Aaron Elkins - Old Bones

"I tell you, kids," Ben said, playfully addressing Ray and Claire, "if you’re not going to ask him, I will."

"Oh, Uncle," Claire murmured with her eyes down, then turned a little rosier. Blushing looked good on her, Gideon decided.

"All right, then, I will," Ben declared. "We have a technical question for you, Professor. Genetically speaking, just how closely related are these kids? The reason they want to know-"

"Ben," Sophie said, "I think Gideon can figure out why they want to know."

"I could make a pretty good guess," Gideon said. "What are you two anyway, cousins?"

"It’s precisely that which we can’t determine," Ray said with donnish perplexity. "We know we’re not first cousins at any rate, but after that it gets extraordinarily confusing."

"I’ll tell you what," Gideon said. "Why don’t you draw up a family tree for a few generations, showing who begat who-"

"Whom," murmured Ray automatically, then winced. "Sorry, force of habit."

"-and I’ll try and work out the genetic relationships from that."

This was well received, and they set to reconstructing the du Rocher genealogy, with Ben drawing it step-by-step on the back of a paper placemat. In the meantime, the first course arrived: fruits de mer varies, carried to the table on three broad metal platters, arranged as identically and as prettily as a set of postcards. Three big crayfish and four prawns alternating in a circle in the center, a neat mound of small, salty sea snails to be poked out of their shells with pins that came embedded in a cork, and a pile of perhaps a hundred tiny gray shrimp that Claire showed them how to eat. One held the head between thumb and forefinger, then briskly snapped off the tail with the other hand, revealing a nubbin of pale meat that had almost no flavor but nevertheless bathed the palate in a faint, luscious essence of the ocean itself.

It was slow eating, what with pins and fingers, so that John and Gideon were able to entertain themselves contentedly while the others haggled good-humoredly over the more obscure corners of the family’s history. Then, as two black kettles of moules mariniere were put on the table, the neatly printed chart was handed to Gideon, who got out a pen of his own and started to work while he ate.

By the time the mussels had been reduced to shining, blue-black heaps of empty shells, and the last of the shallot-flavored broth soaked up with sliced baguettes, he announced his findings. "You’re fifth cousins."

"What does that mean for…for children?" Claire asked, then looked down and blushed again.

Gideon smiled at her. It was nice to know there were still women like Claire left. He liked the idea of Claire and Ray as a team; there weren’t too many Ray Schaefers around either.

"It means," he said, "that you two are separated by eleven degrees of consanguinity-"

"Aren’t you glad you asked?" John said.

"Which means that the probability of your sharing any particular gene, nasty or otherwise, is. 00049. And even if you did, the chance of any of your children getting a double dose of a recessive is only a quarter of that."

Understandably enough, Claire still looked confused, and on impulse Gideon reached out to put his hand on the back of hers. It was cool and dry. He could feel her fragile tendons through the thin skin. "For all practical purposes," he said, "you aren’t related at all. There isn’t anything to worry about."

Her brow finally relaxed. "Thank you, Professor Oliver," she said with a smile and took her hand back.

"Gideon." He noticed that her hand slipped under the table and Ray’s moved stealthily towards it. One more glass of wine and he’d probably have said: "Bless you, my children."

The main course of leg of lamb-famous, Claire told them, for its delicate, spicy flavor that came from having been raised in the nearby coastal salt pastures-and white beans and fried potatoes was consumed in an atmosphere of increasing camaraderie that was enhanced by the fresh bottle of Medoc. Once Ben began to ask about the murder investigation, but Claire’s sudden, visible shrinking (or more likely a crisp kick in the shins from Sophie) quieted him. Mostly, they talked about the history and architecture of the Mont, about which Claire was shyly knowledgeable.

"I know what," Ray said, flushed with wine and enthusiasm, and looking very boyish with his freckles and his bowtie. "Let’s walk out into the bay and have a look at the Mont from there. Assuming," he added quickly, "that the tide is still out, of course."

Sophie put down her coffee. "Are you out of your mind, Raymond?"

"Why?" he responded with a startled blink. "Oh, I see. But what happened to Guillaume was a freak accident; everyone knows that. It’s just that I’ve always wanted to walk out into Mont St. Michel Bay and see the abbey soaring behind me in the mist, like a prow of a ship, the way Henry Adams described it."

"Oh, I think it’s a wonderful idea, Raymond," Claire said warmly.

"But isn’t it dangerous?" asked Sophie. "After all-"

"No, no, Aunt Sophie, when I was a little girl in Avranches my friend and I used to play in the sands all day. If you simply pay attention to the tide, and know what the quicksands look like, and keep an eye out for the mist, and don’t go off by yourself, it’s perfectly safe."

"Those are a great many qualifications," Sophie said severely.

"No," Ben laughed, "I think Claire’s right. It’s no secret Guillaume was getting a little, well, forgetful, and the fact is, he never should have been out there alone. Not that I know who was going to stop him." He drained his coffee with a smile. "But in any case, I’m afraid it’s all moot, kids. Sorry to be a spoilsport, but I’m afraid we ought to be driving back. Sophie’s coming down with a cold, and I want her to put her feet up and have a good long nap this afternoon."

"I have an idea," Gideon said. "Why don’t you two go ahead and take Guillaume’s car back? We can drop off Claire and Ray later on. To tell you the truth, I’d enjoy wandering around the bay myself, especially with a guide who knows something about it."

Beside him, John stirred restlessly. Gideon half-expected a thud against his own shin, but none came; merely a grumbled "I thought you wanted to tour the abbey," just to let Gideon know he wasn’t getting by with anything.

"That’s a wonderful idea, Gideon," Ray said. "Claire, how can we find out about the tide?"

"There’s a tourist office in the Old Guard Room near the entrance down below. They have tidetables there."

"You don’t have to go all the way down there," Ben said. "I’ve got one here somewhere…" He tapped the pockets of his jacket and trousers unsuccessfully, and finally located it in a coat he’d left on the rack near the door. He came back to the table thumbing through a small booklet. "Annuaire des Marees," Gideon read on the blue cover, "des Baies de Saint-Malo et Mont Saint-Michel. 1987."

"Let’s see," Ben said. "March, um, twenty-third, right?" He ran his finger carefully along a line. "Right, here it is. High tide was at 10:21 this morning, and low tide isn’t until… 5:15." He closed the booklet and looked at his watch. "You’re in good shape. It’s only a little after two, so you have three hours before it even begins to rise."

"More than that," Claire said. "It will be-What do you call it, dead water?-for a least an hour after low tide." She smiled at Sophie. "But I promise we won’t stay out anywhere near so long."

"Good," Sophie said querulously. "But I still think it’s a rotten idea."

TO go down they had to go up. The path to the sands began at the Abbey Gardens on a shelf near the top of the rock, and there they stood for a few minutes looking out over the misty enormity of the Bay of Saint-Michael-inPeril-from-the-Sea. The low rain clouds that had been hovering over the Mont had moved westward so that to their left the wooded coastline was shrouded in fog. To their right they could see a wide expanse of what looked like desert scrub brush-the famous salt pastures, Claire explained, originally planted centuries ago in a futile effort to stabilize the sands-and beyond them the distant low roofs of Avranches.