Murder on the Silk Road (17 page)

She was trying to figure out How to go about this, when circumstances decided the question for her. On her way to the dining hall, she stopped at the guest house’s souvenir kiosk to pick up a packet of throat lozenges, and found herself standing next to a man whose suntan, knapsack, and dusty clothing made her think he might have been camped out in the desert, and whose inquiry as to the price of a carton of cigarettes—
Duoshao gian?
which was “How much?” in Chinese—came out sounding a lot like
Combien?

“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you Mr. Bouchard?”

He turned around to face her. He was a middle-aged man with a big torso mounted on skinny, sticklike legs. He had a bushy black beard, the hawk nose that was typical of the French, and a stiff mat of black hair combed straight forward in the style of a Roman charioteer.

“
Oui
, yes,” he replied. “I am.” He looked woefully unhappy. His mouth was turned down at the corners, and his eyebrows drooped at the outer edges, giving his face a sad expression.

Charlotte felt a little sorry for a paleontologist who was so bad at finding fossils that he had to resort to poaching on his colleagues’ territory. “My name is Charlotte Graham,” she said, extending her hand.

“I recognize you from your films,” he said.

“I’m interested in learning more about the circumstances of Mr. Fiske’s death. I know that you’ve been camped nearby. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions about the events of that evening?”

Charlotte could see his confusion. Why on earth was an American movie star asking him questions about the death of a rival paleontologist? Or maybe his confusion was due to the fact that he didn’t understand English.

“I’m a friend of the family’s,” she explained, improvising as she went along. “They’re not satisfied with the investigation that’s being conducted by the local authorities. Since I happened to be here anyway on an art tour”—she gestured vaguely at the cliff—“they asked me to look into his death.”

Her lie sounded believable, even to her. She decided she would use it again if the need arose.

“Ah,
oui
,” he said, “I understand.”

He did speak English.

After paying for the cigarettes, he put them away in his knapsack. “I understand that it was you who discovered the body,” he said. “Therefore, you are probably better able to answer the family’s questions than I. But”—he threw up his hands—“what would you like to know?”

“How long have you been camped in the desert?”

“Since last Saturday. I’ve actually been camped in the desert for nearly two weeks, but my camp was originally farther to the south. Of course, I have a room here as well, where I shower. I eat most of my meals here too, although I sometimes eat out at my camp.”

“Why did you move your camp?”

“There weren’t any fossils where I first made my camp.”

“And Mr. Fiske? How long had he been camped there?”

“A couple of days longer. I’m not sure exactly. I think he set up his camp the Thursday before.”

In other words, Charlotte thought, Bouchard had moved his camp as soon as he found out that Larry had discovered fossils at his site. He was a claim jumper, just as Bert had said. “Did you ever talk with him?”

“No. We weren’t friends.”

“But you were part of the same expedition.”

He shrugged.

“Why weren’t you friends?”

“Professional conflicts. I’d rather not get into it.”

“Of course,” said Charlotte, sympathetically. Then she plowed ahead, deciding to get right to the point: “If you weren’t friends, then you must not have been aware that he had made a big discovery.”

“He was always claiming to have made big discoveries,” said Bouchard with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“This time he really did make a big discovery. He found a nearly complete
T. rex
skeleton. On the day before he died.”

For a few seconds, Bouchard stared at her, his jaw hanging limp.

Charlotte didn’t know how to take his reaction. It could have been the equivalent of Lisa’s “holy shit,” or it could have been the reaction of someone who has just realized that his plan to claim Larry’s discovery as his own has been foiled. “How do you know he found a
T. rex?
” he asked.

If she really had been conducting an investigation for the family, it wouldn’t have been out of place for her to be aware of Larry’s find: it would have been recorded in his field diary. Bouchard shouldn’t have been surprised that she knew about it—unless
he
was the one who had removed the missing page.

