Aaron Elkins: Make No Bones

“I wish I’d thought of it before. Thanks, Doc. See you later.”

When Gideon brought the first armful of sacks back to the conference room, he found Nellie sitting at the table dressed relatively conservatively-in full-length trousers and a red T-shirt with nothing written on it but “Go, Broncos!”-and looking subdued.

“I was driving around in the rain, thinking about things,” he said, “and decided to stop in. I thought you might be working on the bones.”

Gideon felt himself flushing. He understood perfectly well why John had wanted him and not Nellie to complete the skeletal analysis, but it didn’t stop him from feeling rotten about it. He had planned to use the drive back to the lodge to think up some way of broaching it tactfully with the older man, but Nellie had beaten him to the punch.

“Uh, Nellie, actually, the reason I’m doing this is-well, I’m sure you know it’s not a question of trust, or of-of competence. I mean, there’s certainly no question, no question at all-”

With a wave of his hand, Nellie put a merciful end to his babbling. “Don’t worry about it. Of course I understand. I’m a potential suspect; how can I have anything to do with the investigation? I approve completely.”

Gideon was happy to see that he gave every sign of meaning it. “Thanks, Nellie.”

“My boy, don’t give it another thought.” He sobered when he looked at the sacks in Gideon’s arms. “Is that Albert?”

“Yes.” Gideon laid them on the table, then looked up sharply. “You mean you agree it’s him now?”

A rare sheepish look dragged Nellie’s features down. “Yes, yes, you were right about it, of course. You all were. It just took a while for me to admit it. I can, on occasion,” he said dryly, “be a wee bit stubborn. Or maybe we’d better make that ‘pigheaded.’ I simply wouldn’t accept having made so colossal an error.”

Gideon was more relieved than he showed. Nellie had seemed more than pigheaded to him; he’d seemed fixated, almost fanatical.

“That’s really what I came to say,” Nellie said. “I wanted to apologize for being so obstinate.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“I assume you’ve made the identification definite by now.” Gideon nodded.

“Simply astounding,” Nellie said, shaking his head. “I still can’t conceive of how we came to make such a botch of it, can you? It’s not as if-” One wiry eyebrow went up. “Or do you know how it came to happen?”

“Well, I think so, yes-“

Nellie held up a hand. “But you can’t tell me. Of course not. Tell me this much, though. Was it simple error or were we bamboozled?”

“You were bamboozled.”

Nellie banged his palm softly on the table. “That’s what I thought. It makes me feel a little better, if you want to know. But by whom, do you know that? Do you know if poor Harlow’s death is related to it somehow? It is, isn’t it?” The hand shot up again before Gideon could say anything. “No, I’m putting you in a difficult position. Never mind, I can wait to find out along with everyone else.”

He stood up. “Look, I’ve said what I had to say, and I want to thank you for being so damned decent about all this. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d accused me of something worse than sloppiness.”

Gideon didn’t feel so damned decent. And although he hadn’t accused Nellie of anything, had never suspected him of anything really, there were still unanswered questions, a remaining reservoir of doubt and uncertainty.

“Can I ask you something, Nellie?”

Nellie looked amiably down at him. “All right.” “Why did you make such a secret of the roast?” “Apparently it isn’t much of a secret anymore. It seems to be all over the place.”

“But why did you try so hard all these years to keep it one? Why did you shut Leland up the way you did yesterday?”

“Well, you have to understand-until yesterday we thought we’d caused his death. We thought he’d gotten on that bus because we’d driven him to it. We were-we were ashamed of ourselves. So we talked it out, and we agreed that no purpose would be served by telling anyone else about it. And we haven’t. Childish, perhaps, but that’s the way we saw it.”

Gideon shook his head. “Nellie, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t ring true. I can see some of the others going along with covering it up, but it just doesn’t sound like you. I mean you, personally. It’s not your style.”

“I suppose I should take that as a compliment,” Nellie said gruffly. “Well, damn it, you’re right, it’s not my style.” He slid back down into the chair. The pipe came out of his pocket, and the Latakia, but once they were in his hands he seemed to forget about them. “Do you know what it was, really? It’s not very deep.” He looked up at Gideon from under his eyebrows. “You know what happened at the roast, I gather?”

“I know it got out of hand, I know Jasper took offense-”

“Yes, well, that’s it right there. Jasper took offense.”

He began stuffing the pipe methodically with tobacco. “You certainly couldn’t call Albert a model human being, Gideon. I know how the others think of him-a slave driver, a martinet-and there’s some truth to it. But you know what it is they’re really complaining about without even knowing it? His standards. Mortifyingly high, true; uncompromising, true-but if you could meet them, if you could deliver, then, my God, the man could stretch you! Everything I know about this profession of ours stems from him. Without him, there wouldn’t be any profession. He made it a science, Gideon.” A match was struck and held to the bowl of the pipe. It was trembling very slightly.

“I realize all that-” Gideon began, but Nellie, sucking on the bit, shook his head: There was more.

The match was shaken out, the first smelly cloud of smoke expelled. “All of us owe that man a great debt, me more than anybody, and the fact of the matter is, I couldn’t stand-still can’t stand-the thought of his last recorded moments being so-so-squalid. Drunk, ranting, bawling…I felt I owed it to him to protect his memory.”

“His memory,” Gideon said.

“Yes, and so I-well, I suppose I imposed my will on everyone else. I made them promise to keep that last awful scene to themselves. And they, good souls that they are underneath it all, humored me.” He hesitated, looked awkwardly down at his lumpy knuckles. “And that’s all there was to it. I hope you believe me.”

“I do,” Gideon said. Loyalty. Fidelity. Obligation. It sounded like the real Nellie Hobert, all right, just slightly askew.

Nellie smiled wryly at him. “I guess it was pretty dumb, wasn’t it?”

“Pretty dumb.”

“Well, you know what they say: ‘Mit der Dummheit kampfen Gotter selbst vergebens.’”

Between Gideon’s rudimentary German and Nellie’s impenetrable accent, not much got through. “Mit der…?”

“’With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain.’ Schiller said it.”

“Ah,” Gideon said. Schiller wasn’t the only one. John Lau said it too: Smart people do the goddamn dumbest things.

At 5:00 P.M. that afternoon, Miranda convened a special meeting of the FMs to consider an unanticipated problem: The Whitebark Lodge catering department, not having received instructions to the contrary, had begun preparing for the traditional Friday-evening Albert Evan Jasper Memorial Weenie Roast, Singalong, and Chugalug Contest. With the rain having stopped, the mesquite fire in the cookout area had been started and the tables were in the process of being set up. However, having belatedly learned of the recent tragic events that had befallen WAFA, the caterer now wished to know if the cookout should be canceled.