They rented one of the plastic kayaks lined up at the foot of the bridge and paddled happily on the Vezere, going nowhere, until mid-afternoon, when the unusual humidity and a developing warming trend strengthened to the extent that any form of physical effort lost its appeal. Afterwards, when the darkness cooled things down and revived their appetites they ended the day feasting again at the restaurant Au Vieux Moulin, where they'd eaten with Joly that first night.
The following day, Saturday, was largely taken up with Jacques' funeral, held a bare twelve hours after his body was released by the police, (Madame Beaupierre, who seemed more consumed with embarrassment than with grief over her husband's murder, wanted it over with as quickly as possible) and with a stilted, uncomfortable funeral buffet at the Beaupierre's house near the Font de Gaume cave. Although Jacques' colleagues, along with the Olivers, had been invited to both functions, they were treated with icy reserve by the widow.
After these strained and uncomfortable events Gideon, who was feeling the lingering effects of the concussion more than he wanted to admit, slept away the afternoon while Julie drove a few miles up the Vezere to tour the celebrated Grotte du Grand Roc with its stalagmites, stalactites, and other natural grotesqueries.
On Sunday a huge, black thundercloud began to build up in great, roiling columns a little after dawn. They took one look at it from bed, closed their eyes again and slept late, not awakening until 9:00, when Audrey telephoned to tell them that the dedication of the institute's new quarters, which had originally been scheduled for the next day but had been tentatively postponed upon news of Jacques' death, would take place as scheduled after all. It had been decided that the new building was to be designated the Centre Prehistorique Beaupierre in honor of its fallen director. Dignitaries from the Universite du Perigord and the Horizon Foundation would be in attendance, and Gideon and Julie were cordially invited to the ceremonies.
Gideon cordially accepted for both of them, after which they went downstairs for a satisfying "English" breakfast of bacon and eggs, then set themselves up in the Cro-Magnon's downstairs lounge, a cozy, overstuffed room that looked as if it should have had Charles Dickens-or more appropriately, Gustave Flaubert-seated at the writing desk, lost in reflection and chewing pensively on his quill.
Instead it was Julie who took over the desk to work on a quarterly report on park security problems that she'd brought with her while Gideon worked on his laptop, polishing his chapter on the bizarre case of "George Psalmanzar" the eighteenth-century "Formosan" who had flummoxed the British scientific world of his day by inventing not only himself but an entire, highly detailed Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, complete with imaginary customs, language, clothing, and religion. (They lived to be over 100, they drank snake blood, they sacrificed 18,000 children a year to their gods, they beheaded and ate wives who committed adultery.) It had been swallowed hook, line, and sinker; "Psalmanzar"-nobody ever learned his real name-became a respected friend of Samuel Johnson's and was given an appointment to Oxford as-what else?-a lecturer on Formosan history.
With the lounge all to themselves, rain thrumming on the windows, a pot of hot coffee on a nearby sideboard, and a mantel clock ticking lazily away, they looked forward to passing a quiet and companionable Sunday.
For the Greater Cincinnati Elderhostel's "Footloose in France" tour group, Sunday was day nine of a twelve-day hike through the French countryside, and with 100 dusty miles on towpaths and country lanes behind them, they were a tanned, fit, seasoned crew of twelve. Still, with the morning temperature approaching eighty, with a median age of sixty-nine, and with all of them still damp and steaming from the rain shower they'd passed through an hour earlier, no one objected when Yvette, the French tour leader (looking cute as a button in her leather hiking shorts and mountaineer's boots), signaled that the mid-morning break was at hand.
"This place, how you like to stop here?" she asked in her delightfully mangled English. (Only the resolutely negative Mrs. Winkelman-at 83 it was allowable-contended that Yvette's accent was put on.) "The coffee and the juice, they wait themselves in the van, and also some nice French snacks. If you like, we go and sit beside the river, where there is a most nice view of Les Eyzies, the place of lunch for today. Then I tell you some of the facts of this most charming village."
But practiced open-country hikers that they were, they first split into two groups, the men making for the copse of stunted oaks on the left, the women for the one on the right. Five minutes later, perceptibly more relaxed and expansive, they lined up at the supply van, which had gotten there before them and had their juice, coffee, and pastries ready and waiting.
"Joe." Merle Nichols put her hand on the arm of her new friend Joe Pfeiffer, recently widowed, recently retired from the Dayton police department. "Is that a person down there?"
"Down where?"
"Nah, it's just a bundle of clothes or something," somebody said. "It probably washed up from somewhere."
Someone else thought it might be a drunk, someone else a hiker taking a nap. But no one moved any further down the gentle slope. They all stood there holding their cups and pastries, looking doubtfully at Joe, their expert in such matters.
"I'll go see," he said with a sigh. He had sighted it now, down by the riverbank under the willows, and it wasn't any bundle of clothes; the fourteen years he'd spent in homicide told him that much. And he was betting it wasn't a drunk or a sleeper either.
"Hey, buddy?" he called from fifteen feet away, although he would have been surprised to get an answer. "You okay?… hey, monsieur?"
He stood there for a moment longer, resisting the urge-an urge more deeply ingrained than he'd realized-to have a closer look, to take over, then turned on his heel, and walked back up to his silent, wide-eyed companions.
"Yvette, you better call the cops, the gendarmes. That guy's been dead a while."
"Oh, for the love of Mike," said Mrs. Winkelman to her neighbor. "Does this mean we don't get to have our tea?"
The crime scene investigators grumbled at having to park the crime lab van alongside the highway and carry their equipment down to the riverbank (which meant they'd have to carry it back up afterward), but once there they got quickly and efficiently to work.
A twenty-by-twenty-meter area was cordoned off with tape and the nosy gaggle of American grannies and grandpas was helped on their way after a brief interrogation. A panning videotape of the over-all scene was made, and a diagrammatic sketch. The position of the body was measured and photographed. The cordoned-off area was then divided into five-by-five-meter sections and each of them meticulously searched by investigators working two at a time, one shuffling along with his eyes to the ground and the other taking notes. Two fairly distinct heel prints from a man's shoe-both probably from the same shoe-were photographed and cast in plaster of paris by the third member of the team. Various objects were diligently recorded, photographed, labeled, and bagged: several different kinds of cigarette stubs, including one with lipstick on it, a cigar wrapper, three ring-tabs from beer or soft-drink cans, burnt paper matches, a wadded-up facial tissue, two flattened cardboard drinking cups, odd bits of plastic and aluminum foil, a woman's imitation leather belt, worn-out and cheap, two rubber bands, a used adhesive strip decorated with Minnie Mouse pictures and with a little dried blood on it.
None of it was very promising; the typical detritus of a place that was an attractive spot for a riverbank picnic and also happened to lie within flinging distance of a highway. The one object of real interest-the investigators were practically slavering to get their hands on it-was a rifle, the wooden stock of which could be seen sticking out from under the right thigh of the corpse. But Joly and Roussillot were just getting started on the body, and until the two of them were through there was no hope of getting at it. And that wasn't going to be for a while; they were both sticklers for the rule book, as slow as boiled honey.