Make No Bones

CHAPTER 5

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'Whuff,” Gideon said, holding out his cup.

Julie refilled it for him from the ancient percolator. Making morning coffee was generally his job, but Julie had wisely quit the poker session early and been in bed by midnight. She'd won $9.50 too, which had mildly irritated him at the time, but in the end it made up for most of his losses. Leland, as usual, had been the big winner. Gideon had finally figured out why he was always so successful. With that perpetually joyless expression on his face, you couldn't help thinking that this time his cards really were awful.

'I just hope none of the students were trying to find somebody to confess to last night,” she said. “All the professors were holed up in Harlow's cottage gambling and boozing until three in the morning.'

'Two.'

'Three. You woke me up when you came in. You were quite cheerful at the time. Playful, too, although I must say that didn't amount to anything.'

'Don't remind me.'

'Are you very hung over?” she asked sympathetically.

'No, I don't think so,” he said, yawning. The coffee was beginning to clear his head. “I could've used a little more sleep, though.'

'Well, I should think so.” She leaned her elbows on the little dining-room table, holding her cup in both hands. “Gideon, maybe I'm getting paranoid from living with you too long, but the whole thing sounds fishy to me.'

He scratched his cheek, playing her words back. “I think I missed something.'

'What happened to Jasper's...remains, or whatever you want to call them. Why are you all so ready to assume it's just a student lark?'

'What else?'

'Wouldn't they have left a note or something to show it was a joke? They wouldn't leave you all worrying about what happened to the bones. No, I think there's more to it than that. I think somebody might not want them out there in full view with dozens of professional anthropologists peering at them.'

'You are getting paranoid.” He yawned again, sipped some more coffee, and shuddered. Percolators certainly made a powerful brew; you had to say that for them. “Or do you know something I don't?'

'Maybe one of you—one of your friends, I mean—liked it better when they were out of sight in a drawer somewhere. Maybe somebody has something to hide.'

'Like what?'

'Like maybe Jasper wasn't killed in that bus crash.'

Ah, he'd wondered if that was where she was heading. “That's Jasper, all right, Julie. Teeth are like fingerprints; when you get a match, it's a match. Besides, five highly competent anthropologists worked on that crash, and they don't come any better than Nellie Hobert—'

She was shaking her head. “No, no, I'm not suggesting it wasn't him, I'm suggesting maybe he didn't die in the crash. Maybe—who knows?—maybe he was already dead when it happened, and someone's afraid one of you bigwig experts will be able to tell it from the skeleton.'

Gideon looked wryly at her. “That would have made getting on the bus a little tricky, wouldn't it?'

After a second she smiled. “Well, I didn't say I'd figured it all the way out. But I don't think you have either. I'm just surprised to see you jumping to conclusions, that's all. That's not like you.'

'Well, maybe you're right.'

'But you don't think I am.'

'No, I think it was just some of the kids.'

'Well, maybe you're right.” She stood up. “Let's talk about something important. Any chance you can break away this morning for a short horseback ride?'

'Well, I hate to miss the sessions.'

'We ought to get our muscles limbered up for Thursday.'

'Thursday? Oh, God, the trail-ride chuck-wagon breakfast.'

'You'll love it.'

'I don't know, I'm a city boy. Getting on a horse makes me nervous. They're too damn high.'

'Now look, you. I'm taking vacation time so we can be together and have fun and relax, and that means —'

'That I'm going on a horseback ride. Yes, ma'am.'

'All right, then. I'll let you off this morning, though.” She leaned over to kiss his cheek and winced. “Ouch. Take a shave, will you? Then let's go get some breakfast, I'm starving.'

They got to the breakfast buffet at seven-thirty, drank some orange juice and some more coffee, and on Gideon's suggestion carried their plates of fried eggs, hash browns, and biscuits outside to look for a place to enjoy the slanting, high-country sunlight for a while. They had the grounds to themselves, the other attendees preferring to eat inside. Most of them were from the Southwest; catching up on sunshine was not one of their priorities.

They found a reasonably comfortable low wall—actually part of the rock-and-mortar foundation of an old building that had once stood there in a grove of ponderosa pine—looking out over the near-deserted road to a broad meadow with a few fat cows grazing in it. Happily vacant of mind (was there anything that made one more