by Aaron Elkins
But seen from another angle, it was Nellie who’d had the best reason for wanting him dead. Not out of revenge or bitterness, which had never been high on John’s list of homicidal motives anyway, but from personal ambition, a much more likely incentive. For it had been on the older man’s death that Nellie’s own career had bloomed. He had, as everyone had expected him to, succeeded his mentor as Distinguished Services Professor of Human Biology at Northern New Mexico, as president of the National Society of Forensic Anthropology, and, in effect, as top gun in his field.
So none of them could be ruled out. Not on grounds of motive. Not by a long shot.
He upended the paperweight one more time and set it swirling back on the table. The one bright spot in all this was that nice, tight little time range; one hour, from four to five o’clock Wednesday afternoon. A little checking on who was where at that time was going to narrow things down, speed things up.
And speeding up was in order. Applewhite had given him until Monday, three more days, to do what he could to help Honeywell. After that, the case would be handed back to the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office. John wasn’t going to solve it for them in three days, but it’d be nice to tie things up a little more for Farrell, who would still have another week to go before his sergeant of detectives got back.
He stood up, yawning, and slid his papers into his folder. Jasper’s telephone bill caught his eye again. That unexplained call to Harlow was interesting too, a link between two men murdered a decade apart. He needed to call Julian Minor and pass on what little Callie had told him about it, then let Julian run with it. The guy was amazing. You never knew what he’d turn up.
Mrs. Gelbert, the resort manager, tapped on the doorjamb. “Mr. Lau, telephone. Gideon Oliver. You can take it up front.”
CHAPTER 19
“Hi, Doc, whatchagot?”
Gideon took the receiver from the crook of his shoulder, where he’d wedged it while pouring himself a cup of coffee and waiting for John to come on the line.
“It checks out, John. It’s Jasper, all right. No surprises this time.”
He had spent the last two hours in the Justice Building’s small conference room, scraping the clay from Jasper’s skull, comparing the dentition against the newly received chart (and x-rays) from Dr. MacFadden, and going over the skeleton as a whole.
“Good,” John said. “I’ve had enough surprises for a while.” “And Nellie’s report is fine, as expected. I agree with everything in it.”
“Glad to hear it. All the same, I’d appreciate it if you’d do one up yourself.”
“Why? It’d say just what his says.”
“Yeah, but we better have it anyway. I mean, what if Honeyman winds up charging him? Is he supposed to use the guy’s own report as evidence? Does he call him as an expert witness to describe those broken neck bones? It wouldn’t work.”
“Okay,” Gideon said resignedly. It would mean getting the bones back out of the evidence room, out of the labeled paper sacks in which he’d put them, laying them out on the table again, and going over them one more time. “I’ll take care of it. I just wish you’d told me before.”
“I wish I’d thought of it before. Thanks, Doc. See you later.”
When Gideon brought the first armful of sacks back to the conference room, he found Nellie sitting at the table dressed relatively conservatively—in full-length trousers and a red T-shirt with nothing written on it but “Go, Broncos!”—and looking subdued.
“I was driving around in the rain, thinking about things,” he said, “and decided to stop in. I thought you might be working on the bones.”
Gideon felt himself flushing. He understood perfectly well why John had wanted him and not Nellie to complete the skeletal analysis, but it didn’t stop him from feeling rotten about it. He had planned to use the drive back to the lodge to think up some way of broaching it tactfully with the older man, but Nellie had beaten him to the punch.
“Uh, Nellie, actually, the reason I’m doing this is—well, I’m sure you know it’s not a question of trust, or of—of competence. I mean, there’s certainly no question, no question at all—”
With a wave of his hand, Nellie put a merciful end to his babbling. “Don’t worry about it. Of course I understand. I’m a potential suspect; how can I have anything to do with the investigation? I approve completely.”
Gideon was happy to see that he gave every sign of meaning it. “Thanks, Nellie.”
