The Moai Murders

8

THAT SCREAM WAS one of the worst sounds I have everI heard in my life. It was barely human. Given the way the hotel was configured and the less than optimal sound insulation in it, I think just about everybody in the place heard it, too.

The first scream was followed by a second, and soon doors started slamming, and most of us found ourselves out on a wet lawn. The rain, at least, had stopped.

"Has somebody else been murdered?" Brenda Butters said, almost shaking with fear.

"Maybe it was an animal," Albert, clad in rather dapper red-and-white striped pajamas, proposed, unconvincingly.

"There were two screams," Lewis said.

"The second one was me," Yvonne said. "I was so startled by that awful sound that I screamed, too. Sorry." Enrique put his arm around Yvonne in a protective way.

"Who's not here?" Susie said. "That should tell us who screamed."

"Cassandra isn't," Yvonne said.

"Maybe Cassandra's aku-aku is strangling her," Lewis said.

The original scream, however, had emanated from the mouth of Seth Connelly. As soon as his door was opened by the police guard, though, Seth very calmly walked out. His eyes were open, but he wasn't very responsive. "He's sleepwalking," Judith Hood, the doctor, said. "Don't touch him."

We all tried to stay out of his way, the police guard holding a flashlight up as Seth wandered about. If there was somewhere particular he planned to go, it was not evident to me. Finally he walked right up to the group of us, eyes wide open, and said, in a very strange voice, "We're all going to die."

Yvonne screamed again. "Shush," Judith said. "Seth," she said, in a carefully modulated and practiced tone. "I want you to go back to your room, get into bed, and go back to sleep."

"Dave is dead. Jasper is dead. Soon I'll be dead," he said, but he did what he was told. Judith waited until he had settled down, then told us all to go to back to bed.

"That is a very disturbed man," Judith said to the police guard. "I want to talk to your superior in the morning. He must be allowed out of that room."

"He's faking," Fuentes said, after the guard on the door summoned him the next morning at Judith's request. Moira and I had gone with her to provide moral support.

"I'm a doctor," Judith said. "I am giving you my professional opinion. I think this man is seriously delusional. We need to get him out of that room."

"Trust me," Fuentes said. "I've seen it all before." But in the end, he gave in. Seth would be allowed to leave his room as long as a guard was with him.

But Seth didn't want out of the room. I did realize that if I felt rather claustrophobic on this island, poor Seth Connelly must be really suffering confined to his room. It was his own fault, certainly, and had caused me some difficulty to be sure. Still, he couldn't be having a fun time of it. Every time I walked by his room, I could see him in there sitting on the edge of the bed. The door was usually open so that he could see something other than four walls, and I guess he sat where he could see grass. When Judith talked to Fuentes the next day and got permission for him to leave the room to come to the dining room for his meals, however, Seth wouldn't budge.

"Does anyone know if he has family? "Judith asked us. "I think someone he trusts is going to have to come and take him home, and then get him some serious psychiatric help." Nobody knew anything about him. Judith then organized a rotation of people to visit him.

The first couple of visits went reasonably well, apparently. Everyone said he seemed to be fine. Mine, however, did not.

"Hi, Seth," I said rather tentatively. He did not look good. He hadn't shaved in days. He didn't smell good either. A little soap and water was definitely called for.

He scrambled to the other side of the bed. "Are you Anakena?" he said. "Have you come for me?"

"Seth," I said. "I'm Lara McClintoch, an antique dealer from Toronto. Unlike several of the people here, that is the only name I have. We had a lovely chat the other evening about rongorongo," I said. "Don't you remember?"

He looked at me closely. "You aren't Anakena?" he said.

"No," I replied. "I'm Lara. Anakena is a beach."

"We should never have come back," he said.

"Why not?" I said.

"Anakena knows," he said.

"Right," I said going into the bathroom and turning on the shower. "Now, you are going to have a shave and shower. Do you have any clean clothes?"

He looked around. "I guess some are cleaner than others," he said.

