Make No Bones

by Aaron Elkins

  A few hundred miles to the east, in a similar office in a similar building on the campus of the Colorado Institute of Technology, Professor Leland Roach was suffering no such distress. Happily engrossed in his work, his spare and narrow-shouldered form hunched over the laptop computer on his desk, he clicked away at his latest contribution to the Southwestern Journal of Paleopathology. His own words, elegant and authoritative, blinked comfortingly into existence on the screen:

  …these fecal samples were then rehydrated in an aqueous trisodium phosphate solution, resulting in the recovery of four oocysts of a parasitic protozoan identified as belonging to the genus Eimeria; most probably E. piriformis. This provocative burning…

  >The steady clicking faltered, then stopped. Burning? A tic of annoyance jogged his old-fashioned, pencil-straight mustache. Leland moved the cursor back and hit the delete key. Burning vanished, to be replaced by finding. Leland consulted his notes, flexed his fingers, and hunched forward again. But further words did not appear on the screen. His thought processes had been disrupted.

  He’d read Miranda’s letter when it arrived that morning, clipped a note to it instructing Eloise to make airline and lodging reservations for him, and put it out of his mind. Or so he’d thought. But now, here was burning popping up when he’d meant finding. A Freudian slip, he thought with distaste. Leland disapproved of Freudian slips as not being in accord with his notions of the way one’s mind ought to work. To his way of thinking, they represented a sort of mental disloyalty, a sneaky double cross by some perverse corner of one’s own brain. Leland prided himself on how infrequently he made such slips.

  It particularly bothered him that he would make one now. There was no reason for his mind to play tricks on him. He was repressing nothing, hiding nothing from himself. What was there to hide? Terrible things happened to people. Nobody could be blamed.

  Some of the others looked at it differently, of course, but that was their problem, not his. No sackcloth and ashes for Leland Roach, no rending of garments, no chest-beating and mea culpas. Life was difficult enough without taking responsibility for things that had not been under one’s control.

  Calmed by these eminently reasonable reflections, he mentally opened a drawer in an imaginary cabinet, filed away the disturbing thoughts—the metaphor was his own—and slammed the drawer shut. Then he returned more calmly to the intellectual pleasures of the subject on which he had been expounding. The quiet clicking resumed.

  This provocative finding serves to highlight the potential contribution of feces to a greater understanding of…

  “Screw you, buddy!” Les Zenkovich yelled, responding to the curses just hurled at him. For emphasis he brandished his middle finger out of the window of his Porsche.

  The driver of the other car, leaning across his seat, opened a mouth already twisted with rage, but then got his first good look at Les: Shit, the guy was built like the Incredible Hulk. With a gulp he clamped his mouth shut, hurriedly braked, and drifted back. If that monster wanted the whole bridge to himself, he could have it, and welcome to it. “What do you give an eight-hundred-pound gorilla?” ran the old joke. Answer: “Anything he goddam well wants.”

  In the Porsche, Les adjusted the volume on the Creedence Clearwater tape and continued threading his way eastward through the ossified traffic on the Oakland Bay Bridge. The exchange had not perturbed him. By the time he got home to Kensington it would be forgotten altogether. People were jumpy these days, that was all, especially on the bridge. It had been that way since the earthquake, and according to the psychologists it was going to be that way for a while yet.

  Not that it had made much of a dent in Les’s psyche. Few things did. Les prided himself on a laid-back approach to life, “Mr. Mellow,” they had called him in graduate school, and not just because he’d been a pothead back then. Take things as they come, that was his motto. Nobody gets out of this world alive, and you might as well enjoy things while you’re here. A good part of the enjoyment, he’d learned, was watching other people unnecessarily screwing up their lives every which way they could.

  Life was complicated enough without inventing problems, but sometimes he seemed to be the only person who understood that.

  Now take Miranda’s letter, for example. He’d received it that afternoon at his office on Mission Street. Assuming the others had gotten it today, too, there were four people who were pulling their hair out over it right now: Nellie, Leland, Harlow, and Callie. Well, not Nellie. No hair to pull. But none of them could be real happy about going back to Whitebark Lodge. Talk about bad karma.

