Icy Clutches

Funny, when you thought about it, how much they...

He frowned, finished off the donut with his third bite, and went back inside. He picked up the mandible again, thoughtfully stroking the broken margin with his thumb. Then he fingered the cracked molar, the crushed condyle. Was there something to think about here after all, or was he just—

The door opened. “Hey, are you still at it?” Parker asked. “You need some more time?” He waited at the door. Behind him Tibbett peered warily over his shoulder.

Gideon glanced up at the wall clock. They'd been gone almost an hour. It had seemed like fifteen minutes, but he was used to that when he got absorbed in skeletal material. Reluctantly he put the mandible down: He could give it some more thought tomorrow, when he had a decent lens.

'No, come on in,” he said. “I'm just about finished.'

Parker approached. Tibbett kept pace with him, remaining a gingerly half-step behind.

Gideon told them as much as he was relatively sure of. The mandible was from a male Caucasian of twenty- five, give or take three years, probably above average size. The femur and the foot were also both adult male, both above average size. No indicators of race, but no reason to think they weren't also Caucasian. That was it. His materializing questions about the mandible he kept to himself for the time being.

'Well—does that mean they're all from one person?” Tibbett asked.

Gideon spread his hands. “It could be one person, could be three. There isn't any duplication of parts, so there's no obvious proof that it's more than one, but that doesn't mean it isn't. And the appearance of the bones isn't different enough—or similar enough—to say for sure whether they all belong to the same person. And except for the bones in the boot, none of them are adjacent to each other in the living body, so we can't even put them together to see how well they fit or don't fit.'

Tibbett's eyebrows went up. 'That's the way you tell?'

Gideon smiled. Explaining skeletal analysis was like telling someone how you made a matchstick disappear or plucked a coin out of nowhere. A lot of otherwise intelligent people were disappointed when they found out there wasn't any magic involved.

'Well,” he said, looking soberly at the assistant superintendent, “I'm thinking of applying the Baker and Newman regression equations for determining bone association from relative weights in ostensibly commingled remains. If I can get an accurate scale.'

'Ah,” Tibbett said, his sense of propriety restored. “We'll certainly see that you get an accurate scale.'

'Well, it's not three people,” Parker said. “I can tell you that right now.'

Gideon looked inquiringly at him.

'There were three people on that survey team,” Parker said, “but only two of them were men. The other was a woman, Jocelyn Yount. And since these bones are all from men, they can't be her, right? That leaves James Pratt and Steve Fisk.'

'Why, that's right,” Tibbett said appreciatively.

'But we still don't know for a fact that these are from the survey,” Gideon said.

Parker shook his head. “Nah, those are the only missing people we've ever had in that section of the bay. Since they started keeping records, anyway. Arthur's right about that.'

'Well, of course I am,” Tibbett agreed.

And he probably was. Certainly there was nothing about the bones that suggested that they hadn't been there for twenty-nine years. True, they still had a trace of the distinctive candle-wax odor that meant the fat in the marrow was somewhere beyond the rancid stage but short of the dried-up stage. Ordinarily this would mean the time of death had been anywhere from six months to four or five years earlier. But this too was wildly variable, depending on conditions, and cold could slow it down tremendously, as it retarded all degenerative changes in dead tissue. And with bones that had been in a glacier for two or three decades, you were going to get one hell of a slowdown.

'Owen,” Gideon said, “did you have a chance to talk to anyone about what these people looked like?'

'Sure did. Dr. Henckel and Professor Tremaine both.'

'And? Did either of the men fit what we seem to have here? Caucasian, twenty-five or so, tall, probably well built?'

Parker laughed, dropped into a wheeled swivel chair, and pushed off a few inches, heels in the air. “They both did. Both big healthy guys, twenty-four, twenty-five years old.'

Gideon hesitated. “Did they say either of them had anything wrong with his face?'

'His face?'

'A wired jaw, maybe; something like that?'

'No, why?'

'Yes, why?” Arthur asked. “What are you getting at?'

'No matter. Well, the bones could belong to either of them, or both. I'm afraid I can't do any better than that.'

'Well, that's that, then.” Tibbett rubbed his hands briskly together. “All we can do is what we can do. Thanks so much for your help, Gideon. I'll initiate procedures to see that the remains—'

'Wait a minute, Arthur,” Gideon said, “I think you're jumping the gun. I haven't given those bones a decent going-over yet. Besides, you're going to want to go back to the Tirku area to see if there's anything else out there.'

'I'm going to want to do no such thing.” Tibbett's voice ratcheted up a notch. “We've already searched. I found that horrible jawbone. It was the most macabre experience I've ever had in my