He put his unopened coffee on the counter and dropped into a chair. “What the hell,” he said with a sigh, never one to sulk very long. “How's the coffee?'
Gideon took another taste, rolling it judiciously on his tongue. “Well, now that you mention it, it's a little heavy on the cream. And I prefer half-and-half to the nondairy stuff. And in the future it'd be nice to get something to stir it with. Also—'
John looked sharply at him, began to speak, and then burst out laughing, a sunny peal that folded the skin around his eyes into a network of happy crinkles. As usual, Gideon couldn't help laughing along.
'Anyway,” John said, stretching his legs out and getting his heels up on a carton on the floor, “I took off and told the little bugger where he could find me. Now, fill me in on what's been going on around here. What are these meetings Tremaine was having? Who're these people he was meeting with?'
'There's not too much I can tell.” Gideon pulled over an armchair and told John what he knew. He explained what Tibbett had told him and described his own meeting with the group with all the detail he could remember. John jotted down a few notes. It took no more than fifteen minutes. “Okay, Doc, that'll be helpful.” His notebook went into a breast pocket of his jacket. “Now tell me what's going on with the bones.'
They got up and went to the counter. The fragments were neatly arranged on butcher paper. “Here they are,” Gideon said, “but there isn't anything new to tell. Owen's sending a couple of his rangers back out there today and tomorrow, and maybe they'll come up with some more, but right now, all—” His attention was caught by movement outside, glimpsed through the side window. “Looks like the little bugger's found you.'
The diminutive figure of Burton Wu was striding rapidly down the path from the lodge, purposeful and splayfooted. Splay-kneed, really; every small step swung him off to one side or the other with a roller skater's waddle. A moment later he appeared around the corner of the building, walked in, and looked at the two men sourly. Then he went directly to the counter. It took him seven steps to cover the eight feet.
'Bones, huh?'
'Yes,” Gideon said, “they're from—'
'You got some more of that coffee around here, chief?'
'Sorry, no,” Gideon said.
John held out his cup. “Here, I haven't touched it.'
'Thanks.” Wu took it, pulled the cover off, and sipped. He made a face. “Cold. And way too much sugar. You know what that stuff does to you?'
All the same he kept it, taking rapid, minuscule sips and continuing to make faces. He looked at the bone fragments without interest for eight or ten seconds, then spoke to John. “Well, that's no suicide in there. It's homicide, all right. No doubt about it.'
'That's what I thought,” John said, looking distinctly self-complacent.
'You were lucky, chief,” Wu told him. “That false-teeth crap doesn't prove a thing. Save it for the shrinks.” The pathologist had a small man's way of making everything sound like a challenge. His speech was crisp and blunt, leavened only slightly by echoes of the quick, singing vowels of Canton. Parents from China, Gideon guessed, and himself raised in Los Angeles or San Francisco.
'Is that right?” John said crossly.
John's ancestry was Cantonese too. From an anthropologist's perspective they made an interesting contrast, a textbook demonstration of the difference made by a single generation's interbreeding with the vigorous native stock of Hawaii. At ten inches taller, eight inches broader, and almost a hundred muscular pounds heavier than Wu, John loomed over him.
Not that the waspish Dr. Wu was intimidated. “Yeah, that's right,” he said, narrow chin thrust up and out. “And the missing key doesn't prove a goddamn thing either. Fortunately, we've got some scientific things to go on.” He rubbed his hands briskly together. “Now, the first thing I noticed was indications of postmortem hypostasis superior
'No kidding.” John was an excellent cop, but like many excellent cops he had a block against scientific terminology. Or not a block so much as a self-erected barrier; the innate skepticism of the man of action for the man of words.
Wu looked at him. “Hypostasis,” he said. “Livor mortis. Lividity.'
'Settling of the blood, you mean?'
'Right, right,” Wu said impatiently. “Blood and body fluids.'
'Due to gravity after you die.'
'Yeah, yeah, sure.'
'And the ligature is the cord around his neck, is that right?'
'Of course, ligature. All of which means he couldn't have died in that position.'
Gideon had no prejudice against scientific words, but until Wu spelled it out, he hadn't seen what he was driving at, either. “I see,” he said slowly. “You mean, the blood would have settled below the ligature if he'd been hanging there when he died. So if there was some lividity above it, on the dorsal aspect'—for John's benefit he patted the back of his own neck—” then Tremaine must have been lying on his back for a while after he died; long enough for some of the fluid to settle there.'
'Not long; less than an hour,” Wu said. “The lab boys—” He turned abruptly to John. “Who is this guy?'
'Dr. Gideon Oliver. It's okay. He's working with the bureau.'
Wu shrugged. “It's your case. Anyway, that's point one. Second, I did a little palpation of the throat area; not much, because I didn't want to screw anything up before the autopsy. But I think I could feel a fracture of the left —well, there are these sort of extensions of cartilage that tend to get broken when you strangle somebody with your hands, but not when you get hanged.'
'The laryngeal cornua,” Gideon said.
