Aaron Elkins - Unnatural Selection

Clapper was expelling smoke from a cigarette and shaking his head. “You’d think a police surgeon would know the difference between a goat and a man.”

“Well, you know,” Gideon said, finding himself again defending the medical profession, “once he’s out of school a physician never sees a bone all by itself, out of context- which I do all the time. And there are no courses in medical school that teach comparative skeletal anatomy. Why would they?”

The same was true for dentists, Gideon knew. His own dentist, in whom he had complete confidence when it came to his own teeth, had once telephoned him in some distress to say he thought he’d found a human infant’s mandible in a roadside ditch. It had turned out to be the mandible of a young dog. And when it came to police cases, another factor was at work as well. When the cops walk into your office all excited about the suspicious bone or tooth they’ve brought with them, there is always a subtle but substantial pressure on you, mostly self-induced, to tell them what they’ve told you they think it is.

“Anyway, I don’t really think you can blame the guy,” he finished.

Clapper didn’t agree. “The Alaska State Police ought to get themselves another police surgeon, that’s all I have to say. Or at least hire on a physical anthropologist when the occasion arises.”

“No argument there.” Gideon put down the photograph and picked up his mug. “How’s the Dillard investigation going?”

Clapper responded with a concise summary. The work at the scene was done, as were the initial interrogations, but they knew little more than they’d known yesterday. Quite a lot of evidence had been collected and bagged at the scene and was awaiting a change in the weather that would permit it to be sent to the lab in Exeter. But whether or not they were dealing with a homicide they were having a hard time determining.

The matter was complicated, as Gideon would understand, by a number of factors. First, Joey had been in the habit of enjoying a late-evening smoke out on the catwalk, and all agreed that he had had more Pimm’s Cup than was good for him at dinner (they expected a more exact finding on that from Dr. Gillie shortly). Was it possible that the deceased, his coordination muddled by drink, had accidentally fallen over the railing, which was, indeed, dangerously low? The possibility had to be allowed for. Moreover, the only injury Dr. Gillie had found in his on-the-scene examination, aside from some contusions and lacerations, had been the massive damage to Joey’s head, and the problem with that kind of complex trauma, according to the doctor, was that it was next to impossible to determine whether it was entirely the result of a simple fall or might involve something more sinister, such as a blow or blows. It was hoped that the autopsy would shed some light on the cause of death, but-

“You know, I’m not so sure about that,” Gideon murmured.

Clapper’s eyebrows went up. “About…?”

“About not being able to tell whether the head injuries came strictly from a fall, or something else was involved. I mean, I don’t want to second-guess Dr. Gillie, and I never even saw Joey’s body, so I may be all wet, but all the same, there are some criteria that can be used to differentiate between various kinds of blunt-force trauma-”

But Clapper’s attention had wandered. “Well, yes, that’s interesting. I’ll put you in touch with Davey Gillie and maybe you can help him out there.” He shot a look at his watch. “Kyle, are you ready to go?”

“Ready and eager, sir.”

“We’re off to the castle for another round of interviews,” Clapper explained to Gideon. “Got some new questions for them today.”

The phone cheeped. Robb picked it up. “Isles of Scilly Police Station, good morning,” he said and quickly straightened up in his chair. “Yes, sir. I understand. Of course, sir.” He covered the mouthpiece.

“Exeter,” he said to Clapper.

Clapper made a disgusted noise. “What do they want?”

“They want to talk to you. It’s Detective Chief Superintendent LeVine.”

“Tell him I’ll call him back.”

“Um, Sarge, he sounds like he’s not in the mood to wait. It’s a conference call; they’ve got somebody else on too.” He hesitated. “It’s about Joey Dillard.”

Clapper’s big hands clamped on the arms of his chair as if he thought they were the necks of two detective chief superintendents. “Damn his eyes,” he growled, pushing himself to his feet and stomping to his office, the door of which he slammed shut behind him.

“He’ll be right with you, sir,” Robb said brightly. He listened until he heard the phone in Clapper’s office being picked up, then replaced the receiver. “This may be bad,” he said.

“Why, what is it?”

“Well, the other person on the blower is the Force pathologist down at the hospital at Treliske. He does the postmortems for southern Cornwall. So I’m guessing he’s going to be autopsying Dillard’s body after all, which would seem to mean headquarters is going to scupper our investigation and take the case back themselves.” He gestured with a tip of his head toward the window behind him. “The fog’s dissipating pretty fast. They might be able to fly in their mainland detectives now.”

“That’s not going to make your boss very happy.”

“It’s not going to make me very happy either,” Robb said. “Excuse me.” He picked up the phone again. “Isles of Scilly Police Station, good morning. Oh, hello, Mrs. Hob-good. No, I’m afraid we haven’t found Eloise yet. Yes, of course we’re actively searching. No, of course we haven’t given up hope, it hasn’t even been a full day yet. We’ll find her, you’ll see. Don’t we always? Oh, definitely, we’ll let you know the moment we do. Don’t you worry, now.”

“Runaway kid?” Gideon asked when Robb turned to him again.

“Runaway duck. She keeps her as a pet. Won’t use a leash. Loses her a couple of times a month. I’ll swing by the wastewater treatment plant this afternoon. Eloise always turns up there to root around after a day or two. I’ll pile her in the van and drive her home.” He grinned ruefully. “What was that again about the majesty and stateliness of the Force?”

They hadn’t been able to hear Clapper’s voice from his office, but they had no trouble hearing the telephone slam into its cradle, and then the squeal of his chair rolling back. They looked at each other, the same question on their minds. When the door opened, who was going to come through it, Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde?

It was Dr. Jekyll, smiling and complacent. “Well, that was interesting.”

“They don’t want the case back?” Robb blurted.

“‘Want’ and ‘get’ are two different things,” Clapper said, returning to his chair and his coffee. “I told them to shove it. I’m the case investigator and I intend to continue being the case investigator, and if I need any of their bloody help I’ll bloody well ask for it.”

Robb’s jaw dropped. “You told Detective Chief Superintendent LeVine to… to…”

“Look, lad,” Clapper said kindly, “you have to understand the way these things work. I’m still a bit of a, shall we say, a legendary figure there, despite a few problems in my latter days. People are reluctant to get into a row with me, especially the detective chief superintendent. Teddy LeVine is fifteen years my junior in age and six years my junior in seniority. He’s never made Officer of the Year, and he has no decorations for valor, and when I really assert myself-which I haven’t done now for many a day-when I put my foot down, young Teddy is not the man to stand up to me. With a few face-saving mutterings about making sure to keep the computer log up to date, he withdrew from the fray. The case is mine. Ours.”