Aaron Elkins - Gideon Oliver 06 - Icy Clutches

by Icy Clutches

  Jocelyn Yount's right thigh bone.

  "It has to be,” Gideon said half an hour afterward. “It's from an adult female, somewhere in her mid-twenties, obviously well muscled. Tall too, it looks like. Let's see...” He slid the adjustable segment of the osteometric board up against the end of the bone. “Maximum morphological length is 53 centimeters. Yeah, she's going to be big, all right.” He flipped open the cover of his pocket calculator and punched in the Trotter and Gleser formula to calculate overall stature from the femur. “Yup, that's what I thought.” More key-clicking to convert from centimeters to inches. “Estimated height between 71.37 and 74.30 inches."

  He looked up from the calculator to Julie, who was sipping tea and lounging deservedly in the contact station's only armchair after her day on the ice field. “Tall."

  She was frowning over the rim of her cup at the long, gracefully bowed bone. “Can I ask a question, or will you go all defensive on me again?"

  "I?” Gideon said. “Defensive?"

  "Well, yesterday you said that, basically, the way you tell male bones from female bones is that the male ones are bigger and more rugged. Right?"

  "Right."

  "But here you have a big bone, a rugged bone, and what's your conclusion? That it's a big, rugged woman. I don't get it. Why isn't it a man?"

  "If that's all I had to go on, you'd have a point. Fortunately, the femur has some good sex criteria of its own. Lateral pitch, for instance.” He stood the bone upright on the board, resting it on the condyles, the smooth, rounded upper surface of the knee joint. “See how the bone tilts instead of standing straight up and down, when I just let it rest naturally? Well, that happens to be a seventy-six-degree angle. Anything lower than eighty is probably a female, and seventy-six is a near certainty."

  She sighed. “I guess it's easy when you know how."

  "And why. That inward tilt is there because women have wider hips than men, so they have to be built more knock-kneed to get their feet back under them."

  "Watch it, Oliver,” Julie warned.

  "In a most attractive manner, of course,” he added sincerely. “I wouldn't have it any other way."

  Julie's openly skeptical reply was interrupted by Russ's arrival at the door. “Dr. Oliver? Ma'am? Mr. Lau sent me to look for you. The press conference started half an hour ago, and they have some questions for you. They're getting sort of impatient."

  "Damn,” Gideon said, laying the femur down, “I forgot all about it. Let's go."

  They followed Russ up the path to the lodge at a trot. Julie, normally a faster jogger than Gideon, lagged a few steps behind.

  Concerned, Gideon slowed. “Is anything wrong?"

  "Oh, no,” she said sweetly, “but running's not that easy when you're thick-hipped and knock-kneed."

  Silence seemed the wisest response.

  * * * *

  The sun had come out for the first time in almost a week, hanging twenty degrees above the hazy Fairweathers, flat and wan, but still able to burnish the air with a welcome, golden tinge of warmth. The meeting was being held outside, on the broad wooden deck at one end of the main building, and the attendees seemed less interested in the subject matter than in the sunlight. Folding fabric lawn chairs had been pulled into an arc facing the sun, and most of the people in them had their eyes closed and their faces tipped gratefully up.

  It was an unusual press conference in that respondents outnumbered reporters. There were, in fact, only four journalists taking part: one reporter from the Ketchikan Daily, one from the Juneau Empire, and two wire-service stringers. The other two media people were a television crew from Anchorage who, having completed their filming for the day, were unashamedly sprawled on their backs on the bench that ran around the edges of the deck, soaking up sunshine. Tremaine's crew sat in attitudes ranging from detachment and indifference (Anna and Shirley, respectively), through boredom (Fisk) and glassy-eyed woolgathering (Pratt), to outright sleep (Judd).

  John, his broad face up to the sun, was sitting next to Minor, his chair tipped back against the sun-drenched wall of the lodge, his interest level somewhere between Pratt's and Judd's.

  One reason for all this lethargy was the unaccustomed effect of the sunlight. The other was Arthur Tibbett, who was holding forth and apparently had been at it for some time.

