"Well, I don't know that he made a secret of it; maybe he just didn't like to talk about it. If it was that bad, you can't blame him."
"Yes, but he's been part of the family for what, five years? People would have heard about it by now. At least he must have mentioned it to Therese, and she'd be bound to talk about it some time or other-unless he made it clear that he didn't want anybody to know. And why would he do that?"
"I don't know. Why?” John sat down opposite him and tilted his chair back against the wall.
"I don't know either. Let me ask you something else.” He showed him the fibulas and explained about the muscle attachment sites. “I've been trying to think of how he developed those. Any idea?"
John slowly shook his head. “Not a clue."
"He didn't do anything on the farm that required a lot of balancing?"
"Not that I can think of. Bouncing around in a jeep over those roads, maybe, trying to keep from falling out?"
"Uh-uh. You'd need to be standing, not sitting.” He thought for a few seconds. “Did he have a sailboat?"
"You could get those from sailing?"
"To tell the truth, I don't know. You'd have to do a lot of sailing. But it seems logical, doesn't it? With the deck tilting and shifting and all?"
"You're asking me? How would I know? But I never heard about him being any kind of sailor."
"Well, then, my guess is, this is a result of something he used to do, before Tahiti; something he did for a long time. What did he do before he came out here?"
"He was a, what do you call it, a teaching assistant, at Bennington. That's where Therese met him."
"He was already around thirty, then, wasn't he? What about before that?"
"Who knows? He was a student, I guess."
"Do you know if he-"
"Doc, what's the big deal, anyway? I mean, the bone stuff is interesting, but what does it have to do with anything?"
What it had to do with, Gideon said, was the fact that there seemed to be an awful lot about Brian Scott that wasn't general knowledge. How had he sustained that awful damage to his skull, and what had his life been like during the many months it must have taken to repair it? How had he developed muscles that were the fibular equivalents of a champion weightlifter's huge triceps? In a family as talkative and open as John's, wasn't it remarkable that nobody seemed to know?
"I guess so,” John admitted, “but, you know, Brian always was a pretty quiet kind of guy, not like the rest of us, didn't blow his own horn. And it wasn't like he grew up out here with everybody else. There are probably a lot of things about him we don't know."
"That's my point. What else is there? He was murdered, that we know for sure. But why are we so sure that it had anything to do with his life in Tahiti? He'd only been here a few years. Maybe this was something from his past catching up with him."
John stood up and took a few steps around the table with his cup, thinking about it. “Like that old business with his wife back in the States, you mean?"
"Like anything."
John put down his coffee and chewed his lip. “Doc, what do you say we go have a talk with Therese? She ought to be able to fill in some of these holes. I've been wanting to talk to her anyway."
"Shouldn't we just mention this to Bertaud and let him-"
John waved this aside. “Am I getting in Bertaud's way? Am I interfering with him? There are just some things I'd like to know for myself. How about going to see her after you finish here?"
"John, I hate to keep being a wet blanket, but that part of it is your affair. The bones I'm willing to deal with, but I barely know Therese; I'd be an intruder."
"Well, what the hell am I supposed to do, ask her how he got hyperdeveloped fibular musculature? And then figure out if what she says makes sense?"
After a moment, Gideon laughed. “Tell you what. Let me finish up here-I need to write up a report-and meanwhile you can go over to the gendarmerie and tell Bertaud whatever he wants to know. It should take me a couple of hours at most. I can meet you there when I take the report over. Say one o'clock? Then Therese, how's that?"
"Lunch first,” John said.
"That,” said Gideon, “goes without saying."
Chapter 23
"I don't know what you mean,” Therese said, her upper lip beginning to tremble.
"I mean,” John said gently, “we have to clear up these things. Brian was murdered, Therese. Don't you want us to find out who did it?"
Her lovely eyes brimmed instantly. “I don't see how you can say…how you can know that he was…from just a few little b…a few little b…” Tears flowed down silken cheeks. She bowed her head.
John, in obvious discomfort, appealed to Gideon. “It's the truth, isn't it, Doc?"
"It's true, Therese,” Gideon said, not very comfortable himself. The interview with John's cousin had been painful from the start. Since Brian's death she had been living at her parents’ house in Papara, and they had found her there, down at the beach, in a yellow sundress, sitting in a thatch-roofed pergola with a simple word-puzzle book open in front of her. The twins, happily unencumbered by frocks, or by any clothing at all other than little straw hats, played companionably in the sun a few yards away. She had received the two men warmly-there was no mistaking the affection between her and John-but every question about Brian had been met with lowered eyes, hesitant mumbles, shrugs, and sentence fragments.
Did she know how Brian had suffered the injury to his face? “His…I didn't…I don't…” Shrug. Mumble.
Could she account for the extreme development of his leg muscles? “I don't…I didn't…Do you…” Shrug. Mumble.
What were the details of Brian's breakup with his wife in the United States? “Well, his wife was never…she lived in…they didn't really…” Shrug. Mumble. Blush.
John had been remarkably patient, considering that he was John, but Gideon could sense the exasperation quietly building up. “Therese, listen. I want to ask you something else, and I want you to answer me honestly. How did you and Brian meet?"
"Well…Claudine, don't do that, honey,” she called over his shoulder. “You wouldn't like it if Claudette put sand in your ear. Oh, I'm sorry, John, what did you say?"
"How did you and Brian meet?"
"But you already know that. He was a teaching assistant at Bennington when I was there. And then a few years later, when he was here on vacation from his job, he remembered me and gave me a call, and we…we got together.” Shrug. Mumble. But at least she'd managed a string of complete sentences.
"And what was the job he was on vacation from?"
She frowned uneasily at him. “John, why do you sound so…so…"
"What was the job, Therese?"
"I forget, exactly. In Michigan. It was a computer company CompuLine, I think…"
"No, Therese."
She blinked. “No? What do you mean, no? I don't…"
"There is no CompuLine in Michigan."
"Well, I told you, maybe I-"
"There's a Compuworld, but they never had a Brian Scott."
"Well, maybe-"
"And there was no teaching assistant named Brian Scott at Bennington the years you were there."
"Well, technically maybe he was a, a research assistant, or a-"
"And no research assistant, no temporary lecturer, no graduate student, no nothing. No Brian Scott."
Her mouth opened. For a second or two she couldn't speak. She seemed-it was hard for Gideon to come up with a word for her expression-startled, frightened, wary. “No, you're wrong, John-"
"Therese, I checked. I made some calls from the gendarmerie just a few hours ago."
"You did?” Her face was rigid with apprehension.
You did? Gideon almost echoed. No wonder John had seemed so preoccupied at lunch, a late bite at a roadside pizza restaurant in Punaauia on the way from Papeete. But then Gideon had been preoccupied too, mulling over the obscure functions of m. soleus, and he hadn't contributed much to the conversation either.