"See what?" John cried. “All I see is a bunch of maggots."
"No, you don't. You see a line of maggots, not a bunch. Can't you see what that means?"
"No, I can't see what it means,” John shot back. “Hell, it took you long enough to figure it out and you're a big-time Ph.D. I'm just a poor, dumb cop, remember? I have to have things explained to me."
They had been glowering at each other, almost nose to nose, and without quite knowing why they burst out laughing.
"John, I'm sorry,” Gideon said. “I'm a little testy too, but it's because I'm mad at myself, not you. I can't believe I almost didn't pick this up."
He got out of his chair to stand beside John's so that they were both looking at the pictures right side up.
"Now look at this.” With his forefinger he traced a column of maggots that ran diagonally from the web of the right thumb, across the palm, and onto the lowest joint of the little finger.
"It's a defense wound,” he said.
"Defense wound?” John murmured with interest, peering at the photos.
"It couldn't be anything else. From a blade; a knife, probably. Brian tried to fight somebody off and this is where he caught hold of the blade."
John took Gideon's magnifying glass, leaned over the pictures, and shook his head. “I can't see any wound at all. Just the maggots."
"If there are maggots there, there's an opening underneath,” Gideon said. “And an opening in the palm of the hand is a wound."
As he had frequently told John and told him now again, he was no forensic pathologist; the less he had to do with bodily fluids, soft tissues, and nasty secretions, the happier he was. But he had been involved in enough cases by this time to know that the insects that help decomposition along do it in a systematic and predictable manner. Within minutes of death the Calliphoridae—the blowflies arrive, soon to be followed by their many cousins. These insects head directly for the natural openings—in a clothed body, the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears; in and around these moist, dark recesses they lay their eggs in yellowish white masses easily visible to the naked eye (and looking for all the world like wads of grated Parmesan cheese, as an entomologist had once pointed out to him, thereby permanently changing his attitude toward that formerly relished cheese). Within a day, in warm weather, the eggs have hatched into great, wriggling clumps of the blind, wormlike creatures known as larvae or maggots, which then begin their allotted task of consuming the body's soft tissues.
And if there are open wounds, the same process occurs there. Eventually, the larvae spread out from these initial sites, but for a while they remain busily clumped around the body's orifices, natural and otherwise. Thus the maggots on Brian's face.
Thus too, the diagonal, linear column of maggots on his right palm; they implied a diagonal, linear wound beneath.
"Okay, I can buy all that,” John said, “but why defense wounds? Why couldn't he have cut his hand in the fall?"
"Pretty unlikely. First, I can't see any scrapes or bruises anywhere else on his right arm; just this one clear cut on his right hand. And second, it is a cut—not an abrasion, not a tear, not a puncture. Look how neatly lined up the maggots are. One long, straight, slicing cut. What but a blade would be likely to do that? Not to mention that it's precisely where you'd expect a defense wound to be."
Gideon didn't expect John to take much convincing, and he didn't.
"Doc, you're right,” he shouted, clambering up out of his chair. “See, did I tell you or didn't I tell you?” There went the arms again. “Come on, let's go see Bertaud. There's no way he can argue with this."
"John, it's going on six o'clock. He's not going to be in his office."
"Wherever he is, then,” John said righteously. “He's the head man. He's always supposed to be available."
"Maybe so,” Gideon said tactfully, “but do you suppose maybe he's seen enough of us for one day?"
John laughed; the sudden, burbling, babylike explosion that never failed to make Gideon laugh along with him “Of me, you mean. Yeah, you're right about that. Okay, tomorrow morning then. Nick's expecting us up at the house for dinner about now anyway."
They looked at each other, an unspoken question in the warm air.
"I say we don't mention this to Nick right now,” John said after a moment. “Let's find out what Bertaud says first. Besides, Nick's the one who didn't want anything about it mentioned at dinner, right?"
"I agree, but you know you're going to wind up in the doghouse with him when he finds out we went to Bertaud behind his back, don't you?"
John shrugged this off. “It won't be the first time. He always gets over it fine. Come on, time to go up and meet the family."
