Aaron Elkins - Skull Duggery

“And you think Tony was behind all of them?” Julie asked.

“I’m not ready to go that far. I can sure tell you he was behind one of them.”

Marmolejo had been silent for a few minutes, having gotten up and gone again to the window, where he stood looking out with his hands behind his back. “I take your point, Gideon,” he said without turning around. “I expect that we will indeed be taking another look at Blaze’s murder, but I’m afraid it will be only to see what light it might cast on the attack on you. To her, the statute of limitations must still apply. If we should discover her killer, there will be nothing we can do about it.”

Gideon shrugged. “Good enough. I understand. What about this drifter, though? He was killed only a few months ago.”

“Oh yes, Manuel Garcia; we’re proceeding with that, as we would have in any case. Now, however, I think we will be inquiring more deeply as to what business he had, if any, at the Hacienda. Oh, that reminds me-” He turned from the window. “I received the report of his autopsy from Mexico City this morning. Apparently, it confirms your findings in their entirety.”

“Stabbed to death with a screwdriver?”

He nodded. “The chief examiner telephoned me to express his appreciation to you. Neither the screwdriver impressions in the bone nor the puncture of the chest wall by a rib was anything he had ever encountered or heard of before. He said he learned much, and that it was an honor to have ‘collaborated’ with el famoso Detective de Esqueletos.”

“Well, please let him know that I appreciate that. Did the report turn up anything new?”

“I’ve yet to read it. It’s still on my desk. Would you like to see it?”

“Gee, I wonder what the answer to that’s going to be,” Julie said to the ceiling.

Gideon smiled. “sure, just for a few minutes, anyway.”

Marmolejo went to his desk and got a thick, neatly opened envelope that he brought to Gideon. “I can show Julie around the building in the meantime, if she’d like. There are some interesting old corners that not many people get to see.”

“I’d love it,” said Julie.

They were hardly out of their chairs when Gideon, scanning the first page, asked with a distinct edge of excitement: “Javier, does placas y tornillos de fijacion mean what I think it does?”

“ Placas and tornillos are-”

But Gideon had already flipped to the sheaf of color photographs at the back. They had removed the mummified hide of the head to expose the skull and mandible, and there were photos. “Never mind,” he said, staring hard at the very first photograph. “I’ll be damned. This whole thing gets weirder by the minute.” He looked up at them. “I don’t know what it’s all going to add up to in the end, but there’s one thing I can tell you right now. Julie, you were absolutely right. Whoever that skull at the museum belonged to, I’d be real surprised if it turns out to be Manolo’s.”

“And why?” a frowning Marmolejo asked.

“Because,” said Gideon, slowly tapping the photograph, “that’s who this is.”

In the space of a few seconds, with very little help needed from Gideon, it became as obvious to them as it was to him. The placas and tornillos -plates and screws-were clearly visible in the photos of the bared mandible: three narrow, inch-long metal bands, each secured with four screws, which had been inserted to hold together the jaw that had been shattered by Carl Tendler almost thirty years ago. The two fractures themselves were long-healed, but the plates and screws remained.

“But wait a minute,” Julie said. “Didn’t you tell Tony this morning that you’d know if the skull in the museum was Manolo’s because they wouldn’t have removed the wiring yet?”

“Right.”

“ ‘ Yet.’ The implication being that, eventually, it’d be removed. Well, he was killed only a few months ago. Why is it still there?”

“Oh, this isn’t the wiring. The wires would have been between his upper and lower jaws to keep them from moving. They were taken out long ago. If not, he’d have been eating his meals through a straw all these years. No, these plates are put in to keep the pieces in place while they heal-like splints or casts, only on the inside. To remove them would take another operation-two operations. So unless there’s a problem-infection, say-they stay in for good.”

“Ah. But how come you didn’t see this when you looked at the body yourself?”

“Because it was covered with skin, which I wasn’t about to try to remove. It took an autopsy to reveal this, and I wasn’t doing an autopsy; I was just looking at the thing, helping Flaviano out.”

“Well yes, this is all very interesting,” Marmolejo said, “but right now I’m anxious to get started on what happened today.” He steepled his fingers at his chin. “I will send a man to the hospital in the event Mr. Gallagher should speak after all. And I will have someone go out to the Hacienda this afternoon to conduct interviews; perhaps I’ll go along. It may be that someone can throw light, even inadvertently, on Tony’s actions. You know how important it is to gather information quickly, while events are still fresh in everyone’s minds.”

“Well,” Gideon said, taking the hint and gathering himself together, “I guess maybe Julie and I will head over to-”

“And I guess maybe you’ll head over to the interrogation room with Corporal Vela, where you’ll make a detailed statement as to today’s events while they are still fresh in your mind.”

“Of course,” Gideon said, “although today’s ‘events’ lasted all of about two seconds. Listen, Javier, before we get started on all this, what about this guy, Manolo?” He brandished the file. “He was alive only a few months ago. The statute of limitations doesn’t apply. You’ll be looking into it, won’t you? Besides, there’s got to be a connection there to what happened to me, and to all the rest of it.”

“Yes, naturally, we’ll look into it. However, I think we need a bit more evidence than these placas and tornillos before we conclude that he truly is this Manolo. Other people have had broken jaws.”

“Oh, sure. Probably just a coincidence that this particular guy, with a thoroughly healed fractured jaw-a total stranger-was seen wandering up toward the Hacienda a few months ago, and turned up dead just outside this peaceful, nonmurderous little village a few months later. What else could it be but a coincidence?” He looked up at Marmolejo from under arched eyebrows. “Yeah, right.”

“Yeah, right,” Julie concurred.

A few seconds passed and then Marmolejo sighed. “Yeah, right,” he said from the side of his mouth, in a strangled American accent straight out of The Sopranos.“WHAT sort of place are you looking for?” Marmolejo had inquired when they’d asked him to recommend a restaurant where they could have lunch in Oaxaca before going to the museum. “Did you want something on the lively side, in the middle of everything, with lots of noise and activity all around, or someplace quieter, more elegant, with real Oaxacan cuisine and ambience, of which few tourists would even be aware?”

They had surprised him by choosing the former, and so now they sat at an outdoor table on the arched, porticoed upper story of El Asador Vasco, the largest of the restaurants that bordered the Zocalo, axaca’s main plaza. They were glad they’d made the choice; what had happened at Yagul had shaken them both, and it was nice to be in a busy restaurant full of people chatting about normal, everyday things, and looking down on the green, well-kept public square, lively and bustling. There were strollers on the paths, sunbathers sprawled on the lawns, and sun-avoiders in the cool, dense shade of the laurel trees; there were street musicians, and vendors of baskets, of balloons, of herbs, of crickets (for eating), of colorful straw masks, of sliced fruits and sweets. A dozen or more of the mobile shoeshine stands with wheels and green awnings were doing a brisk business. At the other end of the plaza, an afternoon band concert was in progress, but only the oompah s of the tuba were audible at this distance.