Aaron Elkins: Icy Clutches

"-that a clavicle like this could come from a woman. That means you can't be absolutely positive-"

"I never said I was absolutely positive.” Well, not in so many words. “Science is never absolutely positive,” he added virtuously.

"Wait, she's right, Doc,” John said, having trouble deciding which side he was on. “For all you know, this just happens to belong to a women's Olympic shot-putting champ. How do you know it doesn't?"

Gideon shrugged. “If this just happens to belong to a women's Olympic shot-putting champ,” he said, “then I'm in big trouble."

But it couldn't and he wasn't. This was a male clavicle. He'd examined zillions of them.

On this particular morning even the aroma of newly brewed coffee failed to get a reaction from Julie. Gideon put the tray on the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed. He pulled the cover a few inches down from her chin. She stirred, almost imperceptibly. With his fingertips he gently stroked the front of her smooth, bare shoulder.

"Now you,” he said, “have extraordinarily lovely clavicles. Especially this one right here.” He leaned over to kiss it.

"Coffee,” she mumbled. Her eyes were still closed.

He kissed the tender recess just beneath her shoulder, touching it lightly with his tongue and thinking about working his way down.

"Coffee,” she said.

He laughed, kissed her chin, and sat up. “I'm not overstimulating you, am I? Just let me know if I am."

It was what he deserved for forgetting priorities. He poured cups of coffee for both of them, and put hers in her hand once she'd managed to pull herself up almost to a sitting position.

She gulped, gave him a closed-mouthed, closed-eyed grin of pleasure, and took another swallow. “I've been wondering about Jocelyn Yount,” she said suddenly, just when he thought she was drifting off again. “Maybe I've been dreaming about her. About the mystery of her bones."

"Have some more coffee."

"No, I'm awake.” She forced her eyes tentatively open to prove it. “Where are they?"

"Where are Jocelyn Yount's bones?"

"Yes. You haven't found any, have you?"

"No, just male fragments."

"And neither did Dr. Worriner, did he?"

"That's true. Well, there are a few that can't be sexed, so we don't know."

"But everything that can be identified is male. Doesn't that strike you as odd? Why don't we have any of her bones?"

"Julie, there's nothing odd about it at all. It's amazing that we recovered anything from any of them. I mean, having them pop out of a glacier thirty years after an avalanche? Besides, I thought you were going to leave this to the pros."

"Mm. Well.” She yawned and stuck out her empty cup.

Gideon filled it. “Okay, what are you thinking?” He was always interested in what she had to say, even when she wasn't a hundred percent awake. Julie had a way of coming at problems from shrewd, offbeat angles, raising questions and opening up perspectives that were surprising and often helpful.

Not this time. “I was thinking,” she said, “that maybe the reason you didn't find any bones is that she wasn't killed."

"But you read what Tremaine said. He saw the crevasse close up over her."

"That's what he said. That doesn't make it true. Don't forget what Julian said: ‘Who is there to argue with him?’”

"Well, all right, that's a point."

"Of course it is,” Julie said, warming to the idea. “Maybe she got away alive and came back thirty years later to kill Tremaine to-um, to keep him quiet about what really happened on the glacier."

"Which was?"

"Who knows? Maybe that she was the killer, not James Pratt. Maybe Tremaine lied about the whole thing in his book, only of course Jocelyn wouldn't know that. Maybe…” She drained her second cup and thought for a few seconds. “Am I being a little fanciful, would you say?"

"Just a little. Aside from a logical inconsistency or two, Tirku is forty miles from anything approaching civilization, and that's by water. By land it'd be three times that, if you could get there over the mountains at all. How could she possibly have made it off the glacier alive?"

"I don't know,” Julie said.

"And where was she all these years?"

"Don't know."

"And how could she get here to the lodge, to his room, without anybody knowing about it? Nobody saw any strangers, remember? Sorry, it won't fly."

Julie's enthusiasm for the idea had visibly diminished. She put her cup on the nightstand, shaking her head. “I think maybe I was dreaming."

He reached for the pot. “Want some more?"

"Uh-uh. Hey, was somebody kissing my shoulder before, or was that a dream too?” She slipped her hand into the open front of his bathrobe and ran it down his chest. “Nice dream."

Gideon put the pot back on the nightstand and leaned toward her to take up where he'd left off, nuzzling the soft skin below her shoulder, gently working the sheet down. “Have I ever told you,” he murmured, “what terrific infraclavicular fossae you have?"

"Mm,” she said, “I love it when you talk dirty."

John turned out to be right about Fisk's diary. “Nothing in it,” Minor told them, using his knife to scrape boysenberry jam from a foil packet and spread a thin layer on his wheat toast. “Just fragmentary rantings and ravings about a wide variety of subjects: alleged thefts of his ideas by Tremaine and others; unpleasant remarks about many people, of whom his fiancee was only one; self-inflating juvenile anecdotes. Hyperbolic rodomantade of the most puerile type. If you will."

"Come again?” John said.

"Hyperbolic rodomantade of the most puerile type."

"Don't forget to put that in your report,” John said.

"There wasn't anything to connect to Tremaine's murder?” Julie asked.

"Not in my opinion,” said Minor.

"Nothing in the journal, nothing in Tremaine's manuscript,” Gideon muttered. “What are we missing?"

"Damn,” John said abruptly, “we're not getting anywhere. Today's already Friday. You realize everybody leaves tomorrow?” He shoved aside the dish that had held his sausage and eggs and gloomily reached for a monstrous bear-claw cinnamon roll that overhung its plate at each end.

"That won't affect our investigation,” Minor said. “We can get hold of them when we need to."

"It won't make it any easier, Julian."

Conversation halted as Shirley Yount came in and went through the buffet line a few feet from them. With her tray loaded, she gave them an awkward nod and went to a table across the room, as far away as she could get.

Julie, who had been watching her with an odd intensity, suddenly sat bolt-upright and clamped her hand on Gideon's forearm.

"She was here all along, that's how!” She turned toward John and Minor, keeping her voice down with an effort. “That's how she could get into his room without being noticed!"

"What's this we're talking about?” John asked, chewing pastry.

"Jocelyn! She could have been right here at the lodge all along."

"Oh-oh,” Gideon said.

"Jocelyn,” echoed Minor. “Jocelyn Yount?” Then, after a fractional pause: “I'm not sure I take your meaning."

"Julie has this thing about Jocelyn,” Gideon explained. “She seems to think it was Jocelyn who killed Tremaine, that she wasn't killed on the glacier."

"Yesterday it was Pratt,” Minor observed mildly.

"Killed Tremaine!” John said fiercely, then quickly lowered his voice. “Now how the hell-"

"There's no real proof that Jocelyn's dead,” Julie said. “None of her bones have turned up."

"Is that right, Doc?"

"That's right, none that we know of,” Gideon said abstractedly. He thought he knew where Julie was headed, and this time “offbeat” hardly did it justice.