“Yes, a little. The Glasgow Coma Scale-”
“Wait, start at the beginning,” Julie said. “What is a coma? He was already unconscious when they took him away. When does being unconscious turn into a coma, exactly?”
“Well, there is no ‘exactly.’ A coma is just a state of protracted unconsciousness. A boxer who’s knocked out and gets up a few seconds later wasn’t in a coma. If he’s still unconscious at the hospital an hour later, that’s a coma. If he’s still in it a month later, they usually reclassify it to ‘persistent vegetative state.’ If he’s still in it a year later-well, then he’s almost certainly never going to wake up.”
“And this Glasgow scale of five, what does that tell us?” asked Marmolejo.
“Not anything good, I’m afraid, as far as Tony is concerned. It’s based on a bunch of basic tests: you know, can he answer a simple question with a yes or a no? Can he move a limb or nod his head if he’s asked to? Does he react to being stuck with a pin? The scale runs from a three, I think, to a fifteen, with three being the lowest you can get.”
“So a five,” said Marmolejo, “would not be a very good sign.”
“A terrible sign. If I remember correctly, three to five generally means the person has probably suffered a brain injury that’s going to wind up killing him. Never going to regain consciousness.”
“Can he live a long time like that?” Julie asked.
“Not likely, but it happens. Comas aren’t very well understood.”
“So,” said Marmolejo, “wherever we find our answers to our questions, they are not likely to come from Mr. Gallagher himself.”
“I think you can count on that,” Gideon said. “Listen, Javier, I want to ask you something. You said nothing could be done about Blaze’s murder because the statute’s run out.”
“Correct.”
“And if this skull at the museum does turn out to be Manolo’s, the same would apply to him.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Well, doesn’t what happened today change things?”
“I don’t see how. Yes, of course we will look into it, but it’s a completely separate matter.”
“Is it? Here’s this peaceful little village, Teotitlan, that supposedly hadn’t had a homicide in umpteen years- umpteen decades -and now we find out that Blaze Gallagher, or rather, Blaze Gallagher Tendler, was killed ten years ago, only no one knew about it. And today, one day after I identify her body, and only hours before I go to look at a museum specimen that might be her lover’s skull, Tony Gallagher, Blaze’s brother, tries to murder me. And what about that mummified guy I looked at the other day-”
Julie shook her head. “Where does he come into it? I thought he was just a drifter who happened-”
“Who happened to be seen heading up toward the Hacienda Encantada, and who was found dead, murdered, a few months later out in the desert. That adds up to two certain murders-Blaze and the drifter-one possible murder-Manolo-and one attempted murder-me.” He had ticked them off on his fingers and now he held up his hand. “Four. Count ’em. Wouldn’t you say that’s quite a lot for this ‘peaceful’ little village? And wouldn’t you say the Hacienda connection runs rather distinctly through them all?”
“And you think Tony was behind all of them?” Julie asked.
“I’m not ready to go that far. I can sure tell you he was behind one of them.”
Marmolejo had been silent for a few minutes, having gotten up and gone again to the window, where he stood looking out with his hands behind his back. “I take your point, Gideon,” he said without turning around. “I expect that we will indeed be taking another look at Blaze’s murder, but I’m afraid it will be only to see what light it might cast on the attack on you. To her, the statute of limitations must still apply. If we should discover her killer, there will be nothing we can do about it.”
Gideon shrugged. “Good enough. I understand. What about this drifter, though? He was killed only a few months ago.”
“Oh yes, Manuel Garcia; we’re proceeding with that, as we would have in any case. Now, however, I think we will be inquiring more deeply as to what business he had, if any, at the Hacienda. Oh, that reminds me-” He turned from the window. “I received the report of his autopsy from Mexico City this morning. Apparently, it confirms your findings in their entirety.”
“Stabbed to death with a screwdriver?”
He nodded. “The chief examiner telephoned me to express his appreciation to you. Neither the screwdriver impressions in the bone nor the puncture of the chest wall by a rib was anything he had ever encountered or heard of before. He said he learned much, and that it was an honor to have ‘collaborated’ with el famoso Detective de Esqueletos.”
“Well, please let him know that I appreciate that. Did the report turn up anything new?”
“I’ve yet to read it. It’s still on my desk. Would you like to see it?”
“Gee, I wonder what the answer to that’s going to be,” Julie said to the ceiling.
Gideon smiled. “sure, just for a few minutes, anyway.”
Marmolejo went to his desk and got a thick, neatly opened envelope that he brought to Gideon. “I can show Julie around the building in the meantime, if she’d like. There are some interesting old corners that not many people get to see.”
“I’d love it,” said Julie.
They were hardly out of their chairs when Gideon, scanning the first page, asked with a distinct edge of excitement: “Javier, does placas y tornillos de fijacion mean what I think it does?”
“ Placas and tornillos are-”
But Gideon had already flipped to the sheaf of color photographs at the back. They had removed the mummified hide of the head to expose the skull and mandible, and there were photos. “Never mind,” he said, staring hard at the very first photograph. “I’ll be damned. This whole thing gets weirder by the minute.” He looked up at them. “I don’t know what it’s all going to add up to in the end, but there’s one thing I can tell you right now. Julie, you were absolutely right. Whoever that skull at the museum belonged to, I’d be real surprised if it turns out to be Manolo’s.”
“And why?” a frowning Marmolejo asked.
“Because,” said Gideon, slowly tapping the photograph, “that’s who this is.”
TWENTY-ONE
In the space of a few seconds, with very little help needed from Gideon, it became as obvious to them as it was to him. The placas and tornillos -plates and screws-were clearly visible in the photos of the bared mandible: three narrow, inch-long metal bands, each secured with four screws, which had been inserted to hold together the jaw that had been shattered by Carl Tendler almost thirty years ago. The two fractures themselves were long- healed, but the plates and screws remained.
“But wait a minute,” Julie said. “Didn’t you tell Tony this morning that you’d know if the skull in the museum was Manolo’s because they wouldn’t have removed the wiring yet?”
“Right.”
“ ‘ Yet.’ The implication being that, eventually, it’d be removed. Well, he was killed only a few months ago. Why is it still there?”
“Oh, this isn’t the wiring. The wires would have been between his upper and lower jaws to keep them from moving. They were taken out long ago. If not, he’d have been eating his meals through a straw all these years. No, these plates are put in to keep the pieces in place while they heal-like splints or casts, only on the inside. To remove them would take another operation-two operations. So unless there’s a problem-infection, say-they stay in for good.”
“Ah. But how come you didn’t see this when you looked at the body yourself?”
“Because it was covered with skin, which I wasn’t about to try to remove. It took an autopsy to reveal this, and I wasn’t doing an autopsy; I was just looking at the thing, helping Flaviano out.”
“Well yes, this is all very interesting,” Marmolejo said, “but right now I’m anxious to get started on what happened today.” He steepled his fingers at his chin. “I will send a man to the hospital in the event Mr. Gallagher
