probably appreciate it. He gets grumpy when he’s around anyone smarter than he is."
FLEURY was right. Four and a half days of relentlessly abstruse scientific lectures had made Monsieur Giscard— that is, Inspector Lucien Anatole Joly—somewhat irascible. And the fact that most of the undeniably brilliant presenters were a decade or two younger than he was had not helped matters. True, there had been some high points: Gideon Oliver in particular was a lucid and engaging lecturer with, thank God, a sense of humor—an attribute not seemingly in great supply among scientists.
Still, what practical value was there in what he had to tell them? In over twenty years of police work Joly had called for the assistance of a forensic anthropologist three times, and not once could he say that it had made the difference between resolving a case and not resolving it. No, when it came down to it everything turned on the application of the well-established methodology of criminal investigation, diligently pursued. Without that, there was nothing, no matter how many forensic scientists you had on your side, gabbling about sternocleidomastoidal insertions, or sarcosaprophagous insects, or carboxyhemoglobin levels.
By the fifth afternoon, he was restless and bored, and he had begun to think up excuses for calling his office. When the message came for him to do just that, he responded with a sigh of relief and left the lecture hall with such alacrity that he stumbled over the legs of the Hawaiian FBI man dozing so comfortably in the aisle seat.
"Pardon, monsieur," Joly said.
"No problem," said the FBI man amiably without opening his eyes.
WHEN he had hung up after talking to Denis, Joly called the public prosecutor, Monsieur Picard, to inform him of the case, as was his duty. This he did, as usual with some resentment. Pleasant and harmless he might be, but Monsieur Picard was not a policeman and didn’t think like one, and to be subordinate to him was a raw, never-ending frustration. That was the one thing Joly admired about the American justice system with its impossible decentralization of police powers into thousands of squabbling jurisdictions. At least they were not under the thumb of the damned judiciary.
Picard, never content simply to let the professionals do their work, would figure out some way of interfering, even in a case like this.
As indeed he did. "Listen, Joly," he said after he had heard the details, "isn’t that American skeleton expert at your conference?"
Joly was hardly concerned that the gritting of his teeth might be heard at the other end of the line. "Yes, sir," he said, as near as it can be done without opening the mouth.
"Well, I have a wonderful idea. Why don’t you talk with him and see if…"
GIDEON remained at the lectern for a few minutes after his third presentation of the week, answering the questions of a few people who had clustered around him. This was over swiftly, however; the attendees were anxious to take full advantage of the coffee break to fortify themselves for the upcoming session on "Recent Advances in Ionization Analysis by Means of the Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer."
When they left, he began crating the two skulls and assorted bones the University of Rennes had lent him. (He had wanted to use his own demonstration materials from the anthropology lab in Port Angeles, but the postal authorities there had made uneasy noises about shipping dismembered human remains across international borders, and in the end it had seemed simpler to borrow them in France.) He was feeling cheerful as he packed the bones in polystyrene chips. For one thing the lectures were going well; for another it was very pleasant to be at a conference strictly as a presenter and not an attendee. It meant he could skip sessions when he felt like it. (He always could, of course, but this way he didn’t feel guilty.) And inasmuch as ionization analysis exerted less
FLEURY was right. Four and a half days of relentlessly abstruse scientific lectures had made Monsieur Giscard— that is, Inspector Lucien Anatole Joly—somewhat irascible. And the fact that most of the undeniably brilliant presenters were a decade or two younger than he was had not helped matters. True, there had been some high points: Gideon Oliver in particular was a lucid and engaging lecturer with, thank God, a sense of humor—an attribute not seemingly in great supply among scientists.
Still, what practical value was there in what he had to tell them? In over twenty years of police work Joly had called for the assistance of a forensic anthropologist three times, and not once could he say that it had made the difference between resolving a case and not resolving it. No, when it came down to it everything turned on the application of the well-established methodology of criminal investigation, diligently pursued. Without that, there was nothing, no matter how many forensic scientists you had on your side, gabbling about sternocleidomastoidal insertions, or sarcosaprophagous insects, or carboxyhemoglobin levels.
By the fifth afternoon, he was restless and bored, and he had begun to think up excuses for calling his office. When the message came for him to do just that, he responded with a sigh of relief and left the lecture hall with such alacrity that he stumbled over the legs of the Hawaiian FBI man dozing so comfortably in the aisle seat.
"Pardon, monsieur," Joly said.
"No problem," said the FBI man amiably without opening his eyes.
WHEN he had hung up after talking to Denis, Joly called the public prosecutor, Monsieur Picard, to inform him of the case, as was his duty. This he did, as usual with some resentment. Pleasant and harmless he might be, but Monsieur Picard was not a policeman and didn’t think like one, and to be subordinate to him was a raw, never-ending frustration. That was the one thing Joly admired about the American justice system with its impossible decentralization of police powers into thousands of squabbling jurisdictions. At least they were not under the thumb of the damned judiciary.
Picard, never content simply to let the professionals do their work, would figure out some way of interfering, even in a case like this.
As indeed he did. "Listen, Joly," he said after he had heard the details, "isn’t that American skeleton expert at your conference?"
Joly was hardly concerned that the gritting of his teeth might be heard at the other end of the line. "Yes, sir," he said, as near as it can be done without opening the mouth.
"Well, I have a wonderful idea. Why don’t you talk with him and see if…"
GIDEON remained at the lectern for a few minutes after his third presentation of the week, answering the questions of a few people who had clustered around him. This was over swiftly, however; the attendees were anxious to take full advantage of the coffee break to fortify themselves for the upcoming session on "Recent Advances in Ionization Analysis by Means of the Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer."
When they left, he began crating the two skulls and assorted bones the University of Rennes had lent him. (He had wanted to use his own demonstration materials from the anthropology lab in Port Angeles, but the postal authorities there had made uneasy noises about shipping dismembered human remains across international borders, and in the end it had seemed simpler to borrow them in France.) He was feeling cheerful as he packed the bones in polystyrene chips. For one thing the lectures were going well; for another it was very pleasant to be at a conference strictly as a presenter and not an attendee. It meant he could skip sessions when he felt like it. (He always could, of course, but this way he didn’t feel guilty.) And inasmuch as ionization analysis exerted less
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