Skull Duggery (20 page)

A thoughtful look had settled over Jamie’s face while this was going on. Gideon could see that his tongue was poking at his teeth.

“What about you, Jamie? Are you missing any?”

“Well yes, it’s odd that you should ask. Four of my teeth never did come in. I forget which ones. Not the important ones; the second somethings.”

“Premolars,” Gideon said. “Bicuspids.”

“That’s it, bicuspids. But what in the world-”

“I don’t have all mine either,” Annie said, having arrived with a plate bearing a few more turrones. “Mine never came in either. It runs in the family. Doesn’t really cause any problems, though. Who needs bicuspids? Why are we talking about teeth, anyway?”

Gideon sighed. “I have some news for you, folks.” Boy, did he have some news. He looked up at Annie. “Annie,” he said gently, “maybe you’d better sit down.”

He couldn’t blame them for refusing to accept it at first. He was having a hard time accepting it himself, and he was new to the story of Blaze’s abandoning her child and running off with Manolo to Juarez, or whatever it was. He’d never heard of either of them before last Sunday, three days ago. But these others-Jamie, Tony, Annie-they had lived with the tale for almost twenty years; it was established family history by now, validated by time and by retelling. Besides that, they all remembered the policia ministerial ’s onerous investigation, only a year earlier, of the “little girl’s” skeleton that had been discovered in the mine.

And now, just because Gideon Oliver, after a few hours’ perfunctory work, without instruments or laboratory facilities of any kind, concludes that the police pathology experts from Mexico City were dead wrong, that the “little girl” was actually a big girl, they were supposed to accept it as proven fact? And even more unimaginable, that out of all the unidentified skeletons in Mexico it could possibly be, it was that of their own Blaze? They were supposed to swallow that as well?

With all due respect, other than Julie they did not; not at first. But slowly he explained, and slowly they came around; first Tony, then Jamie, and finally, most reluctantly, Annie. The probability of a nineteen- or twenty-year-old woman, who happened to be a ballet dancer and who shared a rare genetic condition of missing teeth with Annie and Jamie and who had been found in this remote, barely populated region only a few miles from the Hacienda Encantada and for whom no identification had ever been made and who had been killed at about the right time-the probability of such a person’s being anybody but Blaze Gallagher Tendler was simply too implausible for them to hold on to in the face of Gideon’s coherent exposition.

The fresh turrones lay untouched and cooling on the table throughout. Once it had all sunk in, Tony was the first to speak. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying she never ran away with that guy? You’re saying she was murdered? There’s no doubt about that?”

“None. Her face-” He had almost forgotten for a moment that he was talking to Blaze’s two brothers and-especially-to her daughter. “None,” he said.

“How was she killed?” Annie asked dully.

“Blunt-force trauma.” Gideon hoped she’d let it go at that and was relieved when she merely nodded and looked down at her hands. He wouldn’t have looked forward to telling her that her young mother’s beautiful face had been pulped with something along the lines of a baseball bat.

“So he actually killed her,” an incredulous Jamie said. “Manolo?”

“Who the hell else?” Tony said bitterly. “The sonofabitch. Robbing the frigging payroll and taking her away from Carl wasn’t enough payback for him.” He shook his head slowly back and forth. “And all this time we thought…”

“No,” Annie said dully, “Manolo wouldn’t have killed her. Why would Manolo have killed her?”

“Hey, honey,” Tony said kindly, “maybe this is something it’s not so good for you to be talking about right now. This is kind of a shock to everybody, you most of all. You sure you don’t want to go unpack or something, get your head clear? We can talk about it later.”

“Forget it,” she said stonily. “I’m staying. So why would Manolo have wanted to kill my mother?”

Jamie answered diffidently. “Well, so he could have that sixteen thousand dollars all to himself; he could have lived on that for five years. Or maybe it was just to get back at your father, I don’t know. But my point is, once he had the money, why would he want to take her with him? You can’t seriously think he was in love with her?”

Julie shook her head. “But even so, as Annie said, why would he want to kill her? He could just as easily have taken off with the money without murdering anyone.”

