Aaron Elkins - Old Bones

"Claire Fougeray," he announced awkwardly, "Gideon Oliver and John Lau. John and Gideon, Mademoiselle Claire Fougeray." He beamed and fidgeted.

That, Gideon thought with interest, satisfactorily explained the business about lunch. He was frankly surprised; he’d long ago given up on his meek, unimposing, and-well, a little dry-colleague’s chances for romance, but it looked, happily, as if he’d been wrong. He smiled at the two of them. "I’m glad to meet you, mademoiselle," he said, meaning it sincerely.

Ray stood back contentedly as she shook hands. "Oh," he said suddenly, with a new smile. "And this is my uncle, Ben Butts."

"Cousin," said the blue-eyed man with the gray hair and the soft Texas accent who had come into the hallway from the salon. "That is, cousin’s husband. But the boy here just won’t accept that." He grinned and squeezed the back of Ray’s neck affectionately. "Look, everybody’s dying of curiosity in there, but nobody’s got the nerve to come out and say so. Why don’t you bring your friends inside and tell us what’s been going on in the cellar instead of whispering about it out here?"

"But we weren’t talking about that at all," Ray said.

"All right, then," Ben said agreeably, "at least invite them in to sit down and have a drink. They could probably use one after two hours down there."

"That sounds good," John said, and Gideon agreed.

"Oh…" Claire said, drawing back. "I must go. I can’t stay…"

"Don’t be like that, honey," Ben said gently. "Nobody in there’s going to hurt you-"

But with a murmured excuse, she was gone, trotting quickly back up the stairs.

Ben watched her go with a sigh, and exchanged a troubled look with Ray. "I sure wish we could get that girl to come out of her shell a little. I’m afraid we have a few frictions here at the old manoir," he said to John and Gideon, "just like normal families do. Ray, did I ever tell you what my Uncle Beau Will’m said about families?"

"No," said Ray, beginning to smile, "I don’t believe you did."

"Well, my Uncle Beau Will’m," Ben said, slipping into an East Texas drawl, "that is, my Uncle Beau as was married to my mother’s sister Essie, he said ain’t no problem at all keepin’ peace in the family, just so long’s you don’t ever make the mistake of tryin’ to get ’em all together."

While they laughed Ben bowed them into the salon and Gideon had his first good look at the room. It was here that he and Guillaume had had their lively discussion over coffee and local brandy, observed by a bemused but entertained Ray. Everything was exactly as he remembered- the high ceiling with the warped, orange-painted beams, the rough, hammered-iron chandelier with its anachronistic little light bulbs shaped like candles, the great Louis XIV table in the center, the leggy rubber plants, the age-browned tapestries of barely visible stags and skirted hunters. It felt somehow wrong that they should all be unchanged, while the vital, incisive Guillaume, who had seemed the very heart of the manoir, breathing life into it, should be dead. Indeed, the people in the room- introduced by Ray as Ben’s wife Sophie, and Mathilde, Rene, and Jules du Rocher-struck him even before he spoke to them as intruders who had no right to be there. Ben was right, he decided; he could stand a drink. Something to eat too.

The amiable Sophie Butts quickly set him more at ease. A graying woman with an open, mannish face, she moved over on the couch with a smile and patted a place beside her.

"Bonsoir, madame," he said politely to Mathilde, who informed him that he might as well speak English. She and her husband had spent many years in London; Jules had been born there. Since Guillaume’s death, as a matter of fact, French had generally been spoken at Rochebonne only when addressing the servants…or certain distant relatives who found it difficult to comprehend English.

Within a few moments, Marcel, as inscrutable and silent as he’d been two years before (Did he recognize Gideon? There was no way to tell), had brought Dubonnets for him and John, and for the next twenty minutes, while he sipped and munched hors d’oeuvres, he answered questions about the bones in the cellar.

"And was he actually beheaded? " Jules du Rocher asked. "And his hands and feet cut off?" The puffy Jules had shown a morbid interest in the more lurid aspects of the case. For some minutes, with his little eyes glittering, he had held a half-consumed salmon-and-olive canape in one hand, forgetting to eat it.

"Well, the body was cut up, yes," Gideon said, looking at him with distaste.

"Fascinating," said Mathilde, who evidently didn’t share her son’s sensational interests.

"But who was it?" Rene asked. "Why in heaven’s name was he buried in the cellar? Who killed him?"

Gideon shrugged. "The police will have to figure that out. About all I can hope to do is give them a description that might help. And so far I haven’t come up with anything useful." Here he was equivocating a little, but it didn’t seem like a sensible idea to broadcast even the few specific conclusions he’d reached. "But maybe I can find out a little more tomorrow."

"How?" Jules asked. "What can you do that you haven’t done already?" As he spoke he waved one hand before his face, saw the canape in it with visible surprise, and popped it into his mouth, shoving it the last inch or two with a fat thumb.

"Jules," Mathilde breathed.

"Well," Gideon said, "of course the police are still looking for more bones, and if they find the pelvis or the skull, there’s a lot we might be able to tell. Still, even if not, a closer look might turn up, oh, some old injury like a healed fracture that might help in identification…Or maybe signs of disease, even a childhood disease-"

"A childhood disease?" Ben echoed. "Can you really tell that from the bones?"

"Depends on the disease," Gideon said, having taken advantage of the question to toss down a quick triangle of smoked trout on toast. He was careful not to push it in with his thumb. "A lot of them leave permanent signs on the skeleton: TB, rickets, polio…And then there can be signs of operations too-oh, for mastoiditis, say."

He downed a shrimp-and-egg-decorated cracker while they digested this. John, he noticed enviously, was putting canapes away at a far steadier rate, being unencumbered by conversation.

When Beatrice announced dinner, Mathilde, who looked as if she had hoped to avoid this awkward situation, unenthusiastically invited John and Gideon to dine with them. When they declined, saying they would be leaving with Joly in a few minutes, she expressed her regret with a warmly genuine smile and left for the dining room, followed by all but Jules, who stayed in his chair hoping for a few more of the grisly details.

"Dr. Oliver? Monsieur Lau?" It was Joly, standing in the entryway, plainly disapproving at this fraternizing with the household. "I think we can go now, please."

At the doorway he turned to Jules. "Oh, monsieur-I haven’t seen Monsieur Fougeray for a little while. Perhaps you would be good enough to tell him he is welcome to examine the bones tomorrow at ten o’clock?"

Jules drew his soft body together and lifted a rudimentary chin. "I will see to it," he said coldly, "that Marcel informs him."

"A Nazi what? " John asked. He was in the front seat this time, Gideon in the rear, as Joly drove them back to St. Malo.

"Obersturmbannfuhrer," Joly replied, turning off the graveled road onto the highway. "It’s equivalent to a lieutenant-colonel. SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Helmut Kassel. You remember the executions in Ploujean that I mentioned? They were on his orders. And among the dead was one Alain du Rocher, who, if you take it on the word of the people in that house, was the nearest thing to an angel you’re likely to find on this earth."