Bones Episode 2.04 The Blonde in the Game

TEASER:

Brennan and Booth walk through the woods with a policeman who explains that a jogger and his dog have discovered human remains, but there's one problem... They arrive at the scene to find the aggressive Doberman guarding the remains. After Booth fails to get the dog to cooperate, Brennan tricks it into scampering off and letting them get to work.

At the lab the squints examine the remains. Brennan notes that the victim was a teenage female. Cam chimes in with blunt trauma to the back of the skull as cause of death and Zack adds that she was buried face down. Hodgins arrives and from his work with the bugs found with the body, he concludes that she was buried seven to ten years prior. Brennan suggests that the placement of the victim's wrist and ankles tells that she was bound. Zack finds wear on the victim's rotator cuff and lumbar vertebrae, which means she was a golfer. To Hodgins' delight, Angela joins the crew with the composite she was able to mock up and Booth arrives asking if they've ID'd the victim. Hodgins explains to Booth that they found flecks of black paint in the wound and the shape of the damage suggests the use of a tire iron. Booth says what everyone else is thinking. These are the telltale signs off murderer Howard Epps, the death row prisoner that toyed with our crew a year ago. They fill Cam in and Booth heads to prison to question Epps.

Booth arrives at the prison and sits with Epps only to find that Epps has been waiting for this day. He smiles eagerly and asks about Brennan.

ACT ONE:

Booth shows Epps the composite of the victim and asks whom it is. Epps won't say, but he does tell Booth that everything he and Brennan will need to "win the game" lies with that victim. Booth doesn't want to play any games, but Epps has already set it in motion and the only person he'll talk to about it is Brennan.

On the forensic platform at the lab Brennan and Zack sit with Booth and discuss what Epps' game might entail. They ask Booth what Epps talked about and he explains that Epps was mostly tightlipped except when he mentioned how angry he was about Brennan breaking his wrist last time they met. Brennan looks at the wrist of the victim and finds that one of the wrist bones does not match the rest of the remains, which means that there might be another victim out there with a missing hamate bone.

Brennan and Booth head to the prison and arrive to find Epps already meeting with Caroline Epps, his wife of four months. As creepy as she is, Booth befriends her incase they need to talk with her later. She exits and they sit down with Epps. He speaks in riddles mentioning that his wife is a hairdresser and that his mother would wash his hands in antiseptic as a boy and Brennan pulls Booth out. She knows that he's given her what she needs to solve the case.

At the lab Brennan scrutinizes the remains to find nothing, but does suggest to Zack that he check the junior golf leagues to see if any players have gone missing. Hodgins enters after examining the odd wrist bone and finding it coated in a liquid laxative. Brennan reminds Hodgins that Epps mentioned the ammonia smell of antiseptic and it hits Hodgins.

Hodgins and Zack head into Hodgins' ookey room to spray the wrist bone with ammonia, which will cause the laxative coating to illuminate. Perhaps there's a hidden clue. Just as they are about to start the test Cam enter and forbids them from tainting the evidence, but Hodgins explains that this is the only thing they have to go on and she allows them to continue. When the bone is exposed to the ammonia a small shape appears on the bone. At magnification they see that it's the symbol for mining, which Cam translates to mean that the next body is in a mineshaft containing gypsum and selenium, which greatly narrows their search.

Arriving at the only abandoned gypsum/selenium mine in the area, Brennan and Booth head into the mine and find the new victim, but this victim has only been dead a week, which means Epps must have an accomplice killing people on the outside.

ACT TWO:

At the lab Cam examines the new victim. She's a definite match for the hamate wrist bone. Brennan observes and takes notation on the victim being a female in her mid teens. She sees that her spine is elongated and her ankles show evidence that they were bound, meaning she was hung upside-down. Cam also finds a cigarette burn on the victim's chest and a necklace in her shoe. Angela enters with an ID on the mine victim. From her dental records Angela found the name Sarah Koskoff.

Later, after Booth has done a little footwork, he calls to Brennan to let her know that Sarah Koskoff worked at the same hair salon as Epps' wife. Booth heads to the salon to question Caroline Epps.

