Old Bones

'Plenty. Lox and cream cheese too.'

He had arrived at a little before ten the night before. Julie had met him at Sea-Tac and for most of the long drive to Port Angeles—a slow, stately ferry across Puget Sound and then seventy miles of blackly forested highway on the Olympic Peninsula—he had told her how things had worked out at Rochebonne. When they'd reached home they'd opened a bottle of cognac he'd brought from France and their talk and attention had turned to more intimate and enjoyable things. It had been three in the morning before they'd finally drifted off to sleep, and they hadn't awakened until nine-thirty.

'Did you hear any creepy noises last night?” he called.

'I did hear some pretty strange ones now that you mention it, yes.'

He laughed. “I mean after we fell asleep.'

She came in with a tray. “No, not after,” she said, smiling, and then made a face. “Gideon, you're not really going to be wearing those things, are you?'

He looked down and wiggled his toes. “You don't like my shoes? Wait till you see my new sweatshirt.'

'Oh, it's not that I don't like them. I think chartreuse canvas is extremely handsome, and that casual baggy look is very attractive, very with-it. I just like some of your others better.'

'Well, I can't find my gray running shoes. Do you know if I took them?'

Laughing, she sat down beside him and poured coffee for them. “Do you know you never take a trip without leaving something behind? Someday you're going to come home without me, and then wander around the house muttering to yourself and wondering what it is that seems to be missing.'

'When one has a perplexing case to think about,” he said magisterially, “one cannot be bothered with the immediate trivialities of the moment. How about passing me a bagel?'

She did and absentmindedly nibbled on one herself. “I still think my cyanide theory was a good one.'

'About it being a symbolic revenge weapon? It was a good one. It just didn't turn out to be true, that's all; a minor problem. It happens all the time to the finest theories, take it from me.'

'I suppose so...'

Gideon looked up from lathering cream cheese on half a bagel. “Something bothering you?'

'Kind of. Look, you said that Jules didn't buy the poison in Brittany, right? He brought it with him from Germany.'

'True.'

'Well, why? If he didn't decide to kill Claude until after the skeleton turned up, why would he buy it ahead of time and bring it with him?'

'Ah, good question. John and I had that figured wrong.” He returned to the bagel, putting a couple of thin, moist layers of smoked salmon on the cheese and topping it with the other half. “He brought the cyanide with him to kill Alain.'

She shook her head. “Huh?'

'He was going to poison Alain, but when the chance came up to do him in a lot more subtly by way of the tide schedule, he jumped at it. That left him with some perfectly good cyanide to put to use when poor Claude blustered into his way.'

'Charming. A wonderful family, all in all. Do you want to eat in peace, or can I ask some more questions?'

'Ask,” he said, chewing.

'Was Mathilde having an affair with Alain during those years he was pretending to be Guillaume? Were they still in love?'

'I don't think so. I know she wasn't any closer to him than the rest of them for the last twenty years or so, anyway.'

'But what about Jules? You think they might have had a single fling for old times’ sake, and he was the result?'

'Could be. That'd be enough to make them knock it off right there.'

She laughed. “One more question, and that's all. What made Alain suddenly want to confess after forty-five years of pretending to be Guillaume?'

'Nobody knows for sure, but Mathilde said he'd been getting more depressed for years about living someone else's life, that he'd grumbled to her once about being buried with someone else's gravestone over him.'

'I can understand that,” she said with a little shudder. “So when he found he only had a year to live, that decided him?'

'Looks like it.'

She sipped her coffee quietly, watching through the window as the big ferry tooted and backed slowly into its berth. “It's hard to imagine Ray Schaefer planning to get married.'

'I know, but Claire was practically made for him. Vice-versa too, I think. They're planning on coming up this way in the summer. You'll like her.'

'I'm sure I will.” She had tipped her head to rest it against Gideon's shoulder, but now sat up suddenly. “The inheritance—Who's going to get it?'

'Well, Joly says he thinks it'll work like this: The will Guillaume made in 1941 is the last one anybody can find, so it's the one that counts. At that time he left everything to his closest relative; his father's sister. She died in 1942, a little before Guillaume, which means it should have gone to Claude, her son.'