Gideon looked down at the dusty clothes he'd been wearing all day; in Papeete, on le truck, and at the plantation. “Give me a minute, I'm a little travel-stained for dining. I ought to change first."
John guffawed. “Forget it, come-as-you-are is the order of the day. Dining at Nick's is like dining at Chucko's All-You-Can-Eat, except the food's better."
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Chapter 18
* * * *
The setting was better too. Dinner was al fresco, on a lush, rolling lawn that formed a promontory extending two hundred feet seaward from the house, hanging ten feet above the beach and reminding Gideon of nothing so much as a gigantic seaside golf green. Along one side, a stand of coconut palms and elegant, gray-green mape trees had been thinned out to make a pleasant, shaded grove, and there, just out of range of falling coconuts, the Polynesian feast that Nick had promised was being prepared by a busy team of Tahitians in tank top shirts, shorts, and baseball caps. Driftwood fires smoldered in two longitudinally split fifty-gallon oil drums set on pipe-metal frameworks, and mahimahi steaks, sliced pork, and huge Taravao Bay prawns were just beginning to sizzle on the grills atop them.
A few feet away, fresh palm fronds had been laid over a twelve-foot-long table to serve as a base for trays of fruit— neatly sliced papaya, watermelon, pineapple, and coconut—and a variety of native goods: poisson cru, the lime-marinated tuna salad that was Tahiti's version of sashimi; fafa, a dish of taro greens, chopped chicken, and coconut milk that would have passed muster in a soul-food restaurant; and a few other fruit, vegetable, and seafood combinations that Gideon couldn't name. About the only nod in the direction of Europe was the substitution for taro root and breadfruit of thin loaves of crusty, flaky French bread, which the bakers of Papeete had long ago learned to make almost as well as their counterparts in Paris. That and the well-stocked bar.
By the time that Gideon and John arrived, it was plain that the bartender, a coffee-guzzling Tahitian who contributed the sole touch of formality by wearing a waiter's white jacket over his shorts and Bart Simpson T-shirt ("Don't have a cow, man"), had been keeping busy. The Druett clan, nibbling crudites and sipping their drinks at a large, round table, gave every appearance of being well-oiled. The laughter, loud talk, and heated debate were audible from a hundred feet away, and when the two men came into sight they were warmly greeted by Nick—warmly enough for Gideon to feel a few pangs of guilt about not being forthcoming with him—steered to the bar, and then hauled off to be welcomed by, and in Gideon's case introduced to, the others at the table.
There were six of them altogether: the three that Gideon had already met—Celine, Maggie, and Nick himself—along with Nick's other daughter, the beautiful Therese; John's older brother, the imperious Nelson Lau; and John's deadpan, ironic cousin, Rudy Druett, the roastmaster at Whidbey Island, who was in Tahiti for the time being, holding down some of Brian's old responsibilities and helping to prepare Tari Terui to shoulder them on his own when the time came.
Playing in the grass in the care of a nanny a few yards away were the Twin Terrors, Claudette and Claudine, Therese's daughters, two mumpish, fat-cheeked, un-terrible-looking little girls in pink-and-white frocks who refused outright, despite their grandfather's urging, to address Gideon as Uncle Giddie, w
hich suited Gideon just fine.
He was accepted more readily by the adults, but naturally enough it was John who got most of the attention. Therese, every bit as meltingly lovely as John had told him she was, hugged him for a long time, bowing her slender neck to press her face sweetly into his shoulder before she let him go. John, embarrassed but pleased, clumsily stroked her hair and murmured a few words. But the brotherly embrace with Nelson, Gideon couldn't help noticing, was less spontaneous, a mere momentary resting of the fingertips on each other's upper arms, with a good foot and a half of open space between the two men.
Their greeting was equally restrained:
"John,” Nelson said, his cool tone rising slightly.
"Nelson,” John replied in kind.
When everyone was seated again, with Gideon tucked between Celine and Rudy, there were a lot of questions for John—about his job, about Marti, about when they were going to start having a few little Laus—and from there the conversation turned to general family reminiscences and eventually to stories about Brian. It had been a week now since the news of his death, and enough alcohol had been consumed so far tonight to make the atmosphere more jolly than mournful, more like a wake than a funeral.
