Graveyard of the Hesperides by Lindsey Davis Page A

would increase morale, she hoped, poor optimistic woman.
    Tiberius placed the rubble basket on the table, a heavy planked affair onto which officers traditionally slammed the heads of witnesses they were interrogating. Having a smashed face was supposed to encourage people to tell the truth.
    â€œPresents? What’s this, Legate?”
    â€œWe are hoping you can tell us. We think it may be some of the bones of a dead waitress, but as Albia’s bright sister remarked, if that’s right, she had interestingly mismatched legs.”
    â€œJust my type. I love a woman with a physical quirk. Let’s see your luscious legs, sweetie!” Morellus hauled himself upright so he could peer salaciously into the basket. Pullia was in fact a good-looking woman; there was nothing wrong with her. Well, except for her judgment in men.
    Morellus upended the basket, scattering the bones all over the table where, I knew, he regularly ate and drank. “Ooh, these will look attractive in your cabinet of curiosities, Manlius Faustus. I take it you’ll display them for visitors, when you and the luscious Albia socialize?”
    Faustus went along with it genially. “So how shall we label them?”
    Morellus shifted bones left and right on the tabletop, sorting them. His movements were swift and decisive. “Woman’s thigh, woman’s ribs, male thigh bone, indeterminate spine knuckle, probably toe—could be anybody’s—female pelvis, child-bearing age, looks as if she has carried some to term, poor unhappy cow…” He continued like this through most of our cargo before speeding through the last few items. “Can’t tell, can’t decide, can’t tell, could be a dog, bound to be poultry.”
    â€œYou’re good!” commented Faustus.
    â€œPractice. Tell you one thing.”
    â€œWhat?” I asked since he had clearly paused for emphasis.
    â€œThis one, this male thigh bone, has been sawn.”
    â€œDeliberate dismemberment?” asked Faustus. Nodding, Morellus showed him the cut. “So we can assume at least one of the bodies, perhaps not the dog or the chicken, died from foul play?”
    â€œWell,” Morellus drawled, being clever. “Whether you call it foul play will depend if your victim was a bad waitress. If she often fiddled bar bills, I’d call it justice.”

 
    XVI
    It was now the hottest part of a sultry summer day. We were up on the Aventine, a long way from the crime scene but temptingly near my apartment. We went there. Supposedly we wanted to consider options.
    As we walked the short distance from the station house, I wondered why the street life in your own area always seems safer even if it’s no more salubrious than other places. There must be as many sordid bars here as in the Ten Traders enclave. The food stalls were as dowdy, their fare as unappetizing. But where you live, in general the whores don’t shout invitations at you. You know, so you mainly dodge, the pickpockets. Feral dogs ignore your passing. Somehow you just feel more confident, less anxious, more at home, less oppressed.
    The Eagle Building, Fountain Court, was nearing the end of its long life. Constructed in the Republic as a six-story block of basic tenements, its decayed structure now creaked at every puff of breeze so that mold and dust flittered from the increasing crannies. Fortunately in August breezes rarely blew. As the hot sun baked the minimal apartments, remnants of their meager paint were flaking more every day. The building stayed upright only because it had settled like a plant on its rootstock over many years. But one slight shock and it was done for. If a god laughed in Olympus, it would crash.
    Tenants had thinned out recently as my father, who owned Fountain Court, tried to find them other places to live. He had a conscience. Nobody was grateful, but he carried on, seeking to edge them out elsewhere before he finalized a