  If they’d just come out right at the start and told everybody what had happened, it’d all be ancient history by now. Les had said so at the time, but everyone else had shushed him, and so he’d gone along, dumb as it was. And now, for ten years, whenever they met, there had been this undercurrent, this squalid, crummy little secret between them.

  They’d played it so close to the vest, in fact, that even Miranda hadn’t been told what had happened. She lived in Bend, not far from the lodge, and she’d been lucky enough to be at some kind of family affair that night—probably getting married or divorced; she did a lot of both. All she knew was that Jasper had decided to leave suddenly, no explanation, which was true enough. Obviously that was still all she knew about it, or she’d never have arranged another meeting at Whitebark.

  At the end of the bridge he turned north onto the still more clogged Highway 80. Even in the Porsche he had no maneuvering room but had to wait out the crush like everyone else. All the same, there was a half smile on his face as he tapped out time to “Rollin’ on the River” on the steering wheel.

  He could hardly wait to see how the old farts were going to deal with this.

  “Twelve o’clock already?” Nellie looked up from where he was kneeling, his nostrils filled with the sharp, sweet smell of thyme.

  “Yes,” Frieda said. “You’d better think about getting ready. Here, I’ve brought some tea.”

  “I can’t believe I’ve been at this almost two hours,” Nellie said, brushing dirt from his thighs. He pushed himself up and winced as his knees unlocked. “Oh, my. On second thought, maybe I can.”

  He sat gingerly beside Frieda on the stone bench and took the mug she offered. “Ah,” he said with pleasure, “just what I needed. What do you think of the plants?”

  “They’re just lovely. Nellie, I was wondering about something.”

  “About what?”

  “About Albert Jasper. About his remains. Don’t I remember some problem about what to do with them? Whatever became of them?”

  Nellie, who had recovered his customary cheerfulness as he’d worked, grinned. His short gray beard stuck jauntily out. “Ah, well, that’s an interesting question. As it turns out, I think we’re going to have a little surprise in store for everyone on that score. You too.”

  “What kind of surprise?” she asked distrustfully. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be one, now would it?” As he gulped tea, Frieda studied him with that over-the-tops-of-her-glasses stare. “I don’t like that look on your face.”

  His eyes opened wider. “Look?” he said predictably.

  “I can see that morbid sense of humor glinting away in there,” Frieda said.

  Nellie drew himself up. “Why, Frieda, what a thing to say.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “Let me get this straight,” Julie said, swabbing up cream-cheese dip with a carrot stick. “You want me to use up a week’s vacation so I can go listen to a bunch of anthropologists mumble in their beards about the place of Marapithecus in hominid evolution? Like last year in Detroit?”

  “That’s Ramapithecus,” Gideon said unwisely. “And those were evolutionary anthropologists. True, they can get a little stuffy. But these are forensic anthropologists. Chardonnay or Chablis?”

  “Which one’s open?”

  “Chardonnay.”

  “That’s what I’ll have.”

  He poured glasses for both of them, t
he cold wine clucking into the bottoms of the hollow-stemmed glasses, then carried Julie’s to her.

  “Fancy glasses,” she said. “I almost forgot we had them.” “Fancy dinner,” Gideon told her. “As you’ll soon see.” Julie was in the living room, browsing through the day’s mail, while Gideon worked in the open kitchen, talking to her over the wide counter. Thursday was one of his nights to make dinner, inasmuch as he had only a 10:00 A.M. class, and an easy one at that, while she worked her usual 8:00 to 5:00, winding up with the dreaded weekly staff meeting. Today’s, from what she’d told him, had been even more lunatic than usual, and he was happy to see her start to relax.

  “Anyway,” he said, “forensic anthropologists are a much looser crowd, more lively, more irreverent.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet. I can just imagine all the great ‘topics of conversation: handling decomposed remains, time-of death estimates…”

  “Well, yes, but it’s not all business. A lot of people bring wives and husbands. There’ll be plenty of time for taking in the sights and just being lazy. Look, read the letter, will you? The one from Miranda Glass, with the Museum of Natural History letterhead.”