"Then get them, and go and clean yourself up," I said. I was treating him like a child, I knew that, but it seemed to be what it took, because he did what he was told. While he was in the shower, I did a quick sweep of the room. The only item of note was the copy of The Art Forger's Handbook, this time with its own cover. A few minutes later, Seth came out of the bathroom a relatively changed man.

"Okay, now," I said in my best schoolmarm voice. "Gather up your dirty clothes and fill out this form. I'm going to call for the housekeeper to do your laundry." I picked up the phone. "This phone doesn't work," I said.

"No," he said. I pulled the cord up and looked at it. I was about to say it looked just like the cord in Dave's room, but bit my tongue. If Seth thought he was going to end up like Dave on Tepano's Tomb, telling him that was going to send him right around the bend, given his fragile state. I took the laundry bag to reception and asked them to look after it.

When I got back to the room, Seth allowed as how he felt better now that he'd cleaned himself up. "I'm sorry I was so out of it when you first came," he said. "I don't know what's the matter with me. I've always been a little claustrophobic, you know. I can't go into caves," he added, stuttering over the word caves. "The idea of a submarine terrifies me. Maybe being on this little island…" His voice trailed off.

"It is difficult being here and knowing you can't leave," I agreed, and then I suggested he come to lunch with me. He got that haunted look again and refused. I realized that he seriously believed there was someone out there who wanted to kill him, and I suppose a hotel room with only one en trance and window, both guarded by a member of the Carabineros de Chile, looked like a pretty good arrangement to him, even if he was slightly claustrophobic. How he thought he was going to get home, however, was another matter.

"Okay," I sighed. This was tough going, but I'd promised Judith I'd take my turn, and take my turn I would.

"What did you think of the San Pedro rongorongo tablet?" I said.

His hands started to tremble. "It's genuine," he said. "We didn't want it to be, but it is."

"Why wouldn't you want it to be?" I asked. "Is it because you don't believe Rapa Nui was first settled from South America? Is that it?"

"It's not from South America," he said.

"What do you mean, it's not from South America? You're saying it's real, but not from the place Jasper claims it is," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Gordon Fairweather and Rory Carlyle seemed to think it was a possibility that it did—come from South America, that is."

"That's because they didn't have a chance to take a good look at it the way I did," he said.

"Good for you," I said. "How did you manage that?" One part of my brain was telling me to have look around the room to see where he'd hidden the tablet; another part was sure he was sliding into lunacy again right before my eyes.

"Dave let me see it," he said. "He had a good look at it as well. He said he thought the wood was wrong for Chile, but he'd have to check when he got home, or maybe on the Internet. Dave knows his wood, being a builder. Dave knew his wood," he corrected himself.

"How did Dave come to have the tablet?" I said. Dave had been long gone when Jasper showed the tablet to the world. I was getting confused.

"He brought it with him," Seth said.

"The tablet was Dave's?"

"Of course not," Seth said. "Jasper asked Dave to bring it with him. A diversion, I suppose, or maybe he didn't want to risk being caught with it. Jasper just flits into a location, gets himself filmed doing something spectacular, and then flies out again. He's always been like that, even when he was young. Dave met Jasper in Miami, and Dave made a little stand for the tablet, so it would be upright on the stage, and then brought it with him. I think Dave just put it in his carry-on luggage and brought it out. Dave didn't think it was much of a risk, because they're looking for rongorongo being smuggled out of here, not coming in."

"So why did Jasper ask Dave to do it?"

"They go back a long way. We all do," he said. "Dave was coming out here early to see that everything got set up right and then to be official greeter. Brenda Butters is a good organizer, which is why Jasper asked her to help with the registrations and everything, but she isn't very good at the social stuff."

"You and Jasper and Dave all go back a long way?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

"So Dave thought the wood was wrong, did he? What did you think?"

"I know the tablet didn't come from Chile. Dave wanted to believe it did, but I knew he was wrong. When he started to think the wood was wrong, then he wanted it to be a forgery. We borrowed a book about forgeries, and Dave studied it. It's here somewhere."

