information was likely to be, but it didn't pay to take chances with it. What was the rush? His tool kit had probably arrived at the lodge during the day, and this evening he could take whatever time was needed to free the skull from its context. It always paid to do it right.
But leaving Gideon Oliver with an unexamined skull fragment was like handing a four-year-old a candy bar and telling him to leave it alone until after dinner; it wasn't realistic to hope for too much. He poked it with his finger. It felt solid enough. With a fingernail he scraped at a little clotted black dirt. It came away without taking any of the bone with it. He scraped some more.
'Found one,” Julie announced. “Some cinnamon too.” She got a kitchen knife from a rack, set the lemon on the counter next to him, and sliced out a couple of wedges.
Gideon glanced up from the piece of skull. “I'm not sure the health department would approve of this setup.'
'I'm not sure I do,” she said with a sidewise glance at the silvery gray bone. She squeezed the wedges into their cups, then dropped them into the hot liquid while Gideon rubbed away some more dried mud. “Want some sugar?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Look at this.'
'At what? That little clump of dirt in the middle?'
'That little clump of dirt is plugging a hole, Julie. See? You can just make out the margin over here.'
'Oh boy, a hole,” she said. “Here we go again.” She set down her cup. “What's so strange—this is not an argument, okay?—but what's so strange about a hole in a skull that's been through an avalanche, followed by twenty-nine years of tumbling along inside a glacier?” She gestured at the fragment. “The skull itself's been smashed to pieces. Why shouldn't it have a few holes in it?'
'Well, you have a point.” He sipped at the toddy. “Mm, perfect.” The sharp, lemony fumes seemed to drift up, warm and pungent, behind his eyes, then fan out to heat his throat and shoulders. “All the same, I'd sure like to get this thing out of the dirt and see the other side.'
He got three fingertips around the occipital margin where the bone was thickest and tugged lightly. Nothing happened. He held his breath and tugged marginally harder. The bone popped cleanly and satisfyingly out of the dirt.
'Ah,” he said.
Owen Parker put his head through the doorless entry. “Oh-ho, I figured that's what you'd be doing back here. Finding out anything?” He came in, bourbon in hand.
'I don't know yet. You're just in time to see. Grab a paper towel and put it on the counter, will you?'
With Owen and Julie watching closely at either side, Gideon turned the fragment carefully over, brushed away most of the clinging dirt, and set it on the towel, outer side up. The hole was still filled and mostly hidden, plugged by its clod of dried mud. He pushed cautiously at the dirt. It didn't budge.
If this hole was what his gut—or rather his soundly based but intuitive assessment—told him it was, it wouldn't pay to take chances with it. Preserving the margins would be important.
'You think there might be something thin and sharp in one of those drawers?” he asked. “A skewer, maybe?'
Julie rummaged until she found a seafood fork with a narrow, probe-like end, and Gideon began to push gently at the clod.
'Looks delicate,” Owen said.
'Mm. It's damp, which doesn't help.” He continued to pick at the stubborn dirt. “You wouldn't happen to have some acetone at Bartlett Cove, would you?'
'I think there might be some in the naturalists’ workroom. Smells like it, anyway.'
'Good. When we get back we can put this in a bath of it to drive the moisture out. And if there's some alvar or acrylic resin around I can make a preservative sealant for it tomorrow. The other bones too.'
'I don't know about acrylic resin,” Owen said.
'Duco cement?'
'Yeah, I think there's plenty of that.'
'Good enough.'
Owen watched for a while. “Any idea who it belongs to?'
'Adult male,” Gideon said without raising his head. “Mid-to late twenties, fairly large...the same as everything else so far.'
'Does it go with the jaw they found yesterday, do you think?” Julie asked.
'Impossible to say. If we had the whole jaw we could try fitting the condyle into the mandibular fossa here in the skull and see if they go together. But unfortunately we have the right side of the skull and the left side of the jaw. The only—'
He stopped. A pea-sized gray pebble had dislodged itself from the clod. A few seconds later, with some additional prodding, the rest of the dirt fell away to reveal a roughly triangular hole about an inch wide. With painstaking care Gideon ran a finger slowly around the edge of the hole, stopping twice to explore particular features. Then he turned the fragment over and did the same thing on the other side. Five minutes passed.
'What's with the hole?” Owen finally asked him.
Julie laughed. “Don't bother, Owen. At times like this he's oblivious to everything. Completely impervious to human contact. You'll get used to it.'
Owen was silent a moment, then persisted. “But what's so interesting about a hole?” This time the question was addressed to Julie.