  "Ah, here he is now,” he said as Gideon and Julie arrived and took chairs at the end of the semicircle. “You can ask him yourselves."

  The reporters turned their chairs to get a better look at Gideon. Notebook pages were flipped. A tape recorder was turned on.

  "I've been telling them about your exploits,” Arthur said, preening.

  "Is it true that you've identified the murdered man from 1960 as Steven Fisk?” The speaker was one of the wire-service people, a thin-lipped, severe woman who spoke with a cigarette jouncing at the corner of her mouth and her eyes narrowed against the smoke.

  "Yes, it is."

  "There's no doubt in your mind?"

  "No.” The episode of the four-foot freaks had taught him to keep his remarks to the press short.

  "Why do you think Professor Tremaine was murdered?” Gideon spread his hands.

  "Are there any suspects?"

  Yes, and all of them were sitting within ten feet of her. Gideon glanced at them and saw John do the same thing from under half-closed lids. None of them did anything helpful, like making a run for it, or breaking into a sweat, or even stiffening guiltily.

  "No idea,” he said.

  "But you think there's a connection between the murders?"

  "Beats me."

  The front legs of John's chair came lazily down on the deck. “Dr. Oliver's an anthropologist, not a cop,” he said good-humoredly. “If you have questions about the murders, I'm the one to ask."

  "All right, then,” the woman answered curtly, “is there a connection?"

  "Beats me,” John said.

  The reporter threw a poisonous look at him, a disgusted one at Gideon, and pointedly closed her notebook.

  "I have a question,” said a gangling kid of about twenty-two. He put a hand up to his mouth and coughed. “C. L. Crowdy of the Empire," he murmured, blushing. “Mr. Tibbett said that another human bone was found at the glacier today—"

  "A right femur,” Tibbett interrupted helpfully. “That's the thigh bone. F-e-m-u-r. Dr. Oliver's just come from the contact station, where he's been working on it. We've set up a lab for him there, and it's worked out very well. Hasn't it, Gideon?"

  "Yes, it has, Arthur."

  "Thank you, sir,” C. L. Crowdy said. “Dr. Oliver, are you able to tell us anything about this latest find? Do you know whose leg bone it is?"

  Gideon hesitated. He couldn't think of any reason to keep to himself the knowledge that they had found Jocelyn Yount's femur, but he couldn't think of any reason why the reporters needed to know, or the members of Tremaine's party, either, or Tibbett, for that matter. He was less sanguine than John about all of them sitting in on the meeting. From his point of view, it paid to keep a few steps ahead of one's suspects.

  "No, I don't,” he said.

  "You can't even tell if it's a man or a woman?"

  "No, I can't. Well, not yet. I've hardly begun my analysis. It takes time, you see, and I don't have all my tools with me, of course, and I...” He made himself trail off. He was an infrequent liar and a poor one. When he wasn't telling the truth he tended to babble. And, like young Crowdy, to blush, dammit. Casually, he put his hand over his warm forehead.

  The Ketchikan Daily reporter, a beefy, bearded man with an eye patch, jumped in. “Sorry, but that's pretty hard to swallow, Professor. You're the Skeleton Detective. We've all read about what you can do."

  "You can't believe everything you read in the papers,” Gideon said with a smile, but the reporters didn't seem to find it funny. Maybe it was time to just shut up.

  Tibbett came to his rescue. “Dr. Oliver's going to be delighted to learn that he has one more tool than he thought h
e had. I've managed to borrow an accurate double-beam balance scale from the university.” He beamed at Gideon. “It'll be in the contact station tomorrow morning."

  "A what?” one of the reporters asked without enthusiasm. A balance scale, Tibbett told them, with which Dr. Oliver would be able to apply certain regression equations (that was r-e-g-r-e-s-s-i-o-n) that would permit him to tell which bones went with which, so that he would know just who was represented in the Tirku remains.

  Apparently Tibbett had forgotten that all but two of the bones were now in the FBI evidence room in Juneau, but there wasn't any reason to correct him. The reporters hadn't even bothered to write it down.

