Uneasy Relations (23 page)

“But they were in the safe, not here.”

“Yes, but when I left with them after dinner I was going to leave them here. I
announced
I was going to leave them here.”

Thoughtfully, she took the chair beside him. “So, one more time, it
has
to be somebody from the group who did it. They’re the only ones who would have heard you say it.”

“Of course. They’re the only ones who know about the vertebrae at all.”

“Well . . . George knows . . . at reception?”

“Sure, but he’s the guy that put them in the safe for me.”

“Right,” she said, nodding. “I didn’t really think it was George anyway. I just . . . I don’t know.”

“You just keep wanting whoever is doing all these things
not
to be one of these people — one of our friends. I feel the same way. But it’s one of them, all right. There’s no way around it anymore.” He leaned back, hands behind his head, and tried to twist the kinks out of his neck. “And now the vertebrae: How do they fit in? And where the heck did that T10 come from?”

There was a discreet tap on the door. When Gideon went to answer it he found a smiling Kayla there, holding out a plush monkey with the key to 205 dangling from it.

Gideon took it. “Thanks, where did you find it?”

“On the floor, in the Barbary Bar. It looks as if you must have dropped it there after all.”

“No, I didn’t have it there.”

“Well, then, you must—”

“Let me ask you something, Kayla. What time did you come on tonight?”

“When I always do. Ten o’clock.”

Ten o’clock. Everybody would still have been out on the Wisteria Terrace at that time
.

“And were you away from reception at all?” He said it with a pleasant smile, so she wouldn’t feel threatened.

His pleasant smile failed him. Kayla immediately turned defensive. “No! I stay there the whole time.”

“You’re up here now. You came up with us a little while ago.”

“Yes, but only for a moment. It’s my job to—”

“Kayla, relax. You’re not in any trouble. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You think someone took the key when I wasn’t looking? You think someone was in your room when you were downstairs? Has something been taken?”

“No, nothing’s been taken, but someone’s been in here. And yes, I think he did get the key when you weren’t looking. Think now. You never left the desk?”

“Well, I did go to the loo once, but other than that, I never . . . oh, there was one other time — someone telephoned to say that there was a lorry blocking the driveway, but when I went out it was already gone.”

“Ah.”

“But I couldn’t have been away for more than thirty seconds.”

Time enough to snatch a monkey
, Gideon thought. “What time would that have been?”

“Oh . . . ten forty-five, or maybe a little after.”

Ten forty-five. Just after the session on the terrace broke up and the others were all on their own.
“Okay, thanks a lot, Kayla.”

She hesitated. “Did you want me . . . shall I call the police?”

“No, don’t worry about it; I’ll take care of it.”

She looked much relieved; police calls at the Rock Hotel were obviously infrequent and best kept that way, especially on her watch.

“You
are
going to call the police, aren’t you?” Julie asked as the door closed. She had changed into her nightie and returned to the armchair.

“I don’t think so,” Gideon said, returning to sprawl in his chair again. “Not much point to it. It’s after midnight. I’ll tell Fausto about it in the morning. It can wait till then.”

“Are you sure that’s wise? Isn’t it better to check for fingerprints and things as soon as possible, before we muck them up?”

“Yes, but what good would fingerprints do, or DNA, for that matter? Everybody who could possibly have done it has already been in the room.”

“They have?”

“Yes, the first night, remember? Everybody came by and sat around for a while before the testimonial, schmoozing and knocking back their drinks.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said, barely managing to cover a yawn. “Well, I still think we ought to report it.”

“Report what? That somebody broke into our room and hung my sport coat backward?”

But she had dozed off in the chair, bare dimpled knees drawn up, chin resting on her hand, dark curls falling over her face. For a long while, he sat there and took her in.

“You’re sure pretty,” he murmured. “Too bad you’re asleep.”

“I can be awakened,” she said without opening her eyes. “If there’s a good enough reason.”

