Aaron Elkins
Copyright (C) 2000 by Aaron Elkins.
Published by E-Reads. All rights reserved.
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Chapter 1
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Dr. Emile Grize, the long-time holder of the Chair of Paleopathology at the Institut de Prehistoire, scanned the meager assemblage of bones with a sniff of disapproval. “You've brought me very little to work with.'
'It's all that we have,” said Auguste Marielle, prefect of police of the village of Les Eyzies. He said it with a self-deprecating smile, but in truth he didn't care for Grize's attitude at all, for the implication that Marielle himself, or his department, was somehow at fault. What was he supposed to do, bring bones that didn't exist?
'They look like something my dog might bring home,” Grize added, in case Marielle had failed to grasp the point.
'That is the case, in fact,” said Marielle. “Ha, ha, you've hit the nail on the head there, professor.'
The bones, he explained, with his plump shoulders jiggling in a show of good humor, were from an untended patch of weeds and dirt behind the cottage of a stonemason and his wife, where they had been buried by the family dog, which had been returning with them from its solitary outings for several days. The mason, a reclusive malcontent well-known in the village, had belatedly notified the police at the urging of his uneasy wife, and the bones had been dug out of the Peyrauds’ backyard by Marielle's people only an hour or two earlier. The dog had watched the unearthing of his treasures with indignation and amazement and Peyraud himself, beginning to regret that he had done his duty in contacting the police, had threatened legal action unless he was compensated for the ruin of his “vegetable garden,” whereupon Marielle had told him in no uncertain terms—
'Yes, very interesting,” said Grize. “Now this may take some time. You can wait here if you wish, or I can have you notified.'
Marielle chose to wait, drinking wretched coffee from a plastic cup and twiddling his thumbs while Grize fingered the materials, leaning over them like a monkey lost in the mysteries of a length of knotted string or a pair of spectacles. And at last, at long last, he straightened up and delivered his pronouncement.
'Yes, they're human, there's no question about that. Right ulna, right femur, right fibula . . .” He arranged each as he named it, so they lay in a perfect row. “. . . right first and third metacarpals, rib, rib, partial navicular . . .'
Marielle put down his watery coffee while Grize rambled on.
'Except for these tiny ones, of course,” the paleopathologist concluded, “which I believe to be
'Apo . . . Apo. . . ?'
'Mouse bones. You see, here is a tibia, here a little scapula, here a—'
'But these others are human—you're positive?'
Grize's chin came up. “If you're not satisfied, you can always get another opinion.'
'No, no, sir, I assure you, I'm satisfied, extremely satisfied.'
'Dr. Beaupierre, perhaps, or Dr. Montfort might be—'
'No, professor, believe me, if you say these bones are human, that's certainly good enough for me, oh, more than good enough.'
'Umf,” said Dr. Grize.
That's the way it was with Grize, Marielle thought, you were always walking on eggshells with him; he had dealt with him before and he'd known what to expect. He was a little man, that was his problem. Like Napoleon, it made him quarrelsome. And since he was unmarried, he wasn't used to losing arguments every day, which didn't