  There was only one more question for Gideon, some twenty minutes later. C. L. Crowdy, the Empire's loose-jointed, six-foot-three correspondent, wanted to know if—human beings being what they were—there would have to be nondiscrimination laws to protect tall people by A.D. 2050.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 22

  * * * *

  "If you ask me...nngh...Arthur was looking pretty chipper...gghh...at that press conference,” Julie said from the bathroom, the observation punctuated by the sounds of dental floss at work. “And later too, when he made his cute little farewell speech at dinner.” She stuck her head briefly into the room, holding the strand between her thumbs. “I mean, for a man who's under suspicion of murder."

  Gideon was sitting on the bed, his shoes off, leaning against the headboard with his fingers laced behind his head. They had dined with Bill Bianco and the search-and-rescue class, a long, convivial final dinner with coffee, cordials, and speeches afterwards—the cordials provided on the house by Mr. Granle. Whether this was out of gratitude for their patronage or relief that nothing even more ghastly had happened during their stay, no one knew. “He doesn't know he's under suspicion of anything."

  She was back in the bathroom. “John didn't...ngh...have that little heart-to-heart with him?"

  I must really be in love, he thought. I even like the sound of her flossing her teeth. Something downright homey about it. When you tidy up your gingivae in each other's presence you must be in it for the long haul, all right.

  "There's no hurry,” he said. “Arthur lives here. He doesn't go home with the rest of us. Julian wanted to get his information in order before they talk to him."

  She came out of the bathroom in a brief flannel shift, sturdy and curvy and scrubbed-looking.

  "You,” he said, “are as cute as a button."

  This was deservedly ignored. “Could you really do what he said—figure out which bones go with which by weighing them?"

  "Yes, with a little luck. But I don't see that it matters much anymore; not forensically, at least. Anyway, I dropped off most of the bones in Juneau. All I have left in the shack are the femur they found yesterday and the clavicle—damn.” He swung his legs off the bed, slipped into his loafers, and pulled his jacket down from the clothes rack. “I'll be back in ten minutes."

  "Where are you going?"

  "I just realized—when we ran off to the press conference I never closed the window in the contact station. I better go shut it. Those bones are just sitting there on the counter.” He rummaged in the dresser until he found their flashlight.

  "What could happen to them?"

  "Who knows? Raccoons, maybe even a dog...Those things belong in Owen's safe."

  "I suppose, but what can you do about it now? It's after ten o'clock. Owen's one of those early risers; he's probably in bed. You really want to wake him up?"

  "I can bring them back here."

  "Gideon, if you think I'm sleeping in the same room with somebody's clavicle—"

  "Julie,” he said, laughing, “I'm not planning to put them in bed with us. I'll stick them in the bottom drawer."

  "On my sweaters? Forget it."

  "Okay, I'll give them to the night clerk to go into the hotel safe. How's that?"

  "Fine.” She gave him a crooked little smile. “You might want to put them in a plain brown wrapper first."

  * * * *

  The night air felt wonderful. Windless and moist. Crisp, and clean, and mossy-smelling, with a faint, nose-tickling tang of salt water. Gideon walked slowly along the wooded path, breathing in the primal, uncomplicated fragrances with pleasure, enjoying the thought that he was on some of the newest, freshest land on earth, out from under its icy mantle for only two centuries. He paused where the path came out of the woods onto the beach, and stood looking across the moonlit cove. A dense, still fog lay on the surface of the water, covering it like a skin of cotton. He shone the flashlight onto it, watching the beam bounce away into the trees on the other side.

  When he'd put the bones safely away, maybe he could convince Julie to throw on some clothes and come back out with him. They could walk to the end of the pier and sit on the edge with their feet dangling; maybe drop in a few pebbles, watch them drill holes in the fog sheet, listen to the hollow plunk they made when they hit the water. They could lie back on the cool planks and look at the sky. A gauzy layer of clouds had moved in a few hours earlier, turning the stars to furry dots, like distant lamplights on a foggy night. He didn't think it was going to take much convincing.

