Lindsey Davis - Graveyard of the Hesperides

“This is the board you show us during an aediles’ inspection,” Manlius Faustus commented, letting it be known he was not easily fooled. “I wonder what you really dish up?”

The waiter looked innocent; he sensibly kept quiet.

“I shall be sending someone incognito to test you.”

“No problem, your honor. We are famous throughout the High Footpaths for our delectable pulse casseroles.”

“No need to overdo it!” Faustus chided.

From what I had heard whispered as I moved around the neighborhood, the Medusa was in fact famous for offering sex with animals.

A tiresome thought came into my mind: Was that common? Was the dog bone found at the Hesperides from some poor mutt who had been forced into perverted acts…? Settle down, Albia. Garden burials happen. When dogs die, they are often interred at the homes where they have lived as affectionate pets. And what nicer place for a hound to spend eternity than the fabled Garden of the Hesperides? A snake to bark at and bored daughters of Zeus to pat you all day long. Perfect.

Stop being distracted, Flavia Albia. You do not want to feel obliged to investigate the suspicious deaths of dogs.

I stuck with normal questions: “Tell me, young man.” He was not that young. The period I wanted to investigate should be within his working lifetime. “Have there ever been rumors of any other women disappearing hereabouts, like Rufia at the Hesperides?”

He thought about it. “Not really.”

“No?”

“I mean not with everyone saying Old Thales bashed their head in.”

“Some other rumor then? I am particularly interested in the period around when the new Flavian Amphitheater was inaugurated. You must remember. There were games for days on end. It would have been a very productive time for bars.”

The waiter grinned with gappy teeth as he dredged up a memory for me. “A pot-washer at the Four Limpets ran away with a one-legged sailor once. She was never seen again. Most people thought losing her improved the neighborhood substantially.”

I sighed to myself. “That’s very helpful.” This is what informers say to disappointing witnesses. Just in case it makes them think of something more useful. It rarely happens.

I forced myself not to start speculating about the dead man, number four of the five, whose skeleton we found with a leg detached. He wasn’t this sailor. Our number four had two legs, even if one went its own way in the fracas and the limb was chucked in his grave with him. That was the clincher. Most one-legged sailors do not carry their amputated pins around with them.

Don’t tell me you knew one who did. He must have been a crackpot.

“I don’t suppose you are old enough to remember a group that included a man with a serious limp?”

“Ten a denarius. People are always being run over by drays or walking under millstones.”

I thanked him again quietly. Yes, identifying our corpses was going to be difficult.

Let alone the dog.

* * *

I nearly didn’t bother asking. “One more question, if you will. Did Old Thales ever own a dog?”

“Pudgy,” the waiter replied, this time not even stopping to think. “It was always coming over here and squatting on our pavement with galloping diarrhea. Hades, I haven’t thought of Pudgy in years. I’ve upset myself now…” He shuddered dramatically. “Old Thales bloody loved that hairy thing, but trust me, it was awful.”

I tried to ignore Tiberius grinning at me. “Pudgy died?”

“It would have been old now if it hadn’t! It swallowed the heel off a boot someone chucked it to play with. Choked to death. Thales sobbed for four days.”

I hardly dared continue. “I don’t suppose you know what he did with Pudgy’s remains?”

“Oh everybody knew. He made a big thing of it. Buried in a big hole out the back. Old Thales held a very drunken funeral in the garden, followed by a week of massive drinking. He was going to put a plaque up but he never got around to it. Well, it would have cost him. He didn’t love the dog-or anyone-enough to open his money chest. Then, just before he did us all a favor and killed himself with drink, he sobered up and immediately forgot all about poor old Pudgy. Talk about a dog’s life.”

“And was this around the time, would you say, that Rufia vanished? In the Amphitheater year?”

“Probably. Perhaps before. Not long.”

“You can’t be certain?”

“No. I don’t note the death of somebody else’s horrible dog in my annual calendar.”

“Apology!”

“Accepted.”

“Why did Old Thales forget his adored pet?” Tiberius suddenly broke in.

“Picked up a new little girlfriend. Adored her even more. Didn’t we all? Nobody knew what she saw in him. She was so cute … Hercules, I remember her all right! I wonder whatever became of her?”

“What was her name?” I asked, eager to identify this cute creature.

A typical man, he did not remember the beauty as well as he claimed. “Hades, don’t ask me. It’s been bloody years. They come and go. How can you expect me to remember one little tart’s name among so many on the street? Even if she really was one of the gorgeous ones!”

End of story, so far as he was concerned.

Sighing, I turned to Tiberius. He could see I was despondent; he spoke encouragingly. “Brilliant, Flavia Albia. Pudgy. You have put a name to one of our bodies.”

“Sadly, my love, it is the one nobody now cares about.” I cursed my luck mildly, in the manner of my father: “This could only happen to me. I have six bodies from a crime scene, but all I can identify is the dog!”

Not a flicker showed on his face as Tiberius told me deadpan, “Don’t forget we dug up a chicken bone as well.”

“Naturally. Darling heart, I am now working on who the chicken may have been.”

“Good to have priorities,” he answered, smiling. Then suddenly he burst out with, “Just three days now!”

The wedding.

Where next? The day was drawing on. Then as we returned to the Garden of the Hesperides, we saw the waiters, Nipius and Natalis, leaving for their evening shift, which I remembered would be at the Four Limpets.

Tiberius, who found them a louche pair he did not want to talk to now, strode in ahead of me, heading for his site. I managed to greet Nipius and Natalis with a laughing air, as if something hilarious had just happened. “Hello, you two. I’m thrilled to tell you that with gritty detective work, I have identified one of the corpses!” Perhaps they looked wary; perhaps they only wondered why I found it so funny. “Here’s a test of your memories: Do either of you remember Pudgy?”

How fine it would be if this dead dog, who seemed quite incidental, provided my way into the case. Good boy! Have a bone on me in Hades …

The waiters had been to the baths or a barber; they were swanning about in a reek of hair oil. Both men wore their usual green tunics, probably not laundered since I saw them last. I had forgotten how they exuded unreliability. Still, I didn’t want a chickpea flatbread with no fish pickle and a small red wine, only their memoirs.

“Pudgy!” They looked at one another, then jointly assumed postures of exaggerated shock. “Old Pudgy?” cried Natalis, adjusting his pebble pendant. “Thundering Jupiter, what’s that pooch got to do with anything?”

“I am confident some of the bones are his.”

“Hers,” Nipius corrected me, with a rattle of his bracelets. “She was a girlie. Ought to have been long forgotten. Hades, Albia, you do like to be thorough. Do you always make a habit of turning up every pet anyone ever shoveled away under a rose bush?”

“I like dogs … Anyway I find it satisfying to put on name labels.” I hinted I could be adding more in the near future.