Dying on the Vine (A Gideon Oliver Mystery)

by Elkins, Aaron

  “Once again, for the sake of decency, I have cleaned the bones,” Cippollini told him. “Would you like me to take them out of the casket for you?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “If you let me know when you’re done, I will put them back.”

  “I can do that for you,” Gideon said.

  “No, signore, I want to be positive that they are in their natural order, as close as possible to the way God made them.”

  “Well, then, you better let him do it,” John said to Gideon. “You might not get ’em right.”

  When Cippollini left, they stood looking at the remains. Gideon found the whole thing creepy, and not only because of the misplaced bones. He’d looked at his share of newly exhumed burials, and many of them had been skeletonized, but always before: the coffin fabric on which they lay had been gray and mottled with age, and stained with the effluents of decomposing tissue. It was anything but pretty, but it was as it should be. But Pietro’s bones lay on brilliantly white bedding—French folded, no less—and while it made things less nasty (as did the pre-cleaning), it just didn’t seem right. It was as if he were looking at a wax museum exhibit or a dubious reliquary purportedly containing the toe bones of an obscure saint, and not at what was left of a once-living human being

  “Well, let’s get them laid out on the table,” he said. “Forget about the order for now. We’ll just—hey, wait a minute . . .” He was doing a double take at the bone he’d just picked up; the third rib on the right-hand side. “Damn, now that’s really funny. . . .”

  “Well, that didn’t take you long,” John said casually, transferring a hip bone to the zinc work table. “So, what’d you find?”

  Gideon gave him the rib. “Anything about it catch your eye? Any difference from what we found with Nola?”

  “Not really. It’s kind of chewed up.”

  “Bingo. It’s very chewed up. Animals have been all over it. All those scratches and these conical indentations—gnaw marks, mostly from canid teeth.”

  “Okay, if you say so, but what’s the big deal? Nola’s bones were plenty chewed up too. Why wouldn’t they be? There’d be plenty of forest critters up there. Ferrets, weasels, wolves—”

  “John, would you do me a favor, please? Get Rocco on the phone?”

  He took Rocco’s card out of his wallet and handed it over. While John made the call, Gideon did a quick examination of the rest of the skeleton. He was puzzled by the absence of cranial fragments, which Rocco said had been recovered from the top of the cliff and along the route the bodies had taken down it, but then under the pillow he found a red velvet sack tied with a golden cord, like some top-of-the-line old cognac, except for the tape label, which read Frammenti di calotta cranica—skull fragments. He began to untie the cord but was interrupted by John’s proffering the telephone.

  “Got him. Here he is.”

  “Thanks, John. Rocco? Hi. Listen, you told me they were both—”

  “Who were both?”

  “Nola and Pietro, of course.”

  “What do you mean, of course? What do you think, I’m a TV detective or something? I only work one case at a time? Hell, I’m not working that case at all, remember? That case is over and done. And I’m sitting here looking at a goddamn desk full of—”

  “Not having such a good morning, huh?”

  Rocco laughed, and Gideon heard some rustling that suggested he was settling back in his chair. “Sorry. Okay, I told you they were both what?”

  “Both wearing leather jackets.”

  “Umm . . . yeah, they were. Matching ones. Good ones. From Forzieri. I wish I could afford one.”

  “What kind of condition were they in, the jackets?”

  “Condition? They were fine.”

  “Not torn up at all?”

  “No. I mean, they didn’t look like anything you’d want to slip into, but no, no holes, no rips. Their pants had some holes in ’em. Not too surprising, after all that time outside. But the jackets, they were good, thick leather; they held up. I mean, there might have been some pinprick or crack that I missed somewhere or other, but—”

  “They must have been wearing shirts or something under the jackets. What about them?”

  “Uh, that I don’t know. I don’t really think anybody paid attention. Everything was pretty ratty and moldy and all. They just cut the clothes off them for the autopsy, and as far as I knew they just threw them away. Is that bad?”

  “Rocco, could you possibly get away for a while? We’re down here in Figline, at your cousin’s funeral home, and we’re looking at Pietro’s remains.”

  “You’re looking at his ashes?”

  “No, his bones.”

