Aaron Elkins - Unnatural Selection

The tibia-the shin bone-was newer: not brown and fragmenting like the others, but ivory-colored and dense. The proximal epiphysis-the one at the knee-was fused, so he knew at least that it had come from an adult. The distal end of the bone, the one near the ankle, had been snapped cleanly off. He lifted the broken end to his nostrils and sniffed. There was a faint, greasy smell of candle wax; the odor from the fat in the bone, which was always strong at first, then gradually faded with time and eventually disappeared. The fact that it was there at all told him the bone was in all probability no more than ten years old; the facts that it was relatively weak, and that the bone was completely devoid of soft tissue told him it was older than, say, a year, given the relatively warm (and thus decomposition-inducing) climate of the Scillies. Two or three years was his guess.

And now that he’d had it in his hands and felt the roughened muscle insertion points and the general robusticity, he could take a reasonable stab at the sex too: male. His interest increasing as he became more “acquainted” with it, he glanced at the bag that it had come in, in hopes that there might be more data, but there was only the usual cryptic information: Beach below Halangy Point, just north of the Creeb, 20 January 2005.

“Coffee,” Madeleine announced, placing two lidded sixteen-ounce cardboard containers on the table. “Inasmuch as you’re from Seattle, I went to enormous trouble and expense to get you a double-shot latte, so that you feel entirely at home.”

“You’re wonderful.”

“You see, we’re reasonably civilized here, at least in some ways.” She removed the lids from both cups.

“Clearly, in the ways that count,” Gideon said appreciatively, inhaling the opulent aroma. A lot nicer than bone fat, he thought.

“Anything new?” she asked, drawing up a stool of her own and delicately balancing her bulk on it.

It was at the very moment that she asked, while he was placing the tibia back on the table, that his sensitive fingers “saw” what his eyes should have seen in the first place.

“Damn,” he whispered.

“What now?” she whispered, alarmed.

When he peered hard at the bone, it took him only an instant to confirm what his fingers had told him. “Madeleine, this bone didn’t break. It was cut-cut, and sawed too.”

“Yes? I don’t-”

“I think we might be looking at a dismemberment. From not that long ago.”

“A dis-” Her lips curled with disgust. She got off her stool and moved a couple of feet away, never taking her eyes off the bone, as if it might come after her. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I’m serious, all right. Can you tell me anything about this, other than what it says on the bag?”

Her glasses which hung on their lanyard around her neck, were raised to her eyes-indeed, like a lorgnette-so she could read the lettering. “Oh, yes, I remember. The little beach near Halangy Point. That’s at the north end of the island, about two miles from Hugh Town, at the very end of the road. It’s an out-of-the-way place; not many visitors find it.”

“No, I mean how it happened to be found, who found it, was it buried-”

“Yes, it was buried in the sand. A visitor brought it in when her dog dug it up. We didn’t keep her name, we usually don’t. If I recall correctly, she said it was about a foot down. That’s all I know. I.. . I didn’t think there was any reason… Gideon, are you certain?”

“No, I’m not certain-we only have the one bone-but that’s what it looks like to me. You see, when fresh bone is sawed-”

Hurriedly, she raised her hand, palm out, bangles jingling their way down to her elbow. “Stop. Desist. I’ve had all the forensic anthropology I want for one morning, thank you. I’m afraid it’s far too gruesome for me. What are you going to do?”

“Go see the police. What else? Do you mind if I take this with me?”

She turned her head to the side to avoid looking at it, like a baby resisting its mashed carrot. “Take it. Please.”

As he was putting it back in the sack, she said, “Ask for Sergeant Clapper; he’s in charge. The police station is on Upper Garrison Lane, on the way back toward the castle. You can’t miss it.”

He could and did, walking the two-block length of Upper Garrison Lane twice before he realized that the modest two-story house, tucked into the elbow of an uphill curve in the street and half-hidden behind lush shrubbery and a low stone wall, was what he was looking for. No sign out front, no parking area, not a police car in sight. But behind a rolling bank of pink and white narcissus, slightly below the level of the street and overhung by a shabby, glassed-in balcony, he finally spotted a nondescript storefront window that might have been the entrance to a dry cleaner’s or a hearing aid center. But a closer look showed POLICE in stick-on letters on the window, and an inconspicuous gray plaque on the stuccoed wall beside it:

Devon and Cornwall Constabulary

Isles of Scilly Police Station

This station is open between 0900 hours and 1000 hours daily where possible.

He smiled. It must be nice to live someplace where reports of criminality could be dealt with in an hour a day (where possible). Once he opened the door and walked in, however, except for the absence of a reception area, he found himself in a small-town version of any big-city police station he’d ever been in: a short corridor lined with a couple of glassed-in cubicles, mismatched office furniture, too-bright neon ceiling lights, desks cluttered with papers and files, and walls cluttered with plastic-sheeted, grease-pencil calendars and charts, scrawled notes, and public information posters, including an unlikely one advertising “Substantial Rewards for Information Leading to the Prosecution of Terrorists.” On a bureau near the door were two old-fashioned bucket helmets and two of the newer checkered police hats that always made Gideon think of taxi drivers.

The cubicle to the left, despite its desk and chair, seemed to be a storage space, copy center, and coffee room. In the one on the right a smiling, clean-cut, red-haired young man in dark blue uniform trousers and a short-sleeved, open-throated white shirt with blue epaulets sat working at a computer, apparently untroubled by an in-basket that was spilling over with forms and memos.

“I’m Police Constable Robb,” he said cheerfully, swiveling his chair to face the newcomer. “How may I be of service?”

“My name’s Gideon Oliver, Constable. I’m an anthropologist. I was just looking over some bones at the museum, and one of them in particular caught my attention. A tourist brought it into the museum in January. It was buried on the beach near Halangy Point. Her dog dug it up.”

“And we’re speaking of a human bone here, sir?” Polite attention, but no real interest. As Madeleine had said, the odd human bone turning up now and then wasn’t that unusual.

“Definitely, yes, but the main thing is that I think there’s a good chance that it came from someone who’s been dismembered. My guess is that it’s something that happened within the last ten years, probably in the last five, so I thought I’d better bring it in. I’m supposed to ask for Sergeant Clapper.”

A stray bone might be nothing to get excited about, but violent crimes, let alone dismemberments, were not common fare on St. Mary’s. Robb’s mouth hung open for a moment before he replied. “I think Sergeant Clapper is very much the man for that, sir.”

He picked up his telephone and explained. “Shall I send him in, sir?”

Gideon heard the rumbled answer come through the door at the end of the corridor, delivered with a won’t-they-ever-leave-me-in-peace sigh. “No, I’ll come there.”