Skeleton Dance (24 page)

Joly was looking at him. "You wanted to ask something, Gideon?"

"Yes, I do. Audrey, what made him think it was Jacques, do you know? You said he didn't have any proof."

Ely had worked it out, she explained disjointedly, by a process of elimination. There were only three people whose theories and reputations hung on the Tayac find: his own, Michel Montfort's, and Jacques'. Since he knew he hadn't done the faking, that left Michel and Jacques. Michel, he had reasoned, was extremely unlikely to have done it, having long ago proven himself a serious and objective scholar; moreover, unlike Jacques and Ely himself, his pre-eminence in the field was acknowledged—he didn't
need
Tayac. And that left Jacques.

Gideon couldn't help smiling a little. It was very nearly the same line of reasoning that Émile Grize had employed, only Émile had used it to eliminate Jacques and Ely and to finger Michel Montfort.

"Oh, and I'm forgetting the four metapodials," Audrey added. "That was the crucial point. They were from the Musée Thibault. Jacques was on the board there. He would have had easy access."

Gideon nodded. Jacques' access to the bones carried more weight with him than Ely's process of elimination.

"Madame," Joly said casually, "when was the last time you saw Jean Bousquet?"

She stiffened. "Jean! Why—it was years ago. When he disappeared, when he left."

"Have you heard anything to suggest that he might be back in this area?"

"Back? You mean now? No, why do you ask? You don't mean you think—"She goggled at him, a disturbingly un-Audreylike action, and tugged distractedly at her hair; more gray hairs came loose from the bun. "But why—but—"

"Thank you so much for your help, madame. Are you quite all right? Would you like me to have someone drive you home?"

   "What I find myself wondering about," Joly mused after their second round of drinks had been delivered—Joly himself, who would be driving home to Périgueux for dinner, had switched to mineral water—"is the frequency with which she seems to have access to information possessed by no one else."

"I don't follow you," Gideon said.

"Consider. It was from Professor Godwin-Pope that we learned that Carpenter possessed an air rifle—and that he had even proudly showed it to her; it was from her that we learned he had taken to keeping it at hand when he was excavating; it is from her that we now hear that Carpenter had fixed Beaupierre in his mind as the villain of the Tayac debacle. Now why do you suppose Carpenter would choose to divulge these things to her, and only to her?"

"Why wouldn't he?" Gideon asked. "They were good friends. Audrey was the only other American on the staff aside from Pru, and I guess by that time the Ely-Pru thing was on the wane and maybe a little awkward. He probably just felt most comfortable with Audrey."

"Yes, perhaps," Joly said.

"Besides," said Julie, "you can't really conclude that she was the only one he told, can you? For all we know, maybe he told everybody else too, but Audrey's the only one who's come forward."

"Yes, that's so. It might be that I'm making something from nothing."

At their feet was an elderly, limping, white-muzzled dog that had been scratching steadily behind its ear for the last few minutes. It had been brought by a customer at another table but had found itself neglected once its owner started on his aperitif and opened his newspaper. Looking for company, it had wandered over to sit by the three of them instead, lolling its tongue, watching them talk, and occasionally giving a half-hearted wag of its tail between scratches. Now, apparently tired out by the effort, it stopped, looking up at Joly, who absently reached down to continue its scratching for it.

"What do you think," he said after half-a-minute or so of this obviously mutually agreeable activity, "of the following as a working hypothesis? Assume first that Carpenter was correct in his suspicion that Beaupierre was behind the fraud. He confronts him with it. Beaupierre, terrified at the prospect of exposure, murders him—or rather pays or otherwise convinces the willing Bousquet to do it and to help him with the concealment of the body. The deceptive flight of the airplane is arranged through parties unknown at present. And Bousquet, very likely with some financial assistance from Beaupierre, takes himself far, far away and settles in Corsica to make himself a new life."

Gideon noticed that Julie, who had laughed at the notion of Beaupierre as a murderer the previous afternoon, wasn't laughing now.

Neither was he. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "that could explain why he had the nerve to call the institute for a job reference a few months later. He knew Jacques wasn't about to turn him down. But of course Jacques wasn't in and it was Montfort he wound up talking to."

