so-obviously masculine deltoid tuberosity...was
Waiting tables. Lifting trays, year after year, with the time-honored technique Cheri had been using all week. Male or female, anyone who hefted those thirty-pound trays five days a week was eventually going to come out of it with a hell of a deltoid tuberosity on the weight-bearing arm. If an anthropologist wasn't careful, if he relied on that criterion alone, he could easily misidentify the humerus of a hardworking waitress as that of a man.
Which is just what he'd done, and what Worriner had done before him. But at least Worriner had an excuse; anthropologists hadn't known about the “waitress tuberosity” in 1964. Gideon, however, had no excuse but carelessness; carelessness and wanting the old man to have done it right. The fact that the rest of Worriner's work had been competent, that the other identifiable bones had all been male, that the humeral fragment had simply given him nothing else to go on, all had led him into being sloppy and acquiescent.
My God, where had his brain been? What was it Cheri had said a couple of days ago at dinner?
That was Jocelyn's humerus, he was positive.
Well, ninety-nine-percent positive.
'I made a mistake,” he said aloud.
'A mistake?” John said lazily. He and Julie had begun their breakfasts.
'On the bones.'
Julie put down her fork. “You made a mistake on the bones?'
'Is that so amazing?'
'It's just nice to be reassured that you're human once in a while.'
'Come on, Julie, that's not fair. I never said I was infall—'
'Take my word for it,” she interrupted in her gruff, funny imitation of his voice, “I've looked at ten zillion bones—'
'Sure. Both male. That's how you knew there were parts of at least two bodies: Pratt's and Fisk's.'
'Right. Only I was wrong. We were both wrong. One of them wasn't male.'
He explained about deltoid tuberosities and waitressing. This took some time, and when he was done, John and Julie were still looking at him with something less than total comprehension.
'Okay,” John said a little suspiciously, “so it's Jocelyn's humerus; so what does that tell us?” He spread his big hands, knife in one, fork in the other. “What's the big deal? We already knew she was dead.'
'Don't look at me,” Julie said, chewing. “I seem to be missing something too.'
'The big deal is this,” Gideon said. “When we came up with that female femur yesterday—the one that got stolen last night—we concluded that we finally had parts of all three skeletons, right?'
John chewed slowly. “Umm...'
'Sure we did. We already had parts of two males, or so we thought, and now here was a female femur. That makes three.'
'I guess so,” John said.
'But if that's Jocelyn's humerus down in Juneau, then we
'We don't?” John said.
'We don't?” Julie said.
Gideon restrained his impatience. It had taken him long enough to put two and two together, and he was supposed to be an expert. “Look,” he said, “we know we have some of Steve Fisk, all right; no question about it. That jaw was positively identified by the dental work, and then we matched the ramus and the punctured cranial fragment to it.'
'Okay,” they both said.
'Okay. And we have some of Jocelyn: the female femur they found yesterday and now that misidentified humerus I've been talking about.'
Two cautious nods this time.
'But now—with that humerus reassigned from James Pratt to Jocelyn—it's possible that
'Gideon, dear,” Julie murmured, “I don't mean to press you, but you do have a way—'
He sat back in his chair and put his hands flat on the table. “I think I know who killed Tremaine, and why. And who clobbered me,” he added with satisfaction. He drew a breath. “I think it's—'
'Gerald Pratt,” John said.