"Is that it?" I said, pointing to the Hebborn.

"Yes," he said, picking it up and handing it to me.

"Dave was reading it to see how the forgery might be done."

"When was this?"

"We talked about it the night he died," Seth said. "He came to my room to get the tablet late that night after they closed the bar and everyone had turned in for the night. We had to give it to Jasper and that Kent Clarke woman so they could get it ready for the presentation. He took it with him."

"So where is the San Pedro tablet now?" I asked.

"I have no idea," he said. "It doesn't matter where it is."

It does if it has something to do with Dave and Jasper's deaths, I thought, but once again I kept that thought to myself. "But it's missing. Someone must have thought it worth stealing."

"Or Jasper made it disappear because he didn't really want anyone who knew anything about it to have a close look," he said. "It is not from Chile. It was Jasper's vanity, his determination to find something that supported his theories, that blinded him to the obvious."

"I'm not getting this," I said. "Are you saying that Jasper just pretended to discover the tablet in Chile? That he just walked out of the desert into some town and said, 'Look what I found?"

"No, I'm saying someone put it there for Jasper to find," Seth said. "It was a message, even if Jasper didn't realize it at first."

"Wouldn't that be a lot of trouble? That canyon looked pretty deserted and far from, well, everywhere."

"Not for Anakena," Seth said. "And not for Jasper."

"Anakena is a beach," I repeated.

Seth was obviously in bad shape. "You didn't like Jasper, I know," I added. "You said you'd known him a long time. Why did you stay in touch?"

"Who said anything about staying in touch? I hadn't seen him in thirty years when I got here. I'm getting a little tired," he said.

"Dave kept something locked in his safety deposit box," I said, thinking if anybody knew it would be Seth. "It wasn't his money or his passport. Do you know what it was?"

"I expect it was the photograph," he said. "I shouldn't have brought it. We shouldn't have come at all."

"Photograph of what?"

"Anakena knows."

"Where would this photograph be now?" I said, ignoring his reference to Anakena.

"I imagine it has been destroyed. That's what I would have done."

"Was Dave drunk when he came to see you the night he died?" I asked. Perhaps this was a question Seth would be capable of answering.

"No," he said. "He showed me a bottle of pisco he'd bought to take home with him. But he hadn't drunk any. Everybody thinks it was an accident, that he tried to ride a horse in the middle of the night."

"I don't," I said. "I think he was murdered." There, I'd said it.

"Yes," Seth said. He seemed remarkably calm all of a sudden.

"Who do you think did it?" I asked.

"Anakena," he said. "Whoever that is." Then he climbed into bed, curled up into the fetal position, and closed his eyes. I took that as my signal to leave.

I wanted to say something to comfort him. He was obviously in very bad shape, with all that talk of Anakena and messages. The only helpful thing I could think of was that the sun was out, Gordon's lawyer was on the way, and if he turned himself in, then maybe we'd all be able to go home. But there was only so much of that I could tell without betraying Gordon and possibly making trouble for myself. That the sun was out would be about as far as I could go, and somehow I didn't think that would help, given Seth wouldn't go out of his room to stand in it. "I'll bring you some dinner later," was all I said.

I went to get my own lunch. The dining room had closed already, but they took pity on me and made me a sandwich. Susie Scace was sitting alone at a table on the terrace, so I asked if I could join her.

"Do you mind if I ask if you're one of the people with a funny nickname of some kind?" I said.

"Nana o Keke," she said. "At your service."

"What is that all about, or is it some big secret?"

"No secret, really. Not now anyway. A number of us are here because we participate in a group on the Internet called the Moaimaniacs. We all use an alias, so part of the fun of coming here was to meet people and try to put them together with their alias. Some were easy. Cassandra was on it, I know, because of all that stuff about Lemuria. On the Internet, she calls herself Mu—Mu being the earth mother and the goddess after whom they're supposed to have named Lemuria. She always speaks of herself in the third person, as in 'Mu believes Rapa Nui to be the tip of her continent,' or 'Mu would be interested in learning more about whatever,' that sort of thing. I had no trouble identifying her right away. I hope you'll forgive me for saying so, but I found her tiresome on the Internet and even more tiresome in person."