Joly inclined his head. "Yes, that might be so. Now… where was I?"

"He settles in Corsica," Julie said.

"Yes, thank you, he settles in Corsica and the incident fades away. Three years pass, we arrive at the present. Carpenter's murder comes to light." Joly continued scratching rhythmically away at the dog while he spoke. "Beaupierre becomes anxious, he becomes conscience-stricken, the urge to confess seizes him, as his telephone calls to you suggest. And Bousquet, understandably fearing that he is about to give everything away, silences him in the most direct and certain way possible." He looked down at the dog. "So, what do you think of my theory,
chien
? Does it strike you as an idea worth pursuing?" The dog gazed back up at him with rheumy eyes. "Yes, I believe you do," Joly said.

"Well, I'm not so sure I agree with him," Gideon said. "I can see where you're coming from, but how could Bousquet possibly know whether or not Jacques was getting faint-hearted? In fact, how could he know so quickly that we'd ID'd Carpenter? It just happened yesterday. And nobody else knew about it until you told them this morning at, what—ten o'clock? And by two, maybe by one, Jacques was already dead. Pretty fast work for someone who hasn't been in the neighborhood for three years."

Joly brushed this aside. "We've had telephones in France for some time now, you know. Someone could easily have been in touch with him, perhaps Beaupierre himself."

"What for? To inform him he was getting cold feet and was about to go and confess everything?"

"Now wait a minute, Gideon," Julie said, "that's not as ridiculous as it sounds. I didn't know Jacques very well, but, yes, he struck me as the kind of person who might very well have wanted to give Bousquet a chance to confess on his own before implicating him."

Gideon nodded. "Okay, I'll give you that much but—sorry to be the one who's always saying it—aren't we making a lot of assumptions here? All we know for sure is that Jacques is dead."

"No," Joly said, "we know that he was
murdered
. And we have good reason for concluding it was Bousquet who did it. And we also know that Carpenter was murdered. And we know that someone went to considerable effort to keep you from examining his remains. And we know that at the time he was killed there was considerable bad feeling between him and Bousquet. And we know, or believe we know, that he suspected Beaupierre of having implemented the fraud that had caused him so much grief. That's a great deal to know. Well, you ingrate," he said as the dog heaved itself up at its master's whistle and limped off without a backward glance.

He wiped his fingers on a napkin, carefully and one at a time, like someone polishing silverware, before picking up his glass again. "I'm sure you can see," he said, having swallowed, "that all these things cannot possibly be unrelated."

"You're sure
I
can see?" Gideon said, smiling. "What happened to "
Non sunt multiplicanda
?"

"I've concluded that I was wrong," Joly said generously, "and you were right."

"Interconnected monkey business triumphs again," Julie said, producing a curious stare from Joly.

   "Oh, yes—you were right about something else too," said the inspector as they walked across the square with him to his car. "Julie, do you remember suggesting the other day that the single tooth left behind in the St.-Cyprien morgue might be used for dental identification?"

"Sure, but we didn't know what dentist to contact because we didn't know Jean Bousquet's dentist, or even if he had a dentist—" She stopped. "Wait a minute… of course… it wasn't Bousquet, was it? It turned out to be Carpenter, and—"

"And Carpenter did have a dentist, and his dentist has positively identified the work as his own and the tooth as his patient's lower right first bicuspid. So we may say at last that the remains from the
abri
have been positively identified. They are Ely Carpenter's."

"But we already knew that," Julie said. "Gideon identified them yesterday."

"But not positively."

"Of course, positively. He said so."

"I really appreciate that, honey," Gideon said, unexpectedly touched, "but unfortunately judges and juries—and especially defense counsels—tend to be more skeptical than you are, and I'm not sure that a lecture on cowboy's thumb would've convinced them. A deposition from Carpenter's dentist will."

"And you'll also be interested in this," Joly said when they reached the Citroen. He reached into the ever-productive inside pocket of his suit coat and brought out a single sheet of paper. "It's a photocopy of his dental chart."

Gideon scanned it. "What am I supposed to be looking for?"