  Julie foraged in the plate of raw vegetables and came up with a broccoli stalk. Then she fished the letter out of the pile of mail. Behind her, the big bay window looked out onto a wet, somber world. It had been a typical early-May day in Port Angeles, Washington: raw, overcast, and drizzly. The sky at 6:00 P.M. looked exactly the way it had at 8:00 A.M., a featureless and dismal slaty gray. According to the KIRO weather report, it was going to look much the same tomorrow.

  “‘To Members of the Western Association of Forensic Anthropologists,’” she read aloud. “‘Esteemed Fellow Body-Snatchers. June 16-22, the week of our eagerly anticipated bone bash and weenie roast, is fast approaching. As this year’s host I hereby bid you a genial welcome.’”

  She looked up at him from under lifted eyebrows. “Bone bash and weenie roast? Well, you’re certainly right about them not being stuffy.”

  He smiled. “Miranda’s a little more irreverent than most. Read on.”

  “‘Fittingly enough,’” she continued, “‘this year’s enlightenment and jollification will be held where it all started: the decaying but still scenic Whitebark Lodge near Bend, Oregon. I must tell you that the lodge is not quite what it was ten years ago (who among us is?), but the management promises to do its best. Dinner and continental breakfast will be provided daily, and those of you who wish more variety will find the restaurants of Bend and Sisters just a short drive away. In addition, the general store in nearby Camp Sherman stocks an ample supply of gourmet comestibles (bologna, American cheese, tuna Fish), which you may prepare in the privacy of your cottages. As usual, we’ll set up a kitty to take care of lunch and beverages so that we are not unnecessarily torn away from our scholarly pursuits. Naturally, potables stronger than Diet Coke are the responsibility of the individual. As always, cocktail hour begins at sunrise.’”

  Smiling, she glanced up again. “Maybe I ought to go, just to keep an eye on you. Don’t you guys do any work?”

  “Sure, we do. Don’t let Miranda’s style throw you off. We may be informal, but WAFA is a dignified, professional organization, and we work damn hard. Listen.” He had come into the living room to get some vegetables and dip for himself, and he took the letter from her, turning to the second page.

  “Here. ‘Round-table topics will include the adjustment of aging standards in light of today’s accelerating maturation rates; race-linked differences in sexual dimorphism; blunt-force skull fractures; and new developments in computerized forensic data nets.’”

  “Very impressive.”

  Gideon accepted this with a magisterial nod. “‘In addition, we’re trying to scare up an FBI agent or high-level working cop to put on a session on crime-scene do’s and don’ts, which, it pains me to say, most of us can sorely use. (Contact me if you know any likely candidates for this. No honorarium, but we’ll cover expenses.) As usual, one of our conference highlights will be…’” He coughed and folded up the sheet. “Well, you get the idea.”

  She snatched it away from him. “‘…will be our competition for the wildest, weirdest case of the last ten years. Present the most bizarre, off-the-wall doings you’ve had the good (?) fortune to be associated with in the last decade. Winner will receive a T-shirt with an appropriate and meaningful WAFA slogan, such as “Ten Years of Beer for Breakfast.”’

  Julie nodded soberly. “‘Dignified’ hardly does you justice.”

  “Didn’t I say it wasn’t all business? Forensic work can get pretty grim. You need some comic relief.”

  “Right,” she said, beginning to read aloud again as he went back to the kitchen. “‘Another highlight, she said hopefully, will be the opening, after almost a year of feverish preparation, of the Murder, Mayhem, and Miseries exhibit in the Central Oregon Museum of Natural History. This, as you know, is the country’s first permanent, large-scale forensic anthropology exhibit, and if I do say so myself, it’s going to knock your socks off!

  “‘Sunday afternoon is reserved for unwinding, greeting old friends, hoisting a few, and similar intellectual pursuits. In the evening, please plan on being the guests of the museum for an open house and reception. On Monday we roll up our sleeves and get down to business with our first working session. Spouses/lovers/friends/whatever can soak up some rays around the pool, or play tennis, Ping-Pong, or basketball, or go horseback riding or hiking—or, if desperate enough, can always sit in on our sessions.

