Aaron Elkins - Old Bones

"Okay, that’s settled. Now all I have to do is convince Joly."

The fresh pancakes had arrived; a cheese-filled galette for Gideon, and a sweet dessert crepe stuffed with cream and sugar for John.

"Why should Joly be hard to convince?" John asked after a test-bite that apparently met his standards. "The guy’s peculiar, but he’s not dumb."

"Well, for one thing, there’s the little matter of the SS paraphernalia that was buried in the cellar. For another thing…Well, I can’t think of another thing, but Joly will."

"The SS stuff." John put down his fork. "I forgot all about it. How do you figure that, anyway? You think one of the du Rochers joined the SS? The Germans had Nazi police units made up of local nationals in the occupied countries, didn’t they? And Guillaume was in the Resistance, right? Maybe he killed this guy because-"

"Uh-uh. You’re talking about the Milice, I think. They had second-rate uniforms, nothing like the flashy German SS. Denis did some checking; this stuff was definitely bona-fide Allgemeine SS, straight from Berlin, and the rank insignia were Obersturmbannfuhrer. Helmut Kassel’s rank."

"So then what do you think…"

"I don’t know what I think. At this point it’d be nothing but speculative inference anyway."

John’s hand went to his heart. "Speculative inference! Jesus, Doc, far be it from me to suggest that a man such as yourself would stoop to engage in speculative inference."

"All right," Gideon said, laughing, "maybe I’ve done it from time to time in certain rare circumstances, but in this case I just don’t have any data to go on. But I don’t care what else they find down there. Those bones belong to a du Rocher."

John nodded slowly. "So the question is: Who?"

"Oh, I think I know who."

John’s eyebrows lifted.

"Alain du Rocher," Gideon said.

John’s eyebrows remained suspended for some seconds. A forkload of crepe and creme Chantilly also paused inquiringly. "The guy the Nazis killed? The one Claude didn’t warn?"

Gideon nodded.

"That’s crazy."

"John, it all fits. He was living right there in the manoir during the war, and those bones got buried down there right about the time he was killed. And it just happens to turn out that nobody seems to know where his body is."

"Yeah, but-"

"And those bones look like du Rocher bones; the same proportions and conformations as Guillaume’s, and some of the same features; I could see it in the X-rays. And remember when I said the bones made me think of Ray? It’s a look that runs in the family."

"What about Rene? He’s built like a doorknob. So’s Jules."

"Well, sure. You can’t expect everyone in a family to look alike, but where you can see it, it’s distinctive."

"Yeah, but I still don’t see why it’s got to be Alain. Why not somebody else in the family?"

"How many du Rochers do you think disappeared without a trace in 1942?"

The fork finally finished its journey and John chewed thoughtfully. "Okay, I agree with you: We’re not talking proof here, but it makes a lot of sense. Hey, wait a minute. If Alain got killed by the Nazis, what’s he doing in Guillaume’s cellar?"

"Yeah, that’s a slight problem."

"I’d say it’s gonna take some world-class speculative inference."

They had finished eating and ordered espressos before either spoke again.

"Doc, you gonna tell all this to Joly?"

"Sure, not that I’m looking forward to it. I know he appreciates us, but I’m not sure how much he enjoys these new and startling developments every few hours."

"Well, then, what would you say if I pass it along for you? I was thinking of dropping by Rochebonne this afternoon to sort of see how things are going anyhow. If you don’t mind visiting those tombs by yourself."

Gideon swallowed the tiny portion of coffee in two rich, bitter sips. "Tell you what: Why don’t I ride over there with you? You can drop me off at Ploujean."

"Ploujean? What’s at Ploujean?"

"Joly said there’s a plaque to the six men the Nazis executed."

John studied him over the rim of his cup. "You’re going to do some more burrowing into things on your own, aren’t you?"

"Well, things have gotten a little more interesting, and-" At John’s expression he hurriedly altered course. "No, honestly, what is there to find out in Ploujean?"

"Doc," John said with a sigh, "every time you start thinking you’re a detective, I wind uphaving to bail you out."

"John, I don’t think I’m a detective. All I want to do is- well, pay my respects to Alain, I guess. See what the monument’s like. That’s all."

And it was, more or less. But if something came from it that would be fine too. You never knew.

The plaque was easy to find. Ploujean had only two dusty streets, intersecting in a T, and at the center of the T was a small, bare plaza of brown gravel, and at the center of the plaza was a granite boulder surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence. On the granite was a plain rectangular plate of patinaed bronze with a few lines of simple, raised lettering.

16 OCTOBRE 1942 EN HOMMAGE AUX COMBATTANTS DES FORCES FRANCAISES DE LA RESISTANCE DONT LA LUTTE ET LES SACRIFICES ONT JALONNE LA ROUTE DE LA LIBERATION DE PLOUJEAN. FRANCOIS-RENE BRIZEUX CHARLES KERBOL AUGUSTE LUPIS HENRI DE PILLEMENT JEAN-PIERRE QUEFFELLEC ALAIN DU ROCHER

Gideon turned slowly from it and looked at his watch. Two-thirty; in half an hour he was supposed to walk to the manoir and meet John for the drive back to St. Malo. Thinking about what he’d just read, he strolled towards Ploujean’s only cafe, a tiny awninged place that looked out on the square. Had he learned anything from the plaque? Yes, he thought, maybe he had. "La lutte et les sacrifices," it said-"the struggle and the sacrifices." There was no reference to executions; not even a mention of the Nazis. Why not? Was it simply the dignified restraint of a little village that had had enough of blood and passion? Or was it conceivable that Ray and his family had the story wrong? That Alain and the other five had not died at the hands of the SS, but in some other way? If so, new possibilities arose as to how his body had wound up in Guillaume’s cellar.

"Sans pretensions," it said on the flyblown window of the cafe, and the interior lived up to its promise. A few rough wooden tables and chairs-not folksy wooden but utilitarian wooden-gritty floor, no menus, flyblown travel posters on the wall (Venice, Costa del Sol, Miami). Three elderly men sat at one of the tables nursing a carafe of red wine. From the attentive, quiet way they watched him come in, he knew they’d been talking about him. Ploujean’s Cafe de la Paix, unlike its Paris namesake, was hardly on the tourist track and any stranger was no doubt worth serious and protracted consideration, particularly one who took the time to study their memorial.

"Bonjour," he said, and the three nodded in unison, swiveling their heads to watch him go by and choose a table.

He ordered cidre bouche, Breton cider, which the barman brought to him in a bottle with a blue earthenware bowl instead of glass.

"The men whose names were on the plaque," Gideon said conversationally in French as the bottle was set down. "How did they die?" Talk stopped abruptly at the other table.

"Executed, monsieur," the barman said.

"By the Germans? The SS?"

The barman looked at him as if he were simpleminded. "Of course, monsieur."

So much for that half-formed line of thought. Easy come, easy go. Still, it was worth following a little further. "Do you know what became of the bodies?"

"The bodies?" the barman said, looking at him as if he were not only simple-minded but dangerous. "No, monsieur. You’re American?"