Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  “Mmm,” Lieutenant Takamura murmured. Since he couldn’t read French anyway, he stopped trying to decipher LeBlanc’s writing upside down.

  LeBlanc read on, turning pages from time to time. Chazz finished his own coffee. He stood up and stretched, then walked to the window and looked down on the Avenue Braut. The blinds were vertical wooden slats, one of which Chazz pushed aside to watch the traffic.

  “Well,” LeBlanc said, closing the folder. “I have asked the questions you asked me to ask. Many people in Uturoa saw the crew. Many people met with them. Many people had drinks with them. Some of these people were Tahitian people, some were Chinese people, some were even French people. Alas, not everyone in Raïatéa is anxious to talk to the police. Especially the police who are French. Not that we have political troubles in the Territory of course, but there is a feeling for independence and some resentment of our policy of atomic testing. It does not amount to much, some idle grumbling, really, but it causes a certain reticence. As I say, Queneau will be able to help you. Very nice fellow, very sharp. He can find you a cooperative Tahitian if anyone can.”

  “Good,” Cobb paused, picking his way through a diplomatic difficulty. “There were some suggestion that the French government, that is, might not have been pleased with the Ocean Mother visit.”

  LeBlanc dismissed these “suggestions” with a wave of a pudgy hand. “No, no, Monsieur Takamura, the French government is not involved in any way. Believe me,” he leaned forward earnestly, “the French government has learned its lesson. A difficult lesson, no? France is a free country, a democracy too, like the United States. France does not take rash actions. Besides, the vessel in question was registered in Canada, I believe. And France has long-standing historical ties with Canada. Ocean Mother was not an American ship at all.”

  “No, of course not. Still, could not agents of the French government have acted in accordance with French policy without, oh, say official sanction?”

  “What you are suggesting is ridiculous,” LeBlanc said firmly. “We are trying as hard as you are, Monsieur, to find the eighth crew member of this ship. French citizens were involved. The honor of France is at stake.” He did not sound as if he believed this. Chazz drifted back to his seat and settled into it with a sigh.

  “A long flight?” LeBlanc asked sympathetically.

  “Not so bad,” Chazz answered. “I took a nap.”

  LeBlanc escorted them to the door and shook their hands. His palm was slightly damp and warm, and his handshake was more affable than the situation seemed to warrant, but perhaps it was only a difference in culture. “Someone will meet your plane in Raïatéa," he assured them. The staircase was broad, and he watched them all the way down to the main floor.

  “Not what you could call forthcoming,” Chazz muttered. They stood in front of an open cafe looking at the menu. “I can’t believe these prices.”

  “Four dollars for a cup of coffee doesn’t seem unreasonable,” Cobb said. “After all, it is French roast.”

  They sat at a small marble table and spread butter on croissants. Hinano beer was cheaper than coffee. The pastry was excellent. The beer was adequate.

  “So you feel our colleague M. LeBlanc was less than candid?” Takamura asked. “But ‘Sometimes difficult to pick up pumpkin with one finger.’”

  “I’m not going to fall for that,” Chazz said.

  Takamura smiled. Chazz ate ferociously. Takamura nibbled. Chazz slapped down the remains of his croissant. Cobb smiled. Chazz said, “All right, what the hell does that mean?”

  “Nothing,” Cobb said innocently. “I thought the same. But then, you, also, are not being forthcoming.”

  “Sharp, you are, you Buddhaheaded devil. Don’t miss a thing. LeBlanc’s files. Photographs.”

  “I saw.”

  “One of them looked familiar.”

  “Mmm?”

  “Hobart.” Chazz picked up the last piece of croissant and examined it before devouring it.

  “The journalist? Really. Interesting.”

  “More than that.” Chazz counted out 700 CFP and put them on the table.

  “Yes?”

  “The name under the photograph was not Hobart.”

  “Ah.” Cobb finished his own pastry and wiped his lips with the linen napkin. “I suppose we should wander back to the center of town and find a truck to the airport. It’s almost four.”

  “I suppose.”

