Aaron Elkins: Icy Clutches

"No.” The episode of the four-foot freaks had taught him to keep his remarks to the press short.

"Why do you think Professor Tremaine was murdered?” Gideon spread his hands.

"Are there any suspects?"

Yes, and all of them were sitting within ten feet of her. Gideon glanced at them and saw John do the same thing from under half-closed lids. None of them did anything helpful, like making a run for it, or breaking into a sweat, or even stiffening guiltily.

"No idea,” he said.

"But you think there's a connection between the murders?"

"Beats me."

The front legs of John's chair came lazily down on the deck. “Dr. Oliver's an anthropologist, not a cop,” he said good-humoredly. “If you have questions about the murders, I'm the one to ask."

"All right, then,” the woman answered curtly, “is there a connection?"

"Beats me,” John said.

The reporter threw a poisonous look at him, a disgusted one at Gideon, and pointedly closed her notebook.

"I have a question,” said a gangling kid of about twenty-two. He put a hand up to his mouth and coughed. “C. L. Crowdy of the Empire," he murmured, blushing. “Mr. Tibbett said that another human bone was found at the glacier today-"

"A right femur,” Tibbett interrupted helpfully. “That's the thigh bone. F-e-m-u-r. Dr. Oliver's just come from the contact station, where he's been working on it. We've set up a lab for him there, and it's worked out very well. Hasn't it, Gideon?"

"Yes, it has, Arthur."

"Thank you, sir,” C. L. Crowdy said. “Dr. Oliver, are you able to tell us anything about this latest find? Do you know whose leg bone it is?"

Gideon hesitated. He couldn't think of any reason to keep to himself the knowledge that they had found Jocelyn Yount's femur, but he couldn't think of any reason why the reporters needed to know, or the members of Tremaine's party, either, or Tibbett, for that matter. He was less sanguine than John about all of them sitting in on the meeting. From his point of view, it paid to keep a few steps ahead of one's suspects.

"No, I don't,” he said.

"You can't even tell if it's a man or a woman?"

"No, I can't. Well, not yet. I've hardly begun my analysis. It takes time, you see, and I don't have all my tools with me, of course, and I…” He made himself trail off. He was an infrequent liar and a poor one. When he wasn't telling the truth he tended to babble. And, like young Crowdy, to blush, dammit. Casually, he put his hand over his warm forehead.

The Ketchikan Daily reporter, a beefy, bearded man with an eye patch, jumped in. “Sorry, but that's pretty hard to swallow, Professor. You're the Skeleton Detective. We've all read about what you can do."

"You can't believe everything you read in the papers,” Gideon said with a smile, but the reporters didn't seem to find it funny. Maybe it was time to just shut up.

Tibbett came to his rescue. “Dr. Oliver's going to be delighted to learn that he has one more tool than he thought he had. I've managed to borrow an accurate double-beam balance scale from the university.” He beamed at Gideon. “It'll be in the contact station tomorrow morning."

"A what?” one of the reporters asked without enthusiasm. A balance scale, Tibbett told them, with which Dr. Oliver would be able to apply certain regression equations (that was r-e-g-r-e-s-s-i-o-n) that would permit him to tell which bones went with which, so that he would know just who was represented in the Tirku remains.

Apparently Tibbett had forgotten that all but two of the bones were now in the FBI evidence room in Juneau, but there wasn't any reason to correct him. The reporters hadn't even bothered to write it down.

There was only one more question for Gideon, some twenty minutes later. C. L. Crowdy, the Empire's loose-jointed, six-foot-three correspondent, wanted to know if-human beings being what they were-there would have to be nondiscrimination laws to protect tall people by A.D. 2050.

"If you ask me…nngh… Arthur was looking pretty chipper

…gghh… at that press conference,” Julie said from the bathroom, the observation punctuated by the sounds of dental floss at work. “And later too, when he made his cute little farewell speech at dinner.” She stuck her head briefly into the room, holding the strand between her thumbs. “I mean, for a man who's under suspicion of murder."

Gideon was sitting on the bed, his shoes off, leaning against the headboard with his fingers laced behind his head. They had dined with Bill Bianco and the search-and-rescue class, a long, convivial final dinner with coffee, cordials, and speeches afterwards-the cordials provided on the house by Mr. Granle. Whether this was out of gratitude for their patronage or relief that nothing even more ghastly had happened during their stay, no one knew. “He doesn't know he's under suspicion of anything."

She was back in the bathroom. “John didn't…ngh… have that little heart-to-heart with him?"

I must really be in love, he thought. I even like the sound of her flossing her teeth. Something downright homey about it. When you tidy up your gingivae in each other's presence you must be in it for the long haul, all right.

"There's no hurry,” he said. “Arthur lives here. He doesn't go home with the rest of us. Julian wanted to get his information in order before they talk to him."

She came out of the bathroom in a brief flannel shift, sturdy and curvy and scrubbed-looking.

"You,” he said, “are as cute as a button."

This was deservedly ignored. “Could you really do what he said-figure out which bones go with which by weighing them?"

"Yes, with a little luck. But I don't see that it matters much anymore; not forensically, at least. Anyway, I dropped off most of the bones in Juneau. All I have left in the shack are the femur they found yesterday and the clavicle-damn.” He swung his legs off the bed, slipped into his loafers, and pulled his jacket down from the clothes rack. “I'll be back in ten minutes."

"Where are you going?"

"I just realized-when we ran off to the press conference I never closed the window in the contact station. I better go shut it. Those bones are just sitting there on the counter.” He rummaged in the dresser until he found their flashlight.

"What could happen to them?"

"Who knows? Raccoons, maybe even a dog…Those things belong in Owen's safe."

"I suppose, but what can you do about it now? It's after ten o'clock. Owen's one of those early risers; he's probably in bed. You really want to wake him up?"

"I can bring them back here."

"Gideon, if you think I'm sleeping in the same room with somebody's clavicle-"

"Julie,” he said, laughing, “I'm not planning to put them in bed with us. I'll stick them in the bottom drawer."

"On my sweaters? Forget it."

"Okay, I'll give them to the night clerk to go into the hotel safe. How's that?"

"Fine.” She gave him a crooked little smile. “You might want to put them in a plain brown wrapper first."

The night air felt wonderful. Windless and moist. Crisp, and clean, and mossy-smelling, with a faint, nose-tickling tang of salt water. Gideon walked slowly along the wooded path, breathing in the primal, uncomplicated fragrances with pleasure, enjoying the thought that he was on some of the newest, freshest land on earth, out from under its icy mantle for only two centuries. He paused where the path came out of the woods onto the beach, and stood looking across the moonlit cove. A dense, still fog lay on the surface of the water, covering it like a skin of cotton. He shone the flashlight onto it, watching the beam bounce away into the trees on the other side.

When he'd put the bones safely away, maybe he could convince Julie to throw on some clothes and come back out with him. They could walk to the end of the pier and sit on the edge with their feet dangling; maybe drop in a few pebbles, watch them drill holes in the fog sheet, listen to the hollow plunk they made when they hit the water. They could lie back on the cool planks and look at the sky. A gauzy layer of clouds had moved in a few hours earlier, turning the stars to furry dots, like distant lamplights on a foggy night. He didn't think it was going to take much convincing.