The Dark Place

this, Mr. Lau. I deal in real things, not fairy tales. I'll look at your five baskets of bones this afternoon, and then I have a case waiting for me at headquarters. A hallux major.” He paused, looking at Lau as if he expected a challenge. “A woman,” he said precisely, “has bitten the big toe off a would-be attacker. The toe has been recovered, and I mean to identify him from it. Now, that is the real world.'

Lau barely repressed his grimace. Fenster took his jacket from the back of a chair and shrugged into it. “If you need more help than my poor abilities can provide, you have my sincere encouragement to bring in Gideon Oliver from Fantasyland University.'

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Chapter 2

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John knew that Julie Tendler usually showed exactly what she felt, and now her black eyes sparkled with surprise as she put her ham and cheese sandwich back down on its waxed-paper wrapping. “You mean you know Gideon Oliver? Personally?'

'The doc? Sure, why not?” He was having a cup of coffee at her desk to keep her company. As chief park ranger, she had been out with the crew that had been digging up the new burials, and she'd missed lunch. “He's an old pal.'

'I thought you just knew him because he'd consulted on some cases with the FBI.'

'No, I knew him way before that. Met him when I worked for NATO in Europe, and we kicked around together for a while. We still get together fairly often. Why so amazed?'

'I'm not amazed,” she said, picking up the sandwich again and nibbling at it, “I'm impressed. When I was finishing up my anthropology minor a couple of years ago, we spent a whole quarter just discussing his book.'

'He wrote a book?'

The sandwich went back down to the table. “Are you serious? He wrote the most controversial—and I think brilliant—book on human evolution to come out in decades. And he must have published hundreds of articles.'

'No kidding,” John said. “Are you going to eat that pickle?'

She shook her head. “Well, what's he like? He must be a lot older than you.'

John bit off half the pickle and shook his head. “No, he's about my age—forty, a little less.'

'Forty! That's hard to believe. I always assumed he was one of the grand old men of anthropology. Tell me more.” She returned to her sandwich, but her mind obviously was elsewhere.

'Like is he married?'

'That's not a bad place to start.'

John finished the pickle. “No, he's not married. Are you planning on leaving the chips over?” She handed him the bag, and he tore it open. “He was married before I knew him, for nine or ten years, and I guess they had some kind of fantastic relationship. She got killed in a car accident three, four years ago, and I don't think he's ever gotten over it. I think he's still in love with her. Nora, I think her name was.'

She frowned at her sandwich as if suddenly absorbed in it. “He doesn't go out with women?'

John munched a potato chip with a loud crackle. “Do you always show this much interest in the grand old men of anthropology?'

'No, but this is going to be the first one I ever met. Does he go out?'

'Oh, yeah, he likes women, all right, if that's what you mean. Used to go out with this girl in Heidelberg, Janet Feller, but...I don't know, like I said, I think he's still in love with his wife.'

'What's he like?” Julie asked with undisguised interest. “Is he good-looking?'

'I wouldn't say he's handsome,” John said with a shrug, “but what do I know? He's about my size, maybe a little shorter: six-one, six-two. Seems to be in pretty good shape. From what I can tell, the gals seem to like him.'

Julie finished her sandwich and crumpled up the waxed paper and threw it into a wastepaper basket near the desk. She took the lid off her Styrofoam cup of coffee and drank. “It's funny, you discuss someone's theories and ideas for ten weeks almost as if you were arguing with him personally, but you never wonder what he looks like, or think of him as human.'

John laughed. “Oh, he's human, all right. On the quirky side, in fact.'

John Lau's laugh was the kind that made other people join in, and Julie laughed, too. “How so?'

'Well, he might seem a little prickly at first, and he talks like a professor most of the time, and his head's usually in the clouds somewhere. One time I watched him spend twenty minutes looking for a notebook that was tucked under his arm.” He laughed again, tilted his head back, and tapped the last crumbs of potato chip into his mouth. “He's a funny guy, kind of a quick temper, but at the same time he's, I don't know, gentle. You'll see.'

'He sounds fascinating.'

'Yes,” John said, nodding, thinking back to other times. “He's the kind of guy who's liable to go bonkers at little things, but in a crisis, when the chips are really down, there's no one I'd rather have around. And I know what I'm talking about.'

Julie sipped her coffee quietly, smiling at the faraway look in the agent's eyes. “It sounds like you like him a lot,” she said softly.

'Yeah, I like him.'