  They walked a few blocks in aimless conversation, pausing from time to time to look in the shop windows. Along the Boulevard Pomare, the boutiques could have been in any city in the world. Along the quay, the yachts floated lightly. The smell of copra was very strong.

  Outside a travel agency, Cobb looked at a poster of Bora Bora. “Very pretty,” he said. “Two blocks back, on the other side of the street.”

  Chazz looked thoughtful and turned slowly. “Yes. Our friend from the police station. René.” He imitated LeBlanc’s accent. “‘He has considerable enthusiasm.’”

  “The man he is talking with. Does he look familiar?”

  “Not to me.”

  “As I thought. I don’t know him either.”

  They found the market again, now picking up speed as siesta ended. A series of trucks were lined up, spitting diesel fumes and loud Tahitian music. They climbed into the back of the first one and a few minutes later were on their way out of town.

  Faaa Airport was gearing up for evening flights. The domestic section was crowded with locals going home to the out islands and tour groups headed for resorts on Mooréa and Bora Bora. The Raïatéa flight seemed to carry more locals and fewer tourists.

  “It says here,” Cobb read from a brochure, “that Raïatéa has very few beaches and so is not a favorite with tourism.”

  “That may be true,” Chazz said, “but it does have someone who is starting a business extracting vitamins from seaweed in conjunction with an oyster farm. His processes are of interest to a couple of the researchers at the DRC. I have a meeting set up with him tomorrow while you go sleuthing after our mysterious crew member.”

  “Hmm. And look who is on the flight with us.”

  Cobb leaned back against the airline counter and looked at a man sitting on a plastic seat reading a French version of Time magazine.

  “Peter Lorre?” Chazz said.

  “Very funny, Dr, Koenig. Our old friend René was talking to him on the street in downtown Papeete. Does he look to you like a policeman?”

  “Let me see. Brown shoes, scuffed and worn at the heels. One lace is loose. His socks are faded yellow and sagging. Inexpensive tan pants with splashes of some reddish dirt on them, although there is no dirt on the shoes. A baggy orange shirt worn outside the pants. Prescription sunglasses. Aha! A mustache, and look, it’s gray, like his hair under a floppy straw hat. Definitely police.”

  “And under the baggy orange shirt?” Cobb asked softly.

  Chazz screwed up his face. Somehow this made his beard seem to cover more of it than usual. “Don’t tell me. A gun?”

  “Very good, Dr. Koenig.”

  Chazz opened his eyes. “You’re kidding. He really has got a gun?”

  “Belt holster, left side.”

  “Why would he carry a gun? LcBlanc said there’s almost no crime here in Papeete, even less in the islands. Only five policemen on the whole island of Raïatéa.”

  “Mmm-hmm. We might go ask him why he is carrying.”

  “Good idea.” Chazz did not move.

  “You think it is a good idea?” Cobb asked after a minute’s silence.

  “No, I don’t. It’s none of our business. He probably isn’t even going on this flight. He belongs to airport security or something. Why are we so jumpy?”

  But he was on the same flight, shuffling in line behind them. The plane was narrow, a twin-prop ATR·42. The armed man sat three seats back. Chazz stood up to put his flight case in the overhead rack and glanced at him. The man was still reading Time. He had given no indication that he wa
s interested in Chazz and Cobb. But he had had no trouble with airport security either. “There are far too many mysterious strangers turning up these days,” Chazz said. “Besides a ship full of dead people—”

  “And one survivor.”

  “If you want to call her a survivor, yes. Then a foreigner and a murdered woman.”

  “And a French journalist, who may or not be named Hobart,” Cobb added.

  “The name looked like Fabergé. Like the eggs.”

  “I was wondering when you were going to share the name in LeBlanc’s file. Was it a picture of Hobart?”

  Chazz shrugged. “Probably someone else. It wasn’t a very good photograph. Looked like a personnel record. And don’t forget the consular official.”

  “You would call him a stranger?”

  “I didn’t know him. Did you?”

  “Touché. He may not be who he says he is. And now a man with a gun. A lot of mysterious strangers for a simple mass murder.”