At the salon Caroline cooperates and tells Booth that the last time she saw Sarah was three weeks ago. Booth tells her she's dead and Caroline is dumbfounded. She lets Booth search her salon and home.

After finding nothing, Booth lounges with Brennan as they pick each other's brains about the case. Brennan shows Booth the necklace Cam found and tells her that it's a religious medal of St. Agnes, which is also a catholic school in the area. Booth exits.

In Booth's FBI office he sits with Sister Karen Dunne who is head mistress of the St. Agnes School. Booth shows her the necklace and Sister Karen knows exactly whom it belongs to. One of their students, Helen Majors, won the medal. She went missing three days prior.

Brennan and Booth are en route to an address that Epps has sent letters to from prison. When they arrive guns drawn they discover that the address is a vacant lot. So why is Epps sending letters to an address that doesn't exist?

ACT THREE:

At prison they sit with Epps and Booth is ready to lose it. They question him to no avail as he continues to speak in riddles about the possibility of him being a father, being dyslexic, and something in German that catches Brennan off guard.

At the lab Brennan recites the German phrase Epps used, which translates to "An old friend with similar tastes." Hodgins joins them to say that he's found chemicals on the mine victim that are found on heavy-duty plastic gloves used by people who handle toxic substances. Zack arrives with a file on Lauren Hathaway as the positive ID on the first victim. Her father is in Brennan's office.

Booth and Angela console the victim's father and they question him. Angela pulls out some composites of Epps and show's him. He recognizes Epps as a worker from their country club.

Booth wants to question Caroline Epps again, but he wants to send Angela in his stead. Cam wonders why and Booth explains that Angela is better with living people than she or Brennan ever will be. Cam approves.

Angela meets Caroline at a diner to try and get more information from her. Angela tugs at her heartstrings with drawings of Epps' victims and finally she admits that she wrote a message from Epps to a man named Henry Gerber that read, "Don't you miss them?" She delivered it five days ago.

Booth kicks in Henry Gerber's door with Brennan behind him. They rush in to find Gerber watching adult movies from his wheelchair.

ACT FOUR:

At the lab Brennan, Booth, Zack and Hodgins sit in frustration. There's no way that Gerber could have killed these girls from a wheel chair. Booth reveals that it was Epps that paralyzed him while they were in prison together, hence, "Don't you miss them?" The go back the German phrase which Zack has scrambled the letters to make other phrases, one being "Neither Rain." It hits Booth. He's been sending the letters to a postal worker and postal workers wear the special gloves, which Hodgins mentioned earlier. They call the post office and find out who works the route that the vacant lot is on. When they get his route they see that the salon and St. Agnes are also on his route. Then they receive his profile and both Brennan and Booth recognize him. He's Gil Lappin, the dog owner that found the first body in the woods.

Booth charges into the suspects house and he and Brennan find his walls covered in picture of blonde girls, including the two victims and the still missing girl. They call Hodgins for an update and he's still hung up on two odd substances, but he can't come up with any rational reason they would be together. With pressure from Booth and support from Angela he racks his brain to remember that after the anthrax scares a few years ago they shut down some of the USPS sorting centers, so there is a chance that these girls were held captive at an abandoned sorting center.

Booth and Brennan find the abandoned sorting center and enter. Inside they hear Gil Lappin's voice and his exit. They continue on to find Helen Majors the missing St. Agnes girl hanging by her feet. They bring her down and Booth exits to track Lappin. Creeping through the warehouse Booth is suddenly jumped by Lappin and overpowered until Brennan arrives and shoots Lappin in the chest, killing him. This troubles Brennan who's never killed before.

In Brennan's office Cam joins Brennan who's still hung up on shooting Lappin. Cam tries to console her, but Brennan brushes it off to go talk to Epps with Booth.

In with Epps, Brennan and Booth ask him what this game was all about. He tells them that it was simply for his amusement and the fact that Brennan was the one who killed Lappin really gets him off.

At the diner, everyone is together exhaling. They're all drained from jumping through Epps' hoops. Brennan is the worst off of the crew and just when she hits rock bottom the gang surprises her with a new pet potbelly piglet. This lightens the load and Brennan's smile infects the rest of them.