Skeleton Dance

'Gideon, I'm in the middle of something. Can't this wait?'

'I don't think so, no. The description—it said what he was wearing, didn't it? What exactly did it say?'

'About what he was wearing three years ago? Why in the name of God do you—'

'Just find it, will you, please? Humor me, okay?'

Joly muttered resignedly into the telephone. Papers were shuffled, probably more noisily than was strictly necessary. “All right, I have it here. ‘ Green-and-white plaid shirt with short sleeves, workman's blue trousers, moccasin-type shoes with no stockings.’ All right?'

'And what—” He licked dry lips. Here came the crucial question. “—what was he wearing when you found him yesterday?'

'Yesterday?” Joly cried incredulously. “What was he wearing yesterday? What possible . . . what possible . . .'

The astonished silence told Gideon he'd guessed right. His chest expanded with the first deep, full breath he'd taken in the last five minutes. “He was wearing the same clothes, wasn't he?” he asked quietly.

'I . . . yes, that's right, the same clothes, but . . . Gideon, what's this about?'

'Things are even weirder than we thought, Lucien—look, I'm at the new institute headquarters up on the hill. Could you come on up here? I think you might be wanting to make an arrest. I'll meet you out front.'

* * * *

'He was what?” Joly exclaimed a few minutes later, as they stood near the stone parapet that ran along the edge of the cliffside terrace.

'Frozen,” Gideon repeated.

Joly was huffing, as was Sergeant Peyrol, both of them having tramped up the steep road from the main street, and while he caught his breath he glowered at Gideon almost accusingly. “Frozen,” he said again, as if trying out something unappetizing on his tongue.

'Yes, I think so,” Gideon said, treading softly; he was verging on snake-oil territory here. “My guess is he's been sitting in a freezer somewhere for the last three years.'

Joly reflected for a moment, his lips slightly pursed. “Dead, we may assume?'

'I'd have to say that's a pretty safe guess, yes.'

'Yesterday, if I'm not mistaken, you said he'd been dead three days.'

'I was a little off,” Gideon admitted.

Peyrol, who didn't speak English but could understand some, laughed, converted it to a polite cough, and resumed his stiff military posture.

'Gideon,” Joly said, leaning on the parapet and looking out over the trim tile roofs of the village, “how certain of this are you?'

'Pretty positive. I should have realized it right away; I just wasn't thinking along the right track.'

It was the peculiar way the body had begun to decompose that should have told him, he explained as concisely as he could. Under ordinary circumstances, large-scale decomposition would begin in the dark, moist interior of the body, with rapid growth of bacteria in the lower intestines, resulting in the all-too-familiar bloating, discharges, and putrid smells. From there, the putrefaction would work its way outward while maggots and the like attacked the outside at a slower rate and worked inward.

But Bousquet's body showed the reverse: the internal organs were fresher than the skin. That was what happened when a body was frozen; the freezing killed off all the intestinal bacteria. But later, when it was unfrozen, it would be the surface that naturally thawed first and was therefore the first to be available to new bacteria and other organisms. So decomposition proceeded from outside in—as it had in Bousquet's case. The skin was discolored, withered, sloughing off; the insides of the body had barely begun to break down.

Joly, having lit a Gitane, pondered this, continuing to stare across the Vezere valley. “Not all of the insides. I looked at Roussillot's report. It says the brain was considerably decomposed.'

'The head is smaller than the body. It thaws faster.'

'Ah.'

'And don't forget the clothes, Lucien—the very same clothes he had on the day he disappeared. How else do you explain that? I'm telling you, the guy's been in cold storage for the last three years, right up until you found him yesterday.'

Joly made a decisive movement with his head, turned from the parapet, dropped his cigarette, and ground it out with his heel. He briskly straightened his jacket, buttoned both buttons, and tugged on his cuff-linked sleeves. “Shall we go in? I believe it's time to make that arrest.'

'Don't you want to know who did it first?'

It was an uncharacteristically smug remark, and Gideon got what he deserved. “Oh, I know who did it,” Joly said casually. “What I didn't know was how.'

* * * *

Inside, most of the crowd was milling about near the reopened bar. Audrey, who had finished her presentation a few moments earlier, was accepting congratulations and good wishes. Montfort was berating a small, miserable- looking man about some abstruse archaeological point. Julie was talking to Pru, Emile to one of the people from the foundation. With a quick glance around the room, Joly spotted his quarry. He strode purposefully over the wooden floor, his thin lips set, and waited until he was recognized.

'Yes?'

Joly drew his feet together and stood even a little straighter than usual. “Michel Georges Montfort, in accord