“People kill for less.”
His eyebrows went up, and he nodded while swallowing. “That is true. So do you thinkthisis the war of intellect the notes are referring to?”
“It must be,” I replied. “The quote is a direct reference to Cope. The whole rivalry thing spiraled out of control because Cope had reconstructed a skeleton and placed the head on the wrong end. Marsh called him out on it, and totally humiliated, Cope tried to collect all copies of his recent scientific publication with the error. His attempted cover-up was later found out.”
“Sounds like a man with an exceptionally fragile ego,” Calvin murmured.
I did another search of the internet and quickly found the story in question. “Elasmosaurus.”
“What?”
I pushed my glasses up my nose and looked at Calvin. “That was the fossil.”
“Elasmosauruswould be the skull that ‘began the war’?”
“Certainly could be viewed that way.”
“And what about the one that ended the war?”
I shrugged. “I’m not certain. But between the two men, they found something like a hundred specimens. That’s a lot of potential skulls.”
Calvin stood. He took another drink before setting his almost-empty cup beside the coffeepot. “Interesting.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded, put a fist to his mouth, and suppressed a yawn. “It gives us an insight to the sort of knowledge and background of the Collector. It might open a few new avenues of inquiry.”
“It doesn’t explain the reason this person mailed human body parts and included anatomically correct drawings,” I replied.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Copewasan artist,” I suggested. “I mean, nothing to the extent of those clinical drawings, but he drew reconstructed fossils.”
“Hmm….” Calvin rubbed the back of his neck briefly and then gently took my computer from my lap. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I echoed.
He put the laptop on the desk and closed the top. “Let’s go back to bed.”
“What? No. I’m really on to something with this.” I reached out for the computer, but Calvin took my hand.
“I’m a little tired, Sebastian.”
Calvin’s admissions of perceived physical weaknesses were about as rare as my own confessions when it came to fear and uncertainty. There was always a significant weight behind his words. Becausea little tiredmeant he was absolutely wrecked. It reminded me of last December during the Nevermore case, when I’d found him asleep on the landing of my stairs, waiting for me to come home. That was one of the first hints I had about how hard Calvin worked himself and how dangerous that pattern of behavior was for his health.
“All right,” I said.
I stood and went back to the bed with Calvin. I set my glasses on the nightstand and turned off the light. He climbed in beside me, rolled close, and draped his big body over my own. I liked when he did that—found comfort in my arms. And his weight was sort of like my own anchoring to reality.
Every so often, I had to be brought back to Earth.
I WOKEup to Calvin leaning over me, turning off the alarm clock that was set to a quiet radio station. He sighed and dropped back down on top of me.
I grunted. “Big guy… I can’t breathe.”
Calvin smiled against my neck before sitting up a little. “Sorry. You’re comfy.”
“You mean squishy.”
