Aaron Elkins - Murder In The Queen's armes

It was the muscle strains brought on by the unnatural posture that did it; that, the bumping, and the increased buffeting by the wind that came from riding while leaning far back. This was Alexander’s body all right; coincidence was so improbable as to be out of the question. That "typical four-weeker" business was puzzling, but it would be up to Merrill to figure that out.

So Nate had been wrong after all. Randy was dead- murdered-and Gideon was more disturbed than he should have been. It was utterly irrational for him to feel any responsibility for the death, and he knew it, but there it was all the same. What if he hadn’t put Randy off? What if he’d listened to what he’d had to say, there on the hillside…

Abruptly, he stripped off the gloves and went to the sink to scrub his hands twice over with plenty of soap, and water as hot as he could stand it. Putting blame on himself made no sense at all, and he wouldn’t let himself do it. Besides, he’d just done a first-rate piece of skeletal detective work, and he had every right to be pleased with it. He sat down at an old steel desk against the wall, his back to the body, and began to write his report.

Inspector Bagshawe’s reaction was extremely rewarding. "Get away!" he shouted so vehemently that the great, curving cherrywood pipe he was about to light slipped from between his teeth and clattered onto the glass-covered top of his desk, dispersing shreds of toast-brown tobacco through the litter of papers and folders. "A left-handed baseball pitcher who rode a motorcycle?"

Merrill’s happy laugh rang out. "That’s wonderful, Professor! How on earth did you come up with that?"

When Gideon had explained, Bagshawe said, "So you’re reasonably certain it’s Alexander, are you?" His tone was distinctly more respectful than heretofore.

"I think so. I don’t imagine baseball pitchers are too common in England."

"No, but-"

"And a cricket bowler’s motion wouldn’t have done it. Not enough elbow snap."

Nodding his head, Bagshawe retrieved his pipe, shoveled some of the scattered tobacco back into it with a massive, cupped hand, and lit it, drawing deeply. "And it’s not only baseball players one doesn’t find here. These ‘choppers,’ as I believe you call them-not very popular here; not yet. And I say, thank the Lord for that. Well, Alexander’s background is easily enough verified, and I expect it will support your conclusions." He puffed contentedly and leaned back in his creaking wooden swivel chair. His eyes returned to the report. " ‘Radial and ulnar fractures,’ " he read aloud. "Those would be arm bones, would they?"

"Forearm, yes."

"Mm-hm, I see." His large hands rummaged awkwardly in a drawer and pulled out another sheet of paper. "Mm, I don’t seem to find…yes…no…I don’t believe you mentioned that in your report, Dr. Merrill."

Merrill appeared mildly taken aback, and Gideon intervened. "It was hardly noticeable, what with the swelling and distortion. Easy to miss."

Well, not really. He had noticed before how careless pathologists could be, even knowledgeable and enthusiastic ones like Merrill (not that he’d ever known one quite as enthusiastic as Merrill). It was lack of interest in the long bones, he’d concluded years ago. There were all sorts of things to engage pathologist’s interest in the head, the trunk, and the internal organs, and they were scrupulously examined. The outlying bones were duller stuff, it appeared, and so they often escaped attention.

"I see." Bagshawe nodded again, clearly not convinced. "Well, then, back to the good professor’s report." He puffed at his pipe and read aloud very slowly. " ‘Fresh radial and ulnar fractures’ "-Gideon almost expected him to begin pushing a bulky forefinger from word to word- " ‘which appear to be antemortem…’ " He put the report on the desk and looked thoughtfully at Gideon.

"Now, what I can’t help wondering is, how can you know that? How can you be sure the arm was broken before he died? That’s what I ask myself. How do you know he wasn’t killed, then pushed off a cliff into the sea so he broke those bones in the fall? Or that they didn’t break weeks afterward, when he washed up against a pier or a rock? That’s what I’d like to know." Through a rising veil of smoke, he peered keenly at Gideon.

"I don’t know. Naturally, it’s an inferential conclusion."

"Ah, inferential conclusions," Bagshawe said sadly. "Now, speaking for myself, I admire inferential conclusions tremendously. However, courts of law don’t always share my admiration."

Gideon laughed. "I’ve noticed the same thing myself." He had, as a matter of fact, spent some harrowing moments of his own on the stand as an expert witness. ("Now, Doctor Oliver, do you really mean to imply that you can, ah, ‘infer’ from a single, tiny bone, a finger bone…")

"Really, Inspector," Merrill said stuffily, taking offense on Gideon’s behalf, "I can assure you that if Gideon Oliver says those fractures were antemortem, they were. You may rely on his opinion without reservation."

Low in his throat, Bagshawe made a good-humored sound. "Well, I’ll just tell them you said that, Doctor, and I’m sure we won’t have any problem." He turned smiling to Gideon. "Still…"

"All right," Gideon said, "I have three reasons for thinking the bones were broken before death." Lists of three, he had found, as had many a professor before him, were almost mystically persuasive, especially if counted on the fingers.

"One"-he ticked it off with his forefinger-"there are no other fractures, aside from the bone and cartilage in the throat, and no signs of the kind of injuries that bouncing down a cliff face or being tossed against a pier might produce. Two"-two fingers rapped Bagshawe’s desk-"the existence of an antemortem nightstick fracture fits in with the probable facts, because it explains how someone might have stood in front of a husky, healthy Randy Alexander and strangled him. And three"-both of the other men watched Gideon’s hand to see him tick it off, which it did-"three, the upper and lower segments of the broken bones overlap in exactly the way they would be expected to if jerked out of position by a spasm of the flexor digitorum profundis, the flexor pollicis longus, and the pronator quadratus."

He might have said "forearm muscles," but he had shifted into a sort of pedantic high gear for the moment, and he let it pass. "Had he been dead already, the muscles would have lacked tonus, and they wouldn’t have pulled the bones out of place." Gideon paused to catch his breath.

"Excellent," Merrill said. "Clear thinking."

Bagshawe pulled ruminatively at his pipe and said, "Umm, umm."

"Of course," Gideon went on, "we can’t absolutely exclude the possibility that the bones could have been broken later and somehow gotten shifted into those positions, but it’s pretty unlikely. I think the fractures occurred before death-just before death-and the arm must have swelled quickly and been wedged into position inside his sleeve. He was wearing a leather jacket, wasn’t he?"

"Yes, a leather jacket," Bagshawe murmured. "Well, well, that tells us quite a lot about our victim. Now all we need to do is to find out about our murderer."

"For starters," Gideon said, "we know that he was lefthanded-like Randy."

"Why, that’s right," Merrill interjected. "The fractures. I see. Of course."

"Well, I don’t see," Bagshawe rumbled.

"The nightstick fractures," Gideon said. "They were in his right arm. And if he threw up his right hand to protect his head, then almost certainly he was warding off a blow delivered with his assailant’s left hand."

"Ah, I see," said Bagshawe. "Yes, that could be. Unless, of course, the assailant delivered a back -handed blow- with his right arm. Or unless Alexander was attacked from behind, say, and just happened to twist to his own left to look around when he heard someone behind him. Then, of course, it would be his own left hand that was flung up in any event, would it not?"