Aaron Elkins - Old Bones

"Even so, seeing them in their original context and relationships-"

"I’m sorry, my friend, but it’s already done. They have to be shipped to Paris in any case, you see. It didn’t occur to me that it would make any difference to you."

"Well, it doesn’t matter that much. I’ll be glad to look at them for you." So it wouldn’t be textbook forensic anthropology, but it was a lot better than Wither Man? And if it really was a complete skeleton, he was certain he could unequivocally settle the question of its identity, even to Joly’s satisfaction.

"As long as they’re boxed," he said, "could you have them dropped off here and save me a trip to-" He was struck with a novel teaching idea. "What about bringing them to the conference center tomorrow morning instead? I’m doing my final session from eight to ten. We could do the analysis right there in class. It’d give the attendees a chance to participate in an actual case."

There was a long pause while Joly weighed the propriety of this.

"Lucien, they’re all cops, you know. They’re on our side."

"Well, yes, all right," Joly finally agreed reluctantly. "I’ll bring them myself."

"And will you bring the original bones too, if you haven’t sent them off yet?"

"Of course." Gideon heard the scrape of a match and an intake of breath as he lit up. Then some little tck-ing sounds that indicated he was probing with his tongue for a shred of tobacco between his teeth.

"You said there were several things you wanted to talk about?" Gideon said.

"Yes, there are. John will be interested in this too. We’ve checked for local sources of cyanide, and there are none. The nearest is in Rennes."

"So that must mean-"

"Second, there is no taxi service in Ploujean, but there is one in Guissand-that is to say, the ambulance from the mental hospital serves as a taxi when needed-and it’s had six calls in the last week; none of them involved any of our friends at the manoir."

"Which has to mean-"

"Third, I’ve constructed a time chart based on each person’s observations. During the days, at least, no one has been out of sight of all the others for more than two hours at a time; not nearly long enough to get to and from any place where potassium cyanide might be found. Which must mean…?" he prompted.

"That-as John pointed out-whoever did it had the cyanide with him before last week. He-or she-planned Claude’s murder ahead of time."

"Correct. It was old business, not new business."

"As old as 1942, do you think? Was somebody settling wartime scores with Claude?"

"I think it’s not unlikely. As far as we know, none of them has interacted with him for decades, so what else could it be? Ah, and apropos of that, Auguste Lupis was indeed the father of Marcel. He became quite emotional when I confronted him with it."

"So you think-"

"I think," Joly cut in, "that he’s one more person with an ancient, passionate hatred of Claude, that’s all. One more in a long list."

"Yes…" Gideon nodded thoughtfully at the daisies. "But look at it this way: Your list of prime suspects is shorter now."

"Oh? How would that be?"

"Well, if he was killed on account of something that happened in 1942, that probably lets out anyone who wasn’t there at the time, doesn’t it? Not definitely, but probably. The younger people, mostly; Leona Fougeray, Claire, Jules…Ben Butts too…and Ray," he added after a moment, just so Joly would know that he was being objective, had been objective from the start.

There was a pause. Gideon could picture him, head tipped back, lower lip extended, while he watched the smoke curl slowly upward from his mouth. "Why don’t we just say it focuses interest on those who were here?" Joly said. "Mathilde and Rene du Rocher, Marcel, Sophie-all of whom had ample reason to detest Claude. And then there’s Beatrice, Marcel’s wife; I wonder if she was in the area in 1942. You wouldn’t have any idea, would you?" he added dryly. "You seem to have a way of knowing these things."

"Not a glimmer," Gideon said, laughing.

"Well then, I suppose I shall have to find out for myself. Oh, finally-I understand you turned in a small package to the police in St. Malo this morning."

"Package?" He’d been hoping it wouldn’t get back to Joly. "Oh, yes, that. Well, the thing is I’d just been talking to this commissaire about-well, anyway, I left it with them. Just in case, you know."

"Yes, it’s a good idea to be careful. The bomb squad spent a good part of their afternoon processing it."

"They did?" Gideon laughed sheepishly. "All right, let’s hear it: What was in it?"

Joly emitted one of his quiet, mournful sighs. "A bomb," he said.

"Who the hell would want to kill you?" John asked, leaning back in the one armchair. He had brought a bottle of armagnac for nightcaps, but it stood unopened on the table.

"That’s what you said this morning," Gideon replied, standing at the window. As in many small French hotels, the Terminus’ inside rooms overlooked a small garden that was used in the summer as a breakfast area. "When you said I was paranoid," he added gloomily, looking down on the dimly illuminated tangle of winter-sodden plants yet to undergo their spring cleanup.

" You said you were paranoid. I just agreed with you."

"Well, we were both wrong. Someone’s really trying to get me." He laughed suddenly, dropped backwards onto the bed, and clasped his hands behind his neck, leaning against the covered bolster that took the place of pillows during the day. "All things considered, I’d rather be paranoid. You’re right," he added with feeling. "Letter-bombs suck."

"Yeah. What’d Joly think?"

"The same thing, I guess, but he didn’t put it in those words."

"Funny. I mean what’d he think it was all about?"

"He thinks somebody at the manoir doesn’t want me to find out something about the bones. The Marseilles postmark doesn’t mean anything except that it’s a good place to get that kind of thing done. He says if you know the right people, for two hundred dollars and a phone call somebody will make a bomb and mail it anywhere you want. You don’t know the guy who does it, and he doesn’t know you or the person he sends it to. Next to impossible to trace."

"Do you know what kind of bomb it was?"

"He called it an IRA special."

John grimaced. "Too bad; that won’t be any help. It’s the simplest kind there is. A kid can make one. A little package of commercial explosive, a plain detonator, and a needle. When you open the letter, it jabs the needle into the detonator and blooey. Sometimes. Half the time it doesn’t work."

"I’m glad to hear it."

It was odd; this morning when they’d just been guessing about the bomb, and more or less playfully at that, the idea had shaken him, even if he’d felt foolish about it. But now that he knew for sure that someone was actually trying to blow him up, he was more angry than anything else. One of the simpler pleasures of life-opening an unexpected package-was never going to be quite so simple or pleasurable again. And he was angry because it was almost certainly someone with whom he’d recently been chatting so affably at the manoir who had skulked to a telephone and done it, long-distance. It was so damned… unsporting.

"So what could somebody be afraid you’d find out?" John asked. "For instance."

"What I did find out. That Alain du Rocher’s buried in the cellar. That no matter what that plaque says, and the prefect of police says, and anybody else says, Alain’s body was buried-hidden-under the floor of the old family home."

"Let me get this straight. You think he wasn’t executed by the Nazis? You think somebody’s trying to cover up a murder in the family? How could that be? How could everybody have the facts wrong?"