"You won't get any argument from me there," I said. "I think she's awful."

"Dave Maddox, poor man, was MoaiMan, Seth is RongoReader, and Brian is Birdman. Everyone tried to choose something that related both to Rapa Nui, of course, but also their particular area of interest. Brian is interested in doing some research at Orongo, which is the site of the bird man cult. Dave, well, you know all about his moving moai theories. And Seth is really into rongorongo. Have you taken your turn visiting him by the way? He seemed relatively okay when I was there, but I think maybe he's on the edge of a complete breakdown, perhaps because of Jasper and Dave. What did you think?"

I agreed Seth was in pretty bad shape. "What about your alias? Nana o Keke, did you say?"

"I'm embarrassed to tell you," she said. "Because it isn't very good, not nearly as clever as some of the others. My grandchildren call me Nana, and Ana o Keke is the cave of the white virgins. Therefore, Nana o Keke. Seeing as how I'm a grandmother, the virgin part didn't make a lot of sense, but I liked the rhythm of it.

"Let's see, who else?" she said, counting off on her fingers. "There were supposed to be eleven of us here. Albert Morris is Arikimo, a clever play on the title for king, ariki mau, and his last name, and Brenda Butters is Avareipu. That would be Hotu Matu'a's sister, or wife, depending on which version of the myth of the first settler you care for. Enrique, that dear boy with his nose in a guidebook all the time, is Tongenrique, also clever.

"Edwina Rasmussen is Vinapu, because she supports Jasper's theories of settlement from South America. Vinapu is an ahu where the stonework is believed to resemble that of Cusco, Peru, and one that people point to as evidence of South Amerindian settlement. Edwina didn't participate much in the Internet dialogue, just corrected us from time to time, which is what she has continued to do here, I'm afraid. My favorite, though, is Poikeman. That would be Lewis. I think it suits him to a T, don't you? He sort of looks like the toy, doesn't he? What is it his wife calls him? A little muffin?"

"I'm missing somebody, though. Yvonne! How could I forget? She's Hottie Matu'a. I suppose some of the locals would think that sacrilege or something, taking the name of their first king in vain, but you've got to admit it suits her." She laughed.

"Where did the idea for the congress start? Was it on the Internet?"

"I don't know really. There was an announcement post to our list that the event was happening and when. There was an email giving us all the information about hotels and so on, and the registration form came from Avareipu, that is to say Brenda Butters, although I didn't know that was her name at the time. All the Moaimaniacs were invited. I think there are fifteen of us, but only eleven were able to get here. I've managed to identify all but one."

"Which one would that be?" I said.

"I'm missing Anakena," she said. "I'm surprised, because Anakena was the one who urged us all to come. I suppose he or she could have suggested it and then not been able to come themselves, which would have been a shame. Either that or they're here and just prefer not to have us know who they are. I can't imagine why, because it's been fun meeting everyone."

So that was what Seth meant. "Could Anakena have been Jasper?" I asked.

"I suppose it could, but I don't think so. Jasper provided the Internet site, and he may have followed the conversation, but if so, he was a lurker—you know, someone who reads but never identifies themselves. He had a number of chat groups on his Web site for places he'd done work and had one of his spectacular adventures. Ours is Moaimaniacs@jasperrobinsongroups.com. A bit of a mouthful. His schedule was posted on the group from time to time, along with press releases and so on. My recollection is that they were posted by Jasper@JasperRobinson.com. He didn't strike me as the kind of guy to use an alias. He pretty much wanted everybody to know who he was."