  “‘An extra treat this year will be a chuck-wagon breakfast to break up things at midweek. On Thursday morning we’ll have a three-mile group horseback ride to a rustic picnic spot where the works—bacon, eggs, coffee, and so forth—will be waiting for us, compliments of the lodge.’”

  Julie sipped her wine pensively. “I’ll admit, it sounds like fun.”

  “Of course it does,” he said, heartened. “And don’t a few days in central Oregon sound good? Blue skies, warm sun, dry air—”

  “Not really, thanks.”

  Naturally not. Raised in the Pacific Northwest, she thrived on the cool mists and lush, wet green of the Olympic Peninsula. So, amazingly enough, did Gideon, a native Southern Californian. All the same, by the time May arrived—after half a year of dark days and endless, drifting gray rain, with two more months of it yet to come—he was ready to bargain away his soul for a few days of hot, flat, cloudless sunshine. It was hard to remember that anyone could feel otherwise.

  Glass of wine in hand, she began reading again, then lifted her head as he turned up the heat under some olive oil. “Mm, it’s starting to smell good. What are we having, anyway?”

  “Rock shrimp with garlic-basil sauce and pine nuts over fettucine.”

  She was patently impressed. “That sounds wonderful. How long will it be? I’m starving.”

  “I don’t know, I’ll see what it says on the can.” “No, seriously.”

  He peered at the recipe and did some quick arithmetic. “Oh, should be no more than half an hour. Say seven o’clock at the latest.”

  Julie sighed. “Say eight o’clock,” she murmured more or less to herself.

  Julie was an amazingly fast cook. Her stints in the kitchen were blurred, efficient flurries of activity, with everything seemingly done at the same time. Gideon had a more leisurely approach, slicing, chopping, and arranging things well ahead of time, so he could putter pleasantly through the cooking with his own glass of wine beside him. The result, they both agreed, was that he enjoyed it more, but what took her forty minutes was likely to take him two hours.

  “Say seven-thirty,” he told her. “Have another carrot stick.” He poured her some more wine and went back to cutting basil leaves.

  Julie returned to the letter. “‘The Annual Albert Evan Jasper Memorial Weenie Roast, Singalong, and Chugalug Contest will begin at its time-hallowed hour of 7:00 P.M., Friday, and end God only knows when.’”—She looked at him qui
zzically. “Do you really have a singalong?”

  “Absolutely. It’s great fun.”

  “And a chugalug contest?”

  He laughed, dumping the basil into the blender along with some garlic and Parmesan cheese. “Poetic license.”

  “And who’s Albert Evan Jasper? I know the name…”

  “One of the pioneering physical anthropologists. A student of Hrdlicka’s. He was one of the first ones to really get into forensic work. The whole idea of WAFA came out of a sort of retirement party for him, put on by some of his own ex-students. They all got together at this Whitebark Lodge for a few days and talked forensic anthropology.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard these retirement parties can get pretty wild.”

  He smiled. “I guess some good discussion came out of it, and they decided to expand it and make it an every-other-year thing. I’ve been to a couple of them so far, and they’ve been useful. Fun too.”

  “I gather Jasper himself is dead now?”

  Gideon flicked the blender on and off a couple of times.

  “Yes, he died right there in Oregon, as a matter of fact. Never got to enjoy his retirement.”

  “He died at his own retirement party?”

  “Well, not exactly at, but right after. He was killed in a bus crash on the way to the Portland Airport.”

  “And now,” she said reflectively, “he has an annual weenie roast and chugalug contest named after him. I wonder how he’d feel about that.”

  “Oh, he was an eccentric old bird. From what I know about him I think he’d have gotten a kick out of it.” He dipped a wooden spoon into the basil-garlic mixture, tasted it, and added a few more shavings of Parmesan. “What do you say, Julie? Will you come? It’d be something different for you.”

  “Gideon, I’d like to, but that third week in June is a real stinker for me. I already have four meetings set up.”

  “Couldn’t you put them off a week? Move them up a week?”

  “Impossible, it’s quarterly review time.”