  “But I thought he was—”

  “Well, he wasn’t. He’s lying here right in front of me.”

  “Huh. I thought . . . I guess I just assumed . . . So you’re asking me to come there? Right now?”

  “I am, yes. I think I’m onto something.”

  “Gid, how important is this? Because I got a lot of stuff that needs doing, and Captain Conforti is breathing down my neck.”

  “It’s important. I think.”

  A hesitation, a sigh, and then: “Half an hour. Ciao.”

  “What’s up?” John asked. “What’s so special about this rib? Why shouldn’t it be chewed up?”

  “John, it’s not that I want to keep you in suspense—”

  “No, of course not. Why would I think that?”

  “—but Rocco’s on his way, and I want to get my act together before he gets here, so give me a few minutes, okay?”

  “Sure. Far be it from me to interrupt the Skeleton Detective when he’s communing with a skeleton.” He pulled up a stool and leaned over to watch, his elbows on the table.

  “And no offense, but maybe you could give me a little breathing room?”

  “Jeez, talk about prima donnas. Okay, I can take a hint. There was a café up the block. How about I go away and come back in a little while with a couple of cappuccinos?”

  “Good, great, thank you. I’ll have a latte, though. Give me ten minutes. Make that twenty,” he yelled as John went through the door.

  Left alone, Gideon went back to his examination of the bones, most of which were still in the casket. Opening the velvet sack that held the cranial fragments, he separated one that was actually a curved chunk of scapula, spread the rest out on the table, and fitted some of them together. They represented much of the right half of the cranium, and they held no surprises. Entrance wound in the left temple, much larger exit wound in the right temple, exactly as described in the autopsy report.

  Overall, the postcranial trauma were also as reported: fractures of most of the ribs on the left side, the left scapula and left arm bones, the sacrum, and many of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae. But while Dr. Bosco had done an accurate enough job of listing them, that was where he’d stopped. No detailed descriptions, no analyses, no conclusions derived from them. But for Gideon, when it came to bones, the devil lay in the details, and ten minutes spent examining them and comparing them in his mind to Nola’s injuries made him even more certain he was onto something.

  His excitement building, he took a break to refresh his thinking. Going out to the rear parking lot, he put two one-euro coins into the vending machine for a nougat candy bar, sat down on one of the nearby benches, leaned against the wall, and—slowly, thoughtfully chewing—gazed eastward across the valley to the gentle, green foothills of the Apennines and the pretty little puffballs of clouds that clustered around their tops.

  “Whew,” he said aloud. “It’s going to take me a while to get my head around this.”

  • • •

  HE was finishing the candy bar when he heard the front door to the workroom open and close. “I’m out in back, John,” he called, and a second later, out came John with Rocco trailing a couple of steps behind. “Hey, Doc, look who I found loitering on the street out there.”

  “Hey, Gid,” Rocco said. Again,
he was in his splendid, tailored uniform, billed cap and all.

  John handed Gideon a typically capacious bowl-shaped cup, kept one for himself, and sat down on the other bench. Rocco, with an espresso cup of his own, sat beside him. “I ran into him right outside the café,” John said. “Lucky for us. They don’t do takeaway, but when the generalissimo here walked in, they decided to make an exception. Anyway, don’t let me forget, we gotta bring the cups back.”

  Rocco looked harried. “So, what have you got?” he asked, with an unsaid This better be good in its wake.

  Gideon smiled and reached for his latte. “It’s going to knock your socks off. Let’s go inside.”

  FIFTEEN

  “TO start with,” he said, “take a look at the bones of the torso and the arms as a whole. Anything strike you?”

  Rocco tossed his cap onto a chair and studied the bones for a minute, hands clasped behind him. “Well, as far as fracturing goes—”

  “We’ll get to the fracture patterns in a minute, but for now, does anything else catch your eye?”

  “Not really, no. What else is there?”

  John sent the same message, along with a shrug. “What are we supposed to be looking for?”

  “Compare them in your mind to what Nola’s upper body looked like,” Gideon suggested. “How are these different? Anything pop out at you?”

  Rocco began to shake his head no, but suddenly stopped. “These have been chewed on!”