  The contact station was just a few steps farther along the shore. He flicked the beam of his flashlight at the shack, confirming that he had indeed left the side window open, and hopped up onto the wooden porch in front, searching for the key. The floor creaked beneath him. Inside there was a faint, answering creak. He found the key in the first pocket he looked in and turned it in the lock, then paused. An answering creak? Had an animal gotten in? Or maybe not an animal at all? The skin on the back of his neck prickled. He turned on the flashlight and shone it through the front window, playing the beam over the floor and the sparse furniture. Nothing. He went around to the side and aimed it through the open window. Everything was perfectly still. The beam lit up the clavicle and femur on the counter, just where he'd left them.

  Well, of course. What had he been expecting? What would anyone want with them? There was nothing of forensic importance in them, no information that anyone had any conceivable reason to fear. The danger was animals, not people, and there weren't any animals in there. He let out his breath and went back to the front to open the door, feeling a little ridiculous. But also a little jumpy. He reached prudently inside to turn on the lights with his left hand, the right hand holding the flashlight.

  He never got to the switch. The half-open door was driven against him with nerve-jarring force, the force of a human body flinging itself onto it. Fortunately he took the brunt of the blow on his shoulder, but still the edge of the door slammed his forearm against the jamb, sending a tooth-rattling jolt of pain from fingertips to jaw. He stumbled backwards onto the porch, the flashlight dropping to the floor inside the room and blinking out.

  He doubled over, sucking in his breath, eyes streaming, cradling his arm against his chest. His hand was numb, as heavy as concrete. Not broken, the rational gray matter of his cerebral cortex was smoothly assuring him. Merely a sharp blow taken directly on the “funny bone,” that exquisitely sensitive spot where the ulnar nerve lies directly on the bony medial epicondyle of the humerus just below the skin. Discomfort acute but short-lived. Not to worry.

  Merely, hell! the primitive, raging brain stem structures of his limbic system shrieked back. That sonofabitch on the other side of the door just tried to break your fucking arm! Go get that mother!

  I think we'd just better think this through, don't you? his cortex sneered predictably. That person on the other side of that door may well be armed. Wouldn't it make more sense to—

  For once Gideon went with his brain stem. Snarling half in pain and half in anger, pressing his arm to his side, he threw himself in a flying kick at the door, which was slightly open and still shuddering with the force of the impact against his arm.

  Unfortunately, the sonofabitch on the other side of the door wasn't there. In the second or so that
it had taken Gideon to react, he or she had stepped to the side. The door sprang unresistingly open to bang against the wall, and Gideon came flying through. His foot came down on the flashlight barrel, which spurted out from under his sole and sent him careening the length of the room until he was brought up short by the counter, the edge of which caught him painfully below the rib cage on the left side.

  Meanwhile the door had rebounded to clatter shut again. The room was completely dark, utterly, startlingly silent after all the noisy door-banging and galumphing over the wooden floor. Whoever had slammed the door on him was still in the room; there had been no time for anyone to slip out. Who's there? almost sprang from Gideon's lips. Where are you? But he held back. Whoever it was couldn't see any better than he could. Why broadcast where he was? Quietly, he shifted his body away from the counter and turned back to face the area near the door, balancing his weight evenly over his feet, getting ready for whatever came next.

  As usual, his cerebral cortex had been correct; the searing pain in his arm had been short-lived. Already it was becoming a buzzing, bearable tingle. He breathed quietly, shallowly, through his mouth, standing perfectly still, a little crouched, his hands away from his sides. Let the other person make the first move, the first sound.

  The first sound was a soft click, followed by a burst of light; dazzling, pulsing, blinding concentric rings of white. Whoever it was had a flashlight of his own, a powerful one, and was beaming it into his face from a couple of yards away, fluttering it to keep him blinded. The floor creaked as the other person moved forward. Gideon narrowed his eyes to a squint and strained to see between his out-thrust fingers, but the brilliant, darting light seemed to fill his eyeballs, his skull. He could see only his own backlit hands and wrists, raised as if in supplication, exposed and vulnerable. There was another creak. The wobbling, blazing circles moved closer, full of menace. Was there a gun, a knife, a club in the other hand?