“My boy, don’t give it another thought.” He sobered when he looked at the sacks in Gideon’s arms. “Is that Albert?”
“Yes.” Gideon laid them on the table, then looked up sharply. “You mean you agree it’s him now?”
A rare sheepish look dragged Nellie’s features down. “Yes, yes, you were right about it, of course. You all were. It just took a while for me to admit it. I can, on occasion,” he said dryly, “be a wee bit stubborn. Or maybe we’d better make that ‘pigheaded.’ I simply wouldn’t accept having made so colossal an error.”
Gideon was more relieved than he showed. Nellie had seemed more than pigheaded to him; he’d seemed fixated, almost fanatical.
“That’s really what I came to say,” Nellie said. “I wanted to apologize for being so obstinate.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“I assume you’ve made the identification definite by now.” Gideon nodded.
“Simply astounding,” Nellie said, shaking his head. “I still can’t conceive of how we came to make such a botch of it, can you? It’s not as if—” One wiry eyebrow went up. “Or do you know how it came to happen?”
“Well, I think so, yes—“
Nellie held up a hand. “But you can’t tell me. Of course not. Tell me this much, though. Was it simple error or were we bamboozled?”
“You were bamboozled.”
Nellie banged his palm softly on the table. “That’s what I thought. It makes me feel a little better, if you want to know. But by whom, do you know that? Do you know if poor Harlow’s death is related to it somehow? It is, isn’t it?” The hand shot up again before Gideon could say anything. “No, I’m putting you in a difficult position. Never mind, I can wait to find out along with everyone else.”
He stood up. “Look, I’ve said what I had to say, and I want to thank you for being so damned decent about all this. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d accused me of something worse than sloppiness.”
Gideon didn’t feel so damned decent. And although he hadn’t accused Nellie of anything, had never suspected him of anything really, there were still unanswered questions, a remaining reservoir of doubt and uncertainty.
“Can I ask you something, Nellie?”
Nellie looked amiably down at him. “All right.” “Why did you make such a secret of the roast?” “Apparently it isn’t much of a secret anymore. It seems to be all over the place.”
“But why did you try so hard all these years to keep it one? Why did you shut Leland up the way you did yesterday?”
“Well, you have to understand—until yesterday we thought we’d caused his death. We thought he’d gotten on that bus because we’d driven him to it. We were—we were ashamed of ourselves. So we talked it out, and we agreed that no purpose would be served by telling anyone else about it. And we haven’t. Childish, perhaps, but that’s the way we saw it.”
Gideon shook his head. “Nellie, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t ring true. I can see some of the others going along with covering it up, but it just doesn’t sound like you. I mean you, personally. It’s not your style.”
“I suppose I should take that as a compliment,” Nellie said gruffly. “Well, damn it, you’re right, it’s not my style.” He slid back down into the chair. The pipe came out of his pocket, and the Latakia, but once they were in his hands he seemed to forget about them. “Do you know what it was, really? It’s not very deep.” He looked up at Gideon from under his eyebrows. “You know what happened at the roast, I gather?”
“I know it got out of hand, I know Jasper took offense—”
“Yes, well, that’s it right there. Jasper took offense.”
He began stuffing the pipe methodically with tobacco. “You certainly couldn’t call Albert a model human being, Gideon. I know how the others think of him—a slave driver, a martinet—and there’s some truth to it. But you know what it is they’re really complaining about without even knowing it? His standards. Mortifyingly high, true; uncompromising, true—but if you could meet them, if you could deliver, then, my God, the man could stretch you! Everything I know about this profession of ours stems from him. Without him, there wouldn’t be any profession. He made it a science, Gideon.” A match was struck and held to the bowl of the pipe. It was trembling very slightly.
“I realize all that—” Gideon began, but Nellie, sucking on the bit, shook his head: There was more.
