Switcheroo (A Gideon Oliver Mystery Book 18)

by Aaron Elkins

  As a result, the murder case was never pursued with much vigor and eventually faded away, as did the investigation into the embezzling. The corruption case against Carlisle Paving, however, was carried forward, ending in a conviction and in criminal sentences to two government officials for accepting bribes. Afterward, there were half a dozen civil suits, resulting in years of wrangling and in the sale of Carlisle Paving to its chief competitor, Inter-Island Road Construction, in 1965. The Carlisles’ dairy business, happily free of legal troubles, remained in the family and was successfully managed by Roddy’s highly efficient wife—Rafe’s mother—until it was handed over to Rafe when he was in his twenties.

  “Back up a second, Rafe,” Gideon said, putting down his Guinness. “The police said George’s death was instantaneous. How did they determine that, do you know?”

  “Yes, I do know. The bullet went through his heart, right through the left . . . what is it, atrium . . . and, er . . .”

  “Ventricle.”

  “Yes, ventricle and atrium. ‘Shredded his heart’ was the unnecessarily graphic phrase they used. I shouldn’t think death would be very long in coming, would you?”

  “Ah,” murmured Gideon. “Hm.”

  “Hey, Julie?” John said. “What do you think he means when he says that?”

  “What do you mean, what do I mean?” Gideon said. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “No, you said, ‘Hm,’ loud and clear.”

  “I did? I wasn’t even aware—”

  “But first you said, ‘Ah.’” This from Julie. “Coupling those two, one right after the other—now that’s really suggestive.”

  “Of what? What is it with you people? ‘Hm’ is just a way of . . . what . . . I don’t know, just acknowledging that you’re hearing something somebody is saying, that’s all. And ‘ah’—I don’t know what the hell it means, it’s just a . . . a figure of speech, a nonliteral interjection that, that . . .”

  “Right,” said John, nodding soberly.

  “Right,” said Julie. “Absolutely.”

  And then they both said, “Hm.”

  Gideon rolled his eyes. “Pay no attention to these people, Rafe. They seem to be under the impression they can read my mind. I really don’t—”

  He was interrupted by the return of Don Juan, who skated out from the interior, showily bringing four large, plentifully loaded plates without the help of a tray: one on each palm, one on each forearm. The tricky process of getting them onto the table without loss of contents was accomplished with the flare of a flamenco dancer.

  The prettily arranged food looked good and smelled wonderful, and the four of them dug in. After they’d made a little progress, Rafe, apparently deciding not to pursue Gideon’s “hm,” picked up where he’d left off.

  For five years, progress on George’s murder and Roddy and Bertrand’s disappearance remained where it was: in limbo. Then, in 1969, came the discovery of the bones, made by workers engaged in harvesting the pitch for Inter-Island Construction, the company that had held the lease to extract it. “They were quickly determined to be my father’s and Peltier’s.”

  “Based on the age determinations?” Gideon asked.

  “Yes. None of the other missing-persons searches that were open at the time fit those ages. Oh, and I should mention that my father’s wedding ring, engraved with his initials, came up with the bones. That pretty much settled it, as far as the police were concerned.”

  “But you’re not convinced,” John observed.

  “I shouldn’t say I’m not convinced, but none of it is exactly what one would call proof positive, is it?”

  “Proof positive, no,” John said, “but awful damn close. You’d have to come up with a pretty weird scenario to explain how your father’s wedding ring got mixed up with somebody else’s bones.”

  Julie looked up from a cheese-stuffed salmon roll. “Unless somebody put it there exactly for the purpose of confusing the issue.”

  “Yes!” Rafe chimed in. “I’ve thought and thought about that.”

  “Yeah, I think I’ve seen it on TV about a dozen times,” John said. “Just never in real life.” His brow knitted. “Well, you know, I have, actually. Something like that, where the guy wanted to make the cops—and even more, the insurance company—think he was dead when he wasn’t.”

  “Exactly,” Rafe said. “Given the strangeness of everything else about this, I’d say that’s a real possibility, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’d say you got a point, I admit.”

