The Babe in the Bar - Recap

A gala event with all the stops pulled out was being held in the city and the entity throwing the party was none other that Wolper Chocolate Industries, a up and coming chocolate manufacturer. This event was meant to bring attention to the fact that Wolper Chocolate was expanding its' business into other countries and also to offer a piece of chocolate to all those who were attending this party. In order to do that, a gigantic chocolate bar was at the event and it was going to be divided amongst all the attendees. A large saw was brought out, Wolper himself looking on, as Scott Kemper, the Wolper chief chocolatier, and another man began to cut through its' sweet thickness. Suddenly, the saw hit a snag, making it amost impossible to keep cutting. As the two men struggled hard to saw, a sickening stench of decaying flesh was noticed, prompting those nearby to turn away, gagging and coughing against the fumes. Wolper grabbed a linen handkerchief and pressed it to his nose, demanding to know what that stink was? No one seemed to know, but Scott took a closer look at the huge bar and saw bones. He began to pull at the bones entrenched firmly inside the chocolate and a skeleton began to emerge. The men had sawed completely through the skeleton, leaving it exposed to the warm California air.

The forensics investigative team was called in and began to probe the chocolate bar and the people who worked for the factory. Scott Kemper was interrogated by Bones and Seeley, who discovered that the skeleton in the chocolate had belonged to one Harriet Saloway who had worked for the Wolper factory in the capacity of saleswoman. Xrays given by Hodgins revealed that her skull had been hit from behind and that she had been held down in the chocolate and drowned. It was discovered that her last two exhalations of life had been trapped in the chocolate and could be removed by freezing the surrounding chocolate, then cutting the sweet stuff and using a hypodermic needle to extract the trapped breaths. What would they reveal, Hodgins wondered? Angela thought that he was brilliant for coming up with such an innovative idea. A partially healed fracture was found in one arm of the skeleton with something small and unknown embedded in the bone. What could it be? Hodgins would look deeper into this.

Angela and Hodgins discussed having a baby announcement party to which all the staff would be invited. Angela knew that all the staff already knew about their impending offspring but had made them promise to not let on to Hodgins since the man seemed so bent on announcing it to the world. She made reluctant plans with Hodgins to hold it the next evening at the lab, but she was not sure how many might attend. She could see that alot of work would have to be done on this case alone.

A very distraught Wolper offered fifty thousand dollars to the person or persons who might have information leading to the conviction of Harriet's murderer, but none seemed forthcoming. He admitted to Bones and Seeley that he and Harriet had had an affair, that she had lied to him and rejected him, and that he had been very angry, but he had not murdered the woman nor had he had someone do it for him. He told them that she had a sister named Geneva with whom he had also had an affair, this one before the one with Harriet. When Seeley asked him why he was not with Geneva, the man told him that Geneva had been a crazy woman, that when he had decided to break it off with her, that she had been very very persistent, almost to the point of stalking him. She had eventually given up, but he wanted nothing further to do with her. Seeley decided to have Geneva brought in for questioning.

Geneva told Bones and Seeley that her sister, Harriet, had been a phony from the start, that she had lied on every single one of her resumes when she applied for a position, that Geneva had been very jealous of her sister all her life. Seeley looked at the mentioned resumes that Geneva handed over and she told him that Harriet had tailored each resume to match the position she was applying for. Apparently Harriet had worked for a bustier manufacturing corporation before Wolper's place. It turned out that she had had an affair with the head of this factory and then moved on quickly. The owner mentioned that she had been working at Bolomo Wines and had heard that Harriet had been intimate with the owner of the winery. Seeley traveled there and talked to Bolomo, its owner.Bolomo admitted that he had been with Harriet, that he had wanted to marry her but she had moved on. He had not killed the woman.

The two exhalations that had been discovered in the chocolate were accessed with a large hypodermic needle and the results were that they contained wine fumes and blood, the blood belonging to the victim. The wine fumes proved to be Bolomo wine and Seeley talked to Bolomo once more, who admitted that he and Harriet had had some that last evening, but she had gone home just fine, so that proved to be a dead end. It was discovered that Harriet had been a corporate spy, employed to do total immersion in the company she was spying on, then selling its secrets. She had traveled to Indonesia to learn more about chocolate being grown there, had fallen in a field and broken her arm, and a beetle that lived on the cocao plant had gotten into the break, not allowing it to completely heal.



Who had been the last people in the factory that night, Seeley wanted to know? He used Wolper computer records to locate them and found that Scott Kemper had been the last one to see Harriet. When questioned at headquarters, Kemper, a single man, had fallen in love with the woman and proposed to her, offering her an engagement ring. She had rejected him that night, there near the huge chocolate pot and she had been drunk. Kemper had strangled her and pushed her into the chocolate, drowning her. The decomposition of her body had been accelerated by the hot chocolate, thus creating the terrible stench when the bar was cut open.

Mystery solved. The baby announcement party was only attended by four people, close friends of Hodgins and Angela, who pretended valiantly that they did not know that Angela was expecting. Hodgins was suspicious but mollified and all were happy.



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