Make No Bones

'Oh, the burial. Well, there are these.” From an ink-stained shirt pocket bulging with half a dozen pens he pried out a small yellow envelope, which he opened and upended on the desk. A quarter and two nickels rolled out. “These came out of the grave after you finished. Right under the body, about an inch below.'

'Must have rotted out of his pocket,” Nellie said.

'Yes, or somebody dropped them while they were burying him. Same difference.'

Gideon turned the coins over to read the dates: “1981, 1972, 1978.” He looked up. “So at least you know something you didn't know before. He couldn't have been buried before 1981.'

'No, or after, either. Not that I know what that does for us.

'Or after?” Nellie repeated. “Why the devil not? Just because a 1981 coin—'

'Well, it's not the coin,” Honeyman said, “it's the shed.” “The shed,” Nellie said.

'Yes, the shed.'

Gideon tried helping things along. “The shed that used to stand where we found the grave?'

'Sure, what else are we talking about? I talked with the management, and they said part of it blew down in a huge windstorm we had in October 1981, and they bulldozed away what was left of it a few days later. So there you are. That body was buried in 1981. Before October.'

'Where are we?” Nellie demanded. “So the shed blew down in October. Who's to say the body wasn't buried later?'

Surprisingly, Honeyman was ready for him. “It's always possible, but what would be the point? It would have been right out in the open, only a few feet from some of the guest cottages. And you can see it from the road. You'd have to be crazy to try to bury a body there.'

'Well, yes...'

'But...' Honeyman said, and Gideon began to think he might actually be enjoying himself. Not many people got a chance to lecture Nelson Hobert. 'But while the shed was still standing, it was perfect. Easy to get into, a nice dirt floor to dig in, plenty of junk in it to hide the grave—and with the open side facing away from the cottages and the road. What more could you ask? The chances of that grave ever being found were just about zero.'

Gideon nodded his agreement. If Honeyman ever decided to get out of administration and into detective work, he just might do all right.

'Not quite zero,” Nellie pointed out. “It did get found.'

'Oh, certainly,” Honeyman said with another of his sad-eyed smiles, “but only because our poor, dumb perp never bothered to calculate the probability of a convention full of forensic anthropologists showing up and crawling all over the place ten years later. Just goes to show the limitations of the criminal mind.'

'Nineteen eighty-one,” Gideon said slowly. “Wasn't that the year of the first WAFA meeting?'

'WAFA?” Honeyman said.

'Western Association of Forensic Anthropologists. Their first meeting was at Whitebark Lodge. In 1981.” Honeyman laid down his pencil. For the first time a flicker of real interest showed in his eyes. “Is that so? All these same people?'

'Well, just a few of us,” Nellie said. “We've grown quite a bit since then, you know. Back in 1981 there were only...'

He stopped in mid-sentence, forgetting to close his mouth, his head tilted as if he were listening for something.

'What?” Honeyman said nervously. “What is it?'

'By gum,” Nellie said softly, incredulously. Jammed between the side of Honeyman's desk and the wall, he leaned as far back as he could in the straight-backed chair, locked his hands behind his neck, and stared, seemingly at the marked-up boxes of a big “Executive Plan-Your-Month” calendar over Honeyman's head. But his eyes were unfocused and Gideon could see that his mind was racing. He sat like that for a long time, then lowered his gaze and faced them, still not altogether back from wherever he'd been.

'By gum,” he said again. “I believe I know who that skeleton is.'

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 8

* * * *

'Well...who?” Honeyman asked.

'Chuck Salish,” Nellie said, and looked dreamily at Gideon. “Has to be. Think about it.'

Gideon frowned back at him. “Nellie, I don't know who Chuck Salish is. Was.'

It took a moment for this to register. “You don't—

No, of course you don't. You weren't there. Forgive me, I forgot. Chuck and Albert were going to go into business together when Albert retired, you know. Albert—'

'Albert, Albert, who's Albert?” Honeyman was growing increasingly edgy.

The interruption seemed to wake Nellie up. His eyes drifted back into focus. “Albert Evan Jasper, of course. They were going to open a forensic consulting outfit. It would have been one of the first.'