Aaron Elkins: Make No Bones

“Ah,” Leland said, “the estimable Casper Jasper, et al.”

“As long as you’re worrying,” Callie said, “don’t forget about Nellie Hobert. He’ll have kittens when he hears.”

“Gadzooks,” Miranda said. “I hadn’t even thought about Nellie. Here he keeps the bones safe for ten years, gives them to us, and we lose them in exactly one day.”

“Nellie Hobert’s a good guy. He’s not going to make a fuss,” Les said, an assessment with which Gideon agreed. “And he’s not going to blame you, Miranda.” He wiped his fingers on a paper napkin and tossed it on the low table. “Look, why don’t we do this: announce to everyone that a joke’s a joke, but the bones have to come back. Tell them they have, say, two days to get them back to the museum, with no questions asked. If they’re not back by then, the cops get called in.”

After a few minutes’ discussion this sensible recommendation was agreed to by everyone; somewhat reluctantly in Leland’s case.

“All right,” Miranda said, “at the ten-thirty break I’ll make a general announcement about the theft and about what we’ve agreed to here. I just hope it all works out.”

“I was thinking,” Callie said, picking a shred of tobacco from the tip of her tongue. “It might help if I set up some voluntary encounter sessions this afternoon-give them an opportunity for some venting and catharsis. I’ll facilitate,” she added unnecessarily.

“Oh, do,” Leland said. “If that doesn’t do the trick, nothing will.”

“Drop dead, Leland,” Callie said.

John Lau arrived late that afternoon, delighted with the sunshine and glad to be out of Seattle. (“You want to guess what it was doing when I left?”) He had dinner in the lodge dining room with Julie, Gideon, and the founding members, where the talk was mostly about the missing bones. John listened with the look of a man who didn’t quite believe what he was hearing but was willing to be a sport and go along with it.

“Bone-napping,” he mused gravely over apple cobbler. “I’d really like to help out, folks, but I don’t think it’s a federal crime. Unless,” he added, as a smile finally broke through, “they cart the stuff across state lines.”

Les laughed. “Hey, Callie, how’d the encounter group go? Anybody ‘fess up?”

Callie had just lit up. She exhaled noisily, lower lip extended to blow the smoke upward, and shook her head. “How many showed up?”

“Well, there wasn’t much lead time, and people had already made other plans-”

“How many? Three? Four? Anybody?”

“Three,” Callie muttered.

“Plenty of venting and catharsis, though, I bet.”

“No,” she said defensively, “as a matter of fact there wasn’t. You can’t expect miracles at a first session. We’re talking about counterintuitive risk-taking behavior here, and you can’t build a conducive climate for that in a couple of hours. It takes time to establish new interactive norms.”

Leland regarded her with open distaste. “I hate to change the subject,” he said, “but need I remind anyone that the evening is slipping away? Are we going to play poker, or are we not? There are traditions to be upheld here.”

John turned to Gideon, surprised. “You people play poker?”

Gideon laughed. “Do birds eat worms?”

John surveyed the table of academics with undisguised avidity. “For money?”

Miranda, on John’s other side, waggled her eyebrows at him. “Care to join us, young man?”

“I wouldn’t want to horn in.”

“The more the merrier. You too, Julie.”

“Well-sure,” she said, then whispered to Gideon: “Will you make me one of those charts?”

“What charts?”

“You know, that shows which hand beats which hand.” “Why do I foresee disaster here?” Gideon said. “Harlow, we’ll use your cottage,” Leland announced. Harlow hesitated. “I don’t know, Leland. I think I’ll sit this one out.”

“Nonsense,” Leland told him. “We don’t want to keep other people up all night, and you have the most out-of-the-way cottage. Besides, I lust after your money.” Leland had had a few glasses of wine by this time.

Harlow smiled wanly. “Couldn’t I just give you ten dollars right now?”

“That,” said Leland, “wouldn’t be sporting.”

“Whuff,” Gideon said, holding out his cup.

Julie refilled it for him from the ancient percolator. Making morning coffee was generally his job, but Julie had wisely quit the poker session early and been in bed by midnight. She’d won $9.50 too, which had mildly irritated him at the time, but in the end it made up for most of his losses. Leland, as usual, had been the big winner. Gideon had finally figured out why he was always so successful. With that perpetually joyless expression on his face, you couldn’t help thinking that this time his cards really were awful.

“I just hope none of the students were trying to find somebody to confess to last night,” she said. “All the professors were holed up in Harlow’s cottage gambling and boozing until three in the morning.”

“Two.”

“Three. You woke me up when you came in. You were quite cheerful at the time. Playful, too, although I must say that didn’t amount to anything.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Are you very hung over?” she asked sympathetically.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said, yawning. The coffee was beginning to clear his head. “I could’ve used a little more sleep, though.”

“Well, I should think so.” She leaned her elbows on the little dining-room table, holding her cup in both hands. “Gideon, maybe I’m getting paranoid from living with you too long, but the whole thing sounds fishy to me.”

He scratched his cheek, playing her words back. “I think I missed something.”

“What happened to Jasper’s…remains, or whatever you want to call them. Why are you all so ready to assume it’s just a student lark?”

“What else?”

“Wouldn’t they have left a note or something to show it was a joke? They wouldn’t leave you all worrying about what happened to the bones. No, I think there’s more to it than that. I think somebody might not want them out there in full view with dozens of professional anthropologists peering at them.”

“You are getting paranoid.” He yawned again, sipped some more coffee, and shuddered. Percolators certainly made a powerful brew; you had to say that for them. “Or do you know something I don’t?”

“Maybe one of you-one of your friends, I mean-liked it better when they were out of sight in a drawer somewhere. Maybe somebody has something to hide.”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe Jasper wasn’t killed in that bus crash.”

Ah, he’d wondered if that was where she was heading. “That’s Jasper, all right, Julie. Teeth are like fingerprints; when you get a match, it’s a match. Besides, five highly competent anthropologists worked on that crash, and they don’t come any better than Nellie Hobert-”

She was shaking her head. “No, no, I’m not suggesting it wasn’t him, I’m suggesting maybe he didn’t die in the crash. Maybe-who knows?-maybe he was already dead when it happened, and someone’s afraid one of you bigwig experts will be able to tell it from the skeleton.”

Gideon looked wryly at her. “That would have made getting on the bus a little tricky, wouldn’t it?”

After a second she smiled. “Well, I didn’t say I’d figured it all the way out. But I don’t think you have either. I’m just surprised to see you jumping to conclusions, that’s all. That’s not like you.”

“Well, maybe you’re right.”

“But you don’t think I am.”