"The guest of honor, plus one of the maniacs, ending up dead?" she said. "Yes and no. Jasper's presentation was a knockout, of course. Who would have guessed he'd turn up a rongorongo tablet in Chile! The field trips were also great, although I'd have appreciated a bit more explanation about what we were seeing. It was great when Rory Carlyle came and told us about trying to link Rapa Nui myth with real archaeological data. My one complaint was that I thought there were going to be a lot more expert speakers. I enjoyed the first day with Rory and Christian Hotus and even Edwina Rasmussen, despite her attitude problem. I also thought our own Birdman Brian Murphy's paper was terrific. But after that we were just kind of talking to ourselves. I was surprised that there weren't more experts, but I have a feeling a lot of them turned down invitations to speak because of Jasper. I think Edwina Rasmussen was a little surprised to find out it was just us Moaimaniacs. Maybe that explains why she's so crabby. Don't tell her I said that."

"Seth thinks someone called Anakena is trying to kill him," I ventured.

"The poor man," Susie said. "He seemed perfectly lucid when I was there."

"Maybe that's because he knows you aren't Anakena," I said.

As silly as it sounded, I did have to admit that two people who were part of an Internet chat group called the Moaimaniacs were dead, murdered. It had to be someone at the conference who was responsible, really, so some person who called themselves Anakena, but didn't want anybody to know who they were, made as much sense as a suspect as anybody else. And Seth had been absolutely lucid when he talked about the rongorongo tablet and even when he talked about Dave. Why wouldn't he also be lucid about this?

So who was Anakena? If anyone should know it was Brenda Butters, Avareipu, or whatever it was, the registrar of the congress. I went to find her.

"I don't have a lot of time to talk," she said in that breathless way she had. Life, it seemed to me, was one big emergency for people like Brenda. "The hotel is just chaos," she said. "The flights are starting to come in again and we're still here. They're blaming me, of course, as the person who did all the arrangements, but I don't see how they can blame me for people getting killed. Still, we are going to have to move a few of our people to the old wing, to free up a few air conditioned rooms for arriving guests. People won't be happy, but I don't know what else to do.

"Who first had the idea for the congress? Was that your question? I really don't know," she said. "Jasper sent out a press release, that's all. He said something about how thrilled he was to be guest of honor at this event. Then, Kent Clarke also sent out a request through our Web group asking if anyone would be willing to act as volunteer registrar and if so to let her know what qualifications we had and so on. I emailed her and told her I had experience running training courses, booking the rooms, and everything. It's what I used to do before I retired. She said there was a free hotel room for every fifteen rooms taken, so I could have the first one if I'd agree to help out. I said sure. It's very expensive to get to Rapa Nui from New Jersey, believe me, so any help I could get would be fine. I'm retired, and so I had the time, and it's good to get involved, you know."

"So as registrar you would know the identity of all the Moaimaniacs?" I said.

"Not really," she replied. "We used aliases, you see. In some cases I knew who people were. Their names show up in their email addresses even if they sign on with an alias. I certainlyknewDave Maddox and Seth Connelly.Their email addresses are their names, essentially, and they were founding members of the chat group when it got going three years ago. Dave used to sign on as Dave Maddox The MoaiMan, so everyone knew him. I think that's why he came out early to help out. Everybody in the group knew him if not by sight, then by name. Terrible what happened. But others, no. Yvonne, Hottie Matu'a, for example, used a name which isn't the same as hers, her ex-husband's I think she said. She hadn't got around to getting a new email address for her maiden name. I had no clue who she was. And Poikeman already had that alias when he joined the group. It already was his email address."

"So you were responsible for inviting everyone and dealing with the hotel and everything?"

"I was. Kent Clarke sent me a list, I emailed them, and asked them to come. The list included the Moaimaniacs, but also a number of others. I just posted the invitation to the whole Moaimaniacs list. I attached a registration form, which you could either fax to me with credit card information, or you could mail with your check. People registered under their real names, not their aliases, of course.

"What about hotel arrangements?"