JUST
as unpacking their clothes on arrival was Julie’s job, as called for by their informal but not-to-be-messed-with division-of-labor agreement, the provision of morning coffee was Gideon’s task. Up a little before seven, he brewed a heavenly smelling pot in their room and carried two mugs of it back to bed, where the upturned corners of Julie’s mouth and her gently quivering nostrils, if not her tightly shut eyes, showed her appreciation and receptivity. (Julie was one of those people who had a hard time speaking in complete sentences, or any sentences at all, until she’d downed a few swallows of good, rich, hot Arabica.)

Sitting up in bed with their backs against the headboard, swathed in terry cloth Rock Hotel robes, they sipped away and talked some more about the vertebrae, but couldn’t come any closer to a plausible explanation for the attempted theft, or even for the very existence of that mystifying T10, than they had the previous night.

“Why don’t we join the others at breakfast and ask them about it?” Julie suggested as he was refilling their cups. (By her second cup she was not only able to speak intelligibly, but to make a certain amount of sense.) “You can show them the vertebrae, tell them you know they’re from Gibraltar Woman, and see what they come up with.”

He frowned. “What would be the point of that? One of them damn well knows how it figures in, but he’s not about to elucidate. Or she.”

“There are several points. First, maybe one of the others can cast some light. Second, it gives us a chance to watch how they react, which might be helpful. Third, it will make me happier because you’ll be safer.”

“Come again? How will I be safer?”

“Well, think about it a minute. Whoever was after the vertebrae must have been after them to keep you from figuring out what they are.”

“For which he’s too late.”

“But
he
doesn’t know that. Well, after
everybody
knows what they are, there wouldn’t be any point to throwing you off another cliff or zapping you to keep
you
from finding out.”

He sipped and nodded, sipped and nodded. “I like it,” he said.

“ANYBODY
else happen to recognize what these are?” Gideon asked, nonchalantly placing the vertebrae in the middle of the table just as the plates were removed and the diners were settling down with their third or fourth cups of coffee or tea. “Because I sure do. And it’s pretty interesting.”

They were all there, Adrian, Corbin, Pru, Buck, and Audrey. Everybody but Rowley. While their eyes were on the bones, he took the opportunity to do what Julie had suggested and watch their reactions. She was doing the same thing, he could tell. Alas, nobody’s eyes bugged out, nobody’s jaw dropped, nobody appeared to swoon with apprehension. They just looked at the glued-together bones with mild, scholarly curiosity.

“It’s those neck bones that were in the bag,” said Buck.

“Actually, they would appear to be thoracic,” Adrian corrected. “Lower thoracic, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Correct, as always, Adrian,” Gideon said. “T9 and T10.”

“And they would appear to have that pathology, what was it, that you found on Gibraltar Woman,” observed Audrey. “Ankylitis spondylosis . . .”

“It’s ankylosing spondylitis, Audrey, dear,” Adrian said with a tolerant chuckle.

“Right again,” said Gideon. “Anybody notice anything else significant about them?”

“Wait just a minute . . .” Corbin said. He picked them up, turned them around, fingered them. “This one’s a cast. But this other one is real.”

“Right again.”

“But they go together perfectly, see?” Corbin said, demonstrating, and then setting them back down on the table, one atop the other. “They have to be from the same person. You know, they almost look . . . I don’t understand . . . they almost look . . .”

“Holy cow!” Pru blurted. “Hey, let me see those things!” Her muscular arm shot forth for it. Corbin flinched away and gave it up without a fight. It was the T9 she was interested in. “You know what this is a cast of?” she exclaimed when she had it in hand. “You know what this is?”

“I know what it is,” Gideon said quietly.

“This is a cast of Gibraltar Woman’s ninth thoracic vertebra!” She brandished it for everyone to see. “I should know, I spent all day digging it out with a couple of chopsticks and a damn toothbrush. But . . . this is incredible . . . this tenth . . . this tenth . . .”

“Did she even have a tenth?” Audrey asked with a scowl. “As I recall—”

“No!” Pru practically shouted. “That’s what I’m trying to say! She didn’t! She doesn’t!” She turned incredulous eyes in Gideon’s direction. “Where did you get this, Gideon?”

“A friend wanted to know if it was human.”

“Your friend, the policeman?” Adrian inquired after a short pause.

“Yes, Chief Inspector Sotomayor.”

“And where did
he
get it?”

“He got it from Sheila Chan’s room at the Eliott Hotel.”

