Bones Episode 3.14 The Wannabe in the Weeds

It's open mic night at The Checker Box Restaurant and the place is full of aspiring songsters. Tommy Sour is onstage belting away Nickelback's "Far Away." Not only does he impress the women of the audience, but he catches the attention of a talent scout in the audience as well. Chris Calabasa takes the stage next and it's clear he's not a fan of Tommy's. Chris' rendition of Billy Joel's "Piano Man" fills the air. Afterwards, the hopeful musicians sing the rest of the night away.

Booth, Brennan and Cam arrive on the side of a rural road where a two-week old decaying body has been discovered in the weeds. The body's been ripped apart by a mower; the head is still in the machine's blades.

In the lab, Cam discovers traces of tea, honey and a throat lozenge in the shredded victim. The odontology results on Angela's computer reveal the victim to be Tommy Sour. He's been missing two weeks.

Booth and Brennan show up at the apartment of Tommy's neighbor. Adam Mathews reported Tommy missing two weeks ago. Adam is a painter and a sculptor and he can't focus on his art because an alarm in Tommy's apartment has been beeping constantly since the personal trainer went missing. Adam doesn't know much about Tommy but he mentions Fat Pam, a client of Tommy's at the Valera Wellness Gym. She had started stalking Tommy and showing up in the middle of the night. Booth and Brennan take off and leave Adam with the beeping alarm.

Back at the lab, Zack informs Cam of his findings; part of Tommy's hyoid bone has been shaved, as if someone had slit his throat. The lack of serrations on the bone tells Zack a knife is not the weapon.

At the Wellness Center, Booth and Brennan speak with the club's manager, Jason. Tommy was Jason's most popular trainer and since his disappearance, Jason's had a lot of angry customers on his hands. He tells the partners about Pam; how she fell for Tommy and how it started to freak him out.

Booth brings Pam in for questioning. She shows Booth and Brennan a photo album composed of surveillance style shots of Tommy. Pam claims Tommy was going to marry her. Booth gives her the news; her husband-to-be is dead.

While Pam waits in the interrogation room, Dr. Sweets feeds Brennan the woman's psychological profile. Pam has a bag of trail mix and by the way she sorts it, Sweets is able to gather that Pam's nervous and trying to control a situation that is out of her control. Either that or she's bored.

In the interrogation room, Booth questions Pam about her real relationship with Tommy; as his stalker. Pam shows Booth the gift Tommy gave her, a bracelet with her name on it. He gave it to her after she gave him a thousand dollar gift certificate to a music store. From behind the glass, Sweets gives Brennan the interrogation play-by-play. Pam was clearly overprotective of Tommy and it's possible that if she knew she couldn't have him, she wouldn't allow anyone to have him. It's not looking good for Pam but she has an alibi. She was in Florida with her parents when Tommy was killed.

Later, in Booth's office, Sweets continues his rundown of Pam and her state of mind. The bottom line is Pam is possessive and dangerous. But she's not Tommy's killer, her story checked out.

Cam calls Brennan into the lab to tell her Tommy was infected with e. coli and the last known e. coli outbreak happened at the Checker Box Restaurant. The cause of the breakout was raw honey, the same kind found in Tommy Sour's stomach

Booth and Brennan go to the Checker Box. Once again, it's open mic night. The partners speak with the restaurant's owner, Jerry, while Chris is onstage singing the same Nickelback song Tommy sang earlier. Jerry tells the partners about Chris and his dislike for Tommy. The rival songsters got into a shoving match after Tommy stole Chris' song. That's the last time Jerry ever saw Tommy.

Booth and Brennan speak with Chris Calabasa. He tells the partners about Tommy's MySpace page, where they can view Tommy's act for themselves. Chris admits to fighting with Tommy the night of his death. They took their dispute outside the club and after Chris vented his anger, Tommy took off. Chris claims he went back in after Tommy left and introduced himself to the talent scout who was in the audience. The scout is once again in the audience and Chris points him out. Booth goes over to have a word with the note-taking scout, Mitchell. After Booth swipes Mitchell's notebook, he sees it's full of doodles, not notes on the performers.

Outside the club, Booth and Brennan confront Mitchell and Jerry. Booth wants to know why Mitchell is impersonating a talent scout. He quickly gathers that Mitchell and Jerry are working together. If the hopefuls thought a talent scout was in the audience, more of them would show up for open mic night , bringing in business for Jerry. Booth thinks Tommy figured out the ploy and confronted Jerry about it, but Jerry swears nobody knew what they were up to. Booth tells them to cut out the scam, if it happens again he'll arrest them both. As Booth and Brennan walk away we see Pam sitting in her car parked nearby. She snaps photos of the partners.

In the lab, Zack admits to Hodgins that he was once a singer. And while Zack's peers may not have appreciated his talent, his parents and their peers found him to be quite good. Hodgins isn't buying it and to prove himself, Zack busts out in song. His more-than-adequate vocals bring in an audience, including Cam and Angela. Everybody seems impressed but just as quickly as it started, it's over, and Zack and Hodgins go back to work.

