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“Ah,” said Izzy. “If we can prove that the Irish are known to be well chinned, perhaps exceptionally well chinned, then we wouldn’t have to worry about portraying the Neanderthals as fair-skinned and red-haired, especially if we emphasized their relative chinlessness for the sake of accuracy.”

Then he laughed, thoroughly enjoying himself. It was Izzy, after all, who once said, Of course I suffer fools gladly. They are a source of great amusement.

As this frolic proceeded, I surreptitiously opened the piece of paper Harvey had handed me. It was a printout from a Web-based background checking service calling itself Who Was Who.com. He had been right on. Laluna Jackson, PhD, sociology, Peachtree University, had graduated from Farland High School in Millerstown, Massachusetts, as John J. Johnson. The graduation picture showed a slight young man with dark blond hair and a resentful, uncertain smile.

I refolded the paper and looked up to hear the Reverend Lopes say, “Seriously, there is the issue of white pride.”

“White pride is nothing but a euphemism for the worst kind of racism,” Professor Jackson retorted.

“What about black pride?”

“Black pride is the response of a people who have suffered systematic victimization.”

I was tempted to interrupt this collegial discourse and pass the printout around. But to what purpose? I have no stomach for embarrassing people in public, or in private for that matter. Besides, in this day and age, Ms. Jackson could well be commended for having the courage to be what she wanted to be, to have found and created her true persona at the cost of considerable trauma and expense. And who, anymore, is to say that she’s not right?

I slipped the paper into a folder and turned to Bertha Schanke who was asking, “Why not just leave the diorama the way it is? No one’s objecting.”

I cleared my throat. “That’s true, Bertha. But the Museum of Man is a serious institution. We deal in the truth as far as we can ascertain it.” I glanced at Professor Jackson and allowed myself to add, “Besides, there’s already enough counterfeiting going on.”

14

At first I thought it was just a joke in questionable taste, an attempt by Alphus and Ridley to get a rise out of me. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Little did I suspect it would end in nightmare. The fact is, I am lucky to be walking around like a free man.

Let me start with this afternoon. Actually with yesterday afternoon, as I am writing in the small hours, unable to sleep. I had tried several times during the day to reach Diantha out at the cottage. But she refused to pick up or click on, which always leaves me with an unraveled feeling.

A general staff meeting in the Twitchell Room had gone badly, in part through my own inattention. Ah, the problems. Everything from moldering skulls to accounting decisions to weakening attendance figures. My authority, never that of a tight-ship captain, has begun to slip. There was an absence in the room that turned out to be me. Several times I glanced through the tall windows at the deep blue sky that is endless and timeless and wondered what I was doing there. The thought of a large, powerful martini when I arrived home kept me going. Not for the first time I feared I might be slipping into alcoholism.

Because the construction of said drink began shortly after I came through the door of my abode. I am partial to Cork Dry Gin (not that it matters after the first one) and a touch of ordinary vermouth rinsed in ice and poured over an unstoned olive.

Though Alphus had been alone for several hours, which usually renders him morose, I found him in a strangely agitated state. He was dressed in a sports jacket, a kelly-green summer-weight thing, along with a shirt and tie and pressed Bermudas. He avoided my eyes and pretended an interest in the small kitchen television, which showed forest fires blazing in the remote West. He is not adept at dissembling, but when I asked him, putting some force into my voice, what was going on, he merely shrugged.

I was nursing my martini and feeling the better for it when