This time there was plenty of eye bugging and jaw dropping, but, with the exception of Buck, who, as a nonarchaeologist wouldn’t be aware of the bone’s scientific importance, it was universal, so it provided no useful information. It did, however, produce an excited flurry of observations.

“My God,” Adrian whispered, “she found another piece.”

“Sure,” Pru said angrily, “remember how she was always down there, prowling around the site, even though she wasn’t supposed to? Now we know why. She had no right to keep this to herself. For all we know, she turned up more than this. There may be other bones.”

“I’m sorry, I refuse to believe there was anything left to find,” said Corbin with a distinct edge to his voice. “As Adrian will confirm, we were
extremely
thorough. We left no stone un—”

“I bet that’s what her paper was going to be on!” Pru said. “She wanted all the credit for herself.”

“No, I think not,” Corbin replied. “The topics for the papers had to be in two months before the conference, so a bone that she found a day or two earlier couldn’t possibly have been the subject.”

Gideon took advantage of the calming, damping effect of Corbin’s sensible, put-you-to-sleep delivery to raise a question. “What exactly was the topic of her paper, does anybody remember? Pru, you were the program chair.”

“Yes, I was,” she said, thinking. “But you know, as I recall, it wasn’t anything that grabbed you.
Europa Point Reevaluated
, something along those lines. Nothing about a new find.”

“
The First Family: A Reevaluation
, actually,” Audrey corrected. “I remember being quite curious about it.”

Adrian was peering hard at Gideon. “I have the impression you know more about this than you’re saying. I suggest you let the rest of us in on it.”

“No, I don’t, Adrian. You’ve come to the same conclusions I have. You have the same facts I do, and the same questions.” Which was pretty much the truth, if you didn’t count the fact that no one but Gideon (and Julie) was aware that Sheila’s death was now the subject of a murder investigation.

“Why exactly would the police have had it?” Adrian asked, scowling at Gideon. “Perhaps you can tell us that.”

Corbin answered for him. “From when she disappeared — when nobody knew what happened to her — the police were looking into it, remember? They would have searched her room. And afterward, inasmuch as she didn’t have any next of kin, there would have been nobody to send—”

“Yes, yes,” an impatient Adrian said. “I understand all that. But why is it of interest to them now?” He turned again to Gideon. “Why should they care if she had some vertebrae in her room? She was an archaeologist. And why exactly would they care
now
? She’s been dead for two years.”

“That’s a good question,” Pru said, also looking at Gideon. “Have they reopened her case? Do they think there was something suspicious about it?”

“Well, um—” Gideon began.

He was saved by a hearty
knock-knock
coming from the entrance to the dining room — Rowley’s cheerful greeting. “Your opulent transportation to the Society meetings awaits outside. All aboard that’s coming aboard.” His eyes did some bugging of their own. “I say, what are
those
?”

While everybody tried to tell him at once, Gideon snared the vertebrae, which had been making their way around the table — under his extremely attentive scrutiny — and popped them safely back into the sack.

“What are you going to do with them?” Corbin asked as his eyes greedily followed their progression.

It was just the question Gideon wanted. “I have to return them to the police, of course. I’m off to do that right now.” This much was true. Just before coming down he’d received a call from police headquarters asking him to be in Fausto’s office at ten.

“But will they return that tenth thoracic to us?” Corbin asked. “The cast doesn’t matter, but that tenth is a new find. It belongs in the British Museum with the rest of her.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’ll get back to the museum eventually,” Gideon said.

But for the moment, at least, two important points in regard to his safety had been established. Everyone at that table understood that (a) the T10’s provenance was now common knowledge, and (b) it would no longer be in Gideon’s keeping.

Very good
, Julie’s satisfied nod told him.
Mission accomplished.

WHILE
Julie went off to make a prearranged courtesy call on the head naturalist of the Upper Rock Nature Preserve, Gideon walked down to police headquarters at New Mole House. He found the DCI waiting for him, seated behind his desk in his usual office uniform — an immaculate silk dress shirt (plum colored this time) with the cuffs neatly folded over his forearms, and a tie (blue-gray) that must have been carefully chosen to match. A few forms were spread out before him.