He tapped the file in his lap. Looked at me expectantly.
"You think this woman was killed to be eaten?" I said.
"What I'm saying is her wounds were consistent with classic cannibalistic practices. But there are also inconsistencies: her heart, typically considered a delicacy, was left intact. Skulls are frequently taken as trophies and preserved, yet hers was left behind. I suppose both could be explained in terms of time pressure— the killer may have been forced to leave the beach before finishing the job. Or perhaps— and I think this is the best guess— he was just a psychopathic deviant mimicking some ancient rite."
"Or someone who'd watched the wrong movie," I said.
He nodded. "The world we live in . . ."
Finishing the job.
I pictured the gentle waves of the lagoon, the arc of a long blade cutting the moonlight. "What he did to her took quite a bit of time. What's your estimate?"
"At least an hour. The human femur's a sturdy thing. Can you imagine sitting there working at sawing it free?" He shook his head. "Repulsive."
"Why'd you suggest to Laurent that he not publicize the details?"
"Both as a means of concealing facts only the killer would know and in order to maintain public safety. Tempers were already running high, rumors spreading. Can you imagine what the notion of a cannibal sailor would have done?"
"So the villagers still don't know."
"No one knows, other than you, Dennis, and myself."
"And the murderer."
He winced. "I know I can trust you to keep it to yourself. I showed you the file because I value your opinion."
"Cannibalism's not exactly my area of expertise."
"But you have some understanding of human motivation— after all these years, I find people more and more perplexing. What could have led to this, Alex?"
"God only knows," I said. "You said the villagers aren't violent. What about the sailors? Any previous incidents of serious violence?"
"Brawls, fistfights, nothing worse."
"So Creedman's story about locals storming the southern road was true?"
"Another exaggeration. No one stormed. A few of the younger men, fortified with beer, tried to reach the base to protest. The sentries turned them back and there was some shouting and shoving. But anyone who thinks the Navy would go to the expense of building that blockade two days later to keep out a handful of kids is naive. I spent enough time in the service to know that nothing moves that quickly in the military. The blockade must have been planned for months."
"Why?"
He frowned. "I'm afraid it may very well be the first stage in closing down the base."
"Because it has no strategic value?"
"That's not the point. Aruk was created by colonial powers and the Navy's the current colonizer. To simply pull out is cruel."
"How do the villagers make a living, now?"
"Small jobs and barter. And federal welfare checks." He said it sadly, almost apologetic.
"The checks come on the supply boats?"
He nodded. "I think we both know where that kind of thing leads. I've tried to get the people to develop some independence, but there's very little interest in farming and not enough natural resources for anything commercial. Even before the blockade, basic skills were already dropping, and most of the bright students left the island for high school and never returned. That's why I'm so glad people like Ben and Dennis choose to stay."
"And now the blockade has sped up the decline."
"Yes, but things don't need to be hopeless, son. One good trade project— a factory of some kind— would sustain Aruk. I've been trying to get various businesses to invest here, but when they learn of our transport problems they balk."
"Pam said you've corresponded with Senator Hoffman."
"Yes, I have." He placed the murder file on the couch.
"Is there any history of tribal cannibalism on Aruk?" I said.
"No, because there's no pre-Christian culture of any kind. The first islanders were brought over by the Spanish in the fifteen-hundreds already converted to Catholicism."
"A pre-Christian culture is necessary for cannibalism?"
"From my reading it's a virtual constant. Even the most recent documented cases seem to incorporate Christian and pre-Christian ideas. Are you familiar with the term "cargo cult'?"
"Vaguely. A sect that equates material goods with spiritual salvation."
"A spontaneous sect spurred by a self-styled prophet. Cargo cults develop when native people have been converted to a Western religion but have held on to some of their old beliefs. The link between acquiring goods and receiving salvation occurs because basic missionary technique combines gifts with doctrine. The islander believes the missionary holds the key to eternal afterlife and that everything associated with him is sacred: white skin, Caucasian features, Western dress. The wonderful kahgo. The cults are rarer and rarer, but as late as the sixties there was a cult that worshiped Lyndon Johnson because someone got the notion he was the source of the cargo."
"Correlation confused with causation," I said. "The same way all superstitions are learned. A tribe goes fishing the night of the full moon and brings in a record catch: the moon acquires magical properties. An actor wears a red shirt the night he gets rave reviews: the shirt becomes sacred."