The match was shaken out, the first smelly cloud of smoke expelled. “All of us owe that man a great debt, me more than anybody, and the fact of the matter is, I couldn’t stand—still can’t stand—the thought of his last recorded moments being so—so—squalid. Drunk, ranting, bawling…I felt I owed it to him to protect his memory.”
“His memory,” Gideon said.
“Yes, and so I—well, I suppose I imposed my will on everyone else. I made them promise to keep that last awful scene to themselves. And they, good souls that they are underneath it all, humored me.” He hesitated, looked awkwardly down at his lumpy knuckles. “And that’s all there was to it. I hope you believe me.”
“I do,” Gideon said. Loyalty. Fidelity. Obligation. It sounded like the real Nellie Hobert, all right, just slightly askew.
Nellie smiled wryly at him. “I guess it was pretty dumb, wasn’t it?”
“Pretty dumb.”
“Well, you know what they say: ‘Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.’”
Between Gideon’s rudimentary German and Nellie’s impenetrable accent, not much got through. “Mit der…?”
“’With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain.’ Schiller said it.”
“Ah,” Gideon said. Schiller wasn’t the only one. John Lau said it too: Smart people do the goddamn dumbest things.
At 5:00 P.M. that afternoon, Miranda convened a special meeting of the FMs to consider an unanticipated problem: The Whitebark Lodge catering department, not having received instructions to the contrary, had begun preparing for the traditional Friday-evening Albert Evan Jasper Memorial Weenie Roast, Singalong, and Chugalug Contest. With the rain having stopped, the mesquite fire in the cookout area had been started and the tables were in the process of being set up. However, having belatedly learned of the recent tragic events that had befallen WAFA, the caterer now wished to know if the cookout should be canceled.
“I would say so, yes,” Callie said with a dismissive laugh. “This is hardly the time for a weenie roast.”
“It is steaks we’re talking about,” Miranda reminded her gently, “not weenies.”
“Whatever. The longer we put off dealing with the trauma and depression associated with what’s happened, the longer it will be before we can get on with our lives in a constructive way. As a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking that this evening would be a good time for some co-supportive grief work sessions for those who’d like them.”
“I don’t know that I’d go as far as all that,” Leland said, “but it’s certainly not the time for a biennial picnic. It would be entirely out of place.” It was the closest he’d come to agreeing with Callie in Gideon’s or anyone else’s memory.
“Well, but that creates a small problem,” Miranda said. Leland gave her the lorgnette look. “And what problem is that?”
“They’ve already gone ahead and bought the supplies. Forty-five T-bone steaks, ten chickens, wine, beer, charcoal, plastic plates, the works. The bill comes to $432. We’ll have to pay for it in any case.”
“Oh,” Leland said after a moment. “That’s different.” He considered. “Well, perhaps we could think of it as a joint memorial picnic—for Harlow as well as Albert? That might be more appropriate. In fact, we might think about keeping it as the Jasper-Pollard Memorial Dinner in the future.”
“Hey, at the rate we’re getting knocked off, we better just start calling it the General Memorial Weenie Roast,” Les said.
Callie glared at him. “One of our members has been murdered. Two, if you include Jasper. The murderer or murderers are still at large and would almost certainly be in attendance, have you thought of that? Under those circumstances, I think it’s repellent even to be discussing this.”
“Yes, I think so too,” Nellie said. “You know, if the wastage is what’s bothering people, we can always have the food served in the dining room as the regular dinner tonight.”
“Turn forty-five choice T-bones over to the regular kitchen staff?” Miranda cried. “To the same people who were responsible for Rhoda’s Meatloaf? Instead of having them grilled over an open mesquite fire? Please, are we sure we don’t want to give this some serious thought?”
“Why don’t we just go ahead and have it outside if they’ve already gotten started?” Gideon suggested. “We don’t have to make a big deal out of it. There’s nothing that says we have to call it a picnic or a memorial or anything else.”
“Fine!” Miranda said. “Excellent idea. I’ll settle for that.”
