Icy Clutches

Chapter 6

The question is,” Bill Bianco said, holding up a liter-and-a-half plastic bottle of Jim Beam at the front of the passenger cabin, “will Chief Park Ranger Owen Parker over there agree to forget about it if I break the rules and pour us all a little something to warm us up? Or will he turn us in?"

"Why, what bottle is that, Bill?” Owen asked mildly, to a chorus of cheers.

Gideon had reboarded the Spirit of Adventure to find Julie and her classmates almost as cold-looking and bedraggled after their session on Margerie Glacier as he was after Tirku. He had gotten a mutually warming hug from her, downed a cup of hot chocolate, and just begun to unthaw when Bill broke out the bourbon. And very welcome it looked.

The instructor moved slowly along the aisle, pouring a couple of fingers of the amber liquid into the plastic cups that were held out to him. With Julie, Gideon went to the rear and topped off their cups from the hot-water urn.

Julie gestured at the galley. “I bet I can find us some lemon in here."

Gideon went with her. Russ had put the skull fragment and its bed of earth on the galley's counter, carefully setting it on the sliced-off lid of a Del Monte ketchup carton. (Gideon was going to have to write a letter of appreciation to Del Monte if this kept up.) In the warmth of the boat's interior, the bone seemed drier, less fragile. He was anxious to have a look at the outer side, the side pressed into the earth, where any potentially useful information was likely to be, but it didn't pay to take chances with it. What was the rush? His tool kit had probably arrived at the lodge during the day, and this evening he could take whatever time was needed to free the skull from its context. It always paid to do it right.

But leaving Gideon Oliver with an unexamined skull fragment was like handing a four-year-old a candy bar and telling him to leave it alone until after dinner; it wasn't realistic to hope for too much. He poked it with his finger. It felt solid enough. With a fingernail he scraped at a little clotted black dirt. It came away without taking any of the bone with it. He scraped some more.

"Found one,” Julie announced. “Some cinnamon too.” She got a kitchen knife from a rack, set the lemon on the counter next to him, and sliced out a couple of wedges.

Gideon glanced up from the piece of skull. “I'm not sure the health department would approve of this setup."

"I'm not sure I do,” she said with a sidewise glance at the silvery gray bone. She squeezed the wedges into their cups, then dropped them into the hot liquid while Gideon rubbed away some more dried mud. “Want some sugar?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Look at this."

"At what? That little clump of dirt in the middle?"

"That little clump of dirt is plugging a hole, Julie. See? You can just make out the margin over here."

"Oh boy, a hole,” she said. “Here we go again.” She set down her cup. “What's so strange-this is not an argument, okay?-but what's so strange about a hole in a skull that's been through an avalanche, followed by twenty-nine years of tumbling along inside a glacier?” She gestured at the fragment. “The skull itself's been smashed to pieces. Why shouldn't it have a few holes in it?"

"Well, you have a point.” He sipped at the toddy. “Mm, perfect.” The sharp, lemony fumes seemed to drift up, warm and pungent, behind his eyes, then fan out to heat his throat and shoulders. “All the same, I'd sure like to get this thing out of the dirt and see the other side."

He got three fingertips around the occipital margin where the bone was thickest and tugged lightly. Nothing happened. He held his breath and tugged marginally harder. The bone popped cleanly and satisfyingly out of the dirt.

"Ah,” he said.

Owen Parker put his head through the doorless entry. “Oh-ho, I figured that's what you'd be doing back here. Finding out anything?” He came in, bourbon in hand.

"I don't know yet. You're just in time to see. Grab a paper towel and put it on the counter, will you?"

With Owen and Julie watching closely at either side, Gideon turned the fragment carefully over, brushed away most of the clinging dirt, and set it on the towel, outer side up. The hole was still filled and mostly hidden, plugged by its clod of dried mud. He pushed cautiously at the dirt. It didn't budge.

If this hole was what his gut-or rather his soundly based but intuitive assessment-told him it was, it wouldn't pay to take chances with it. Preserving the margins would be important.

"You think there might be something thin and sharp in one of those drawers?” he asked. “A skewer, maybe?"

Julie rummaged until she found a seafood fork with a narrow, probe-like end, and Gideon began to push gently at the clod.