"Exactly. Groundless rituals provide comfort, but if the belief system is shaken up— the missionary leaves and the cargo stops— the islander may view it as the beginning of the apocalypse. Stick a charismatic prophet into the picture and— years ago I was sent to Pangia, in Southern Highlands Province, to survey infectious diseases. Fifty-five, right after the war. In the course of my research, I learned of a minor government clerk who suddenly quit his job and started reading the Bible aloud twenty hours a day in the village square. Handsome, intelligent young fellow. His association with the ruling class had lent additional status. A small group formed around him, and his delusions grew more florid. And bloody. He ended up slaughtering and eating his own infant son, sharing the meal with his followers in an attempt to bring in plane loads of goods. The morning of the murder he'd been preaching from Genesis. The story of Abraham binding Isaac for sacrifice."
"Abraham never went through with it."
"In his view that was because Abraham didn't merit true fulfillment. He, of course, was quite another story."
Telling the story had turned him pale.
"I can still see his face. Smiling, tranquil."
"Any similarities to this murder?"
"Several."
"And some of the factors you've just mentioned are present here, too. Dependence upon the white man, then abandonment."
"But still," he said, bending forward, "it doesn't make sense. Because other factors are absent."
"No pre-Christian culture."
"And absolutely no history of cults on Aruk!"
He rapped his knuckle against the file. "I continue to insist that this hideousness was the work of a single, sick person."
"Someone who'd read up on cannibalism and was trying to simulate a cult murder?"
"Perhaps. And most important, someone who's moved on."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because it hasn't happened again."
He was ashen. I lacked the heart for debate.
"For a while, son, I couldn't stop thinking that he'd simply gone off to do it somewhere else. But Dennis has been checking international reports for similar crimes in the region and none have come up. Now, what say we put aside this ghastly stuff and move on?"
12
For the next hour and a half, we were dispassionate scientists, discussing cases, suggesting different ways to organize the data.
Moreland looked at his watch. "Feeding time for Emma and her friends. Thank you for a stimulating afternoon. It's not often I get to engage in collegial discussions."
I thought of his daughter the physician, trained in public health. "My pleasure, Bill."
He stro
de to the door. "It'll be dark soon, don't work too hard," he said. "I didn't bring you over here to enslave you."
• • •
Alone, I sat back and looked out the window at the fountain spitting jewels.
My mind's eye kept focusing on the photos of AnneMarie Valdos's murder scene.
White body on dark rock; the details Moreland and Laurent had withheld.
Probably what Creedman had been after when Ben caught him snooping: ace reporter comes to islands to find himself, finds a gore-fest instead, and phones his agent ("What a concept, Mel!").
Then he came up against Moreland and was cut off from the information. And resented it.
Moreland had concealed the whole truth from his beloved islanders but offered them to me after a forty-eight-hour acquaintance.
Wanting input from me . . . about human motivation.
More worried about recurrence than he'd admitted?
Couching it in collegiality—a couple of guys with doctorates having a clubby chat about two-legged supper.
A brilliantly colored bird flew past the window. The sky was still a peacock blue I'd seen only on crayons.
I got up and headed for Robin's studio. What would I tell her?
• • •
By the time I reached the door, I'd decided on limited honesty: letting her know I'd discussed the murder with Moreland and that he believed it an isolated crime, but leaving out the details.
She wasn't there. Bits of shell were laid out neatly atop the flat file along with a billet of koa and two small chisels.
No dust. Wishful thinking.
I went looking for her, finally spotted her down by the fruit groves, a white butterfly flitting among the citrus trees, Spike a wiggly, dark shadow at her feet.
I jogged to her side, she put her arm in mine, and we walked together.
"So how did work go?" she said.
"Very scholarly. What'd you do?"
"Played around in the studio, but it was a little frustrating not being able to work, so Mr. Handsome and I decided to stroll. The estate's wonderful, Alex. Huge. We made it all the way to the edge of the banyan jungle. Bill must have sunk a fortune into landscaping; there are some beautiful plantings along the way— herbs, wildflowers, a greenhouse, orchids growing on tree trunks. Even the walls are pretty. He's got different kinds of vines trailing down them. The only thing that spoils it is the barbed wire."
She stopped to pick up an orange that had dropped, peeled it surgically as we continued.
"How much of the jungle can you see over the walls?"
"Treetops. And those aerial roots. There's a coolness that seems to make its way over. Not a breeze. Even milder. A subtle current. I'd take you there but Spikey didn't like it, kept pulling away."
"Our little mine detector."
"Or some kind of animal on the other side. I couldn't hear anything, but you know him."
I bent and rubbed behind the dog's bat ears. His flat face looked up at me, comically grave.
"With those radar detectors, it's no wonder," I said. "Finally style and substance merge."
She laughed. "Umm, smell those orange blossoms? This is great, Alex."
I kept my mouth shut.
