Twenty Blue Devils

me.'

They had been glowering at each other, almost nose to nose, and without quite knowing why they burst out laughing.

'John, I'm sorry,” Gideon said. “I'm a little testy too, but it's because I'm mad at myself, not you. I can't believe I almost didn't pick this up.'

He got out of his chair to stand beside John's so that they were both looking at the pictures right side up.

'Now look at this.” With his forefinger he traced a column of maggots that ran diagonally from the web of the right thumb, across the palm, and onto the lowest joint of the little finger.

'It's a defense wound,” he said.

'Defense wound?” John murmured with interest, peering at the photos.

'It couldn't be anything else. From a blade; a knife, probably. Brian tried to fight somebody off and this is where he caught hold of the blade.'

John took Gideon's magnifying glass, leaned over the pictures, and shook his head. “I can't see any wound at all. Just the maggots.'

'If there are maggots there, there's an opening underneath,” Gideon said. “And an opening in the palm of the hand is a wound.'

As he had frequently told John and told him now again, he was no forensic pathologist; the less he had to do with bodily fluids, soft tissues, and nasty secretions, the happier he was. But he had been involved in enough cases by this time to know that the insects that help decomposition along do it in a systematic and predictable manner. Within minutes of death the Calliphoridae—the blowflies arrive, soon to be followed by their many cousins. These insects head directly for the natural openings—in a clothed body, the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears; in and around these moist, dark recesses they lay their eggs in yellowish white masses easily visible to the naked eye (and looking for all the world like wads of grated Parmesan cheese, as an entomologist had once pointed out to him, thereby permanently changing his attitude toward that formerly relished cheese). Within a day, in warm weather, the eggs have hatched into great, wriggling clumps of the blind, wormlike creatures known as larvae or maggots, which then begin their allotted task of consuming the body's soft tissues.

And if there are open wounds, the same process occurs there. Eventually, the larvae spread out from these initial sites, but for a while they remain busily clumped around the body's orifices, natural and otherwise. Thus the maggots on Brian's face.

Thus too, the diagonal, linear column of maggots on his right palm; they implied a diagonal, linear wound beneath.

'Okay, I can buy all that,” John said, “but why defense wounds? Why couldn't he have cut his hand in the fall?'

'Pretty unlikely. First, I can't see any scrapes or bruises anywhere else on his right arm; just this one clear cut on his right hand. And second, it is a cut—not an abrasion, not a tear, not a puncture. Look how neatly lined up the maggots are. One long, straight, slicing cut. What but a blade would be likely to do that? Not to mention that it's precisely where you'd expect a defense wound to be.'

Gideon didn't expect John to take much convincing, and he didn't.

'Doc, you're right,” he shouted, clambering up out of his chair. “See, did I tell you or didn't I tell you?” There went the arms again. “Come on, let's go see Bertaud. There's no way he can argue with this.'

'John, it's going on six o'clock. He's not going to be in his office.'

'Wherever he is, then,” John said righteously. “He's the head man. He's always supposed to be available.'

'Maybe so,” Gideon said tactfully, “but do you suppose maybe he's seen enough of us for one day?'

John laughed; the sudden, burbling, babylike explosion that never failed to make Gideon laugh along with him “Of me, you mean. Yeah, you're right about that. Okay, tomorrow morning then. Nick's expecting us up at the house for dinner about now anyway.'

They looked at each other, an unspoken question in the warm air.

'I say we don't mention this to Nick right now,” John said after a moment. “Let's find out what Bertaud says first. Besides, Nick's the one who didn't want anything about it mentioned at dinner, right?'

'I agree, but you know you're going to wind up in the doghouse with him when he finds out we went to Bertaud behind his back, don't you?'

John shrugged this off. “It won't be the first time. He always gets over it fine. Come on, time to go up and meet the family.'

Gideon looked down at the dusty clothes he'd been wearing all day; in Papeete, on le truck, and at the plantation. “Give me a minute, I'm a little travel-stained for dining. I ought to change first.'

John guffawed. “Forget it, come-as-you-are is the order of the day. Dining at Nick's is like dining at Chucko's All-You-Can-Eat, except the food's better.'

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Chapter 18

* * * *

The setting was better too. Dinner was al fresco, on a lush, rolling lawn that formed a promontory extending two hundred feet seaward from the house, hanging ten feet above the beach and reminding Gideon of nothing so much as a gigantic seaside golf green. Along one side, a stand of coconut palms and elegant,