“I saw it,” she replied. She explained about the missing page, and how she and Lisa had figured out the location of the find from the master map. As she spoke, a question arose in her mind. If the person who had ripped the page out of the field diary wanted to destroy evidence of the find, why hadn’t he taken the master map as well? He might not have known of its existence, but she doubted that would be the case for someone like Bert or Dogie, who had worked closely with Larry in the past. It was far more likely to have been overlooked by someone like Bouchard whose field technique was sloppy to begin with, and who probably didn’t go to the trouble to make maps himself.

Bouchard listened, the face behind his bushy black beard a blank.

“Do you have any idea who removed the page from his field log?” She was accusing him, and he knew it. She knew he would answer no, but she wanted to get a sense of whether or not he was lying. As an actor herself, she was pretty good at discerning when people weren’t telling the truth.

“No,” said Bouchard, his bronzed brow wrinkling in a phony frown. “I don’t. Is that all for today?” He turned to walk away. “I have work to do.” He was clearly irritated at the accusatory nature of her questions.

“One more question,” she said.

He turned back impatiently.

“Were you at your camp on the night Mr. Fiske was murdered?”

“Yes, I was,” he said. “But I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re implying. And I think I’ve had enough of your questions,” he added sharply.

“I wasn’t implying anything,” she said. “I just wanted to know if you saw or heard anything unusual that night.”

“Nothing. I was asleep. I went to bed early, at around eight. I already went through all of this with the security police. I didn’t see anything until you arrived the next morning. Then I saw the police, and I concluded that something had happened. Why don’t you speak with Fiske’s help? If anyone saw anything, it would be they.”

“I intend to,” she replied. “How about early the next morning?” she asked, remembering how fresh the blood had smelled.

“I thought he was murdered during the night.”

“We don’t know for sure. It might have been early the next morning.”

“I did see somebody early the next morning.”

“Who was that?”

“Dogie O’Dea.”

8

Bouchard said he had seen Dogie heading toward Larry’s camp about seven-thirty, which was at dawn here. When Charlotte asked him what he had been doing at that hour, he had replied, “
Je pissais
.” He didn’t know if Dogie had actually made it to the camp, he said; he had gone back to bed. Nor had he told the police about seeing Dogie. It had been his impression from what the police had told him that Larry had been murdered during the night. Therefore, he didn’t think the fact that he had seen Dogie early that morning was relevant.

Charlotte’s chat with him left her confused. She suspected it was he who had ripped the page out of Larry’s field diary, which would point to his being the murderer. And if he had already been in the area for almost two weeks, he would have had ample time to dig up a beggar on whom to plant Larry’s shortwave radio. But if he was the murderer, why hadn’t he told the police about seeing Dogie? It was a stupid murderer indeed who didn’t take advantage of every opportunity to pin the crime on somebody else. Maybe he’d figured it wasn’t necessary: if he
had
stolen the shortwave radio with the intention of framing Feng, he would have been secure in the knowledge that everything was taken care of—until Charlotte came along with her news that the Fiske family wasn’t buying the police’s explanation, that is. Maybe he had only cooked up the story about seeing Dogie when he realized that his plot wasn’t going to work. She had another question as well. If Bouchard had murdered Larry with the intention of claiming Larry’s discovery as his own, how had he known that Larry hadn’t already told someone about his find? Larry might have told them all about it at the party that evening. Then again, Bouchard might not even have known that Larry had gone to the party. Larry had arrived at the dining hall at around eight-thirty. If what Bouchard said was true, he was already in bed by then. On the other hand, maybe there was another explanation altogether. Maybe Bouchard had simply taken advantage of the fact that Larry had been murdered to find out what it was that he had discovered.

She tried to picture the scenario in her mind. After a week of fossil hunting, Bouchard isn’t finding anything. But he learns—perhaps after a little reconnaissance—that his rival is finding fossils galore at another site. He moves his camp, and is doing very well. But perhaps he’s wondering, What’s Fiske got that I haven’t? Though Bouchard claimed that he and Larry didn’t talk, maybe he was lying. Maybe Larry said or did something to tip Bouchard off that he’d made a big find. Then comes the morning of their discovery of the body: from his tent, Bouchard sees their party arrive. Then he sees them go, and the police arrive. He wonders what’s up. He wanders across the DMZ, and is told by the police that Larry has been killed. The body’s removed, and for a short while, the camp is left unguarded. Or, if it is guarded, the guard is inattentive. Taking advantage of the unexpected opportunity, Bouchard searches Larry’s work tent, discovers the field diary, and tears out the previous day’s page. Maybe he doesn’t intend to claim Larry’s discovery as his own, at first. Maybe he just wants to find out what it was that had made Larry so proud of himself. But when he realizes the significance of Larry’s find, the thought dawns on him that this is his chance to make it big.

