"Whup-whup." Julie held up her hand, traffic-cop style. "I get the idea; thank you so much for explaining. Here, you're welcome to my tart, if you like. I can't imagine what happened to my appetite."
"I'm sorry, honey," he said sincerely, then sighed. "Well, I've probably procrastinated about as much as I can get away with; I'd better be on my way." He tossed off the last of his coffee, stood up, and bent to kiss her. "See you in a couple of hours. Have fun."
She gave him a sympathetic smile. "You have fun too."
At the commissariat, he was met at the front desk by Joly, who led him downstairs to the autopsy room. (Like most autopsy rooms, it was in the basement, where there were no windows to distract the technicians on the inside or to spoil the day of any innocents who might happen to look in from the outside.)
On the way, he succinctly filled Gideon in on what had been learned so far. That the corpse was Bousquet's had been confirmed with visual identifications, by his landlady, by Emile Grize, and by Audrey Godwin-Pope. That the weapon found under his body was the same one that had killed Ely Carpenter had also been established: the ballistics section had compared the rifling of the Cobra's barrel to the rifling marks on the pellet found under Carpenter's body in the abri and determined that they matched.
"What about Bousquet?" Gideon asked. "Did you find the bullet-I mean the pellet?"
"It's still in his body, unless Roussillot has removed it in the last few minutes. But X-rays have been taken, and it shows up quite clearly-a wasp-waisted pellet of the same approximate size as the one that killed Carpenter. We'll know for certain later, but I think that for now we can assume that the same weapon was used in both cases."
"Lucien," Gideon asked, stopping him on the landing between floors, "how positive are you that it is a suicide?"
Joly looked down his long nose at him. "Do you doubt it?"
"I'm just asking."
Joly shrugged. "Well… fairly positive, I'd say. No, quite positive, but I'll leave it to Roussillot to explain the medical details to you; as you'll see, the trajectory of the projectile, the nature of the wound itself-oh, all sorts of things point to suicide, along with certain psychological tendencies… you seem a little doubtful, Gideon, or am I mistaken?"
"Frankly, you seem a little doubtful, Lucien."
"I? No, not at all," Joly said doubtfully. "Roussillot makes an excellent case."
"Then what's bothering you?"
"Nothing is bothering me." Irritably, he produced and lit a cigarette. "All right, to tell you the truth, it's only that everything… all these events… they come together so, so-"
"Neatly?"
"Yes, precisely!" Joly said, jabbing with the cigarette for emphasis. "There is no Carpenter to question, no Beaupierre to question, and now no Bousquet to question. Nobody! The snake begins at its own tail, swallows itself, and disappears entirely, and we are left with no choice but to take things as they appear. Has that occurred to you?"
"You know, now that you mention it, I think it has crossed my mind. Come on, we might as well see what Roussillot's come up with."
The autopsy room was small but up-to-date: a square, unsettlingly antiseptic room with walls of white, glazed brick, harsh fluorescent ceiling lights, stainless steel sinks, and two doors, one a swinging hospital-type door from the corridor, through which Joly and Gideon entered, the other a massive stainless steel affair leading to the refrigerated storage area beyond.
In the center was a single zinc autopsy table fitted out with its own double-sink, hoses, and drains at one end to flush away the many sorts of gunk that needed flushing away, and above it a microphone for in-process dictation, a couple of spotlights on tracks, and a hanging, meat-market-type scale (an apt metaphor, Gideon reflected) with a basin for weighing various body parts.
Roussillot, clad in a clean white lab coat, was waiting for them beside the table, on which lay the nude, hairy, supine body of a man, his head propped up on a curved plastic neck rest, his hair stiff and wild. A black hole in almost the exact center of his chest, at the sternal notch marking the midpoint of the border between thorax and abdomen, stood out starkly against the putty-colored skin, which had by now begun to slough off here and there. Other marks of decay were unpleasantly evident as well, but Gideon was relieved to see that the corpse had been washed, which had gotten rid of the maggots, and that there wasn't much smell; he had steeled himself for a gagging stench, considering that the dead man had been lying outdoors for several days in warm, humid weather.
That was the good news. The bad news was that the body was untouched by the knife. Despite Gideon's cowardly dawdling at the cafe; Roussillot had kept his word and waited for him.
He made himself take a hard look at the face. Discoloration, insect activity, and bloating had had their usual disagreeable effects, but it was still possible to get some idea of the living man's appearance.
"Well, it's not 'Dr. Roussillot,'" he said to Joly. "I can tell you that much."
Roussillot was understandably startled, but Joly quickly explained, to the pathologist's loud amusement.
"Well, Dr. Oliver," Roussillot said, his blue eyes bright, "I look forward enormously to working with you. As you see-" He pointed hospitably to a wheeled side table with an assortment of shining instruments on it: scalpels, scissors, forceps, probes, saws, "-we are all ready for you; enough for two, and I think we'd better get started. There's a coat for you on the rack; gloves in the box."
"Uh, thanks, but can we hold off for just a minute? Lucien's been telling me that you're pretty certain it's a suicide."
"No, no, you'll never catch me saying 'certain,' not in this business. But the probability is extremely high, as I'm sure you can see for yourself."
"I'm a little out of my element here, doctor. Perhaps you could show me?"
Roussillot gave him grateful look. "With pleasure. Now then." He was practically rubbing his hands with professorial joy. "First of all…"
First of all there was the nature of the external wound to be considered. As Professor Oliver had no doubt observed, the crater in Bousquet's chest, now so clean and bloodless, was obviously a contact wound. Although there had been no charring of the flesh, no powder-stippling, no soot-the professor was aware that an air rifle's charge, being no more than compressed air, would leave no such residue?-it was still eminently clear that the muzzle had been placed directly against the chest. This could be definitively shown by bringing the suicide weapon itself into contact with the wound. Here Roussillot, reaching behind him, grasped a sleek, modernistic-looking rifle with un-blued, stainless steel barrels, a gleaming walnut stock, and a green tag dangling from the trigger guard. Holding it above his head with both hands, he slowly lowered it, only a little theatrically, until the muzzle rested directly on the wound, neatly covering it.
As Professor Oliver could plainly see, the faint purple-brown bruises around the wound were neither more nor less than a muzzle-stamp from this weapon; this very weapon and no other. The precise imprint of the muzzle itself could clearly be made out, as well as the end of the front sight immediately above it, and even the rim of one of the two air-reservoir cylinders just below it. In fact, an examination by lens would show that an imperfection in the steel of the air reservoir was exactly reproduced in the skin.
It was all as he said, and Gideon nodded his agreement-as far as it went. "I can't argue with that, doctor, but after all a contact wound doesn't necessarily mean a suicide."
"Necessarily, no," said Roussillot. "Usually, yes."
"You are speaking of a rifle, of course, and not a handgun, Roussillot," Joly said. "And so it is, Gideon. How many murderers equipped with a rifle would choose to walk up to their victims in order to place the muzzle of their weapons conveniently against their chests before firing?"