  “And what would you say, Gideon?” Rafe asked.

  “I’d—”

  “He’d say, ‘Hm.’” Julie said.

  Gideon laughed. “That’s about right.”

  Rafe smiled uncertainly. “Er, I’m not altogether sure I understand this ‘hm’ business.”

  “It means,” Julie explained, “that something we said woke up one of his seven gazillion gray cells, but he’s not about to let us in on it until he’s good and ready.”

  “What can I say?” Gideon said to Rafe. “I think they do know me better than I know myself, which, I have to say”—he arched an eyebrow in John and Julie’s direction—“is a damned irritating thing.” Back to Rafe: “Look, it’s not that I’m keeping any secrets to myself or that I’ve come up with some amazing new insight. It’s more as if I’m taking mental notes about what to look for when I get started in Jersey. And it certainly doesn’t mean that I disagree with what the police came up with.”

  “Oh, no,” John muttered. “Excuse me. Perish the thought.”

  “Or that I agree with them either. Carry on, Rafe, will you?”

  “Well, there’s little else to tell. Exactly why and how Father and Peltier had ended up in the pond, and who was responsible, was never officially determined, although it’s hard to argue that it was the result of anything other than foul play.”

  “Had to be,” John agreed.

  “What if they’d fallen in accidentally?” Julie asked. “I wonder, could you crawl out of a pitch pond, or would you be stuck for good?”

  Rafe shrugged. “No idea.”

  “Well,” said John, “those dinosaurs at La Brea didn’t make it out, so how easy could it be?”

  “Actually, there aren’t any dinosaurs in the La Brea Tar Pits,” Gideon said. “The tar pits are only about forty thousand years old. Dinosaurs had been extinct for sixty-five million years by then. What they do have are mammoths, sabre-tooths—”

  He stopped, recognizing a look from the others that he ran into a lot. Nothing overtly impolite, but something along the lines of: And how are these ever-so-interesting little factoids of yours pertinent to what we are discussing?

  “It’s not his fault,” Julie said pleasantly to the others. “He can’t help himself.”

  “Well, I did let it go by the first time,” Gideon mumbled in his own defense, “but I felt I had an obligation to say something when it came up again. Anyway, dinosaurs aside, the idea that two men fell in accidentally is just a little improbable, in my opinion.”

  “Yeah, I’ll buy that,” said John. “So what exactly did the police say did happen?”

  Rafe shook his head. “As I said, there was no formal conclusion. One theory, the one that seemed most popular, according to the press of the time, was that Peltier and Father had gotten into a fight over the money and ended up killing one another. There are plenty of rocks lying around the area, God knows. Easy enough to pick one up in a fit of anger . . .”

  John was dubious. “They brain each other with rocks? And then both of them fall into the tar pit, beside which they happen to have been fighting?”

  “I know, it seems unlikely to me too. The other theory, and it’s the one I prefer to believe, is that someone else killed them both. And very likely killed George as well.”

  “Some other person killed George . . . with your father’s revolver?” Julie asked, to make sure she had it straight.

  “Yes. I’ll admit, it sounds a little, ah . . .�
�

  “It sure does,” Julie said. “I can certainly understand why you’d like to think it, but now you’re starting to sound like a TV mystery.”

  Rafe laughed. “The entire thing sounds like a TV mystery, wouldn’t you agree?”

  No one disagreed.

  “They come up with any suspects?” asked John, sounding more by the minute like the FBI special agent he was.

  “Yes, there were suspects. The bribery and intimidation for which Carlisle Paving was convicted—rightfully, I have to admit—had injured a good many people. Two competitors had been put entirely out of business. Several had sued the company, and one old gentleman—well, he’s old now—had been particularly vociferous in his denunciations. The investigation concentrated on him, and it went on for months, I understand, but to no good end. I still see the old fellow from time to time, and, believe me, he doesn’t let me forget it. In the event, however, no one was ever brought to trial. Nearly five years had passed since they’d been killed, after all; credible evidence was harder to get. Memories had begun to fail.” Rafe sighed. “And now it’s been a dead issue for more than forty years.”

