tubercle of the scaphoid, the tendon of the
“I would like to ask the colonel when it will be possible to have the body of my brother returned to us,” Cosimo said. “I think he has suffered enough indignities. I would like to see him at rest with his family, here in the de Grazia vault.”
“I understand completely, signore, but Professor Oliver has yet to make a full examination. I’m sure you can see the necessity.”
“I’ll be starting in the morning,” Gideon said, his first contribution of the afternoon. “It shouldn’t take—”
“I fail to see the point of further examination,” Francesca said with considerable heat. “What more is there to be learned? I must agree with my uncle. My father was a de Grazia, a count of the House of Savoy. He should be treated with respect. It is an affront to his memory to have his bones pawed over by strangers only to satisfy some morbid—”
“It’s the law, signora,” Caravale told her. “In a case like this, there has to be an autopsy.”
“An autopsy of bones?” A harsh laugh. “How does one perform an autopsy of bones?”
Caravale, happy to get off center stage, gestured to Gideon.“Professor?”
Gideon took advantage of the opportunity to get out of the torture device he was sitting in and stood up, a position from which he was also most comfortable lecturing, if lecturing was going to be called for.
“Permit me to assure you, Signora de Grazia,” he said in language every bit as flowery as Cosimo’s, “that your father’s remains are being treated with the utmost respect and esteem. At this moment they are being most carefully cleaned”—with his old Oral-B toothbrush, he chose not to point out—“and tomorrow morning I will begin the examination.”
With Phil and Caravale to help him over the words he couldn’t handle in Italian, he explained what he would be looking for and, in simple terms, how he would go about the job. Ordinarily, the primary purpose of a forensic anthropological examination was to assist in the identification of skeletal remains by determining race and sex, estimating age and stature, and distinguishing “nonmetric factors of individualization,” as the anthropologists called them: signs of past or existing trauma, pathologies, and stress-related changes in the bones that might reveal the occupations or habits of a lifetime.
Gideon would indeed be doing these things, but inasmuch as Domenico had already been identified from his dentition, his analysis would merely provide confirmation that would go into the record—an important precaution if and when there was a courtroom proceeding. His most important task, however, would be to search for anything on the skeleton that might reveal the cause of death.
The dusty, scientific talk of bones and measurements seemed to take the wind out of them. There were no questions while he spoke, and for a minute after he sat down, no one had anything to say.
“And how long will all this take?” Vincenzo asked wearily.
“It shouldn’t be long. Usually, not more than a day or so,” said Gideon.
“And then we may have my father’s remains back?”
Caravale answered him. “That depends. If Professor Oliver does find evidence of the cause of death or other important information, we would probably have to hold them as evidence. We’ll have to see. But in the end they’ll be returned to you.”
“I understand,” Vincenzo said. “Gentlemen, thank you both for coming.” He glanced around the room. “Is there anything more?”
“Only to thank God that Achille has been returned unharmed,” Cosimo whispered.
“If it’s God we’ve been relying on in that matter,” Dante Galasso said with a crooked smirk, “I can only say —”
“Nobody here cares what you can only say,” Bella Barbero said sharply, “so why don’t you just keep it to yourself, for once in your life?”
“Now you just wait one minute,” Francesca said, leveling a crimson-nailed finger at her. Criticizing her husband herself was one thing; listening to her non–de Grazia stepsister do it was entirely different. “Dante is entitled to say whatever he feels like here, and if anybody in this room is not in a position—”
“Well, well, well,” chirped Basilio Barbero, jumping up and rubbing his hands together, “will you look at the time? Clemente will have finished setting out the aperitifs in the library by now, and I, for one, am certainly ready for mine. There’s nothing like a Cynar before dinner to get the gastric juices flowing. It’s not only pleasant, it’s amazingly helpful to the digestion, something that many people fail...”
***
WHILE Caravale and Phil had a few final words with Vincenzo, Gideon waited outside, near the head of the stone steps that led down to the dock, looking south along the western shore of the lake toward Stresa, visible only as a clump of shimmering yellows between the blue of the lake and the green of the mountains. After a few minutes, however, feeling the stony, mirrored gaze of the guard, Cesare, on the back of his neck, he went around the side of the house to the breakfast garden, where he sat at the table he’d shared with Julie a few days before. No marmoset this time, but either the same white male peacock or its twin brother was once again in full display, strutting and quivering at the far edge of the clearing with his tail feathers spread, quills audibly rattling. A few yards away the object of his affection, a dull, green peahen who couldn’t have been less interested, wandered aimlessly about, pecking mechanically at the ground or staring in jerky, birdlike fashion in every direction but at her suitor, who kept after her with a dogged, expectant, never-say-die determination. Tough life, Gideon thought. Of course, if you had a pea brain, it probably didn’t seem so bad.
“There you are!” Phil called, coming around from the front of the building. “We need to stick around awhile. Caravale wants to talk to Achille again.”
Beside him was the woman who’d sat next to him inside. As far as Gideon could remember, she’d said nothing during the
“Lea,” Phil said in English as Gideon got out of his chair, “I’d like you to meet my very good friend Gideon Oliver. Gideon, this is my cousin Lea Pescallo.”
