutes.

These women. They deserve to be heard. It's what we do, Booth.

Booth calls in the bodies and halts the execution of Howard Epps.

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The three of them meet with Epps that night, Amy Morton, Booth and Brennan.

Since I should have been dead a half-hour ago, it's all gravy from now on.

When he tells Brennan that he read her book, knew she was working with Booth, she breaks his wrist.

You gonna arrest me for assault? she asks.

From what I saw, purely self-defense, Booth tells her.


And there's his package, all the loose ends wrapped up neat and tidy, with a pretty little bow on top.

Somehow, he thought it would make him feel better than it does.

Brennan breaking Epps's wrist helps some, though.