Aaron Elkins - Skeleton dance

"And you're suggesting she might have been so upset that she killed him over it?"

"Don't sound so incredulous. I'm just saying pretty much the same thing I was saying about Jacques, namely that when Carpenter was appointed she lost something important to her… but when he was killed she got it back. It's worth keeping in mind, that's all. Hey, aren't you the one who brought this up?"

The coffees came. Julie added a little cream to hers, bringing a discreet sniff of disapproval from Madame Leyssales-except for their morning cafes au lait, the French held to the belief that coffee should be taken black.

"Yes, but the more I think about it," Julie said, "the less likely it gets. Why would she be crazy enough to mention getting laid off to me if she'd murdered him over it, or if it even crossed her mind that someone might eventually think she had?"

To create precisely the impression of innocence she had, in the event that Carpenter's murder was eventually discovered, thought Gideon, but there was such a thing as getting too rococo and he had the feeling that they'd just about reached that point, or perhaps passed it a while back. Besides, although he'd managed to hold off the after-effects of his concussion all day, his head had begun to ache-all this heavy thinking-and he was beginning to sorely feel the need to lie down.

"You're right about that," he agreed, swigging down the two tablespoons or so of coffee in the tiny cup and wishing he'd remembered to ask for decaf instead. "We'll pass all this on to Lucien-he'll probably laugh-but I vote that we return to our previous hypothesis."

"Agreed," said Julie. "The Theory of Interconnected Monkey Business is hereby officially re-invoked." She stood up. "Let's get you to bed before you fall out of your chair."

"Still awake?" she asked.

"Uh-huh," Gideon said, not sure if he was or not. He'd been lying on his back, not his usual position for sleeping, and staring at the occasional reflections of headlights shimmering across the dark ceiling.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"As long as it doesn't require actual thought."

"Why didn't you tell me that Pru had an affair with Carpenter?"

"I didn't see that it had any connection to the murder. Anyway, I only found out about it myself this morning."

"That's right, this morning. And we spent most of the afternoon walking around Prehistoparc, and then got all the way through dinner before you mentioned it, and even then it was accidental."

Gideon yawned. "Well, it didn't seem pertinent to anything, so why talk about it?"

"Boy, Julie said wonderingly, turning onto her side and away from him, so that Gideon automatically nestled snugly in behind her, fitting himself to her, his arm across her waist.

"Boy, what?" he breathed into her hair.

"Boy, men are sure different from women."

For Lucien Anatole Joly, the next morning got off to a bad start. When he went downstairs, slippered and sleepy, to his front door for the breakfast delivery, he found in the bakery sack four puny marzipan cookies instead of his customary robust brioche and two croissants. This after six-and-a-half years-2,000 mornings!-of receiving exactly one brioche and two croissants, no more, no less, day in, day out, every morning of the week but Sunday.

Then, over this dismal meal (was it possible that some deranged person had actually ordered marzipan cookies for breakfast? Was he even now looking with shocked displeasure at Joly's brioche and croissants?) his wife Josette told him that her insufferable younger brother Bernard (he of the semiconductor empire), along with his wife Rosamond (she of the most piercing laugh known to humanity) and their unspeakably precious twin girls would be spending Christmas week with them yet again. Five days, four nights, God help him.

And when he reported briefly to his office at Police Nationale headquarters in Perigueux, Madame Fossier had even worse news: the juge d'instruction appointed to oversee-i.e., hinder, impede, and generally foul up-his investigation of the Carpenter case was Chauzat, the ignorant, interfering busybody Chauzat, from whom getting a simple search warrant was like pulling six teeth.

Thus, by the time he arrived at Marielle's office in the Les Eyzies mairie he was in no mood for further annoyances, but annoyances there were. It was in the prefect's office, which Marielle had grumblingly turned over to him for the day, that he was to meet with the professional staff of the Institut de Prehistoire, preparatory to interviewing them individually. His original intention had been to interrogate them in their own offices, but he had decided the walls of the cubicles were too flimsy for confidential conversation. Instead, he'd requested the director, Jacques Beaupierre, to ask them to report to the mairie, two blocks away, at nine o'clock in the morning.

At 8:55, therefore, Joly was seated behind Marielle's handsome teak desk in Marielle's high-backed, creamy leather chair (both of them aggravatingly superior to the standard Police Nationale issue in his own office), waiting. But nine o'clock came and went, as did 9:05 and 9:10, while Joly fumed, illogically refusing to telephone Beaupierre, preferring to wait and see just how tardy they would be. When they at last arrived en masse, it was to a frigid welcome.

"It's twenty minutes past nine," he said quietly but pointedly, his clean, thin, long-fingered hands folded on Marielle's spotless blotter.

"Well, ha, ha, but you know how it is, Inspector," Beaupierre replied as they took the chairs that waited for them in a semicircle before the desk, "You must understand, there was some difficulty in informing everyone, and besides, we are all quite busy at this time of year, oh, extremely busy, and there are so many things that call for our, mm…" He cleared his throat and fell silent, apparently fascinated by the laminated certificate that hung on the wall behind Marielle's desk: a commendation from the communal hotel association for his unstinting cooperation in the temporary traffic re-routing of 1994.

"May I also point out, sir, that we are unaccustomed to being summoned in this manner?" The speaker, seated beside Beaupierre, was a thick-bodied, rumble-voiced man in his middle years who made no effort to hide his displeasure.

Joly turned a fishlike eye on him. "Ah. And who would you be, please?"

"Who would-!" The man's neck swelled. "My name is Michel Georges Montfort," he said, drawing himself up in his chair, "doctor of archaeology, professor at the University of the Dordogne, and diplomate of the National Academy of Sciences."

"I see. Thank you."

Joly, of course, knew perfectly well who he was-Gideon had given him lively descriptions of them all-but this was the wrong day to trifle with him, even if the trifler happened to be a diplomate of the National Academy. Besides, Joly had learned long ago that in dealings such as these it was necessary to establish early and firmly who had the upper hand and who didn't.

"It's hardly something to be upset about, Michel," said one of the others, a waspish creature that reminded him of his brother-in-law except that Bernard was unlikely to be seen in public in a bow tie featuring what appeared to be a depiction of egg yolks exploding in a microwave oven. "No doubt the inspector is simply eager for edification on the recent changes in thinking regarding late Quaternary palynological stratification."

Emile Grize, Joly thought, feeling a dangerous tightening of his jaw muscles; Gideon had told him about him too.

"I should be happy for edification on any subject," he said politely.

Grize looked at him uncertainly.

"However impractical," Joly concluded, scolding himself before the words were out of his mouth. He wasn't starting out on the right foot, and if he kept it up, he would shortly have a roomful of enemies.