"Looks delicate,” Owen said.

"Mm. It's damp, which doesn't help.” He continued to pick at the stubborn dirt. “You wouldn't happen to have some acetone at Bartlett Cove, would you?"

"I think there might be some in the naturalists’ workroom. Smells like it, anyway."

"Good. When we get back we can put this in a bath of it to drive the moisture out. And if there's some alvar or acrylic resin around I can make a preservative sealant for it tomorrow. The other bones too."

"I don't know about acrylic resin,” Owen said.

"Duco cement?"

"Yeah, I think there's plenty of that."

"Good enough."

Owen watched for a while. “Any idea who it belongs to?"

"Adult male,” Gideon said without raising his head. “Mid-to late twenties, fairly large…the same as everything else so far."

"Does it go with the jaw they found yesterday, do you think?” Julie asked.

"Impossible to say. If we had the whole jaw we could try fitting the condyle into the mandibular fossa here in the skull and see if they go together. But unfortunately we have the right side of the skull and the left side of the jaw. The only-"

He stopped. A pea-sized gray pebble had dislodged itself from the clod. A few seconds later, with some additional prodding, the rest of the dirt fell away to reveal a roughly triangular hole about an inch wide. With painstaking care Gideon ran a finger slowly around the edge of the hole, stopping twice to explore particular features. Then he turned the fragment over and did the same thing on the other side. Five minutes passed.

"What's with the hole?” Owen finally asked him.

Julie laughed. “Don't bother, Owen. At times like this he's oblivious to everything. Completely impervious to human contact. You'll get used to it."

Owen was silent a moment, then persisted. “But what's so interesting about a hole?” This time the question was addressed to Julie.

"Um, if it's all the same, I think I'll let Gideon explain it to you."

Gideon went to an adjustable table lamp at the far end of the counter. He held the fragment six inches from the bulb, and his face six inches from the fragment, tilting it so that the light slanted across the surface to highlight the texture. After another two minutes he straightened slowly up and came over to them with the fragment.

"I was not impervious. I was simply focusing my powers of concentration.” He tapped the bone. “Got something funny here, folks."

"Oh my,” Julie murmured and downed the rest of her toddy.

"What do you mean, funny?” Owen asked. “What's going on? I mean, I know I'm just the chief park ranger here, but couldn't somebody tell me what's happening?"

Gideon told him. “Whoever this was, he was murdered."

"Murdered!” Owen stared at him. “But these people were killed in the avalanche. They-” He looked from Gideon to Julie and back again. “Weren't they?"

"I don't think so. Buried by it, maybe. Killed, no. Not this guy."

Owen looked down at the fragment in Gideon's hand, lips pursed. “That's a bullet hole? Is that what you're saying?"

Gideon shook his head. “Too big. And if it was a bullet hole it'd be round and beveled, with the inside table of the bone sheared away. That's if it had been an entrance wound. If it was an exit wound…well, never mind. The fact is, this didn't come from a high-velocity projectile going either way. See here around the edges, how the bone has been crushed inward, not just blown away? See how the sides of the hole are conical, not straight? See this crack radiating-"

"Well, what then?” Owen said impatiently. “Look, why does it have to be murder? Why couldn't it be from a falling rock or something? The guy was in an avalanche!"

"You're wasting your time, Owen,” Julie told him pleasantly. “Believe me."

"Somebody hit him in the head with something heavy,” Gideon said. “If this is the same guy whose mandible they found yesterday, he was cracked in the jaw first-hard. He fell, and then he was hit in the head-even harder."

"Wait a minute, Gideon,” Julie said. “Just hold on there, Credibility is being strained here. How can you talk about sequence? How can you possibly say that he was hit in the jaw first?"

"Jaw?” Owen was muttering. 'Jaw?"

"I can't tell from looking at the bone,” Gideon said. “It's a matter of deduction, of reasonable inference."

"Oh-oh,” Julie said to Owen. “Watch out now. Hang on to your wallet."

"Nothing tricky,” Gideon said. He put his forefinger through the hole. It went in all the way to the knuckle without touching the edges. “I just can't see much point in cracking him in the jaw after someone put a hole like this in his head, can you?"

