Bones 4.23: The Girl in the Mask

Half-time report. Sweets says that Booth was asked by his friend Ken Nakamura to help find Ken’s sister, who turned up murdered. Her friends are ‘Sweet Lolitas’— anime girls. The suspects are men who hang out with the ‘Sweet Lolitas’.

Bones and Dr. Haru examine the corpse in the lab. Sgt. Ken looks on, in obvious pain. Dr. Haru says that s/he cannot help or comfort him unless he asks. It is their culture. Bones understands. Please excuse me as I start banging my head against my desk. Bones approaches him and gently compliments his dedication to his sister. *headdesk* The commitment he has show to her by bringing her up does him great honour. *headdesk* However, his presence is distracting to her collegues who are working on the case. If he would please wait in the lounge so they could concentrate, she promises to keep him up-to-date with anything they discover. *headdesk* They both know that she has given him a gracious out, and he takes it. *headdesk* She was kind. And eloquent. And empathetic and thoughtful and intelligent and creative. And yet Booth had to make her practice a “sad” face at a wake last week. *headdesk*

Cam and Dr. Haru are looking at the brain for more clues as to the murder weapon. They decide to liquify the brain under a red light. I don’t know how it worked but it was cool. Cam uses the time to study Dr. Haru for any gender tells, but the doctor catches her. Cam gratefully seizes the distraction of a sliver found in the liquid brain. What could it be?

The client who likes it rough is Paul Voelger. Booth and Bones walk in on his massage. Bones asks Booth how much a massage like this would cost and he says $200. Bones says that seems excessive. Booth says the fee includes a happy ending. Voegler says that the photographer gave him the flyer to the escort service and he only saw Nozomi, not Sachi. Bones tells the masseuse she is doing it wrong and she readjusts his back. He likes that. Booth has a magazine article showing Voegler with an old Japanese sword. Voegler admits it was his but he had to sell it when the markets tanked. Booth says that the sword would be used for beheadings, say, like Sachi was beheaded. Voegler gets a little less cooperative and Bones says that it would really hurt if pressure were applied here. Voegler demands his lawyer and Bones hits the spot again before they leave. As they walk out, the masseuse hits the same spot a third time, causing the suspect to squeal. Bones is impressed that the masseuse is such a fast learner.

Cam tells Angela that she tried to scope out Dr. Haru but got caught looking. She can’t confirm if the doctor is a man (Angela’s guess) or a woman (Hodgins’s guess).

Micah Strut is still a suspect. They have found stalker-type photos of Sachi; long-lens shots. Cam gets her quip line of the episode. ‘If he was stalking, maybe it wasn’t just photos that he wanted to shoot.’

Meanwhile back at the lab, Dr. Haru asks if Bones is familiar with the Shinto idea of Kami. Basically, it is the spiritual essence of the body. Bones thinks it’s a crock, but keeping with her social expertise and exceptional tolerance to all things not done her way this week, she hands over the skull to the doctor. Dr. Haru feels an anomaly and further examination reveals that the cause of death was drowning.

Hodgins says he will analyze the water to see where she was drowned. The splinter, by the way, was bamboo. Sachi was drowned, decapitated, and her head was put on a spike.

Bones and Ken share another touching moment, which I will skip before my head explodes in frustration.

Hodgins determines that Sachi was not drowned in the marshes. She was drowned in a water feature. That’s a fountain, pond, or tank to the rest of us. He informs Booth and Bones of this discovery by phone. Booth shouts through the phone that Ken is to stay at the Jeffersonian. Booth will kick his ass out of the country if he tries to rejoin the investigation. Bones says that he was mean but Booth says it was necessary. Ken is angry and wouldn’t have heard him otherwise. Bones says she didn’t know that anger affects hearing. Booth tells her it’s a medical fact; she should look it up.

The crimefighters have also managed to link Strut to Jimmy Sok. The photographer gave the pimp the names of girls who didn’t mind being photographed naked. Strut says that Sachi wouldn’t do nude shots but her roommate Nozomi did.

A simple test reveals that Strut’s water feature uses chlorine. She wasn’t drowned there. Hodgins tells this to Sgt. Ken. Ken says he would have found out from Booth but Hodgins says that if it were his sister, he’d wantto know directly. At the same time, Angela says that Sachi was not a prostitute, despite what the restaurant owner said. It was her roommate. Ken also has something to contribute. Putting a head on a bamboo spike is a Japanese warning. If Nozomi saw it, she would understand what it meant and would run. Ken is still confused though. If his sister was a good girl, what did she do to get killed?