  The plane roared into life and lumbered to the end of the runway. The noise was terrific and discouraged conversation. Once off the ground, it was quieter, and Chazz settled down for another nap. Beside him Cobb looked out the window for a few minutes. Then he too settled his porkpie hat over his eyes and went to sleep.

  The flight lasted less than an hour. They were banking in over the lagoon, and Chazz and Cobb were both awake. The mountain in the middle of the island was wrapped in rain clouds. Chazz had forgotten about the man behind them. “I wonder what surprises we’ll find here,” he said.

  “I wonder.”

  TWELVE

  PATRIA

  She was pushing Orli in the pram across the Safeway parking lot when she thought she saw him again, a well-dressed man in a light tan tropical suit hurrying across the lot toward the library. He could have been a computer salesman or insurance agent, although there was something fluid about the way he moved that suggested a military background. Because of the way he ran, she shook her head, certain she was wrong. Besides, this man had gray, almost white hair. Still he had the same general outline, the same gestalt as that reporter. Hobart.

  He did not notice her as he jogged by, she was sure. His eyes did not glance her way, there was no hesitation in his step. She was bending over Orli, adjusting her sunbonnet as she watched his back recede toward Hardy Street. No, he wasn’t really like the reporter. His walk was different, his way of carrying his body. She couldn’t tell whether he had a tattoo of an octopus, of course, because he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and a suit jacket, but she doubted it. This man was not the sort to have a tattoo. Not cut from the same cloth at all.

  Later when she was talking about it, she thought she must have been wrong. “It was uncanny for a moment, Kimiko. You know how you see someone on the street from behind and you’re sure you know them, then they turn around and they’re a stranger? It was like that, except I saw him from the front. Even when he was up close I thought it was him. But there were differences. This guy’s cheeks were a little fuller. And he had a small mustache.”

  Kimiko laughed. “You should be a detective,” she said.

  They were drinking green tea at one of the four small tables in the tiny garden of a Japanese restaurant in Hanamaulu. The garden was exquisite, filled with moss and stone and bamboo and serenity. A black pine twisted above a small pool. In the water three koi of the variety called kin matsuba, golden fish with the brown and golden edged scales of the pinecone pattern, floated near the surface, waiting for tidbits of bread. This was one of Cobb Takamura’s favorite places, but it was the first time Patria had ever been here.

  “I’m an anthropologist,” Patria said. The wall behind the black pine was plain, made of mud, and topped with a small roofline covered with gray tile. Behind it a series of trees blocked her view of Waialeale. The garden was shady and quiet and her voice sounded almost too loud to her.

  Again Kimiko sprinkled the air with laughter. “Same thing.”

  Patria laughed too. Orli snoozed on in her stroller. “All right. I didn’t like the journalist, and I’m uneasy now Cobb and Chazz are gone. Islands always seem like a wonderful place to get away until bad things happen. Then they seem like prisons.”

  “Careful,” Kimiko warned. “I grew up here. My home, not a prison. Don’t worry. Whoever it is has no reason to be after us.”

  “Then why did you leave your kids at your cousin’s in Kekaha?”

  Kimiko smiled. “Convenience. So nice and peaceful at home without Kiki and Kenji. It’s vacation time and they like going to cousin’s. Kiki studies aikido with Shinawa sensei; Kenji goes surfing at Barking Sands. Kimiko does her gardening without interruption. More tea?”

  Patria nodded, and Kimiko prepared her bowl again, measuring out the proper amount of the finely ground green tea with a bamboo scoop. She poured the hot water over the tea and whipped it with a bamboo whisk until it frothed. Then she held the bowl, turned it twice a quarter turn, and handed it to Patria, who turned it back the two quarter turns and sipped. She sighed appreciatively. “Good,” she said. “Very different from Upton’s.”

  Kimiko nodded and prepared her own bowl. They sipped in silence.

  “They should be on their way about now,” Patria said.

  “Raïatéa,” Kimiko agreed. “Sounds very exotic, doesn’t it?”

  “I should go there sometime. It was the seat of ancient Tahitian religion. Thick with gods, Raïatéa is. And guess what it used to be called?”

  Kimiko thought, pursing her lips “Hmm They called it ‘Home’?”

