They spent the night at a motel in Portland, relishing the quiet sense of adventure that went along with being in a place where no one in the world knew they were. In the morning they stopped in Salem for a late, unhurried breakfast and took the Santiam Pass road up into the Cascades, over the weird, black volcanic crest of the pass itself, and halfway down the wooded eastern slope, covering in three easy hours what had taken the wagon trains ten grueling, dangerous days not so very many years before.
At two o’clock they pulled into the shaded parking area in front of Whitebark Lodge’s main building. Miranda’s letter had led them to expect a decrepit hulk of a place, and it was true that there were signs of neglect everywhere: forest-brown cottages unpainted for years or possibly decades; ample, once-lush lawns that now looked like goat-cropped meadows, hummocky and dandelion-infested; lavishly planted flower-borders half hidden by weeds; rust-colored algae thriving on the surface of the shallow pond that had been formed by diverting an arm of the creek that ran through the property. But the overall effect was of rustic comfort and rugged Western homeliness, of a relaxed and cordial matron (or better yet a madam), perhaps a little down on her luck right now, but with plenty still going for her.
Their three-room cottage had dust balls in the corners and a curling, soiled flyswatter lying on a windowsill, but there was also a fresh country quilt on the pine bedstead, a reasonably clean kitchen that dated back no further than the fifties, and a massive river-rock fireplace in one corner of the living room. There was thickly shellacked, gleaming, knotty-pine paneling on the wails, the doors, the floors, the cabinets, even the ceilings. Underneath the surface dust, which was easily gotten rid of with a broom from the closet, everything seemed clean, and all in all they thought it was just fine.
As far as Gideon was concerned, the sunshine slanting through the windows as if it were the most natural thing in the world didn’t hurt either.
CHAPTER 3
The conference began much like any other. The attendees reported to the conference registration desk, where they picked up their badges (Gideon’s said: “HELLO! My name is OLIVER GIDEON”), milled about with the other early arrivals, and renewed old acquaintances.
Among these cronies, there were predictable exclamations of wonderment at the number of new faces to be seen this year, along with fond talk of the old days when forensic anthropology was new and all of its practitioners could have fit-indeed, had fit-around a single medium-sized table in a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Los Angeles. Now you had a hard time finding a familiar face in the mob. Who, went the refrain, were all these people?
In Gideon’s case, as in many of the others’, it was more than talk. For Gideon, forensic anthropology-the application of knowledge of the human skeleton to situations, homicidal and other, in which bones were all there was to go on-was a sideline; interesting enough on its own merits, but definitely secondary to his interest in hominid evolution, which alone took him to five or six meetings a year. As a result, he’d managed to make only two of the biennial WAFA conferences: the second, with twelve participants, and the third, with twenty. There had been no graduate students attending, and no family members.
This year, sixty-two had signed up, including twenty-one students, and at least a third had brought spouses/ lovers/friends/whatever. They had filled most of the aging lodge.
When Gideon came back with his registration packet the cottage was empty. He found Julie outside, sitting peacefully under a couple of pine trees beside the pond. She was in a bulky wooden lawn chair, her feet up on a second chair and crossed at the ankles, with a paperback Anne Tyler novel on her lap. Swaying branches broke the light that fell on her into shifting, watery shards, as it, an artfully out-of-focus Victorian photograph-all glowing, indistinct highlights and soft outlines; a sweet, sad memory of something loved and lost. His throat suddenly constricted.
She closed the book and looked lazily up at him. “Boy, do I feel relaxed.”
He cleared his throat. “Boy, do you look pretty.” She smiled. “Kiss,” she said, “please.”
He knelt and kissed her gently on the mouth. When he moved back, she tipped his head to her again, kissed him again, softly nibbled his lip. “I love you.”
“You know,” he said huskily, “we have time to-”
“No, we don’t. We have to be at a museum reception at five.”
“We have time if we hurry.”
“Who wants to hurry? I’m free this evening after the reception. How about you?”
“Well, I’m pretty busy, but I’ll try and work you in.” He kissed her once more, stood up, and took the remaining chair. “Good book?”
“Uh-huh.” She stretched, put the book on the table, and pointed at the registration packet. “Anything interesting in there?”
“I doubt it.”
But the topmost item proved him wrong: a letter from Nelson Hobert, anthropology chairman at Northern New Mexico and president of the National Society of Forensic Anthropology, WAFA’s parent organization. He scanned it silently.
Dear Colleague:
As many of you know, Albert Evan Jasper’s prodigious contributions to our field did not end with his death. Dr. Jasper’s will provided for the donation of his remains to NSFA, the organization over which he presided for so many years, with the provision that they be used “for the furtherance of knowledge and/or education in the science of human skeletal identification.”
Ironically, the particulars of his tragic death made such application problematical, and for ten years his remains were stored while awaiting appropriate disposition. Recently, however, an opportunity to fulfill his wishes presented itself, viz, the installation of a major forensic anthropology exhibit by the Central Oregon Museum of Natural History in Bend.
Contacts with Miranda Glass determined that the exhibit included no material on identification from burned skeletal remains, and that she would welcome those of Dr. Jasper for that purpose. While this would appear to have happily resolved the matter, you will understand that it raised issues of delicacy and taste, particularly in regard to Dr. Jasper’s family. Therefore, family approval was requested before taking the matter further.
I am pleased to report that Dr. Jasper’s son and executor, Dr. Casper Jasper, has wholeheartedly approved the disposition of his father’s remains in this manner, and they were transferred to Bend some two weeks ago. Miranda assures me that they will be permanently installed in time for Sunday’s preview reception for WAFA members. As a longtime associate of Albert Evan Jasper, I can assure you that this final outcome of his bequest is fully in line with his wishes.
On behalf of NSFA, welcome to the fifth biennial WAFA conference. I regret that personal business will prevent my arriving until Monday evening, but I look forward to greeting you all then.
“Well, I guess you’d have to say this is pretty interesting,” Gideon said, handing it to her.
She had hardly begun to read it when she looked up, frowning. “’Ironically, the particulars of his tragic death made such application problematical…’ What does that mean? Didn’t you tell me he was killed in a bus crash down here?”
“It means there wasn’t much of him left, and what there was was in pretty bad shape. Burned to a crisp, in fact. Him and thirty or forty other people. The bus ran into some kind of fuel truck and pretty much exploded into flames. It was really horrible, I understand. There wasn’t much left of anybody.”
“How do they know which one was Jasper, then?”
“It wasn’t easy. Nellie and the others worked on the victims for days, and they never did positively identify everyone. In Jasper’s case, the jawbone and some of the teeth were still left, and they were able to match them up with his old dental charts.”
The sounds of cars starting up drifted to them from the parking area in front of the main building. Gideon looked at his watch. “We probably ought to get going ourselves. Reception starts at five.” He smiled. “You’re right, we wouldn’t have had time.”