“Could be he just didn’t want to leave any loose ends behind,” Tony suggested. “She must have known about his plans, about where he was going. She could have put the police on his tail.”

“So he could have changed his plans and gone someplace else, anywhere he wanted,” Julie persisted. “Sixteen thousand dollars-he must have felt like a rich man. So why go out of his way to kill her? Why would he risk a murder charge hanging over his head, instead of a simple robbery? Besides, if he was worried about the police hunting him down, he’d have killed you too, Jamie. Right then and there, on the road, it would have been the easiest thing in the world. You were the only eyewitness, the only one who could identify him for sure as the person who robbed you.”

Jamie’s eyes widened slightly and his Adam’s apple jigged up and down. “Yes, you’re right,” he said in a hushed voice. “That’s certainly true.”

“What do you think, Gid?” Tony asked. “You know more about this kind of stuff than any of the rest of us. You got an opinion?”

“I don’t see that knowing something about bones gives my opinion any more weight than anyone else’s, but on the face of it, Manolo would probably be at the top of my list.”

“What about you, Tony?” Jamie asked. “What’s your theory?”

“I don’t have a theory. How could I? I wasn’t around until a couple of days later and I hardly know anything about Blaze other than what I’ve heard here. The last time I saw her she was, like, fourteen. But don’t worry, the police will come up with plenty of theories.”

“The police,” Jamie groaned, rolling his eyes. “God help us, do you mean to tell me the police have to be involved in this? After all these years?”

“I don’t see any choice,” Gideon said. “I have to tell Colonel Marmolejo about it, and he’ll certainly put somebody on it. I’m seeing him later today, so it won’t be long.”

Jamie frowned. “Damn. That’s terrible.”

Annie flared angrily up. “Terrible? What the hell is the matter with you, Jamie? Don’t you want to see whoever did it caught? Don’t you want to see him punished?”

Jamie was shocked. “Well yes, of course I do, Annie, how can you even ask that? I just hate to see this terrible old business dragged out in public again after all this time. Besides, I’m afraid… you know.”

“No, I don’t know. Tell me. Afraid of what?”

“Well…” he fidgeted in his chair. “The police are going to ask a whole lot of questions, and the first one is going to be: who had any reason to want her dead? Am I right, Gideon?”

“Maybe not the first, but it won’t be very far down the line.”

“All right, then,” Jamie said, addressing all of them, “and who is the person that had the most reason to hate Blaze, to be out-of-his mind enraged at her?”

Brows were knit in thought for a fraction of a second, and then Tony abruptly exploded. “For Christ’s sake, are you honestly suggesting that Carl… that Carl murdered his own wife? I don’t believe this!” He was halfway out of his chair. His blotchy red face, thrust out at his brother, had blotched and purpled even more; his nose was flaming.

Predictably, Jamie quailed. His hands came up as if to ward off the assault. “No, Tony, come on, give me a break, I’m not accusing Carl of anything. Of course not! Why is everyone picking on me? I’m just saying what the police are bound to think. I’m just saying we have to be very careful what we say to them, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Tony sat back down. His color subsided. “Sorry, Jaime, I didn’t mean to fly off the handle. You’re right, we better give this some thought.”

“Look, folks,” Gideon said, “this is your affair and I don’t want to interfere, but I’ve been involved with a lot of police investigations, and my advice is not to try to protect Carl or anyone else; in fact, not to ‘try’ to do anything. Just answer their questions as truthfully as you can. Otherwise, you’ll wind up making trouble for yourselves and for Carl.”

“Yeah, but you’re talking about American police,” said Tony. “Down here it doesn’t work the same, trust me.”

“Well, I know you know more about that than I do-”

“Do I ever,” Tony said with a harsh laugh.

“-but if Colonel Marmolejo is involved in it, I think you can count on decent treatment. And don’t try conning the guy-trust me on that.”

Tony smiled, keeping his thoughts to himself.

“Speaking of Carl…” Julie said, gesturing with her chin toward the corral gate, through which Carl was leading the straggling line of ladies back from their short ride.

“Whew,” Jamie said. “Who’s going to tell him about this?”

“I’ll do it,” Tony said, grim-faced, beginning to push himself up.