• • •
We decided to dive the following morning and got up for an early breakfast. Jo Picker was already on the terrace dressed in a black T-shirt and loose pants, her hair tied back carelessly, sooty shadows under her eyes. She kept both hands on her coffee cup and stared down into it. The food on her plate was untouched.
When Robin touched her shoulder, she smiled weakly. Spike's licking her hand sparked another smile.
As we sat down, she said, "Ly never liked dogs . . . too much maintenance."
Her lips tightened, then trembled. She stood abruptly and marched into the house.
• • •
We left Spike in the run with KiKo and drove down to South Beach. As I turned off Front Street to park, I looked up the coastal road. The Navy blockade was at the top, a crude wall of gray concrete, at least twenty feet tall. It appeared to be crammed into the hillside. Warning signs applied generously. An extension of chain link and barbed wire snaked up the hill and continued into the brush.
The beach at that point was just a narrow spit and the wall cut across it and continued into the ocean, creating a damming effect. But the water was shallow and still, lapping weakly at the algae-stained base of the sea-barrier. Large chunks of coral were stacked nearby, desiccated and sunbaked: part of the reef had been shattered to accommodate the barrier.
I parked atop the widest section of beach. The sand was as smooth and white as a freshly made bed, the lagoon that same silvery green.
We collected our gear, and as I carried it to the shoreline, I noticed flat, smooth rocks above the tide pools.
The altar where AnneMarie Valdos had been sacrificed.
To what?
We stepped onto the sand. The temperature was holding as mild and steady as Moreland had promised. When I tested the lagoon with my foot, there was no chill, and when I eased in for a swim a soft warmth enveloped me.
"Perfect," I called out to Robin.
We put on our fins and masks and snorkels, flipper-walked the shallows till the water reached our thighs, then knifed in and floated belly down on the surface of the pool. The reef took a long time to deepen, finally reaching eight feet as we neared the brown-red ring of coral that held back the ocean.
The coral colonies grew in wide, flat beds. Despite the lack of current, the reef's living rock seemed to dance, patches of tiny animals sharing space with bio-condos of sea urchins, chitons, feather duster worms, and gooseneck barnacles. Small, brilliant fish grazed, untroubled by our presence: electric-blue damsels, lemon-yellow tangs, confident gray-black French angels, shocking-pink basslets with the stern little faces of tax auditors. Orange-and-white clownfish nested in the soft, stinging embrace of fluorescent sea anemones.
The bottom sand was fine, almost downy, spotted with shells and rocks and shreds of coral. The sunlight made its way down easily, dappling the ocean floor. We shattered the light with our shadows, causing some of the shells to move in reflexive panic.
Drifting in opposite directions, we explored separately for a while, then I heard Robin burble through her breathing tube and turned to see her pointing excitedly at the far end of the reef.
Something torpedo shaped was shooting between us, speeding across the lagoon. A small sea turtle, maybe a foot long, head down, legs compressed, skimming the top of the coral as it headed for bluer pastures.
I watched it disappear, then looked back at Robin, making the OK sign. She waved and I paddled to her, extending a hand. We bumped masks in a mock kiss, then swam together, thrilled and weightless, suspended like twins in a warm salty womb.
• • •
When we got back on the beach we were no longer alone.
Skip Amalfi and Anders Haygood had spread a horse blanket thirty feet from our clothes. Skip was lying on his back, eyes closed, belly surging and collapsing as he sucked on a cigarette and blew smoke. Haygood crouched nearby, hairy thighs thick as logs, tongue tip sticking out the corner of his mouth. Concentrating as he pulled the limbs off something huge and ugly.
The biggest crab I'd ever seen. Easily thirty inches from claw to claw, with a knobby, blue, spotted carapace and pincers the size of bear traps. My year for monster arthropods.
Haygood looked up at us and snapped a leg free, watched the juice drip out of it, then held it up and waved it.
"Ma'am. Sir." Again, the gray eyes washed over Robin and I became aware of how she looked in her two-piece, hair dripping over smooth, bare shoulders, hips swelling above the low-cut bottom, the sharp, sweet contrast between bronze skin and white nylon.
She turned her back on them just as Skip sat up. Both men watched her trudge to our blanket. Walking in the sand made her sway more than she intended to.
"Big crab," I said.
"Stoner," said Haygood. "Great
eating— can I give you a couple of legs, sir?"
"No, thanks."
"You're sure?"
"Forget it," said Skip. "Old man Moreland don't eat animals."
"That's right," said Haygood. "Too bad. Stoners are great eating. This one liked coconuts— that's why it's blue. When they eat other things, they can be orange. I've seen them even bigger, but he's healthy."
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