Free Make No Bones by Aaron Elkins Page B

area.
    John Lau had slept late, as he’d said he would, barely getting in on the dregs of the buffet. Then, seeing the crowd, he’d wandered over just as things had gotten started, looking mopey and preoccupied.
    “That Leland’s like a shark,” he grumbled at Gideon. Gideon laughed. “How much did you wind up losing?” “Eighteen bucks.” He shook his head. “I still don’t think he had that flush. I should have stayed in.”
    “Cheer up, John. Look at that sun. It’s supposed to be ninety today. Enjoy yourself.”
    “How can I enjoy myself when I’ve got that session tomorrow?” He sighed. “I wish it was today, so I could get it over with.”
    Sleepily, he looked around at the activity. “What’s this, a practice dig?” Then he saw the police uniforms and the POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape and his eyes opened all the way. “Hey, what’s going on, Doc?”
    “It’s a burial. At least I think it is.” He’d begun to feel less sure of himself. The police activity, the excitement, had made him edgy. If there wasn’t a body there after all this fuss, he was going to look awfully silly. Leland was probably preparing one of his juicier little epigrams right now, just in case it was needed.
    “How do they know?” John asked.
    “Well, it just looked to me like a classic—”
    John tilted his head toward him. “You’re the one who found it?”
    “Yes, why?”
    “No reason,” John said. “Just asking.”
    “Look, John,” Gideon said a little tartly. “I didn’t go looking for the damn thing. I practically fell into it, over there—”
    “While minding your own business…”
    “Well…yes, damn it—” He laughed. “Sorry, I guess I’m starting to get nervous. Maybe I was wrong about it.” “We’ll find out pretty soon,” John said sagely.
    A few minutes later Nellie took a break and walked over to chat. “How are we doing here, John?”
    “You’re doing great,” John said. “I don’t know why you guys want a lecture from me.”
    Nellie beamed. “Well, it always has more weight coming from someone outside the fold. Besides, you should have seen us an hour ago.”
    “Nellie,” Gideon said, “does it still look to you like there’s a body in there?”
    “Oh, sure, no doubt about it, none at all.”
    Gideon was reassured.
    At a little after ten o’clock Julie returned from her ride. “What in the world is this all about?” she asked. She looked wonderful, tousled and healthy, and she smelled of horses.
    Briefly, Gideon explained.
    “How did anybody even think to look for a burial here?” she wanted to know. “Who found it in the first place?” “Guess,” John said.
    Julie laughed. “That’s what I thought. Well, I better go get cleaned up.”
    But she stayed where she was, engrossed by the scene. “Uh, if they do find a body, it’ll just be dry bones, won’t it? Not some kind of awful, messy…you know.”
    “Let us fervently hope so,” Gideon said sincerely. “It’s been there a while, so I think decomposition is long past. If not, you’ll smell it before you see it.”
    But the only smells were clean ones: pine needles and pine bark, sweet and spicy, and the coarse, dry soil. It hadn’t rained for weeks, so with each scoop of the trowel a puff of red-brown dust rose and floated off. Gideon could feel it in his nostrils and at the back of his throat. Above, through the branches, the sky was enormous and beautiful, a clean, washed-out blue, marred only by the occasional silent, bright speck of a jet plane floating by. As predicted, the temperature had risen rapidly, and the humidity with it, but they were still in dappled shade. Even the diggers had hardly worked up a sweat. It was all very pleasant and unhurried, more like an archaeological dig than a forensic exhumation.
    And Gideon had stopped worrying about whether they’d find anything. What if they didn’t? He’d been wrong before, and he’d be wrong again. So had all of them, and everyone was