  “Very funny. Actually, they called it Havai’i.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “The Maori settled New Zealand from Raïatéa.”

  “It sounds like it was where the Hawaiians came from too.”

  Patria nodded. “At least one wave of Hawaiians came from there, so the connections are old and intimate.”

  A shaft of sun fell through the trees and lit up Orli’s face. She stirred, emitted a sharp cry, gurgled and opened her eyes. Patria leaned down and pulled her from the stroller. Orli snuggled for a moment and was instantly asleep again against Patria’s shoulder. The two women smiled at each other and waited.

  The peace lasted moments before Orli woke up crying. Patria fed her and peace returned, but the child was awake and eager for adventure.

  “A hike?”

  “Sure.” Kimiko loved to walk along the river, so they drove out the Maalo Road toward the Wailua Falls. Patria parked and snugged Orli into her stroller. The late afternoon sun fell aslant of the river below, highlighting the ferns and pandanus that grew on the steep banks. To the right as they walked along the wide, well-maintained path, they could see the last shreds of a small rain squall dissipating before the trade winds. From time to time as they walked, they caught glimpses of the steep, wide chimney of Waialeale stark against the sky. The sun was settling toward the peak, and the bars of light and shade flashed as they walked.

  Kimiko was thoughtful and said nothing for a while. They came around the curve of the river and saw the falls ahead, flashing blue and gray in their own mist. When they passed from sunshine into shadow, the chill of evening fell on them.

  Kimiko cleared her throat. “Do you think…” she began with a questioning sidelong glance at Patria.

  “Yes.” Patria was leaning down to click at Orli, but when she got no response she straightened and looked at her friend.

  “I was thinking, that is, about what’s been happening. Ever since I went on that boat, I think how lucky I was nothing happened to me. If they were sick, I would have caught it. And if they had been killed… all of them, like that, I was doubly lucky the killer wasn’t still on board.”

  “Yes.” Patria looked down at the top of Orli’s sunbonnet and the pudgy little hands that jerked sideways from time to time, and felt a chill.

  “Fate was smiling on me then,” Kimiko went on. “Buddha was merciful, I suppose. Karma. But the killer’s here somewhere.”

&
nbsp; “I was thinking that,” Patria said. “On the island. Assuming he took the lifeboat.”

  “Or she.”

  “Or she,” Patria agreed, with little enthusiasm. “It seems like a man to me. I can’t really see a woman killing seven people like that, in such a devious way.”

  “A witch, perhaps,” Kimiko offered. “Casting her poison spells. In Japan she would be a lady who turned into a fox. Malicious and clever. Here, what did you call it… ’ana’ana? A sorcerer praying his victim to death, with a little help from some kind of poison.”

  “A lot of help, more like. But if it were someone on the boat, then it had to be someone they trusted. A member of the crew. Someone they knew.”

  “That’s why Chazz and Cobb are in Tahiti,” Kimiko said. “He ought to be easy to trace.”

  “But…?”

  “But I was thinking, what if that person is the same one who killed that woman, what was her name, Richards? What if he, or she, is a psychopath, a killer who kills without reason?” Kimiko found this thought particularly disturbing.

  “Then everyone here is in danger. But there are forty thousand people on this island. It isn’t likely he’s going to select one of us.” Patria wasn’t sure she was reassuring Kimiko or herself.

  “Unless…”

  “Unless?”

  “Unless he— or she— the killer, knows that we’re connected with the police, and has some reason to want to threaten us.” They were getting to it, what was bothering Kimiko. Her husband was a cop.

  “But this is a psycho, right, not a rational person.”

  “Yeah. A psycho. Not rational.”

  “That doesn’t reassure you? Me either. I’ve been so jumpy I keep seeing the same guy.”

  “What guy?” They passed a loop trail down to the river and kept going.

  “Men… they all look like that French journalist, Hobart.”

  “I didn’t see him,” Kimiko pointed out. “Here, let me take her.” She took the handles of the stroller from Patria and pushed Orli in short little spurts. Orli gurgled with delight, whee. “Can you describe him?”