The Squinterns

A Boy in a Tree

~

"What did Naomi mean when she said take a hint?" asks Zack for the billionth time.

Hodgins winces. "Ooh"

"What did I do wrong?" he asks again.

"It's not what you did wrong, it's what you didn't do." says Hodgins.

"Where do you learn this stuff?" asks Zack.

"Well, some things you learn by doing." replies Hodgins. "Riding a bike, driving a car..."

"Pleasing a woman." I add.

"I can't ride a bike or drive a car." says Zack.

"Or apparently please a woman." I say.

"I need specific instructions." Zack walks over to where Hodgins and I are working. "A list of techniques to implement, or a sequence of moves. Caroline you're a woman, what pleases you?"

I scoff. "Excuse me?"

"Look, Zack. All of our work relationships are, up here" Hodgins gestures around between all our faces.

I get up. "You need to work with someone more, uh, earthy."

~

"Wong Foo's?" I ask.

We all stare up at the sign of Booth's favorite restaurant. Hodgins shrugs. We walk in and join Booth and Brennan at a table.

"Nestor's bones are completely normal. Not brittle in any way." says Booth.

"This is kind of my little get away place, you know?" asks Booth. We all squeeze into the booth next to Brennan and Booth.

"The grooves left in the branch where Nestor was hanging are too deep for his weight." says Angela.

"Please everyone, come on, sit down." says Booth sarcastically.

"Eggs, larva, waste, all indicate that the insects which fed on the body are all indigenous to the tree he was found in. It means he died there ten to fourteen days ago." says Hodgins.

I pull out the file folder with all the pictures in it.

"See here, how his head is tilted? I'm no expert, but if someone hangs themselves, their head tilts down, not to the side." I say, gesturing to the picture.

"I'll have the seven-organ soup." calls Hodgins.

"You don't order, the guy just brings it." says Brennan.

"Seven organ?" I ask in horror.

"He didn't void. Usually, someone hangs themselves, the floodgates open. Bodily fluids everywhere." says Zack, placing a picture in the middle of the table.

"There's plenty of effluent everywhere, but they're all post decomposition." says Hodgins

"As the body swells, it bursts from internal gasses." I explain. "How does the guy know what you want?"

"The guy has a knack." says Brennan.

"The guy's name is Sid." says Booth.

"It was birds who ate his eyes, ears, and worked their way into the skull." says Zack.

"Birds pecking at the soft tissue of the throat. Could that crack the hyoid?" asks Hodgins.

"No, it's a stress fracture caused from the rope pulling against his throat, not postmortem." says Brennan

"You put a sensitive adolescent in a high pressure prep school, add social alienation, cultural differences, pressure from high achieving parents, it could be suicide." says Angela.