Skeleton Dance

morning there had been an interview with Prefect of Police Marielle in which Gideon was mentioned by name. Questions flew: Did he know whose body it was? Was it true that the individual had been shot, murdered? Had he completed his analysis? Could he tell how long the body had been there? Did the police have a suspect? Was—

No, he said, he didn't know whose body it was; and yes, he had been shot to death; and no, his analysis wasn't complete, he'd be going to the St.-Cyprien morgue that afternoon to clean the bones and examine them further; and yes—He paused. “Wait, hold it, why is everyone so interested in this?'

'And why wouldn't we be interested?” Beaupierre asked; the first time he'd been heard from since introducing Gideon. “A murdered man found in one of our own rockshelters.'

'Your own—? I don't—you mean those were your test trenches?'

'Certainly,” Beaupierre said, laughing. “I dug them myself. They were sunk more than thirty years ago, one of the institute's early endeavors. You'll find the site in the archaeological record as PN-119. Unfortunately, it held nothing of interest.'

Maybe not, Gideon thought, but the coincidences—the kind of coincidences that Joly liked so much—were beginning to pile up. First it turns out that the murdered man might have been a former institute employee, and now it seems that the body was buried in an old institute site. And what about that trowel, don't forget about that.

There was something going on behind the scenes here, but what?

'Unless, of course,” Pru said to the director, “you accidentally overlooked a body buried in the middle of the floor.'

But the unswervingly literal-minded Jacques Beaupierre was the wrong man for such banter. Confounded, he stared at her. “Are you joking?'

'Yes, Jacques.'

Beaupierre didn't get it. “I'm sure I would never have overlooked such a thing.'

'You didn't overlook anything, Jacques,” Gideon assured him. “He wasn't buried there until much later, in the backfill from the trenches. He's only been there three years or so.'

There was a sudden shift in mood around him, nothing so obvious as darting eyes or pregnant glances, but a sort of ripple, a fraction of a second that was out of kilter, as if a movie film had skittered over a torn sprocket hole. The discontinuity wasn't lost on Gideon, but what did it mean? Three years ago—that was when the commotion over the Old Man of Tayac had erupted. Was there a connection there?

Pru cleared her throat. “We had no idea it was so recent.'

'The newspaper implied it'd been there for decades,” Audrey said.

Gideon shook his head. “No, nowhere near that. Right around three years, that's all.” Well, two to five, to be honest, but he'd clearly struck a chord of some kind with three, and if ever there was a time to do what Joly had asked him to, this was it. “You know, I was talking to the inspector this morning, and he wanted me to check something with you. He seems to think he might know who those bones belonged to: a man by the name of Jean Bousquet. I understand he worked here.'

It was Audrey who answered after a barely perceptible general pause. “Bousquet? Yes, he was a temporary laborer, a hard man to get along with. It was a mistake to hire him—I don't think anyone here would argue with that—but temporary help isn't easy to find. It's hard, dirty work; they have to dig on their knees, or even on their bellies, half the time.'

Pru laughed. “What, and we don't?'

'. . . really be Bousquet?” Beaupierre mumbled, coming in from his private wavelength. “But I don't see how, ah, mm . . .” And off he went again.

This time Gideon stayed with him. “You don't see what, Jacques?'

Beaupierre absently ran his fingers over his scalp, assuring himself that the few dozen heavily sprayed strands of hair that he combed over the top were still in place. “Well, only that it would mean that he must have returned from Corsica afterwards, and why would he—'

'From Corsica?” Gideon exclaimed. “He went to Corsica? Do you mean, after he disappeared from here?'

'After he left, yes.'

'But how do you know that?'

'Why, because he telephoned us. It was a few weeks afterward.'

'Maybe even longer than that,” Pru said.

'It was a month, perhaps even more,” said Montfort.

'Are you sure?” Gideon asked.

'Certainly I'm sure,” Montfort told him. “I spoke to him myself. He was after a reference, a character reference.” Montfort was one of those rare individuals who could successfully bring off a “harrumph,” and he did so now, adding: “Which, I need hardly say, he was unsuccessful in procuring.'

'I see,” Gideon said thoughtfully. “Huh.'

'I'm not tracking here, Gideon,” Pru said. “Why is this important?'

'Well, it means he didn't really ‘disappear’ after all; he just took off for Corsica. So there goes our reason for assuming those were his bones in the cave.'

'I see,” Pru said with a shrug. “Yeah, I guess that's so.'

Others nodded noncommittally. That would seem to have been that, and yet something queer was in the air. Something . . .

'The idea,” said Jacques, continuing roughly from where he'd left off, “that that man would have the nerve to