Lounge from 5:00 to 6:00 P.M. each day with only two small groups staying at the hotel. Servicing a bar for a total of twenty hotel guests, Mr. Granle thought, was likely to be a losing proposition. As it turned out, he was wrong. The members of M. Audley Tremaine's group were on all-inclusive expense accounts and drank accordingly. The Park Service people were not on all-inclusive expense accounts, but they drank like it anyway. For the second evening in a row, there wasn't an empty table, and most people were on their second rounds, a few on their third.
M. Audley Tremaine himself was holding court at the bar, oozing urbane charm. In attendance were a tipsy, wisecracking Shirley Yount, who had obviously started her cocktail hour in her room, and half-a-dozen star-struck park rangers in jeans and sweaters. Anna Henckel, Walter Judd, and Gerald Pratt made an unlikely trio at a table by the big window looking west over the cove. Anna, reading from a sheet of paper, was grimly and methodically ticking off points. Judd, not overly responsive, chuckled and joshed. Pratt, between them, was leaning back out of the way in his chair, Seven and Seven in one hand, pipe in the other, equably gazing over their heads at the clouds obscuring the Fairweathers, and himself off somewhere in clouds of his own making. Elliott Fisk was nowhere to be seen.
Most of the other tables were taken up by park rangers in groups of two or three, and Julie and Gideon had been lucky to find a table of their own near the stone fireplace.
"You want my honest opinion?” Julie was saying.
"Of course I want your honest opinion."
"I think you're...well..."
"Inventing things?"
"No, not inventing. Reaching...exaggerating. It's natural. You're at loose ends, and you're bored, and I just wonder if your imagination isn't getting the better of you."
Gideon leaned back in the comfortable captain's chair, stretched out his legs, and crossed them at the ankles. He'd been wondering the same thing himself. “Maybe so, but I'm not exaggerating that break in the mandible."
"I don't mean that you're exaggerating the physical facts, I mean that you're exaggerating—inventing—well, the—"
"The cause of them?"
"No, not the cause. The—"
"Antecedents. Determinants."
She sighed and picked up her white wine. “How am I supposed to argue with you if you keep telling me what I mean?"
He smiled at her. “Are we arguing?"
"No, we're just—I guess we're just—"
"Speculating. Deliberating. Conferring."
Julie raised her eyes to the rough-beamed ceiling. “I'm going to kill him. All right, tell me what you found."
"I already told you. I spent fifteen minutes telling you."
"I was in the shower washing my hair. And you were yelling from the other room. I missed a word here and there. Tell me again."
"All right, I found—"
"It might help if you kept it to words that a simple, unsophisticated park ranger is capable of understanding this time."
"Such as yourself?"
"Such as myself."
"A park ranger who minored in anthropology."
"Nevertheless."
"Uh-huh.” Gideon took a few kernels of popcorn from the bowl on the table. “All right, I found that the mandible was broken off on the right side, a sharp, vertical break, and the broken margin was beveled, not jagged. And the fracture lines were what we call ‘stepped.’ That means, well...stepped. Like stairs. Okay?"
"Okay."
"I also found that the left M3 mesiolingual cusp had a menisciform fracture."
She eyed him over the rim of her wineglass.
"The left third molar had a sort of crescent-shaped crack,” he explained.
"That I can handle."
"And, finally, there were signs of pressure damage on the posterior surface of the left mandibular condyle, which is—"
"The little round thingy on the hack of the jawbone, that fits in that socket on the skull. Right?"
He sipped his Scotch and soda. “Not bad for a simple park ranger."
"Watch it, don't press your luck. And in your mind all this adds up to what? In a
M. Audley Tremaine himself was holding court at the bar, oozing urbane charm. In attendance were a tipsy, wisecracking Shirley Yount, who had obviously started her cocktail hour in her room, and half-a-dozen star-struck park rangers in jeans and sweaters. Anna Henckel, Walter Judd, and Gerald Pratt made an unlikely trio at a table by the big window looking west over the cove. Anna, reading from a sheet of paper, was grimly and methodically ticking off points. Judd, not overly responsive, chuckled and joshed. Pratt, between them, was leaning back out of the way in his chair, Seven and Seven in one hand, pipe in the other, equably gazing over their heads at the clouds obscuring the Fairweathers, and himself off somewhere in clouds of his own making. Elliott Fisk was nowhere to be seen.
Most of the other tables were taken up by park rangers in groups of two or three, and Julie and Gideon had been lucky to find a table of their own near the stone fireplace.
"You want my honest opinion?” Julie was saying.
"Of course I want your honest opinion."
"I think you're...well..."
"Inventing things?"
"No, not inventing. Reaching...exaggerating. It's natural. You're at loose ends, and you're bored, and I just wonder if your imagination isn't getting the better of you."
Gideon leaned back in the comfortable captain's chair, stretched out his legs, and crossed them at the ankles. He'd been wondering the same thing himself. “Maybe so, but I'm not exaggerating that break in the mandible."
"I don't mean that you're exaggerating the physical facts, I mean that you're exaggerating—inventing—well, the—"
"The cause of them?"
"No, not the cause. The—"
"Antecedents. Determinants."
She sighed and picked up her white wine. “How am I supposed to argue with you if you keep telling me what I mean?"
He smiled at her. “Are we arguing?"
"No, we're just—I guess we're just—"
"Speculating. Deliberating. Conferring."
Julie raised her eyes to the rough-beamed ceiling. “I'm going to kill him. All right, tell me what you found."
"I already told you. I spent fifteen minutes telling you."
"I was in the shower washing my hair. And you were yelling from the other room. I missed a word here and there. Tell me again."
"All right, I found—"
"It might help if you kept it to words that a simple, unsophisticated park ranger is capable of understanding this time."
"Such as yourself?"
"Such as myself."
"A park ranger who minored in anthropology."
"Nevertheless."
"Uh-huh.” Gideon took a few kernels of popcorn from the bowl on the table. “All right, I found that the mandible was broken off on the right side, a sharp, vertical break, and the broken margin was beveled, not jagged. And the fracture lines were what we call ‘stepped.’ That means, well...stepped. Like stairs. Okay?"
"Okay."
"I also found that the left M3 mesiolingual cusp had a menisciform fracture."
She eyed him over the rim of her wineglass.
"The left third molar had a sort of crescent-shaped crack,” he explained.
"That I can handle."
"And, finally, there were signs of pressure damage on the posterior surface of the left mandibular condyle, which is—"
"The little round thingy on the hack of the jawbone, that fits in that socket on the skull. Right?"
He sipped his Scotch and soda. “Not bad for a simple park ranger."
"Watch it, don't press your luck. And in your mind all this adds up to what? In a
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