Aaron Elkins - Unnatural Selection

Sergeant Clapper was a broad, heavy man of fifty-five or so in civilian clothes-black corduroy trousers and a white shirt folded back over thick, hairy wrists-with a sad, dull-brown slick of hair pulled across his scalp, a heavy red drinker’s face, and tired, seen-everything, don’t-even- think -of-putting-anything-over-on-me eyes. He stuck out a blunt-fingered, big-knuckled hand that looked as hard as a shovel but turned out to be about as emphatic as something dragged out of a pond in late August.

“I’m Sergeant Clapper.”

“Gideon Oliver.”

“What’s all this about a dismemberment?”

“Well, I have it here.” He looked for someplace on Robb’s desk on which to put it, and with a sweep of both hands Robb cleared a space. File folders and their contents flopped to the floor.

“Kyle, your desk is a damned disgrace,” Clapper muttered.

Robb seemed undisturbed. “Sorry, Sarge.”

Gideon opened the bag and put the tibial fragment on the old-fashioned blotter that was now visible on the desktop. When, he wondered, had he last seen a desk blotter, let alone one that was actually stained with ink? The three men stood looking down at the bone. Robb seemed eager to comment but waited for his chief.

“That’s it?” Clapper said. “That’s your dismemberment?” He made a small dismissive gesture with his hand. Gideon noticed that the fingernails were chewed to scraps and the thick fingers were deeply tobacco-stained, down almost to the first joint.

“Well, it’s an indication, a possible indication, of a dismemberment.”

“Ah, so it’s a possible indication, is it?”

Gideon was beginning to get irritated. “Sergeant-”

“American, are you?”

“That’s right, I’m here just for the week, for the consortium at Star Castle.”

“Oh, yes? One of the participants?”

“Well, no, my wife is a Fellow. I’m just here to… I’m just along.”

Clapper’s lips parted to show a set of big brown teeth. “ Are you now? Well, well.”

Now Gideon was irritated. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

“I’m also a professional anthropologist,” he said hotly. “I do quite a lot of forensic work. I assure you, I know what I’m talking about.”

“No offense, Mr. Oliver.”

“ Doctor Oliver,” Gideon said. “Or professor, if you prefer.”

Now he was not only annoyed with Clapper, but with himself for letting the guy get under his skin. And ashamed of himself as well for acting like a stuffed shirt. This was not going as planned.

He summoned up what he hoped was convincingly friendly smile. “Well, let me show you what I have,” he said mildly, “and you can take it from there.”

“Chairs, Kyle,” Clapper ordered from the side of his mouth.

Robb was obviously used to being treated like this. Docilely, he cleared off a couple of fabric-seated metal chairs and set them in front of the desk. When the three men sat, Clapper put an ankle-booted foot against the desk front and shoved himself back a few feet. He was putting some space between himself and them to show that he wasn’t committing himself to anything yet. This was between his constable and his visitor; he was merely observing.

So be it. Gideon addressed himself directly to Robb while Clapper, looking preoccupied, thumbed open the lid of a red-and-white pack of Gold Bond cigarettes and lit up.

“What this is-” Gideon began.

The telephone on Robb’s desk chirped. He picked it up, listened, and covered the mouthpiece. “It’s for you, Sarge: Exeter. Policy and Performance Unit, Chief Inspector Cory. What should I tell him?’

“Tell him to sod off, the vile bugger,” Clapper growled.

“Sarge, this is the third time in the last two-”

“Tell him to sod off.”

Robb removed his hand from the mouthpiece. “Chief Inspector? Sergeant Clapper is in conference with village officials at the moment. May I have him call you back? Yes, I know he did. No, I’ll see he does this time. Yes, of course he will. Thank you, Chief Inspector.”

“You were saying?” Clapper said to Gideon

“I was saying that what this is, is a left tibia. The tibia is the-”

“Shin bone,” Robb said with an eager smile. If he’d been American, Gideon thought, and this had been the 1940s, he might have made a Hollywood living portraying nice, young, small-town soda jerks. He reminded Gideon of all those bright-eyed, painfully alert young students trying to make a good impression on the first day of class. And as he generally liked them, he’d taken liking to the young cop.

“Right. And what we have is the proximal three-quarters or so, that is, the-”

“The end closer to the center of the body. In the case of the tibia, that would be the upper part, near the knee.” He pointed. “The patella would be attached right here, then?”

“Kyle.” Clapper wearily exhaled a lungful of blue smoke. “We know you’re a clever lad who’s been to university and you’re very intelligent. Now why don’t you just let the man tell his story without interrupting after every two words?”

Robb’s face stiffened with its first dull show of resentment, quickly snuffed out. “Sorry about that, sir.”

“It’s not as if I don’t know what a shin bone is, now is it?”

“No, sir, I didn’t mean to imply-”

Clapper turned away from him toward Gideon. “Do you suppose we can get on with it, Doctor Oliver?”

Ah, was that what Clapper’s problem was? An ageing, old-guard policeman, ill-educated and burnt out, who’d never risen beyond the rank of constable sergeant, stuck away in a tiny, crimeless village, in the remotest place in all of Merrie Olde England, to run out his time until retirement? And burdened with a young, personable, college-educated youth who was clearly on his way up the ladder on which Clapper had climbed but a couple of dingy rungs at the bottom? Gideon felt his first flicker of sympathy for the older man.

But not as much as he felt for Robb.

“That’s right, Constable, the patella would be about there, but it doesn’t really attach to the tibia itself, or to any bone. It’s embedded in the terminal tendon of the quadriceps femoris -the big muscle in the front of the thigh-and actually sits in a little hollow at the distal end of the femur, just above the tibia.”

This was said equally to gratify Robb and to irritate Clapper, and judging by their reactions, he’d succeeded. Robb looked at him gratefully, while Clapper heaved a huge sigh and looked at his watch.

Better get on with it, all right, Gideon thought, before I lose him altogether.

“This is the right tibia of an adult male who died sometime in the last ten years.” He paused, expecting a challenge from Clapper-how do you know it’s a male? how do you know he’s an adult? how do you know when he died?-but the sergeant merely blew smoke at the ceiling and continued to look fidgety and preoccupied.

“The markings on it indicate a dismemberment, which in turn strongly suggests a homicide, at least to me.” He waited again for Clapper to object, and this time he did.

“A homicide, is it now?” the sergeant said with elephantine joviality. “Kyle, lad, when was the last homicide we had here in these delightful islands?”

“Don’t know, sir. Before my time, that’s for sure.”

“You see, Professor,” Clapper said, “we don’t much go in for that sort of thing in this little corner of the world. Our usual run of problems, on those rare occasions when we have them, involves disorderly conduct, antisocial behavior, noise complaints-alcohol-related things, generally speaking. Although, if I’m going to be honest, I have to admit, there was the case of the purloined piglet from Farmer Follet’s van on Market Day last.”