Nick, dressed in the work-stained shorts he had been wearing that afternoon, plus a striped tank top and a faded, curly-brimmed Boston Red Sox baseball cap, basked in his dual role of paterfamilias and number-one storyteller. Gideon, with little to contribute, sat back and sipped his Scotch-and-soda, put the reason that he was in Tahiti more or less out of his mind, and gave himself over to enjoying the anecdotes, the shared affection that flowed around him, and the people themselves. Interesting people, wonderfully different from the quiet, undemonstrative uncles and aunts that had made the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners of his childhood such excruciating ordeals to a boy of eleven or twelve; he could still remember entire meals, or so it seemed to him now, when the only sounds from a dozen diners had been the steady, private clicking of forks and scraping of knives on the plates.
Not so the Druetts and the Laus, who were animated and spontaneous enough for three families. True, they had their idiosyncrasies—maybe Nelson was a little too self-important, and Maggie was a little too brusque, and Rudy a little too vinegarish, and Celine a little too self-absorbed...but they were a lively, entertaining bunch—and they all seemed genuinely fond of John (even Nelson, in his own superior way) and for that alone he liked them.
This relaxed and pleasant interlude went on until a private dispute between Maggie and Nelson grew too loud to be ignored. They were arguing about Tari Terui, and Maggie was flushed with anger.
"If you're saying that Tari is—embezzling, or—or—"
"Oh, spare me,” Nelson said. “I'm not accusing him of being a crook, for God's sake—"
"So what are you accusing him of?"
"Of screwing up, if you'll pardon the expression. The man is simply—and I've said this from the beginning, I don't think anyone can deny that—the man is simply not capable of handling figures. In the few weeks that he's had access to them, our books have become an incomprehensible mess. He finds something that doesn't make sense to him in accounts payable, and rather than come and ask someone in a position to know, he ‘corrects’ the entry, so that naturally it is no longer consistent with either the purchase order or the invoice—"
"You've never given him a fair chance, you've—"
"May I say something?” Rudy interrupted. “Unprecedented though it may be, Nelson is actually making a cogent point. I've been concerned with Tari's—shall we say, whimsical— approach to the finances myself."
"Then why aren't you helping him instead of telling us? You're supposed to be coaching him, not criticizing him behind his back."
"I've been trying, Maggie,” Rudy said, “but getting the man to understand is an ordeal approximately on par with a double root canal. No, worse. It's like having to sit through an entire performance of Cats."
"I'm not saying it's his fault,” Nelson cut in. “It's a well-known fact that the Tahitian numerical system lacks—"
"Oh, balls,” Maggie said disgustedly.
"People,” Nick admonished quietly. “We have company."
But Nelson was just warming up. “Let me give you just one example—our account with Java Green Mountain. We owe them for four thousand pounds of beans, duly purchased at $12.45 a pound and due at the end of the month. That's $49,800."
"Nelson...” Nick said a little less patiently.
"Only our friend Mr. Terui took it upon himself to ‘correct’ it for us. I suppose you could say he made only one teeny mistake, shifting the decimal point one little place to the left. But what would the result have been if I hadn't caught it? We would have sent Green Mountain a check for $4,980 and not the $49,800 we owe them."
Nick burst out laughing. “Hey, I like the guy's approach. Maybe we should put him in charge of the books."
Predictably, this failed to amuse either Nelson or Maggie.
"You don't want him to succeed,” Maggie said hotly. “Neither of you, not really. You just—"
Fortunately, one of the workers yelled “Chowtime!” from the cooking area at this point, whereupon everybody headed for the buffet table, most of them making a detour at the bar first. Gideon refreshed his Scotch, then helped himself to rice, string beans, and grilled mahimahi, surprising and perhaps offending the server by declining her offer to dress the fish with coconut milk hand-wrung from a clump of pulverized coconut wrapped in cheesecloth. Coconut milk was the one staple of the sweet, pleasantly bland Polynesian diet that Gideon could do entirely without. No doubt it would look pretty good if you were perishing of thirst on a desert island, but it was hardly something you'd use to spoil a two-inch-thick chunk of nicely seared mahimahi.
