SIXTEEN
This time when Julie called him at 7 a.m., he’d been up almost two hours, ostensibly getting his notes ready for class, but mostly brooding about letter-bombs, murders, dismemberments, and the all-around nastiness of people.
"Hi," she said. "Isn’t it Wednesday there yet?"
It was as if someone had opened a window and let a fresh breeze into a fetid room. Her voice was sleepy and warm, bringing a vivid image of what it was like to awaken next to her in the morning, her warm, naked bottom snuggled sweetly against his thighs and belly, his arm lying loosely over her waist, his face against the silky, fragrant, sleep-damp nape of her neck.
He put down the ballpoint pen and closed Stewart’s Essentials of Forensic Anthropology. "I wish it was," he said sincerely. "Were," he corrected. That was what came of being around Ray again.
"Me too. It’s crazy, but I can’t sleep when you’re not with me; not very well, anyway. There are all kinds of creepy noises in the house that aren’t there when you’re here."
"What?" he said, pleased and flattered. "This from a thirty-year-old, self-sufficient park ranger who slept alone her whole life until recently?"
"Well, I wouldn’t exactly say my whole life. I mean, there were a few nights here and there-"
"Okay, okay, I’m sorry I sounded smug. But it’s nice to be needed."
"Oh, you’re needed, all right," she said with agreeable warmth. "Gideon, how are you? I’ve been worrying about you."
"Worrying? Why?"
"Because you-I don’t know, you always get into… adventures that never happen to anyone else. There isn’t anything wrong, is there?"
"Wrong?" He laughed. "No, of course not." What was a bomb in the morning mail to the truly adventurous? Besides, why bring it up now when it couldn’t serve any purpose other than to worry her? Later was good enough. If there was going to be any comforting and soothing as a result, he didn’t see why he shouldn’t be there in person for the benefits. "Not that things haven’t been exciting," he said. "Let’s see, when did we talk last?"
"Friday night; Saturday morning your time."
"Two days ago. Let me think now… No progress on the Guillaume thing, but it looks as if those bones in the cellar belong to a cousin named Alain who was murdered by the Nazis. Joly doesn’t think so, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure."
"But what were they doing in Guillaume’s cellar, then?"
"Ah, you cut right to the heart of things, don’t you? Nobody knows."
He took the electric coil out of the mug of water he’d been heating and tipped in a little Nescafe out of the jar. "I suppose the only other interesting thing is that we’ve had a murder; another cousin, a distant one named Claude Fougeray, who everyone blames for Alain’s death. He knew the SS was coming for Alain and didn’t warn him. Someone put cyanide in his wine. He expired in the drawing room, as a matter of fact, with everyone right there, including me."
He searched without success for a plastic spoon he thought he had somewhere, gave up, and stirred in the powdered coffee with his pen, listening all the while to her quiet breathing. "No comment?"
"I was just trying to decide whether or not you’re serious."
"And?"
"I decided you are." Another brief silence. "Aren’t you?"
"Sure."
"Gideon, you’re absolutely amazing. Never a dull moment. Do you know who did it?"
"No, but we think it might have something to do with Alain’s death, which makes most of the older members of the family suspects. They all loved him. Oh, and there’s even a chance the butler did it. The Nazis killed his father at the same time; also with Claude’s knowledge."
"Claude sounds like a wonderful guy. I agree with you; the murder’s probably got something to do with that, all right."
"I appreciate the vote of confidence."
"You’re welcome, but actually I was thinking about the cyanide."
"Come again?"
"Didn’t the Nazi bigwigs use cyanide to commit suicide if they were caught? Or am I thinking of arsenic?"
"No, you’re right. It was cyanide; because it works so fast. Goering killed himself with it in Nuremberg. Himmler bit into a glass capsule too. What makes you ask?"
"I was just thinking that if somebody was getting back at Claude for cooperating with the SS, cyanide would be a logical choice-you know, a kind of symbol, linking him with Nazi war criminals. Does that make any sense?"
"Well, it seems a little theatrical, but I guess it’s a point. I’ll mention it to Joly. Any other hints I ought to pass along?"
"You’re being snide, but yes, there is something else. You can tell him that Mathilde’s husband… What’s his name?"
"Rene."
"You can tell him that Rene isn’t guilty."
"Fine, I’ll sure do that. This morning. Did you want me to give him any particular reason?" He sipped the coffee.
"Uh-huh. You can point out that since he’s the one who let the workmen in to dig up the basement-You did tell me that, didn’t you?"
"Yes…"
"Then he couldn’t have had anything to do with Alain’s body being down there, or he’d never have let them get near the place."
Gideon put down the mug. "Julie, that is really a good point! Of course he wouldn’t have! I was being snide, and I hereby apologize. Abjectly. You’re making more progress back there in Port Angeles than I am in St. Malo."
She laughed, delighted. "You really hadn’t thought about that yourself?"
"I hadn’t even thought about thinking about it." He had another sip of coffee and ran the idea through his mind. "So if it’s true that Claude’s murder has its roots in the Occupation, and if it’s true that it was an act of revenge, and if Rene’s out of the picture… that just leaves Mathilde du Rocher and Sophie Butts. And Marcel, of course. They were all young then, but they haven’t forgotten."
"Don’t get carried away now; that’s a lot of if’s."
"There are a few," he admitted.
"Now that I’ve made my contribution, you don’t suppose we could talk about something besides murders, and skeletons, and Nazis for a while, do you? Things are getting creepier than ever around here."
He smiled. "You bet. You all settled down for the night?"
"Uh-huh. I’m in bed."
"Good," he said, his voice softening. "What are you wearing? That silky tan thing, I hope; the one that accentuates that lovely, long, marvelous intra-sacrospinalis sulcus you have."
"Ah," she said with a sigh, "that’s more like it."
Joly brought the three hoards of bones to the seminar in separate boxes, and he, Gideon, and John tagged each set with different-colored plastic tape to identify them. Then Gideon had the attendees lay them all out in proper anatomical position.
This was accomplished to his and the students’ satisfaction. Of the 200 visible bones of the human body (the other six were ear bones, deep in the skull), 197 were present, mice apparently having made off with three small wrist bones.
Gideon then told them in general terms about the circumstances of the find, discussed the sternal foramen, and pointed out and explained the knife-scarring on the fifth rib.
"Now, what I’d like you to do," he said to the twenty-odd trainees gathered around the table, "is to estimate sex, age, and height on your own, going through the same steps I would; by now you should know what they are. See what you can do with race too. You’ll split into three groups and we’ll get three separate reports, and then I’ll tell you how I see it. Any questions? If not-"
"Hold on one moment, please, Doctor." The speaker was a slender, delicate black police captain from Nairobi; voluble, articulate, and animated. And always ready to argue. "How do we know," he demanded in his machine-gun English, "that, these bones are a single individual? They were found in three separate packages. Perhaps they are parts of three individuals. Or two, or four. Who can tell for certain?"