  “A long time,” said Gideon. “Let’s be realistic about that, Rafe. I’d be happy to have a try at this, but what do you think getting me into it now could accomplish? The case isn’t going to be reopened, even if I come up with something, not after all this time. Chances are, whoever killed them isn’t even alive anymore. What’s the point of it?”

  “It’s a personal thing with me, Gideon. Academic exercise or not, I do want to know—in my position, you’d want to know too: Are those really my father’s remains? How did he die? Who killed him? Did he really shoot George? Was he—”

  Gideon was shaking his head. “Rafe, there’s no conceivable way I’m going to come up with all that. At most—”

  “Whatever you come up with would be more than I know now. And if you don’t come up with anything, well, I’ll appreciate the effort. And I’ll have the pleasure of having the three of you in Jersey for a few days.”

  “Oh, he’ll come up with something,” John said. “He always does. Problem is, and I’m quoting my boss here, ‘I appreciate what he does, but why can’t he ever even once come up with what you wanted him to come up with?’”

  Gideon smiled. “I boldly go where the facts lead me.”

  “I’ll take the risk,” Rafe said. “I just want to know.” He settled back in his chair and returned to spearing the few tidbits of sausage and skewered lamb that remained on his platter. His recounting was obviously finished. No one was interested in dessert, but on the recommendation of the waiter they all ordered Carajillo con coñac (brandy-laced coffee), which came, steaming, in clear tumblers.

  It was while they were quietly, slowly absorbing this innards-warming drink, along with what they’d just heard, that Gideon said, “Rafe, do you happen to know which bones were found in the pond? Any parts of the skull?”

  Forensic anthropologists always hope for a skull. As any textbook will tell you, there is likely to be more information there about the decedent—about how he lived and how he died, and who he was—than anywhere else in the skeleton. More than that, although you won’t find this in the textbooks, there is a connection, an empathy, with the once-living person that you feel when gazing into the hollow eye sockets of a skull that you just don’t get from staring into the obturator foramina of a pelvis.

  “Yes, there were. Two, I believe. A piece of parietal, was it? And the occipitus? Is that a name? Sorry, I don’t remember. My skeletal anatomy’s a little shaky. Altogether, there are something like a dozen fragments, all of them relatively small. Well, small, period.”

  A dozen? Gideon thought. That was it? Twelve fragments? Not even one whole bone? He’d understood that there wouldn’t be much material, but twelve fragments, and all of them “relatively small”? Like the anthropologist he was, he’d been looking forward to opening a standard “archival skeletal-remains container”—a miniature coffin, three feet long or so and made of heavy cardboard—and having his first look at the contents. But for these bones, a shoe box would more than do the job.

  And those impressive conclusions from the 1969 postmortem were suddenly even more suspect.

  “And to tell you the truth,” Rafe went on, “I don’t remember how many of them are my father’s and how many are Peltier’s and how many of them couldn’t be identified, but it’s all in the postmortem report. I have a copy somewhere, and even if I can’t find it, I’m sure the police would—”

  “Hold up a second, Rafe. Why is it that you have Peltier’s bones as well as your father’s? I would have thought they’d have gone to his family. Didn’t you say he was married?”

  “I know only what I’ve been told, and what I’ve been told is that when Miranda saw those few broken, blackened pieces of bone, she wanted nothing to do with them, refused to accept the idea that they could be her handsome young husband’s. I understand she actually ran screaming out of the police station. So the police kept them with my father’s and with the ones they couldn’t identify for sure. They’d all been found together, after all.”

  At that point, John threw back his head, turned aside, and covered his mouth with the back of his hand but couldn’t quite stifle a yawn, which set the rest of them to doing the same. They’d all consumed too much food, and too much wine, and too much Carlisle history to keep things going. And the warm cognac had them practically asleep.

