Old Bones

FIFTEEN

Wither Man?

Gideon scowled at the title on the cover sheet. One of three master’s qualifying essays he’d brought with him to grade at his leisure, he’d put it off until last, but now, after two and a half hours spent working on the others in his room, the time had unavoidably come. He looked gloomily at the writer’s name. Tara Melnick. Was it part of some immutable law that in every class, no matter how enjoyable otherwise, there must be one student whose presence made your teeth ache?

Probably so. Just as the president would always have his Sam Donaldson, so would Gideon always have his Tara Melnick. He deliberated longer than he should have about whether to insert the omitted "h," and finally did, but with a heavy heart. He had corrected her spelling before, and had been told for his pains that his slavish concern with outdated rules of orthography and grammar was redundant in the age of WordStar and Perfect Writer. Moreover, she had informed him, it was now commonly agreed among progressive linguistodiametricians-what those were he had been afraid to ask-that individual language variants were valid in their own right as legitimate microcultural expressions.

He shifted in his chair, bored and at loose ends. Graduate students seemed younger these days. And sillier. It was true that at forty he was now twice as old as some of them, but had he ever been as tedious as Tara Melnick?

Tara Melnick. What had happened to the Ruths, anyway; the Dorothys, the Roberts, the Bills? Where had the Taras and Megans and Ians come from? Buried in his work, had he missed some clandestine migration of Celts from across the sea? Did parents get their children’s names from Harlequin romances?

He stared with distaste at the orange-and-brown wallpaper in front of him. At first he’d liked the bright, sprightly pattern, but then John, who had the same wallpaper in his room, had innocently remarked that it made him think of giant orange daisies wearing sunglasses. Ever since, all those hundreds of daisies had been leering through their shades at him, even in the dark when he was sleeping.

Well, he might as well face it. He turned resignedly to the first page of the paper. "Just who does Homo sapiens think (s)he is," it demanded belligerently, "this self-named‘smart primate’? What is this so-called civilization of ours, built on the rape of the air and the water, torn from the innocent, nurturing earth? And what lies ahead for it… if anything!!?? "

He was saved from learning the answer to this alarming question, temporarily anyway, by the telephone’s ring. Let it really be for me, he murmured; not a mistake but an honest-to-God, attention-demanding interruption.

He got his wish. It was Joly, very businesslike. "Gideon, there are several things I want to talk to you about. First, we’ve turned up some more bones in the cellar. I thought you might be interested."

"You bet I am, Inspector!" Gideon said with fervor that must have surprised Joly. With a happy sigh he shoved Wither Man? into a drawer and settled back to listen.

"I’m fairly sure they’re the remaining parts of our burial, whoever it is-"

"Alain."

"Whoever," Joly said again, which seemed reasonable enough to Gideon. "There’s a skull, pelvis, and arm and leg bones. They were in two packages-same paper, same string as the first. Even the same knots."

"Are the bones in good shape?"

"So they seem to me. I’ve had them carefully packed."

"Damn, it would have been better if I’d seen them in situ. "

"I suppose so, but our own people have already gone over them for dust and debris, and so forth. What’s needed is a purely anthropological analysis."

"Even so, seeing them in their original context and relationships-"

"I’m sorry, my friend, but it’s already done. They have to be shipped to Paris in any case, you see. It didn’t occur to me that it would make any difference to you."

"Well, it doesn’t matter that much. I’ll be glad to look at them for you." So it wouldn’t be textbook forensic anthropology, but it was a lot better than Wither Man? And if it really was a complete skeleton, he was certain he could unequivocally settle the question of its identity, even to Joly’s satisfaction.

"As long as they’re boxed," he said, "could you have them dropped off here and save me a trip to-" He was struck with a novel teaching idea. "What about bringing them to the conference center tomorrow morning instead? I’m doing my final session from eight to ten. We could do the analysis right there in class. It’d give the attendees a chance to participate in an actual case."

There was a long pause while Joly weighed the propriety of this.

"Lucien, they’re all cops, you know. They’re on our side."

"Well, yes, all right," Joly finally agreed reluctantly. "I’ll bring them myself."

"And will you bring the original bones too, if you haven’t sent them off yet?"

"Of course." Gideon heard the scrape of a match and an intake of breath as he lit up. Then some little tck-ing sounds that indicated he was probing with his tongue for a shred of tobacco between his teeth.

"You said there were several things you wanted to talk about?" Gideon said.

