Aaron Elkins: Skeleton dance

Gideon shook his head as he gently fitted in the last of the sacks. Macaroni and cheese. Now there was a hell of a way to end up.

While Gideon worked, Joly had gone back to sit on his boulder, jotting down notes and thinking aloud. "No clothing, no personal possessions whatever-you wouldn't say that there was any possibility of their having completely rotted away, would you?"

"No, not a chance. Someone took them; to keep him from being identified, I suppose."

"Mm. I don't imagine there's any way to tell if he was killed here on the spot or carried here from somewhere else after he was murdered?"

Gideon shook his head. "You're right, there isn't. I can tell you about half of him has been carried out of the cave since he's been here, but that's about all. Either carried out or chomped down right here."

"And are you able to tell me anything about his appearance? His height, for example?"

"There I can help. I'll give you a stature estimate later, when I run some measurements, but it looks as if he'll turn out to be around average: not real tall, not real short. For France, I mean-say about five-eight, give or take an inch or two."

Joly, who was extraordinarily tall for a Frenchman, topping Gideon's 6'1" by an inch, wrote it down. "And what about weight?"

"If you mean was he fat or thin, there's no way to tell that from the bones, but his body type-his build-was probably average too-not particularly muscular, not particularly slight. Your average Frenchman, in other words."

"Average, average, and average," Joly said, sighing as he wrote. "I grow discouraged."

"I can't give you what isn't there, Lucien. I wish I could tell you he was seven-feet-one and weighed a hundred and thirty pounds and had six fingers on his left hand."

"Yes, that would help narrow things down," Joly agreed.

"But, unfortunately, I haven't come across a single thing that could conceivably be used for individual identification. No useful dental abnormalities, other than that crown you spotted and a filling in one of the bicuspids… wait a second, come to think of it…"

He opened Bag A again and took out the broken mandible-it was the right side, from the first bicuspid back-to re-examine the teeth. Four of the five were still present; the third molar having fallen out (after death, judging from the sharp, deep, well-defined socket). He held the bone on a level with his eyes and ran his finger over the teeth. "Yes, I should have realized it before. Something else for you to jot down: I think he might have been missing one of his upper right molars."

Joly looked up from his notebook with a sympathetic smile. "I think you mean one of his lower right molars. I've been working you too hard. You are getting tired."

"No, I mean upper."

"But there are no-"

"Look at this tooth, the first molar. See how it sticks out beyond the other teeth?"

Joly squinted at it. "Ah… no."

"Well, it does, or at least I think it does. And see how there's less wear on it than on the others?"

"Not really, no."

"Well, there is-or at least I think there is-and that's what happens to a tooth when its opposite member-the tooth it abuts-isn't there to keep it in place and wear it down. Teeth have a way of floating around unless they're held down. And the tooth that the lower first molar abuts is the upper first molar. So my conclusion is that it's missing, and in fact that it'd been missing for a while before he died, because it takes some time before it gets noticeable."

Joly scratched something out with his pen and slipped the notebook into his pocket. "And to think I doubted you."

"Well, I'm not positive, you understand. I'm a little out on a limb here, so if it doesn't turn out that way don't be too-"

" Inspecteur?" said the second of the two officers, who had been combing through the dirt directly under where the skeleton had been buried. He pointed to a dull, misshapen, nugget in the red soil. " Une balle de fusil. " A bullet.

With Joly, Gideon hurried over for a closer look. What he saw was a small, squat cylinder of what looked like lead with a bluntly pointed conical head, something like a. 22-caliber slug from a cheap Saturday Night Special, of which Gideon had seen more than he wished. But this one was different, with a hollowed-out base and an oddly constricted middle-as if a wire had been wound around it and pulled tight-so that the whole thing was shaped like a squat hourglass. And that was something he couldn't remember having run into before.

"What kind of bullet is that, Lucien?"

"It's not a bullet," Joly said, bending over to peer at it, his hands on his knees. "I believe it's an air-rifle pellet."

"An air gun pellet?" Gideon said incredulously. "I've never heard of anyone killed by an air gun." Actually, he had; a teenager accidentally shot through the eye so that the pellet had lodged in his brain, but in this case they were dealing with penetration of skin, of muscle, of bone. "I didn't think it was possible."

"No, no, not an air gun, an air rifle. This is not from one of your-what is it, your toys that shoot, what are they called…"

"BB's."

"Yes, BB's. No, my friend, an air rifle is a different matter-a weapon, not a toy. Equipped, for example, with a sophisticated gas-compression system and the proper ammunition, it can be quite powerful, quite accurate; as a hunting weapon, for example."

"I didn't know that," Gideon said, happy to give Joly a chance to do some showing off of his own.

The pellet having been duly photographed in situ, Joly stooped, picked it up, and placed it on his palm. "I believe this is what is called a magnum, probably a 6.35-mm. pellet, or perhaps only 5 mm. Larger and heavier than most, but of course quite light compared to your average firearm bullet." He closed his eyes while he hefted it. "I doubt if it weighs even fifty grains," he said with a significant look at Gideon.

"Oh?" Gideon said, completely out of his element by now.

"That would suggest," Joly explained, "that he was shot from close range, certainly less than twenty meters and probably a great deal less, considering that bone was penetrated. Such a light projectile would lose energy very quickly, regardless of the initial muzzle velocity, you see."

"I see," Gideon said. "That would also explain why it didn't make it all the way through."

Joly nodded his agreement. "Very good, Durand," he said with satisfaction, giving the strange pellet to the officer to bag.

He brushed invisible dirt from spotless hands and smiled, pleased with the day's efforts. "Come, shall we go and meet your Julie?"

"Julie, this is my old friend and valued colleague, Inspector Joly. Lucien, allow me to present my wife."

Joly bowed, straight-backed and stiff. "A great pleasure, madame."

"Please, call me Julie."

"Yes? Thank you, and please call me…"

Ahum, thought Gideon.

"… ahum, Lucien."

The soft gurgle of the nearby river floated through the open French windows of the restaurant Au Vieux Moulin, set, as its name implied, in an ancient stone mill at the entrance to the village of Les Eyzies. At the table nearest the window the second course, risotto aux truffes, had been cleared away, the silverware removed and replaced for the third time, and the ravioles de langoustine aux jus de crustaces announced and presented in a ceramic tureen from which the waiter deftly whipped the cover with a practiced flourish.

The conversation, easy and pleasantly unfocused to this point, flagged as they worked their way attentively through the ravioli, and the plates and silver had been removed once again before Joly spoke, introducing a new subject. "Gideon, I would like to know a little more about this notorious scandal that has so plagued the Institut de Prehistoire-the Old Gentleman of Tayac. Tayac-that is the name of an abri, I presume?"