Aaron Elkins: Twenty blue devils

"Wait'll you hear this,” he said.

Gideon waited.

"I finally got hold of the right guy at the U.S. Marshals Service, which took some doing-"

"What do they have to do with this?"

"They run the witness protection program, didn't you know that? Anyway, I finally got hold of the right guy and convinced him that I was on the up-and-up, which wasn't all that easy over the telephone-I had to have a deputy director in Quantico talk to him and vet me-and he told me all kinds of interesting things about our old friend Klingo Bozzuto."

Gideon settled into the chair opposite him. John was going to draw this out for all it was worth. Well, he had earned a little expansiveness. Besides, Gideon was willing to admit that he had it coming; through the years John had done more than his share of sitting politely and even attentively around while Gideon confounded and amazed him with startling feats of forensic prestidigitation. Turnabout was only fair.

"Such as?” he prompted.

"I will start at the beginning,” John said, rather portentously for him. He examined a few notes that were scrawled on the face of a Shangri-La postcard that he'd brought with him. “On June 17, 1983, one Bozzuto, Joseph Rodolfo, known to one and all as Klingo, officially ceased to exist. In his place was a completely new man with a brand-new work history, a brand-new personal life, a brand-new Social Security number-and a brand-new name. And the name they gave him was…” He grinned. “You'll never guess."

Gideon's chest had taken up its thumping again. “Brian Scott,” he said.

John waited a couple of seconds before answering. “Nope,” he said. “Vernon W. Culpepper."

John's typical laugh was a sunny, explosive, childlike peal, but when he was really amused, really tickled, what came out instead was a bursting, choking hee-hee-hee that could grate on Gideon from the first hee and then go on seemingly forever.

"Hee-hee-hee,” he said now, his eyes pinched shut, “heehee-hee, hee-hee-hee-hee-hee, hee-hee-hee-"

"The humor here escapes me,” Gideon said crossly when it appeared that an end was not in sight.

"Hee-hee-hee,” John gurgled. “That's because you couldn't see your face. Hee-hee… oh, God…I'm sorry, Doc, I couldn't help it, you were so-so-” And in he started again.

"I gather,” Gideon said stuffily, “that this is a small joke on your part?"

John held him off with raised hand, wiped his eyes, and let go a huge terminal sigh. “Oh, boy. No, it's not a joke. That's what they named him: Vernon Westmark Culpepper."

Gideon stared at him. “But-"

"In 1983 they named him Vernon W. Culpepper. For seven years Vernon W. Culpepper kept a low profile in Chicago, reported regularly to work, and generally stayed out of trouble and followed the witness protection rules. On February 11, 1990, he traveled to Quebec, Canada, which was within the rules, but he didn't come back. The Marshals Service eventually figured either he got tired of the restrictions and took off for good-they do that a lot of times-or that he got careless and that Nutso and the boys finally caught up with him."

"Nineteen-ninety…” mused Gideon.

"Nineteen-ninety. And four months later, in June of 1990, presto, here comes this guy named Brian Scott-with a whole lot of holes in his life story-who turns up out of nowhere at Nick's dinner table in Tahiti and never leaves again; never leaves Tahiti, I mean. Meanwhile, nobody ever hears from Vernon W. Culpepper again."

"So Brian could be Culpepper; could be Bozzuto, that is."

"I think we can be a little more definite than that. I found out what Bozzuto's job with Amtrak was. Care to guess?"

"No,” Gideon said. “I would definitely not care to guess."

John laughed-the more familiar chuckle this time. “I'm really sorry about that, Doc. I couldn't help myself. But this time there aren't any surprises. Klingo-Vernon-was hired by Amtrak as a customer services inspector. Not a conductor, but almost as good. He traveled the trains checking on food services, linens, staff behavior, stuff like that. Typically he'd spend eighty percent of his time-that's about eighteen days a month-on moving trains."

"For seven years, you said?"

John nodded. “Six hours a day. Would that be enough to develop those monster fibulas?"

Gideon relaxed and sank back against his chair. “It'd be enough,” he said.

"Then that settles it,” John said with a clenched-fist victory gesture.

"I think so,” said Gideon. “What with the timing, and Culpepper's disappearance, and those Superman fibulas, and everything else, the odds of being wrong have to be next to nothing."

Spontaneously, John reached across the low table to shake Gideon's hand. “Congratulations, Doc. That's really a neat piece of work."

Gideon shook hands with pleasure. He thought it was a pretty neat piece of work himself, and he was pleased for John's sake too. Although his friend hadn't said anything to suggest it, he knew that John was tremendously relieved to conclude that Brian Scott had once been Klingo Bozzuto. Because if he was Klingo, then the Mob would have been hunting him all this time; he'd probably had a price on his head. And if that was the case, then the chances were enormous that it was the professional bad guys that were behind his death after all.

And that meant that John could stop worrying about Maggie, or Therese, or Nelson, or anyone else in his family being a murderer. True, they'd apparently been suckered by an ex-mobster who'd probably tucked their names away under “future marks” during the trial, but that was merely cause for a few self-recriminations; it wasn't going to tear the family apart.

"Congratulations to us both,” Gideon said with a smile.

The telephone chirped. Gideon picked it up. “Hello?"

"Ah, Dr. Oliver, good morning to you.” The voice was French-accented; a jovial rasp, vaguely familiar. “I didn't wake you?"

"No, not at all."

"Excellent. This is Viennot."

"Um…Viennot?” The name was vaguely familiar too.

"The physician,” the voice on the other end said, and then when Gideon didn't respond: “The police surgeon? We met at-"

"Oh, yes, of course. Good morning, Dr. Viennot. What can I do for you?"

"I am calling from the hospital, professor. I have been working on the body of the large gentleman who was shot yesterday-"

Viennot got off to an early start, then. It wasn't much after seven even now.

"-and it suddenly occurred to me that if you are not otherwise occupied you might enjoy participating in the autopsy?"

Not by a long shot, he wouldn't. “Thank you, doctor,” he said politely, “but I don't think-"

"Are you certain? The man is an extraordinary specimen in many ways."

Gideon doubted this not at all, but it didn't make him any more eager to watch Viennot open him up. Professional courtesies were pleasant things, but this one-which was offered him from time to time-was one he was generally happy to do without. “I appreciate it very much, sir, but I think I'd better say no."

"I wish you'd reconsider. I ask as a colleague in need of counsel. There are some things here that puzzle me."

"Well, I'd be glad to help if I could, but I'm afraid I'm no pathologist. My-"

"Skeletal things,” Viennot said with the happy, singsong inflection of a man who had just turned up four of a kind.

Which he had. Gideon's interest was instantly sparked. “Oh? Like what?"

"I'm sure it would be better if you saw for yourself, colleague,” Viennot said smoothly. “I may expect you, say, in an hour?"

"In an hour,” Gideon said. “I'll see you then."

"You going into town?” John asked when Gideon had hung up.

"Uh-huh. To the morgue."