  Gideon nodded. “Exactly.”

  “So?” John said. “Nola’s were chewed on too.”

  “Not the ribs, not the arms,” Rocco exclaimed, his interest growing. “But these, they’re all . . . but how the hell could that be?”

  “That,” said Gideon, “is the question.”

  “What is the question?” John demanded. “How could what be?”

  Rocco answered. “He was wearing a leather jacket, John. They both were. Down to the waist, with long sleeves. Good, thick jackets. And there weren’t any holes or tears in them. So naturally, the animals couldn’t get their teeth into Nola’s upper body. But they did plenty of chewing on this one, on Pietro’s. So . . . how come? That’s the question.”

  “Well, what’s the answer? If his jacket wasn’t torn, how could the animals get to the bones under it?”

  “Indeed,” said Gideon with a more or less inscrutable smile. “And the answer is: they didn’t.” Fun time again for the hardworking anthropologist.

  “They didn’t . . . ?” Rocco echoed, brows knit.

  “’Splain yourself, Lucy,” John growled.

  “There weren’t any holes in the jacket because he wasn’t wearing it at the time.”

  The other two stared at him. Rocco spoke. “What did you say?”

  “I said there weren’t any—”

  “We heard what you said. Are you telling us the jacket was put on him later—after he was dead? After the bugs and animals got to him? I’m sorry, Gid, but—”

  “That’s what I’m telling you, Rocco.”

  They waited for him to explain while he waited for what he’d said so far to sink in. “Consider. In Nola’s case, although her skull and lower body were gnawed, and her hands were gone, nothing that would have been covered by her jacket was touched by animals. Not so with Pietro. Logical explanation: Nola was wearing the jacket from the beginning; Pietro wasn’t—and it didn’t go on him until some time after he was killed—time enough for the animals to get in there and chew him up the way they did.”

  “Which would be how long?” Rocco asked. “Are we talking hours? Days?”

  “In this particular case, I’d say weeks.”

  “Weeks!” Rocco shouted. The creases on his forehead got deeper. “Christ, it’s not enough that Nola was shot after she was dead, but now you’re saying someone changed Pietro’s clothes weeks after he was dead? Why? What for?”

  “Hey, I’m just an anthropologist. I don’t deal with the whys. Whys are your problem, Tenente.”

  “Yeah, but . . . “Rocco scowled. “Aw, this is nuts, Gid.”

  John was laughing. “Good old Skeleton Detective. Does it every time.” He sipped some of his cappuccino and licked foam from his lips. “Okay, guys, let’s think this through. To start with, we’ve established where he was killed—the top of the cliff. We know that because that’s where you found the skull fragments, Rocco.”

  “Yeah, there and some more of them along the way down the cliff wall, so we know . . . well, unless somebody scattered them there to make us think—”

  “No-o,” Gideon said, “there’s such a thing as too weird, and that’s what that is. I think we can safely assume that that the top of the cliff is where he was shot.”

  “All right, scratch that idea,” Rocco said. “So, now what’s our scenario? We’re up at the top of the cliff. Nola’s already been pushed off—”

  “How do we know that again?” John asked.

  “Because she was found up against this big rock, and he was found up against her, so she had to have gone first.”

  “Oh, right—but hang on, how do we know someone didn’t arrange the bodies that way later? Or do you figure that’s too weird too?”

  The three of them agreed that, while it might be weird, it was by no means too weird. It was something to be considered.

  “Well, whatever,” Rocco said. “Thanks to you, at least we know that he was killed up there—”

  “No, you said that. I didn’t say that,” said Gideon.

  “The hell you didn’t.”

  “Yeah, you did, Doc,” John said. “You said—”

  “I said that he was shot up there.”

  “And we can’t say for sure that a .32 slug that blows away half his head didn’t kill him?” John said, his voice rising. He was starting to wave his arms around, the way he did when he got excited. Then, suddenly, he sagged. “Oh no, what are you telling us? He was shot after he was already dead too? Like Nola? I think I saw this movie before. Come on, man, you gotta be kidding us.”

