Bones

Booth brings Brennan to the FBI morgue to see the body of a man named Ted Macy, who was found murdered at a national park. The body is not at all decomposed and therefore not Brennan's territory, but he was found clutching a finger bone, and Booth hopes Brennan can use her expertise to find out to whom the bone belongs. Brennan is exasperated when she discovers FBI medical examiner Dr. Harry Tepper submerged the bone in Lysol IC, a substance used to decontaminate remains, that also washes away potentially important particulates and compromises the periosteal surface. Brennan asks Tepper if it is his first day on the job, but Tepper informs her he has been a medical examiner for 18 years.

Brennan brings the finger bone back to the Jeffersonian. Using carbon dating, the team is able to determine the bone dates from the 17th century, and Brennan discovers its owner suffered from tertiary syphilis. Booth informs the team that Macy's body was found at a dig site on Assateague Island, which Hodgins recognizes as the home of the "Money Pit," the rumored hiding spot of the legendary treasure of Blackbeard. If Macy found the 17th century bone in the Money Pit, it is evidence the treasure indeed exists, and may give a clue to the motive for Macy's murder.

Brennan and Booth drive out to Assateague Island to investigate the crime scene. Booth informs Brennan that Macy and his business partner, Giles Hardewicke, were running a dig to look for Blackbeard's treasure. The dig was funded by billionaire adventurer Branson Rose, who was getting ready to pull his funding because the team had not found any evidence of treasure after two years of searching. As Brennan and Booth arrive, Rose and Hardewicke are arguing. Hardewicke is trying to convince Rose not to abandon the search, assuring him that before his death, Macy felt sure they were close to finding the treasure. When Brennan and Booth inform the treasure-hunters that Macy's death was a homicide rather than an accident, Rose changes his mind about pulling his financing, sure Macy must have found something "worth killing him for."

Dr. Tepper brings by soil samples pulled from Macy's lungs for Hodgins to look at. Hodgins needs soil samples from the various parts of the Money Pit dig site to determine where in the pit the victim was killed. He eagerly offers to collect the samples himself by diving down into the shaft. Booth impresses upon him how dangerous the dive is, but Hodgins insists he is qualified as a certified cave diver, and he will entrust the soil sample collection to no one else. With the help of one of the divers, Dane McGinnis, Hodgins navigates his way down to the bottom of the pit, which no one but Macy has reached yet. Just below the surface of the soil, Hodgins finds an entire human skeleton (less one finger bone), which the Jeffersonian team confirms belongs to the same 17th century man as the bone discovered earlier. After comparing the soil samples, Hodgins determines Macy was killed at the top of the shaft, presumably after swimming to the top holding whatever treasure he had found down below.

Meanwhile, Branson Rose visits the Jeffersonian, angrily claiming that the bones found at the bottom of the shaft are his property, as he has a permit to dig at that site and keep whatever is found. However, Booth reminds him that as soon as a murder was committed, Rose's treasure became evidence in a murder investigation and cannot be relinquished to Rose until the crime in question is solved.

Booth returns to Assateague Island to question Macy's partner, Giles Hardewicke. Macy and Hardewicke's contract stated the two of them would split their share of the treasure, and with Macy out of the way, Hardewicke would have a bigger piece of the pie if any treasure were found. Hardewicke insists he would never hurt Macy as the two of them were like brothers, and have each saved the other's life on more than one occasion. He shows Booth a scar he got pulling Macy out of a sinkhole years earlier, and Booth notices some fresh bruising around the scar. Hardewicke tells Booth that Macy was sleeping with Assateague Island's mayor's wife, and when the mayor came around asking questions, Hardewicke took the blame for Macy and wound up being beaten up by the mayor.

Back at the lab, Brennan is appalled to find that despite the Jeffersonian's $750,000 annual security budget, the skeleton found at the bottom of the shaft has been stolen from the Bone Room. However, Zack was still examining the original finger bone in his office and had not placed it with the rest of the skeleton, so the team at least has that small piece to go on. Brennan vows to use the finger bone to find whatever it is the killer was trying to hide by stealing the skeleton.

Booth questions the mayor's wife, Katie, about her relationship with Macy. She admits to the affair but insists her husband is incapable of murder, and as far as she knows he still believes that Hardewicke was her lover. She urges Booth to take a closer look at Rose and Hardewicke as suspects. Katie explains that before his death, Macy told her that Hardewicke did not appreciate the work he did and wanted to break up the company, and that the three men were constantly fighting over finances.