"Hey, Gideon,” Celine said as she resettled herself beside him with her plate, “why you think my hair's so thin?"
"Oh, it's not really that—"
"Sure, it is. You a scientist. Guess."
"Well, it's hard to say. In a lot of people—"
"Tennis."
Gideon studied his Scotch, “Tennis,” he said.
"That's right, tennis. Used to play all the time. Douglas Fairbanks teach me. Junior, not father. You looking at the number-one player, Papeete Racquet Club, 1948, ‘50, ‘51."
"But how,” Gideon asked, intrigued now, “did tennis affect your hair?"
Celine laughed. She had tiny, rounded teeth, like little pearls. “Not tennis, God love you. Too many showers with lousy shampoo.” She shook her head ruefully. “Didn't have no Vidal Sassoon back then. Oh-oh, they at it again."
This last was a reference to Maggie and Nelson, whose arena had now shifted to the French plans to renew nuclear testing, suspended since 1992, at Mururoa atoll, southwest of Tahiti. Nelson was all for them because of the economic benefits that a renewal of testing would bring.
"And what about the radiation?” Maggie wanted to know, having more than recovered her composure since the earlier dispute.
"Poppycock,” said Nelson. “Do you seriously think, for one moment, that the French government would put our lives at risk? Don't be ridiculous."
Maggie looked pityingly at him. “Unbelievable,” she said through a mouthful of prawn.
Nelson waggled a finger at her. “Can you point, in all honesty, to a single verified illness from all the previous tests?” Nelson demanded. “Has a radioactive cloud ever once passed over Tahiti? Has it? Has it?"
Aside from a faint similarity in the set of their lips, Nelson was about as different from John as one brother could be from another. Where John was big and beefy, Nelson was compact, with small, feminine hands and feet; where John seemed to take up more space than his size strictly demanded, Nelson seemed to fill less; where John was generally easygoing but easy to ignite, Nelson seemed to operate at a constant, irritable simmer. And altogether unlike John, he appeared to be totally devoid of humor.
Add the finicky little mustache—two dain
ty, symmetrical, upturned commas—to everything else, and John's older brother put Gideon in mind of nothing so much as a pompous fussbudget of a hotel manager in morning coat and striped pants; the little man who postured and sniffed behind the reception desk (and said things like “poppycock” and “don't be ridiculous") in one old Hollywood comedy after another, only to end up being put inevitably in his place by a suave and impeccable Cary Grant, or David Niven, or Katharine Hepburn. Huff and puff as he might, there was simply something about Nelson that made it hard to take him seriously.
Even now, while his finger remained leveled magisterially at the space between Maggie's eyes, she continued to chew away at her prawn, unruffled. “If those tests are so safe...” she finally said when she was good and ready, then chewed some more.
"Yes,” an impatient Nelson prodded, “if those tests are so safe...?"
"...then why don't they blow them up over France?"
There was a splutter of laughter from Nick and the others. Nelson merely stared at Maggie. “If you're not going to be serious,” he said scornfully, “I don't see the point of discussing it any further."
"Good!” Nick said, whacking the table. “It's about time “
"Besides,” Nelson went on, addressing the group at large, “there's something else we need to talk about.” He waited for the others to quiet down and listen, which they didn't. “We have a new offer from Superstar."
That got their attention. A near-perceptible current sizzled around the table. Conversations stopped in mid-sentence. Forks were laid on plates. Faces that had been relaxed and open-countenanced a moment before, abruptly looked shifty and cunning. Gideon and John exchanged glances, both thinking the same thing: maybe the connection between Superstar's offers and Brian's death wasn't so far-fetched after all. Half the people around them looked ready to kill over it right now.
"Um...Superstar?” Maggie said off-handedly.
Nelson nodded significantly. “In this afternoon's mail."
"For God's sake,” Rudy said, “don't those people ever give up? What do they want to give us now, Rockefeller Center?"
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