  “Almost like Nola, but not quite,” Gideon said. “You’re forgetting. Nola was alive when she fell, and shot only afterwards . . . down at the bottom. Pietro was shot—not killed, because he was already dead—but shot—up at the top. Before he fell.”

  “I’m starting to get a neck ache here,” Rocco said warningly. “Every time we think we figured out what you’re saying, you shake your head and say, ‘No, that’s not what I said.’” He turned abruptly to John. “Is he always like this?”

  Gideon was all innocence. “Hey, I just figured it was better to explain things step by step. You know, build a foundation to establish that the underlying premises are valid before attempting to demonstrate that the ensuing deductions necessarily follow from them.” He smiled sweetly.

  “Oh yeah,” John said airily to Rocco, “this is exactly what he’s always like.” And to Gideon: “Okay, Doc, don’t you think you’ve boggled the minds of us poor dumb coppers long enough? I mean, I know it’s one of your few pleasures, but how about just getting to the point of it and stop beating around the bush? We’re getting lost here.”

  Rocco agreed. “Yeah, screw the underlying premises. How about just coming out and telling us what your ensuing deductions are?”

  “Right,” John chipped in. “Get to the part that knocks our socks off.”

  Gideon flopped into a chair, suddenly tired. “All right, here’s the punch line: Pietro Cubbiddu didn’t kill his wife. Or himself.”

  “Well, you were kind of thinking along those lines before, weren’t you?” John said.

  “Yes, but now there isn’t any ‘along those lines.’” He looked at Rocco. “I know that Pietro Cubbiddu didn’t kill his wife. He couldn’t have. There’s no longer any doubt about it. I think you’re going to want to reopen the case, Rocco.”

  Rocco wasn’t pleased. He went back into his scowl. “And you ‘know’ this how?”

  Gideon sighed. “You people are so untrustful. I know it because, at the time N
ola was killed, Pietro was already dead. Long dead.”

  “Long dead,” John repeated. “What does that mean? Hours, days . . . ?”

  Gideon shook his head. “What I said before: weeks.”

  “Weeks!” Rocco shouted. Now he was confused as well as unhappy. “How the hell can that be?” He was close to being angry as well. “How do you know that? What, from these stupid gnaw marks?”

  Gideon drank down the rest of his latte before answering. “No, not from the gnaw marks. From the fracture patterns of the bones.”

  “The fracture patterns of the . . .” Rocco dropped heavily into the chair beside Gideon and appealed to John. “He’s wearing me out. What the hell is he talking about now, do you know?”

  John hunched his shoulders. “I don’t have a clue.” He looked at Gideon. “Doc?”

  “The fracture patterning,” Gideon said. “That’s one of those underlying premises I was referring to.”

  “Well, on second thought, maybe you ought to go back to establishing them, after all.”

  “I would, John, but if I recall correctly, this gentleman from the Carabinieri advised—with some considerable heat, I might add—that I screw them.” The shot of caffeine in his system was already perking him up.

  Rocco closed his eyes. “I’m gonna kill him,” he muttered, but he was laughing. John had already been laughing for a while, and now Gideon joined in too. “Okay,” he said, slapping his thighs and getting up, “come on, I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”

  When the three of them stood over the bones, Gideon said, “We have a really strange situation here.”

  “No kidding,” John said.

  “No, this is one I’ve never run into before. Or anything close. All right, first a little general background on bones.”

  “The underlying premises,” Rocco said, nodding.

  “The underlying premises of the underlying premises,” Gideon corrected, and went on before they could comment.

  “Living bone,” he explained, “is a very different thing than dead bone. The first is infused with fluid and grease and covered with moist tissue, something like a bark-covered branch on a living tree. The second is dried out, like a dead twig that’s been on the ground for a long time. The result is that they tend to fracture in different ways. For example, when a fresh bone—a living leg bone, say—is subjected to extreme pressure, it doesn’t just break: it bends. It’s actually flexible to some extent. So it’s more resistant to breaking, and when it does break, there’s a good chance it will splinter but stay in one piece, like a living branch—which is why that kind of break is called a green-stick fracture. But dead bone—like the dead twig—is no longer flexible. Try to bend it, and it just snaps into two pieces. Or three or four or five.”