Examining the finger bone again, the Jeffersonian team is unable to find any useful particulates, but Brennan finds a small hole in the bone that looks as though it is manmade. She and Booth visit the FBI morgue again to view Macy's x-rays to see if there is evidence of a weapon being used that may have also made the hole in the bone. Brennan does not find any evidence of a weapon, but while examining the x-rays, she determines that the ME's findings on cause of death are incorrect. Due to a crushed larynx, Dr. Tepper determined the victim was strangled, but because of the directionality of the fractures in the victim's neck, Brennan is able to tell the victim's head was actually jerked up and to the left, severing the spinal cord, and the larynx was crushed when the neck was broken. This finding further increases Brennan's frustration with the less-than-competent Dr. Tepper.

Brennan returns to the lab and uses fluorescent light to determine that the finger bone was cleaned and treated before they found it, meaning it couldn't possibility have been at the bottom of the shaft since its owner's death. She theorizes the bones were stolen and placed in the shaft to give the dig legitimacy, and the hole in the bone was from a wire used to assemble the bones for display. She also finds that the bones were stolen from a display right there at the Jeffersonian, and replaced in the display case with a very realistic set of acrylic bones.

Brennan and Booth return to Assateague to question Hardewicke again about the new information Katie gave them. Hardewicke again denies that there were any problems between him and Macy. He tells the partners that playing the under-appreciated adventurer was part of Macy's seduction technique, but their partnership was intact. He offers to give Booth full access to the books, no search warrant needed, to prove that he did not benefit financially from Macy's death.

Back at the lab, Angela and Dr. Goodman review the security footage from the night that the bones were stolen from the Bone Room. They discover the security cameras were turned off for just under two minutes, allowing the thief to steal the bones without being caught on camera. Since only the Jeffersonian security guards have access to the cameras, Goodman suspects one of them may be involved in the theft. They review the security guards' work schedules and determine that only one guard was working both on the night the bones were stolen from the Bone Room and the night they were stolen from the museum pirate exhibit. That same guard also recently received a wire transfer for $10,000. Upon questioning, the guard admits to stealing the bones and tells the team that Macy hired him to steal the bones initially while Hardewicke hired him the second time.

Brennan and Booth go to question Hardewicke again, but find him murdered. Dr. Tepper again performs the autopsy and again determines the victim was strangled. However, Brennan insists upon seeing the x-rays, and determines Hardewicke was actually killed in the same way as Macy. Upon hearing Brennan describe the neck-breaking maneuver, Booth realizes it is a Special Forces move. This leads them to question Branson Rose, whose internet bio says he served in the Special Air Services. Booth asks Rose about his time in the SAS, but Rose refuses to release details. Brennan slaps Rose across the face twice, the second time with plenty of warning, and Rose is unable to block either strike. Given this, Brennan and Booth are pretty convinced that Rose never served in Special Forces, but simply embellished his bio to make himself look tough.

Meanwhile, Hodgins has been bonding with Dane McGinnis over their shared desire to find treasure at the bottom of the pit. Hodgins has been consumed by the idea of going back into the shaft since his first dive, and Dane has agreed to help him go back down, even though legally there is supposed to be a waiting period between dives. Brennan and Booth arrive at the dive site shortly after Hodgins is lowered into the pit. Booth has remembered an offhand comment Dane made the first time they met about how Hodgins "swims like a squid", a Navy slang for a sailor, and on a hunch, he had the FBI look up whether Dane had served in the military and found he was part of the Naval Special Forces.

When Brennan and Booth approach Dane, he pulls out a knife and holds it to the air hose connecting Hodgins to the oxygen source. He tells Booth to toss away his gun and throw Dane his keys so Dane can drive away in his truck, or else Dane will cut Hodgins' air line. He confesses to murdering Macy and Hardewicke after discovering they planted the bones in the shaft. Dane's brother died in the shaft after tripping one of Blackbeard's famed booby traps, and Dane feels Macy and Hardwicke were turning the dig into a con job that dishonored his brother's memory. Meanwhile, Hodgins, oblivious to the scene going on 200 feet above him, reaches the bottom of the shaft, and after some digging, finds a single gold coin. Brennan, Booth, and Dane can hear Hodgins' excitement through his microphone, and Dane is desperate to look at the computer screen to see the video feed of what Hodgins has unearthed. Booth shoots the computer and Brennan tells Dane he'll have to pull Hodgins up to see the coin. She also appeals to him on the basis that Hodgins is an adventurer like Dane and his brother and has done nothing to warrant being murdered. Dane puts down his knife and is arrested.