Icy Clutches

new to Gideon, had him describe three separate times what had happened in the shack. Then they had fruitlessly tossed around ideas on what anyone could have wanted with the bones. At midnight Julie finally threw John out, settled Gideon down, and turned out the lights.

Now she poured some coffee for herself and sat down next to him at the table, pursing her lips, frowning into her cup.

'Okay, let's hear it,” he said brightly. Making it to the chair without hurting anything had cheered him up.

She looked at him. “Hear what?'

'Your new theory.'

'What makes you—'

'Your expression. When you purse your lips like that it means something is being hatched:.

She eyed him, her head cocked. “We've been married too long.'

'Not hardly. Come on, let's hear it.'

'Well...” She hesitated. “I keep coming back to Jocelyn and whether or not she's dead.'

He smiled at her. “No one's ever going to accuse you of prematurely giving up on a hypothesis. How can she not be dead? We've finally gotten ourselves a female femur—or at least we had a female femur. Whose else could it be?'

'No, I was looking at it differently this time; the other way around. That femur is the only real evidence that Jocelyn is dead, right? Maybe somebody took it to get rid of that evidence.'

'To get rid of the evidence that she was killed? What for?'

'I don't know, but why else would anyone take it? There wasn't anything special about it, was there? Just that it was female.'

'Yes, but nobody knew that except you and me. Remember, at the press conference I told them I hadn't sexed it yet.'

'All right, then, maybe they were trying to keep you from finding out. Maybe—'

'Julie, how would they know it was female?'

'Well, then...” She stretched and laughed. “You sure take all the fun out of it. Okay, what's your theory?'

'Oh, no, I'm not even trying to come up with a theory. I'll just stick to what I'm good at: pointing out the flaws in yours. You know what? I'm hungry.'

'Good. John went to the dining room to get us all some breakfast. I could tell you'd be waking up in a few minutes, and I knew some food would do you good.'

'How could you tell I'd be waking up in a few minutes?'

'Oh, you make these noises when you're starting to wake up.'

'Like what?'

'Snork, unk, mrmp. Like that.'

He made a face. “You're right; we've been married too long.'

He had just finished getting into his loosest shirt and trousers when John got back.

'Hey, Doc, you look great; halfway human again. Breakfast is on the way. Ham and eggs okay?'

'Ham and eggs sounds wonderful.” Gideon lowered himself into the chair again, somewhat less stiffly than the first time. The aspirins were working, and moving around had loosened him up. “Julie says you haven't been getting much of anywhere.'

'Not so's you'd notice. But I'm starting to get some ideas. That's what I wanted to talk to you about.'

He had barely sat down when there was a double tap on the door. He got up to admit Cheri, the sunny, skinny waitress who'd been serving them at dinner.

'You guys must rate,” she said. “We don't usually do room service.” She edged in sideways to clear the big metal tray on her shoulder, then stooped in a fluid, practiced movement, to put it on the table as smoothly and noiselessly as a professional bowler lays down a ball.

'Ham and eggs, ham and eggs, ham and eggs,” she said, pulling the covers off the plates and setting them out. “OJ. all around. Sourdough toast. Coffee. That do it?'

'Looks great,” John said. “Thanks, Cheri.” He rummaged in his wallet and came up with two dollar bills. “Wait a second. Doc, you got another couple of bucks? All I have is a twenty.'

But Gideon was sitting as if suddenly turned to stone, staring hard at nothing, and it was Julie who had to supply the bills. “He's oblivious again,” she said matter-of-factly to John. “Can't you tell from his eyes?'

And he was. When Cheri had come in lugging that heavy tray, something in his mind had popped open like a box. Theories, and hypotheses, and guesses all spilled out at the same time and fell into new niches. He'd had it all wrong. He'd been miles from the right questions, let alone the right answers. If not for Cheri he'd still be miles away.

He'd made a mistake, a bad one; he and Dr. Worriner both. They had failed to follow the advice they'd given hundreds of students. Don't jump to conclusions. Never assign sex, age, or anything else on the basis of a single indicator. Well, they'd jumped. Worriner had shown him two partial left humeri in Juneau, both identified as male, and Gideon had agreed with the identification. He had also agreed with the conclusion: The bones belonged to Steven Fisk and James Pratt, the only two males caught in the landslide.

Wrong. Wrong because one of those arm bones wasn't male at all. That piece with the prominent, rugged, oh-