'Somebody said I'd find you here,” he said, closing the door behind him. He looked, to John's eyes, a little uneasy, a little squirrelly. “I wanted to talk to you.'
'If you're trying to set up another poker game, forget it. I learned my lesson.'
Leland smiled woodenly. “Mr. Lau, there's something you should know. Nobody else is going to volunteer it, so I might as well be the one.'
John had heard this opening a good many times in his career, and he had yet to have something useful come out of it. Most of the time, it muddied the waters instead of clearing them. He motioned to the chair Nellie had used, but Leland shook his head. He wanted, it seemed, to say his piece and get out.
'Go ahead,” John said.
Leland rearranged his mouth. His thick, old-fashioned glasses made his eyes look like the painted eyes in a doll's head: round, flat, bland.
'Frieda and Chuck Salish were...carrying on.” “Who's Frieda?” John said after a second.
'Frieda Hobert, Nellie's wife.'
'Oh, yeah. What do you mean, carrying on? Could you be a little more specific?'
'I mean,” Leland said evenly, “carrying on. Loaded glances, odd disappearances together for twenty minutes at a time, whispered remarks no one else was supposed to notice. What else there was, I can only surmise.” His lips turned down. “The whole thing was pitiful. And repulsive.'
'Did Nellie know about it?'
Leland hesitated. “At the time, I thought he was the only one who didn't.'
'And now?'
'Now I don't know. That's something for you to pursue if it seems appropriate. I'm not suggesting,” he added with care, “that it will turn out to have any pertinence to...to what we now know.'
'Tell me—why wouldn't anyone else volunteer it?” “Mr. Lau, you have to understand. Nellie Hobert is God to these people. They adore him.'
'But you don't?'
Leland colored; a round pink disk beneath each pale eye. “I resent your implication.'
'I wasn't implying—'
'I have nothing against Nellie. His reputation may be a bit, shall we say, inflated, but that has nothing to do with anything. For ten years I've kept as quiet about this as anyone else. I would have continued to do so if Salish's body hadn't turned up. But, as it is, I thought it was information you should have.'
And so, John admitted to himself, it was. “Thanks, Dr. Roach, I'll look into it. I may want to get some more information from you later.'
Wordlessly, Leland looked at him for a few moments. “If you like. It's nothing to me one way or the other.” He turned and walked out. John picked up his untouched Three Musketeers and bit in.
Well, it was something to tuck away, assuming it was true. Could it be what Nellie was hiding? Maybe so. And if it was, where did that lead? To Nellie as Salish's killer? John had trouble making himself take the idea seriously. Aside from Nellie's being a nationally known forensic scientist (but then weren't they all?), it was hard to picture the gnomelike little guy murdering someone in a fit of jealous rage. You never knew about those things, of course, but if Nellie had killed Salish, why would he tell Honeyman the skeleton was Salish's in the first place? Why not just let it go, and let everyone keep thinking he'd died in the bus?
On the other hand (just to be fair), was it possible Nellie was trying to be clever? That he felt the skeleton's identity was bound to come out anyway, and he could remove suspicion from himself by being the first person who called attention to it? Possible, yes, but—
'Still here, John?” It was Nellie again, head stuck through the doorway. “What say we join the others and go see what the estimable Dr. Oliver hath wrought?'
With a sigh of satisfaction Gideon finished shaping the soft swelling that formed the middle of the lower lip. The effort was going well; it was going to be one of his better jobs. At what he thought was mid-afternoon he wiped his fingers, stretched cramped shoulders, and looked up to suggest a break. To his surprise the room was filling with conference attendees.
'You weren't due till four o'clock,” he said.
'It's four-ten,” somebody answered. “The moment of truth.'
Gideon put down the modeling tool. “But it's not done. I haven't made a neck, there's no back to the head, the color's off, the—'
'Trying to weasel out, eh?” Nellie said happily. “Come, come, Gideon, time to face the music.'
* * * *
Those who knew what Salish looked like varied widely on whether the reconstruction was anything like him. Miranda thought it was, especially around the angles of the jaw; Leland, Frieda Hobert, and Nellie said it wasn't even remotely similar; and Les was undecided. John, who had the photographs from the file, couldn't make up his mind either—maybe yes, maybe no.
'Well, it's not finished,” Gideon said testily. He had a right to be defensive. He'd put in nine straight hours on the thing. He'd worked painstakingly, and he'd done a damn good job, but the head simply wasn't ready to be viewed, and he told them so again.
The students who had stuck it out with him through the long day—there were six of them left—jumped to his support. A reconstruction wasn't like a photograph, they explained to their elders. It was unrealistic to expect an exact likeness. And, anyway, hadn't Dr. Oliver said last night that there wasn't enough time to do a finished job? Couldn't they see it wasn't complete? Couldn't they let him have a little more time?