  “I sense an approaching end to this delightful evening,” Rafe said when his own discreet yawn ended. “Shall we head back to the hotel? I know I could use a few hours’ sleep before my flight.”

  “Three fifteen a.m.,” John said. “Sheesh.”

  CHAPTER 9

  WELCOME

  Seyiz les beinv’nus à Jèrri

  The sign was prominently stenciled on the windows of Jersey Airport’s baggage area, and it stopped Julie cold. She tried mouthing the words, then shook her head. “Now that is really strange. Look at that.”

  John was surprised. “You didn’t know? The Channel Islands, they’re like Canada. A lot of the signs, they’re in English and French. This used to be part of France.”

  “I do know that, John. But that isn’t French—not exactly. Either that or someone doesn’t know how to spell.”

  “You’re right, it isn’t French, but it’s close,” Gideon said. “They’re welcoming us in Jèrriais, the local version of medieval Norman. It’s been spoken here for a thousand years. Came to Britain with William the Conqueror in 1066, but the Channel Islands are the only place it hung on.”

  “Well, sure,” John said. “Hell, everybody knows that.”

  Gideon was undeterred. “Practically right up until the twentieth century, it was what everybody spoke here. Then it started fading out, and the German Occupation pretty much wiped it out. English was fine with the Nazis, but French, they didn’t want to hear. Now only a few hundred people speak it at all, and probably none of them are under seventy. Over on Guernsey, they have a slightly different variant, Guernésiais.”

  John cocked an eyebrow at him, looked as if he was about to ask a question, but then turned to Julie. “Julie, tell me something. Your honest opinion. Does he really know stuff like that? I mean, do you think he really carries it around in his head, or does he just bone up on it the night before, so he can toss it out like he knew it all along?”

  “That’s something I’ve never been able to settle for myself, John. I haven’t ever caught him sneaking in any prepping, but I have my suspicions.”

  Gideon huffed. “The fact is I certainly did know it. It was unnecessary to ‘bone up’ on anything.” Then the laugh he’d been keeping in check broke through. “Well, okay, except for the last part, maybe, about Guernésiais. But it is all true, and the difference is I was looking it up to enlarge my own store of knowledge about the place I was coming to, not to impress you two sluggards, who don’t bother with such things.”

  “’Ey,” John said
, “I resemble ’at remark.”

  “Hullo, all.” Rafe had come up behind them. “Talking about the sign, are we? About our poor, disappearing Jèrriais?”

  Julie laughed. “Well, Professor Oliver here was. We were listening.”

  “Speak for yourself,” John said.

  “Do you ever hear it spoken at all?” Julie asked Rafe. “I’d love to hear what it sounds like.”

  Rafe shook his head. “No, you would not. Even spoken correctly, it sounds like an Englishman from Liverpool endeavoring to speak French from a book that neglected to provide any guidance in pronunciation. A nerve-jarring experience, in my opinion. You have your baggage? Shall we head for Saint Helier? My car’s just a few steps away, in the car park.”

  Rafe’s car turned out to be a boxy black SUV, scruffy, beat-up, and splattered with mud. In the United States, someone would have finger inscribed “WASH ME” in the road grime by now.

  “Hey, a Range Rover,” John said.

  “It is that,” said Rafe, “the 2008 edition. It’s what country squires are expected to drive, you see, and since I am a country squire of sorts by Jersey standards, I thought it only right that I act like one. Don’t worry, once you get inside it’s quite clean, and comfortable too. I let the exterior go only to prove that I’m the genuine article, not some jumped-up parvenu trying to show off with his shiny, spanking, brand-new estate car.”

  The interior, as he’d said, was nothing like the decrepit exterior, its fabrics and dove-gray leather upholstery spotless and unmarred. The original passenger benches in the rear had been replaced with bucket seats like the ones up front. Julie got in front next to Rafe, with Gideon and John behind.

  “Now tonight I’m afraid there’s States business I need to attend to,” Rafe said as they buckled up, “but I’d like to have you all to the manor for dinner Wednesday—if that’s agreeable.”