“Uh-uh,” Annie said, putting a hand on his arm to keep him in his chair. “I will.”

They watched her go down the stone steps to the corral, watched her go up to Carl as he dismounted, and saw Carl’s tanned, lined face go through a parade of expressions that would have been comic under other circumstances: pleasure at seeing his daughter-she’d been away three days-followed by frowning concentration, then disbelief, then denial, then anger, and then something like despair, all in the space of ten seconds, all without having let go of the reins. Then he closed his eyes and turned away from his daughter, leaning his face against his horse’s neck. Annie, looking stricken, began to stretch a hand toward him, but pulled it back.

“I think I better go down there too,” Tony said.

Jamie grabbed his cane and got up with him. “Me too. The poor guy, can you imagine?”

When they’d gone, Julie said with just a trace of irony: “No one’s ever going to be able to say that you don’t know how to stir things up, Dr. Oliver.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do, not say anything? Just let them keep thinking she ran off with the guy and never bothered to come back?”

“Of course not. Why are you angry?”

He blinked. “Am I angry?”

“Yes. Well, a little.”

He shrugged. “I guess I am, a little. I think maybe it’s more guilt than anger. I know you’re going to tell me I’m being silly, but I feel bad about digging up something like that when nobody asked me to, and especially about dumping it in their laps that way- plop. I should have been a little more sensitive about the way I broke the news.”

“You’re right, I’m going to tell you you’re being silly. You did fine,” Julie said staunchly. “You were as surprised as they were, so it just popped out. You know, when they think about it a little more, they may come to see it as good news.”

He gave a short laugh. “I don’t see how.”

“Maybe good isn’t the right word, but what I mean is, now Annie isn’t left believing that her mother totally abandoned her, never bothering to get in touch again or find out anything about her in almost twenty years.”

“That’s a point.”

“And Carl… now he knows that Blaze never did run off from him.”

“He knows she intended to.”

“Does he? Now I’m starting to wonder about that too. Did she tell him she was leaving him? Did she leave a note? As far as I know, she didn’t do either. So how do we know for sure that the story about her running away with Manolo has anything to it? How do we know that she had anything to do with the robbery at all?”

“I don’t know,” Gideon said, getting interested. “How do we know?”

“That’s the question. Did it just get pieced together after the fact-everybody saying, ‘Well, she’s gone, and he’s gone, and the payroll’s gone, and we know they had a thing going, so they must have been in on it together.’ Well, maybe yes, maybe no. There’s a lot we need to find out, Gideon.”

“No, there’s a lot Marmolejo or whoever he puts on the case needs to find out,” Gideon corrected. “Let’s not stir the pot any more than I already have.”

“And another thing,” Julie continued placidly on, “what makes us so sure Manolo really left? What makes us think he wasn’t killed too?”

“Why would we think he was?”

“For the same reason Blaze was-the money. Maybe somebody killed them both for the money.”

He shook his head. “Well sure, maybe, but that’s about as hypothetical-as speculative-as you can get. There’s nothing at all that points to it that I can think of.”

“Okay, I grant you there isn’t. But half an hour ago you could have made the same point about Blaze: there wasn’t a shred of evidence to suggest she hadn’t taken off with Manolo.”

“Except for that little matter of her skeleton.”

“But until Mr. skeleton Detective came along and stuck his nose in, everybody assumed it was some little girl, which made it impossible for it to be Blaze. How do we know there might not be some other unidentified skeleton out there that will turn out to be Manolo’s?”

“Because there isn’t. These were the only unidentified skeletal remains Marmolejo’s office had. Nobody’s found any others.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there. The fact that something hasn’t been found hardly proves its nonexistence, does it? What evidence is there that he hasn’t been killed?”

“That he hasn’t been killed? Other than having him walk in the door, how can there be evidence-whoa, this is getting pretty deep. Are we getting into epistemology here?”

“Look, nobody found what’s turned out to be Blaze’s skeleton either, until just last year, and Blaze has been dead almost thirty years. How can we be sure someone isn’t going to find another skeleton out there in the desert a month from now, or a year? Or tomorrow?”