That was one scenario, anyway.

There was also another. As much as she wanted to keep it from doing so, it insisted on taking form in her mind: that of a bandy-legged former cowboy wearing a tan Stetson—a pissant walking around with a potato chip on its head—stealing out into the desert in the pale dawn light to murder his colleague. Bouchard had said he recognized Dogie by his hat. There was a motive too: always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Though it was Dogie who had the nose for fossils, it was Bert who had the credentials, Bert who had the position, Bert who got the credit, Bert who was the boss. But a find like the
T. rex
was too big for its discoverer to be given second billing. Bert and Dogie were like Siamese twins. What had Dogie been doing out in the desert at seven-thirty in the morning without his pardner? Unless it was to murder Larry.

The opportunity to question Dogie came right after dinner. The guests had been invited on an evening excursion to the Lake of the Crescent Moon. They made up two mini-busloads: a small group of Germans in one, and six Americans—Charlotte, Marsha, Bert, Dogie, Lisa, and Peter—in the other. The Lake of the Crescent Moon was Dunhuang’s other major tourist attraction, and, like the caves, it had been so for almost sixteen centuries. The long-ago worshipers at the caves had once stopped at the lake to replenish their water supplies before setting out across the waterless deserts to the west. “The skill of man made the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas,” went a local saying, “but the hand of God fashioned the Lake of the Crescent Moon.”

The lake was situated amid the Southern Dunes, the immense sand dunes on the outskirts of town. The minibus dropped them off near a crude shelter made out of sticks and poles at the side of the road, where a herd of camels was tethered to a rail. One by one, the camel driver in charge loaded them onto the kneeling beasts, who grumbled, growled, and protested in every possible way, including showering mouthfuls of revolting cud over anyone who tried to be friendly. “And I thought a dogie was a stubborn beast,” said Dogie, as a camel driver heaped abuse on a resentful camel who kept trying to stand up while it was being saddled.

At last they were all mounted. At a flick of the camel driver’s whip, the animals took off with loose, swinging strides across the shallow sand hills, bells jingling. Charlotte found her perch atop the camel very comfortable. Unlike the one-humped dromedary of the Arabian Desert, the Bactrian camels of the Gobi had two humps, and the space between them made a natural saddle, which was padded by a thick straw mat with a quilt thrown over it. The bridle was a rope made of twisted camel hair that was attached to a wooden peg running through the camel’s nostrils. But it was an item of tack that was hardly necessary. The camels had made this trip so many times that they could have done it in their sleep.

The range of enormous sand dunes which was their destination stood before them like a sea of petrified waves. Despite the hour, the sun still burned in a brilliant blue sky, but its low position cast the eastward flanks of the dunes into deep purple shadow, and bathed the westward flanks in a golden glow, leaving a line along the crests as sharp and sinuous as the division between yin and yang on the ancient Chinese symbol of the cosmos. The camel’s slow, steady pace was so rhythmic, the heat radiating from the sand so comforting, and the cool breeze so intoxicating that Charlotte felt as if she could almost go to sleep, but when she found herself riding next to Dogie, she realized that here was her chance to ask him some questions.

Dogie was not tranquilized by his surroundings, nor was his camel, which seemed to have a mind of its own. As he jerked the reins to keep it from breaking away, he let out a steady string of expletives of the four-letter variety, ending with one in Chinese. The camel blinked its long eyelashes placidly, unperturbed by Dogie’s insults.

“What does the Chinese word mean?” asked Charlotte. “I didn’t have any problem understanding any of the others,” she added.