"Yes, there are. John will be interested in this too. We’ve checked for local sources of cyanide, and there are none. The nearest is in Rennes."

"So that must mean-"

"Second, there is no taxi service in Ploujean, but there is one in Guissand-that is to say, the ambulance from the mental hospital serves as a taxi when needed-and it’s had six calls in the last week; none of them involved any of our friends at the manoir."

"Which has to mean-"

"Third, I’ve constructed a time chart based on each person’s observations. During the days, at least, no one has been out of sight of all the others for more than two hours at a time; not nearly long enough to get to and from any place where potassium cyanide might be found. Which must mean…?" he prompted.

"That-as John pointed out-whoever did it had the cyanide with him before last week. He-or she-planned Claude’s murder ahead of time."

"Correct. It was old business, not new business."

"As old as 1942, do you think? Was somebody settling wartime scores with Claude?"

"I think it’s not unlikely. As far as we know, none of them has interacted with him for decades, so what else could it be? Ah, and apropos of that, Auguste Lupis was indeed the father of Marcel. He became quite emotional when I confronted him with it."

"So you think-"

"I think," Joly cut in, "that he’s one more person with an ancient, passionate hatred of Claude, that’s all. One more in a long list."

"Yes…" Gideon nodded thoughtfully at the daisies. "But look at it this way: Your list of prime suspects is shorter now."

"Oh? How would that be?"

"Well, if he was killed on account of something that happened in 1942, that probably lets out anyone who wasn’t there at the time, doesn’t it? Not definitely, but probably. The younger people, mostly; Leona Fougeray, Claire, Jules…Ben Butts too…and Ray," he added after a moment, just so Joly would know that he was being objective, had been objective from the start.

There was a pause. Gideon could picture him, head tipped back, lower lip extended, while he watched the smoke curl slowly upward from his mouth. "Why don’t we just say it focuses interest on those who were here?" Joly said. "Mathilde and Rene du Rocher, Marcel, Sophie-all of whom had ample reason to detest Claude. And then there’s Beatrice, Marcel’s wife; I wonder if she was in the area in 1942. You wouldn’t have any idea, would you?" he added dryly. "You seem to have a way of knowing these things."

"Not a glimmer," Gideon said, laughing.

"Well then, I suppose I shall have to find out for myself. Oh, finally-I understand you turned in a small package to the police in St. Malo this morning."

"Package?" He’d been hoping it wouldn’t get back to Joly. "Oh, yes, that. Well, the thing is I’d just been talking to this commissaire about-well, anyway, I left it with them. Just in case, you know."

"Yes, it’s a good idea to be careful. The bomb squad spent a good part of their afternoon processing it."

"They did?" Gideon laughed sheepishly. "All right, let’s hear it: What was in it?"

Joly emitted one of his quiet, mournful sighs. "A bomb," he said.

"Who the hell would want to kill you?" John asked, leaning back in the one armchair. He had brought a bottle of armagnac for nightcaps, but it stood unopened on the table.

"That’s what you said this morning," Gideon replied, standing at the window. As in many small French hotels, the Terminus’ inside rooms overlooked a small garden that was used in the summer as a breakfast area. "When you said I was paranoid," he added gloomily, looking down on the dimly illuminated tangle of winter-sodden plants yet to undergo their spring cleanup.

" You said you were paranoid. I just agreed with you."

"Well, we were both wrong. Someone’s really trying to get me." He laughed suddenly, dropped backwards onto the bed, and clasped his hands behind his neck, leaning against the covered bolster that took the place of pillows during the day. "All things considered, I’d rather be paranoid. You’re right," he added with feeling. "Letter-bombs suck."

"Yeah. What’d Joly think?"

"The same thing, I guess, but he didn’t put it in those words."

"Funny. I mean what’d he think it was all about?"

"He thinks somebody at the manoir doesn’t want me to find out something about the bones. The Marseilles postmark doesn’t mean anything except that it’s a good place to get that kind of thing done. He says if you know the right people, for two hundred dollars and a phone call somebody will make a bomb and mail it anywhere you want. You don’t know the guy who does it, and he doesn’t know you or the person he sends it to. Next to impossible to trace."

"Do you know what kind of bomb it was?"

"He called it an IRA special."

John grimaced. "Too bad; that won’t be any help. It’s the simplest kind there is. A kid can make one. A little package of commercial explosive, a plain detonator, and a needle. When you open the letter, it jabs the needle into the detonator and blooey. Sometimes. Half the time it doesn’t work."