In the diner, Booth and Brennan discuss the human need to stand out from a crowd and the power and prestige that comes with being the best. Booth feels that Brennan acts as if she's better than him. And while she admits she is more intelligent than Booth, she does admire his expertise in certain fields. Booth gets a call from Pam. She wants to meet with him, alone. Pam hangs up with Booth and goes back to watching the diner from her parked car.

In Booth's office, Pam quickly starts interrogating Booth on his personal life. She wants to know about his relationship with Brennan, his son, if he's married. She gives Booth a gift, a few pairs of socks. Booth thought Pam had information on the case but she's just making advances on him. He tells her how inappropriate she is acting and Pam laughs it off. She leaves, smitten.

Booth walks into Brennan's lab to find her and Sweets watching Tommy Sour's MySpace video. Sweets categorizes Tommy as a presentational performer; the type of singer who craves attention from the audience, the kind of person who's driven by the acknowledgement of others. Brennan argues that a person's actions are driven by society as opposed to psychology.

When Booth tells them what happened with Pam and the socks, Sweets notices Pam's manipulation technique. Pam first appears vulnerable and follows it with generosity. Brennan notices, through the MySpace page, that Tommy Sour was about to release a CD, titled "I Can't Do Better Than You." Sweets notes that Pam probably assumed the song was meant for her. Brennan admits that until she was thirteen, she wanted to be the next Cyndi Lauper. Brennan says her mother told her she sang "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" better than the original singer. But when put on the spot, Brennan refuses to sing. Back on the screen, Sweets notices Tommy singing to a woman in the audience. The man sitting next to the woman seems visibly upset. And having seen him at the Checkerbox earlier, Brennan recognizes the angry man to be a guitar player. She knows how Tommy died.

Later in the lab, Brennan slices through a block of cheese using a guitar string. Zack and Hodgins act out the murder as Booth, Brennan, Cam, Sweets and Angela watch on. The guitar string sliced Tommy's throat from behind and as Tommy lost consciousness, he fell face forward, fracturing his chin. He probably didn't put up much of a fight because the marijuana found in his system would have dulled his reflexes.

Booth interrogates Dax, the angry guitar player from the MySpace video. Booth thinks Dax was upset because Tommy was serenading his girl, Helen. But Dax clears it up for Booth, Helen isn't his girl, in fact Helen is married. He's angry in the video because he hates Tommy. Dax set Tommy up with Jason, his trainer at the Wellness center. Jason and Tommy hit it off and took out a fifty thousand dollar loan to open their own training facility. Tommy, instead, ran off with the money and used it to produce his CD.

Booth and Brennan go back to the Wellness center. Booth's contacted the bank. He's learned that Jason is on the hook for the entire amount of the loan, something he forgot to mention the first time he spoke with the partners. Booth and Brennan arrive at Jason's office and find he's gone. Booth gets on the phone and orders a BOLO for Dr. Jason Bergman. He's wanted for first degree murder.

In the lab, Brennan catches up with Hodgins. Brennan wants the results from Hodgins' bone particulate analysis as soon as possible. She tells Hodgins that Booth has dismissed Dax as a suspect seeing as the guitarist had no motive. Brennan still believes a wire or metal of some kind killed Tommy. And since Booth now suspects Jason of the crime of passion, they'll be looking for some kind of wire used in a gym.

Booth and Brennan interrogate Jason. Booth finds it suspect that Jason fled the state and was caught in Ohio after having driven all day and night. But Jason says he only ran because he was trying to escape his loan. Jason notes that since Tommy is dead, he's now responsible for repaying the whole fifty thousand himself. Booth seems to think Jason may have snapped and killed Tommy. When Brennan asks if Jason used any sort of wire in his gym Jason responds by saying that any further questions are going to have to go through his lawyer. Hodgins barges in with news on the bone particulate analysis. He's found elemental evidence on the vertebra; Clay. He's also found silver particulates. A company he found online infuses its sculpting clay with silver powder. Hodgins contacted the internet company and discovered they delivered a shipment of the clay to Tommy's neighbor.

Booth and Brennan go back to Adam's apartment. The alarm from Tommy's unit still beeps in the background as Booth hands Adam the warrant. Brennan makes her way over to a clay cutting wire. She tests it for blood and the wire comes up positive. Booth cuffs him and Adam comes clean. Adam was fed up with Tommy's singing -- he could hear him loudly through the thin walls. Adam needed to work and couldn't with Tommy's constant caroling. He just meant to scare Tommy but he accidently killed him.

Brennan shows up at the Checkerbox to find Booth, Angela, Hodgins, Cam, Zack and Sweets waiting for her. She's confused. Booth's set the stage for her to perform, to sing "Girls just Wanna Have Fun" better than Cyndi Lauper. As Brennan takes to the stage and does her rendition, Pam enters. Upset that Booth's attention is on Brennan and not her, Pam pulls out a gun and shoots at Brennan. Booth steps in front of his partner and takes the bullet in the chest. Booth goes down and Brennan runs over to him. She grabs Booth's gun and shoots Pam before Pam can get another shot off. As Zack runs off to call 911, Brennan tends to her dying partner. The screen fades to black.