Conflict of Interest

When Hodgins first hears the news, his immediate thought is, It can't be the same Terry Bancroft.

He hasn't spoken to his old college friend in eight years. At one time, they had been as close as brothers. Before Clarissa had broken off her engagement with Hodgins to take up with Terry. Hodgins had pretty well turned his back on both of them, and most of their mutual friends, after that. And though his bitterness over the betrayal died a long time ago, he has never had any desire to reconnect with them.

But the thing about being part of a wealthy upper class is that you hear a lot about your social peers, whether you want to or not. So Hodgins knows that the Bancroft estate, where a man's badly decomposed body has been found in the study, is indeed Terry and Clarissa's house.

"Is that the Bancroft case?" Hodgins asks Zach, who is studying an enlarged dental x-ray on his computer screen. The computer hums, sorting through the multitude of files in its data banks.

"Yeah," Zach replies, not looking away from his work.

Hodgins picks up the case file (what there is of it) and flips through, not even sure what he is looking for. "Looks like a home invasion/homicide, right?"

Zach glances up momentarily. "Yes. I'm running the dental records now. Cam is finishing up the autopsy."

"But Booth is pretty sure this is Terry Bancroft?"

There is an edge to Hodgins's voice. He can hear it. But he must be covering it well enough, because Zach doesn't seem to take his question as anything other than simple interest in their latest case.

"Yes. There was a lot of insect activity. Samples are at your workstation. Also, the extension cord used to tie him up and everything that was on top of his desk."

"He was tied up?"

"His heart was perforated," Cam says, coming in fresh from the morgue. "But there’s no blood in the thoracic cavity."

"He was stabbed after he was already dead?" Hodgins has never, by any strech of the imagination, been a squeamish person. His chosen career has him filtering though decomposed organic matter and excrement, sorting through garbage, and plucking insects from corpses on a daily basis. There is no rational reason why this should turn his stomach.

But it does.

"What...what killed him?"

"The jugular was punctured," Cam replies. "Multiple stabs are congruent with killers jacked on crystal meth, or just plain adrenaline."

"Why kill him?" Terry--the Terry that Hodgins had known--was smarter than to have tried to fight back against someone robbing him.

Cam shakes her head. "No sign of forced entry. He probably knew his attackers."

There is a tell-tale beep from the computer, and Zach turns back to the screen. "We have a match," he says. "Confirmed—Terence Bancroft."

The picture that is pulled up from the database is undeniably Terry. An older Terry, to be sure. The hairline has moved north, the face is a little heavier and creased. But it is still the man who, once upon a time, had been his friend.

"He knew his killers?" Hodgins asks quietly.

Unfortunately, Cam is a little swifter on the uptake when it comes to reading emotion than Zach is.

"Are you alright?" she asks.

Hodgins pulls his eyes away from the screen and looks at Cam. And in that split second he makes a decision. "Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I’ll, uh...I’ll get on insect analysis right away."

He hurries out of the room before Cam can press the issue. There is a case to solve, evidence waiting, and Hodgins knows that he is the best person to work it. And if anyone finds out that he had once had a personal relationship with the victim (or in this case both the victim and his wife) he'll be taken off the case faster than a politician forgets campaign promises.

Conflict of interest, they call it.

Right now his only interest is to find out who killed Terry.

But first he takes a quick detour to Limbo. He seriously needs a moment to brace himself and put on his game face before facing what's waiting at his workstation.

A moment and a stiff drink.