"I’m glad to hear it."

It was odd; this morning when they’d just been guessing about the bomb, and more or less playfully at that, the idea had shaken him, even if he’d felt foolish about it. But now that he knew for sure that someone was actually trying to blow him up, he was more angry than anything else. One of the simpler pleasures of life-opening an unexpected package-was never going to be quite so simple or pleasurable again. And he was angry because it was almost certainly someone with whom he’d recently been chatting so affably at the manoir who had skulked to a telephone and done it, long-distance. It was so damned… unsporting.

"So what could somebody be afraid you’d find out?" John asked. "For instance."

"What I did find out. That Alain du Rocher’s buried in the cellar. That no matter what that plaque says, and the prefect of police says, and anybody else says, Alain’s body was buried-hidden-under the floor of the old family home."

"Let me get this straight. You think he wasn’t executed by the Nazis? You think somebody’s trying to cover up a murder in the family? How could that be? How could everybody have the facts wrong?"

Gideon rocked his head slowly back and forth against the bolster, gazing absently at the ceiling. "It beats me, but everybody is wrong. Alain’s in that cellar, not in some mass grave."

"Maybe they got the body back form the Nazis-to bury it decently, you know?"

"And chopped it into pieces and wrapped it up in butcher paper like so many veal cutlets?"

"No, I guess not." John was silent for a few moments. His chair, tilted onto its rear legs, tap-tapped softly against the wall. "But look: Realistically, why should anybody expect you to find out it’s Alain? I mean, who’d even know he had a sternal foramen?"

Gideon laughed. "Don’t you remember? I spent half an hour in the salon the other night-while you were gobbling up hors d’oeuvres-explaining what I was doing to anybody who’d listen; how I was sure the body wasn’t Kassel’s, how it was built like a du Rocher, how I could find out all kinds of things about it, and on and on."

"Oh, Christ, that’s right. Smart, Doc."

"Brilliant."

"Is Joly giving you police protection?"

"No, I’m just supposed to exercise reasonable prudence, was the way he put it. He said the kind of guy who’d send me a letter-bomb probably isn’t the kind of guy who’d take a shot at me in the street, or try to run me down with a car, or anything like that-"

"That’s true, he probably isn’t. But you know, he’s sure as hell the kind of guy who’d put cyanide in somebody’s wine, isn’t he?"

"I suppose he is. Or she." Gideon stretched and raised himself from the bed. There was a tightness at his temples and a throbbing at the base of his skull. He got headaches so infrequently that it took him a moment to realize what it was. Maybe he was shaken. Or maybe he was hungry.

"I think I’ll go get something to eat. I missed dinner. How about you?"

"Me?" John said, his surprised laugh indicating how ridiculous the idea was. "No, I had a steak a couple of hours ago." He tipped his chair forward and stood up. "I’ll keep you company though."

"That’s all right. I wouldn’t mind a walk in the fresh air to think things through."

John looked directly into his eyes. "Doc, let’s get something straight right now. The conference is over in just a couple more days, and we go home. Until then I’d be a lot more comfortable if you didn’t go anywhere without me. Nowhere. Okay?"

"John," Gideon said, bridling, "Joly said reasonable prudence, not-"

"Yeah, but I know you; you’re not reasonably prudent. You start poking around-"

"Goddammit, I don’t-"

"Look, will you just give me a break?" He chopped at the air, his voice rising. "Just humor me for once?"

For no reason he could think of, Gideon burst out laughing. "All right," he said tiredly, "I’ll give you a break." He clasped John’s arm briefly. "Thanks."

He pulled his windbreaker from the open coat rack near the door and tossed John his. "So I guess you’ll be coming to Mont St. Michel with me tomorrow after the session."

"What’s at Mont St. Michel?"

"The Romanesque-Gothic abbey. One of the wonders of the Western world. I wouldn’t want to leave without seeing it."

"Yeah, it also happens to be where Guillaume drowned, right?"

"Well, yes. I might like to have a look at the tidal plain too, out of curiosity."

"I’m coming, all right," John said. "Don’t look so glum. There’s a famous restaurant there.

Mere Poularde. One of the shrines of French gastronomy." John made a face. "Pancakes again?"

"Omelets."

"You know the first thing I’m going to do when we get back to the States?" John asked, slipping into his jacket.

"Buy a hamburger."

"Damn right."