Aaron Elkins - Make No Bones

“Gideon, how long will it take to prove whether that skeleton is Chuck Salish’s or not?” Julie asked.

“That depends on what kind of file there is on him in the ME’s office. If they already have dental records, medical records, photographs-”

“They do,” John said. “I talked to them on the phone.” “Well, then, I’d say it’ll take Nellie all of five minutes.

This guy has a missing tooth and some fillings, so a look at Salish’s dental charts should-”

“They don’t have the dental charts,” John said. “I thought you said-”

“Everything but. They had them, because they’re listed on the file contents sheet, but they’re not in the file.” “What about dental x-rays?”

John shook his head. “There’s nothing at all from his dentist. Everything else’s still there.”

The three of them looked at each other. “You don’t suppose they could have been accidentally lost?” Julie asked.

The others regarded her silently.

“No, I didn’t think so,” she said. “Gideon, why would somebody take just the dental records and leave everything else?”

“Well, I don’t know just what else there is, but the dental stuff is your best bet for making a positive identification, so I’m assuming someone didn’t want us to find out who this was.”

“No, doc, we can’t say that for sure,” John said. “For all we know, somebody took those records out of the file years ago, long before anybody found the skeleton.”

“But not before somebody buried it,” Gideon pointed out.

John swallowed some beer. “Yeah, true.”

After a few moments’ silence, Julie said: “Interesting, but where does that get us?”

“Beats me,” Gideon said. “Anyway, it shouldn’t be too hard to get copies again.” He worked a sticky, cheese-soaked tortilla chip free from the mass on the plate, loaded it with ground meat and salsa, and brought it carefully to his mouth.

John shook his head. “I don’t know about that. The dentist’s name isn’t on the contents sheet, and Salish’s wife is in a nursing home now. She doesn’t remember who the hell Chuck Salish was, let alone his dentist. But I’ve got the FBI office in Albuquerque looking into it. They’ll come up with him.”

Gideon washed down the chip with a gulp of beer. “You’ve been busy, haven’t you? When did you hear about this, a whole two hours ago?”

“Well, yeah, but we’re talking about a murdered special agent here. The Bureau’s funny about things like that. We take an interest.”

“Let’s say his dentist can’t be located,” Julie said. “Could Nellie make an identification anyway?”

“Well, there are some skeletal features that ought to show up in the medical records,” Gideon said. “A healed fracture, a few arthritic joints in the foot. But that kind of thing is trickier, less definite. It’d probably depend on whether there are x-rays, and what kind of x-rays.”

John had been staring down at his mug, slowly rotating it on its coaster. Now he looked up. “Doc, you realize that I have to look at all your old pals as prime suspects here.”

Gideon realized it, all right. He’d been thinking of little else. “Including Nellie?”

“Well, I’m not real worried about Hobert. If he had something to hide, all he had to do was keep his mouth shut, and this’d be just another John Doe. Besides, from what I hear, everybody in the Bureau who’s ever worked with him’ll vouch for him personally, right up to the director.”

Gideon drank some beer, began to say something, then took a slow second swallow. “I’ll vouch for him too.”

“Yeah, I like the little bugger myself. All the same, I asked one of the ME’s deputies to sort of casually just happen to hang around the room with him while he’s working on the skeleton tomorrow.”

“What about when he’s not working on it? That workshop in the museum isn’t exactly secure. Anybody could get at it.”

“I’m way ahead of you. The skeleton’s being moved to a room in the Justice Building downtown. Nellie can work there just as easy.” He used a chip to scoop up some salsa. “Just to be on the safe side, you know?”

Gideon nodded; he knew.

Julie didn’t. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” she said. “John, all these people are forensic anthropologists. They work with the police. Surely there are other suspects?”

“Like who?”

“Well, like…it could be anybody. Somebody Salish once sent to jail, or one of the other guests at the lodge, or an employee, or a, a-”

“Julie, here’s a guy who comes to a resort with a bunch of anthropologists, okay? He’s an FBI agent, but he’s not here on a case. In fact, he’s out of his region. And he winds up killed and stuffed in a hole. As far as we know, the only people with any connection to him are these six anthropologists. So who the hell else is there that makes any sense? Where else do I start? You tell me.”

“Well…”

“And there’s something else,” John went on. “Somebody knew enough to get rid of the dental records, right? And they needed access to the ME’s files to do it, which you can’t just walk in off the street and do. Doesn’t that sound like one of the anthropologists who worked on the bus crash? Doc?”

“I suppose so, yes,” Gideon said reluctantly. John’s thinking was sound enough, but these were friends and colleagues who were being so blithely accused; people he’d known and respected for years. Agreeing with John didn’t make him feel any happier about being co-opted.

“But what motive would they have?” Julie asked.

“What motive would anybody have?” John answered. “That’s what an investigation’s for.”

She sighed and leaned back. “Well,” she said, patently unconvinced, “you two are the experts.”

“Hey, we better quit while we’re ahead, Doc.”

That was fine with Gideon.

The food came-big, messy, appetizing wooden platters loaded with extras-beans, more salsa, french fries, pickles-and they found that their appetites were heartier than they’d thought. Gideon was halfway through his sandwich and surrounded by soiled paper napkins when a new thought surfaced.

“There weren’t six anthropologists at that meeting, John. There were eight.”

John looked up from his hamburger. “Eight?”

“Two of them are dead. Jasper, of course, and Ned Ortiz from USC.”

John went back to the hamburger. “Yeah, well, I think I better concentrate on the live ones. Dead guys are tough to get anything out of.”

“But Jasper’s the only one with any kind of a real connection to Salish. The others didn’t even know him before the meeting. And Jasper left suddenly, without telling anybody. Doesn’t that make him worth checking out? If-”

He stopped abruptly. If he’d heard himself right, he had as much as suggested that the late, great Albert Evan Jasper was a murderer. And that really was overdoing it. “I mean,” he finished lamely, “I thought that was the way the police mind worked.”

“That’s the way the police mind works, all right,” John said. “All I have to figure out is how you check out a cigar box worth of burned bones.”

“If you can find them,” Julie said. “Nobody seems to know where they are at the moment.”

She had said it casually, but her expression suddenly changed. She put down her sandwich and spoke quietly. “There’s got to he a connection there.”

John was studying her. “Well, now, that’s something to think about.”

Gideon considered the idea. “No, how could there be a connection? We’re getting our causal sequence backwards. Jasper’s bones disappeared Sunday night. The skeleton didn’t even turn up until this morning-two days later. And Chuck Salish’s name didn’t come into the picture until just a few hours ago.”