“Simply an alfresco dinner,” Leland said. “A picnic. That sounds like a reasonable compromise to me.”
It did to the others, too, and the matter was settled.
“Well, I’ll be there,” Nellie said to Gideon as they got up to leave, “but I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. I’m afraid it’s going to be an awfully gloomy affair.”
CHAPTER 20
But Nellie turned out to be wrong. Although it was true that the general level of hilarity wasn’t up to that of previous years’ Weenie Roasts, Singalongs, and Chugalug Contests, there was an unmistakable crackle of lively interest in the air as people gathered in the cookout area near the crumbling, weedy tennis courts at seven o’clock. Even the qualmish presence of Farrell Honeyman, who had come to confer with John and had been induced to stay for the cookout, failed to dim the sparkle. The eyes of the younger members, in particular, returned again and again to the faces of the Founding Members, not so much with outright suspicion as with a kind of curious and speculative relish.
Julie, John, and Gideon, off to one side, surveyed the scene from the small rise on which the tennis courts were set. Below them the line at the barbecue pit, which Honeyman had just gone to join, was beginning to shorten as people got their steaks and found seats.
“Well, look at the bright side,” Julie said. “You’re not going to have any trouble getting a big registration for the 1993 conference.”
Gideon smiled. “Wouldn’t you love to have a booth selling buttons and T-shirts? ‘I survived 1991.’ You could make a fortune.”
He turned to John, who was looking glum. “No progress?”
John shook his head and sipped beer from a bottle. “Anything from the fingerprint people?”
“What can they tell us? There aren’t any fingerprints on the weapon, and finding prints on anything else doesn’t prove a thing. Everybody and his grandmother was in there playing poker Monday night.”
“Everybody but Frieda,” Julie said.
“Wrong,” John said. “She came in to drag Nellie out of there at about two in the morning, so she’s got an excuse for her prints being there too. Oh, one thing: we pinned down the time of death a little closer. Now it looks like Harlow bought it somewhere between four and five o’clock Wednesday afternoon.”
“How did you come up with that?” Gideon asked.
“One of the employees, the kid who brought around the towels.” He gestured with the bottle at a tall, skinny boy with a turned-around baseball cap, one of three people who were working at the barbecue pit and who was at that moment serving Honeyman his steak. �
�Him. He was there a couple of minutes before five, and the do-not-disturb sign was hanging on the door. I figure that’s got to mean Harlow was already dead, don’t you? I mean, why would Harlow put the sign out? He wouldn’t know anybody was coming around with towels.”
Gideon nodded. “True.”
“The employee,” Julie said. “Did he see anything?” “Nah, just the sign. He couldn’t see anything through the window. Come on, they’re starting to run out of steaks over there.”
They walked to the stone barbecue pit and got utensils and plastic plates from a table alongside it.
“Why couldn’t he see anything through the window?” Gideon asked. “I could see through the window.”
“Weil, there were those flowers right in front of it. They made it hard to look in.”
“But I looked in. I saw Harlow.”
John shrugged as he helped himself to a roll. “I guess he didn’t look as hard as you.”
“Were those his exact words? He couldn’t see anything?”
“Look—”John lowered his voice; they were approaching the boy. “This is not a particularly swift kid, you know? Words are not his thing. But go ahead and ask him, if it’s worrying you.”
“It’s not worrying me. I was just wondering.”
John had reached the boy, who was standing at the ready, tongs in hand, having just served Julie. “How’re you doing, Vinnie? Let me have that one on the side there.”
“It’s pretty well-done.”
“Great, that’s the way I like ’em.” He held out his plate. “And my associate here has something he wants to ask you.”
What he really wanted to ask him, Gideon thought, was why so many kids walked around with their baseball caps on backward, a fashion that had mystified him since the first time he’d seen it. Instead he said: “I understand you’re the one who left the linens at Cottage 18.”