Aaron Elkins: Unnatural Selection

“Perhaps we can have dinner tomorrow night?” Madeleine suggested. “Something heartier than eggs and bacon?”

“Absolutely,” said Gideon. “Our treat.”

“And then we’ll see you in October for our”-charmingly, she blushed-“wedding?” Although she was fifty, Gideon knew, this would be her first marriage, so blushes were in order.

“I suspect we’ll see them, or Gideon, at any rate, before then,” Clapper said. “We’ll need him to give evidence at trial.”

Having by now put away the last of his second helping, Clapper finally set down his knife and fork. “That was splendid, love,” he said to Madeleine, who beamed back at him, then went so far as to dab at a bit of egg beside his mouth with the corner of her own napkin.

“Oh, don’t fuss so, woman,” he griped, but it was obvious that he was loving it; that they both were loving it. Madeleine kept on digging until the egg came away, while Clapper’s happy eyes, raised helplessly to the ceiling, said: What can I do? The woman is mad about me!

Olympic National Park Headquarters, Port Angeles, Washington Five Weeks Later: July 27, 2005

“I love a woman in a uniform,” Gideon said, watching Julie come down the steps in her tan shirt and snug olive trousers.

“Lucky break for me,” she said, leaning over for a quick kiss, then sitting across from him on the bench at the other side of the picnic table. “I’m starving. What did you get?”

Once or twice a week, depending on schedules and weather, they met for an alfresco lunch on the back lawn of the Olympic National Park’s administrative headquarters just outside of Port Angeles, where a picnic table for the staff had been set up in a sunny clearing in a grove of fir trees. Gideon usually brought the food, and today it was fish and chips with Diet Pepsis, from the Landings restaurant down at the ferry dock.

“Great!” Julie said, unwrapping her portion. “This should get me through the afternoon. Is this haddock?”

“Cod. Guess what. Rudy’s admitted murdering both of them.”

“Yeah, I bet. Are you going to be using your tartar sauce?”

He handed her his packet. “No, really. I got a call from Mike Clapper this morning. Rudy’s changing his plea to guilty. On the advice of his barrister.”

“You’re serious. What brought this about?”

“The marvels of modern science. The DNA results came in on Friday, and when Rudy’s barrister saw them, he did an about-face on the innocent plea they had going.”

There were two sets of findings, he explained. First, DNA extracted from the blood in Rudy’s room matched not only the bones from the beach, but also made a convincing match with a sample from Villarreal’s sister, thus establishing beyond any conceivable doubt that a) the bones were Villarreal’s, and b) the dried blood in Walker’s bathroom came from Villarreal as well.

But that had been expected; they’d been preparing for that. What had really turned things around was a second analysis that had been done on traces of blood and tissue found lodged in the links of Rudy’s metal watchband.

“They found blood in his watchband?” Julie said. “I didn’t know that.”

“Neither did I. Neither did Mike, who’s pretty much out of the loop at this point.”

“That’s incredible-that it would still be there after two years.”

“No, this wasn’t Villarreal’s; this was fresh.”

A ketchup-dabbed French fry on the way to her lips slowed. “Joey’s?”

“Yup. Blood and scalp tissue, both identified as Joey’s, based on comparisons with tissue from his mother.”

“Wow.”

“Wow is right. That did it, as far as the barrister was concerned. Can you imagine trying to convince a jury that these were not bits of Joey’s head that got dislodged while Walker was bashing it in with a rock?” He grimaced and peered doubtfully at the piece of fish he’d just broken off. “I think I got a little too graphic for my own good there.”

“Much,” Julie agreed. “So, did he say what made him kill Joey?”

“Yes, it’s all down on paper now, signed and sealed.”

“Had he known about Edgar’s murder, was that it?”

“Yes,” Gideon said, “and no.”

He returned to his lunch and continued. Joey had been staying, Julie would remember, in the Marianus Napper Room, which was next to Rudy’s room, the John Biddle Room, which was at the end of the hall. Late on the last night of the first consortium, after the squabble with Pete Williams at Methodist Hall and the nightly poker game, according to Rudy, a still-seething Villarreal had banged on Rudy’s door, sick of being needled by him all week, and determined to get down to the source of it. Or perhaps he had just needed to vent some more after the Methodist Hall incident, or to argue some more. Whichever it was, their voices were soon raised and Joey, trying to sleep in the next room, had thumped on the wall and told them to keep it down.

They had, but it had done nothing to stem their feelings. Villarreal, of course, couldn’t have had any idea of the real reason for Rudy’s hatred, or of its passionate depth, or of the danger in which he had placed himself. After it had gone on for twenty minutes or so, and Villarreal had talked one time too many about how people attacked by animals in the wild had nothing but their own stupidity to blame, Rudy had had more than he could stand. He-

“In other words, he’s saying that he didn’t plan to kill him? It just sort of came on him?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I do. At that point he excused himself, went down to the kitchen for a knife-”

“‘ Excused himself’? Strolled downstairs for a knife? How believable is that?”

“Oh, I can imagine Rudy doing it. He’s pretty good at not showing his feelings when he doesn’t want to. Besides, it doesn’t make sense for him to make up something like that. His barrister never would have let him say it if it wasn’t true, because it shows premeditation. He may not have planned to kill him in the first place, but if you walk down two flights with the intention of getting a weapon and then walk back up and use it, you can hardly claim you hadn’t thought about what you were doing.”

“True.” She finished her first piece of fish and went on to the second. “Go on.”

“Well, he came back upstairs with the biggest kitchen knife he could find, slit Villarreal’s throat after first telling him who he was and why he was doing it, and then couldn’t stop stabbing him, he says.”

Julie looked at her last half dozen fries and decided against them. “I don’t know why, but I don’t quite have the appetite I thought I did.”

“Same here. What do you say we take a walk? The sun’s getting hot anyway.”

Between the back lawn and the Park Service maintenance yard a few hundred yards away was a shade-dappled path that curved through a bit of Pacific Northwest primeval landscape: fragrant wild blackberries and huckleberries in profusion, ferns, salal, vine maple, Oregon grape, and high above everything the cool, green canopy of the firs.

“Ah, this is better,” Gideon said, as they entered. “Smells wonderful in here. So, do you want to hear more?”

“Yes. But no need for additional graphic detail, if that’s all right.”

“That suits me. Okay, once it was over, he goes back downstairs to the toolshed out back for a hacksaw and a supply of garbage bags, and he spends the rest of the night… well, doing what had to be done. Then he takes Kozlov’s car-the key was on a rack in the office-up to Halangy Point and a couple of other places-he doesn’t remember them all-and buries everything in five or six locations. That leaves him time to get back, clean up the room and himself, and catch the ferry with you and Liz in the morning.”