She made a face. “Ugh, I see what you mean. Yes, I think you're right. As he usually is,” she said to Owen. “It's very annoying."

"The hole is just anterior to the mastoid angle of the parietal…about here,” Gideon said, touching a point about an inch behind his own right ear.

"Wait a minute, isn't that pretty low for getting hit over the head?” Owen asked. “And pretty far back?"

"Not if you were hit from behind or-more likely-had collapsed onto your face after somebody'd just broken your jaw."

"What jaw, dammit? That jawbone we found yesterday-somebody broke it?"

"I'm afraid so. I wasn't positive, but it's looking more likely now."

Owen expelled his breath and watched while Gideon replaced the fragment on the table. “Christ,” he said, staring at it, “that's awful. What would make a hole like that?"

"Something heavy,” Gideon said. “And pointed."

"Well, yeah, I guess so.” He looked suddenly at Gideon. “Christ, you don't think…"

"I sure do, Owen. Where'd you put it?"

Owen pulled the broken ice ax from a shelf under the counter and offered it to Gideon.

"No, you hold it,” Gideon said. “Point-up. Prop it on the counter so it doesn't move."

Owen grasped it firmly in both hands, where the splintered handle joined the head, and pressed the adze-shaped end against the counter top. The pick-like part was held upright and unmoving.

Gideon turned the skull fragment so that the convex exterior side was down and lowered it steadily onto the point. The dull metal spike slid smoothly through the hole, millimeter by millimeter. When the bone was finally seated against it, the fit was snug and perfect, like a peg in a pegboard.

Gideon let go of the fragment, which clung to the spike without even a wobble. Five inches of curving, pitted steel jutted evilly through the hole-and into the braincase, had there still been a braincase. The sight was riveting.

"How horrible,” Julie said softly and looked away, out the small window over the counter.

As they often were at moments like this, Gideon's feelings were mixed. On the one hand, he was pleased with himself. With nothing but highly ambiguous evidence to go on yesterday, he'd tentatively reached some manifestly unlikely conclusions about that mandible. His instincts, his experience, had told him something was very wrong. And now, apparently, it turned out that he'd been correct. And he'd quickly recognized this hole in the parietal for what it was too. Simple enough to do on a skeleton found in someone's basement; not so obvious in bones that had been through what these had gone through. Yes, he had reason to be satisfied with his work.

On the other hand, his years of forensic activity had done little to harden him to the unfailing repulsiveness of murder, especially violent, bloody murder. When he was eleven his Uncle Jack had taken him to a wax museum, and Gideon, being a normal enough kid, had dragged his uncle into the chamber of horrors. The first tableau had been enough, a shockingly realistic recreation of a famous ax murder and bathtub dismemberment. Gideon had stumbled out, white-faced and shaken, never to return.

With time, he hadn't changed much, despite his decades-long fascination with bones (the older and drier the better). The sight of the spike piercing this fragile remnant of a young man's head made him want to look away too. His imagination was every bit as active as Julie's, and his knowledge of the human body greater. He knew how abundantly supplied with blood vessels the scalp was. He knew the consistency and color of living brain tissue. He knew…

With both hands he lifted the fragment from the point and set it back on the paper towel.

Owen put the ice ax down on its side and made a final try. “Look, couldn't the avalanche have knocked it out of his hands and driven it into…No, huh?"

"Come on, Owen."

The ranger sighed loudly, puffing out his brown cheeks. “Arthur's gonna have a fit."

"What do we do now?” Gideon said. “Who has jurisdiction in a case like this, the FBI?"

"Hell, no,” Owen said, bridling. “The NPS. Me."

"You're going to investigate a murder?" Gideon winced even as he said it. But he would have been surprised if Owen had ever had to deal with a homicide before, let alone a twenty-nine-year-old homicide.

"As chief ranger, I'm responsible for all law-enforcement matters at Glacier Bay,” Owen said frostily.

"Fine,” Gideon said. “It's all yours. Where do we go from here? What do we do next?"

Owen leaned stiffly back against the counter, then abruptly relaxed and grinned. “The next thing I do is get on the horn to the FBI in Juneau,” he said, “and ask them what the hell we do next."