With his pen Joly pointed to the upper right first molar, through which an X had been drawn—dental shorthand for a missing tooth. "The very first day you were here, in the
abri
, you predicted, from the jawbone, that this tooth would be missing. I confess, with shame in my heart, that I doubted you."

"You mean I was
right
?" Gideon cried impulsively. "Hey, how about that!" Quickly, he recollected himself. "I mean," he said with a modest shrug, "there really wasn't anything to it."

But he couldn't keep a straight face, and they all burst out laughing. It had been a long time they'd had anything to laugh about, and as they saw Joly off the three of them were still chuckling.

   The next morning Audrey was appointed acting director. Her first formal action was to declare the institute closed until the following Monday out of respect for Jacques (and, Gideon thought, to give herself a three-day weekend to pull herself back together before taking over the director's chair). The break suited Gideon and Julie, who agreed over breakfast that they could both stand some time off from bones, murders, hoaxes, and Paleolithic prehistory—all of which were placed off-limits for the long weekend. Gideon didn't quite see why Paleolithic prehistory had to be included, but he was game to go along anyway.

They rented one of the plastic kayaks lined up at the foot of the bridge and paddled happily on the Vézère, going nowhere, until mid-afternoon, when the unusual humidity and a developing warming trend strengthened to the extent that any form of physical effort lost its appeal. Afterwards, when the darkness cooled things down and revived their appetites they ended the day feasting again at the restaurant Au Vieux Moulin, where they'd eaten with Joly that first night.

The following day, Saturday, was largely taken up with Jacques' funeral, held a bare twelve hours after his body was released by the police, (Madame Beaupierre, who seemed more consumed with embarrassment than with grief over her husband's murder, wanted it over with as quickly as possible) and with a stilted, uncomfortable funeral buffet at the Beaupierre's house near the Font de Gaume cave. Although Jacques' colleagues, along with the Olivers, had been invited to both functions, they were treated with icy reserve by the widow.

After these strained and uncomfortable events Gideon, who was feeling the lingering effects of the concussion more than he wanted to admit, slept away the afternoon while Julie drove a few miles up the Vézère to tour the celebrated Grotte du Grand Roc with its stalagmites, stalactites, and other natural grotesqueries.

On Sunday a huge, black thundercloud began to build up in great, roiling columns a little after dawn. They took one look at it from bed, closed their eyes again and slept late, not awakening until 9:00, when Audrey telephoned to tell them that the dedication of the institute's new quarters, which had originally been scheduled for the next day but had been tentatively postponed upon news of Jacques' death, would take place as scheduled after all. It had been decided that the new building was to be designated the Centre Préhistorique Beaupierre in honor of its fallen director. Dignitaries from the Université du Périgord and the Horizon Foundation would be in attendance, and Gideon and Julie were cordially invited to the ceremonies.

Gideon cordially accepted for both of them, after which they went downstairs for a satisfying "English" breakfast of bacon and eggs, then set themselves up in the Cro-Magnon's downstairs lounge, a cozy, overstuffed room that looked as if it should have had Charles Dickens—or more appropriately, Gustave Flaubert—seated at the writing desk, lost in reflection and chewing pensively on his quill.

Instead it was Julie who took over the desk to work on a quarterly report on park security problems that she'd brought with her while Gideon worked on his laptop, polishing his chapter on the bizarre case of "George Psalmanzar" the eighteenth-century "Formosan" who had flummoxed the British scientific world of his day by inventing not only himself but an entire, highly detailed
Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa
, complete with imaginary customs, language, clothing, and religion. (They lived to be over 100, they drank snake blood, they sacrificed 18,000 children a year to their gods, they beheaded and ate wives who committed adultery.) It had been swallowed hook, line, and sinker; "Psalmanzar"—nobody ever learned his real name—became a respected friend of Samuel Johnson's and was given an appointment to Oxford as—what else?—a lecturer on Formosan history.

With the lounge all to themselves, rain thrumming on the windows, a pot of hot coffee on a nearby sideboard, and a mantel clock ticking lazily away, they looked forward to passing a quiet and companionable Sunday.