"I researched the hotels and picked this one, but with the exception of the film team, everyone made their own reservations directly with the hotel, or through their travel agents," she said. "It was more work than I thought it would be. I had to find special facilities for the film people, a room where they could work with lots of electrical outlets and stuff. They have tons of equipment with them. I booked their rooms, although the cameraman lives here and didn't need one, but I got them for the director and for Kent Clarke and her daughter. Then we had to have the meeting rooms all set up and everything and the AV equipment everybody needed for their session all arranged. It kept me busy, I'll tell you.Iwas always havingto change the arrangements I'd made. We held a block of rooms, for example, but we're actually quite a small group, so we had to release them as time went by. There wasn't the registration we originally expected. I'd thought originally we would have to billet people in other hotels or in bed-and-breakfast places, but we didn't."

"Why not, do you think?"

"The academics. We invited a lot of experts to come and speak. We even offered to pay for their accommodation once they got here. But most turned us down. Even Gordon Fairweather, who lives here, turned us down. Jasper is, was, a great man. They will come to realize that."

"You said two people canceled at the last minute," I said.

"Two of our speakers. I think they didn't want to have anything to do with Jasper, which I think is a shame. Academic arrogance of the worst sort."

"Did all the maniacs you expected turn up?" I asked.

"Everyone who said they were coming, with the exception of the two who canceled at the last minute, are here," she said.

"So Anakena is here," I said.

"I guess so," she said. "All the rooms were taken that were supposed to be and all the badges picked up."

"Do you have any idea who Anakena is?"

"No idea at all," she said.

So there I was back in line for the Internet. Question to Rob: Is it possible to find out who people are and where they live when they use an alias on the Internet?

Answer: Possible, but often very difficult, especially if that person lives outside the U.S. and Canada and a few countries in Europe. Think of those hackers from Russia, for example. Internet is very hard to police. When are you coming home?

Answer: Soon I hope.

So far this was going nowhere. The Moaimaniacs said Avareipu invited them. Avareipu said Kent Clarke asked her to help out, but she didn't know where the idea for the congress originated. I supposed that meant I would now have to talk to Kent Clarke.

But I didn't get to that, at least not right away. I was just about to leave Brenda to her labors when Pablo Fuentes showed up. "Just the people I am looking for," he said. "Sefiora, your services as translator again, please. Senora Butters, would you please arrange for your group to be in the meeting room in ten minutes."

"Ten minutes!" Brenda exclaimed. I thought for a minute she was going to pass out at this addition to her responsibilities, but she rallied.

"Are you going to give me a preview of what I'm to translate?" I asked, as we walked over to the meeting room.

"I will be announcing that Gordon Fairweather has been apprehended and that I expect he will be charged shortly in the murder of Jasper Robinson," he said. My heart sank.

"The good news for your group is that once he has been charged, the rest of you will be asked to sign formal statements, and then you will be allowed to leave. The group will like you better this time, Senora. I think they blamed the translator last time, did they not?"

"A bit," I said.

"I trust they realized later that was unfair," he said.

"They certainly realized later that I knew nothing," I said. "I did get quite a few questions I was unable to answer."

He laughed. "This is a rather strange group of people," he said.

"Like Cassandra, for instance?"

"You know?" he said.

"Know what?" I said. "That Cassandra de Santiago isn't her real name? Anybody could guess that."

"That, too," he said, rather mysteriously, but he offered nothing more. "Do you still believe that Dave Maddox was murdered?"

"I don't know," I said. I did, of course, but I also really wanted to go home. "Where did you apprehend Fairweather?" I asked.

"In a cave," Fuentes said. "We had a devil of a time getting him out of there."

"A cave?" I said, in my most innocent voice. "How did you find him?"

"We didn't exactly," Fuentes said. "He has got himself a high-priced lawyer from Santiago. The man took us to Fairweather and said that the reason he had not come in sooner was that he was injured conducting archaeological studies in a cave and had no idea we were looking for him!"

I liked the sound of this lawyer. It was all I could do not to smile. "Was Fairweather injured in this cave?"

"It is possible," Fuentes allowed. "He certainly had a very bad shoulder. We had to send someone down from the top of a cliff over the sea and then get him out that way because he couldn't make it the inland route. I am wondering, of course, how he survived. He said he had a little food with him and some water. We only found a couple of bottles of water, empty. He must have gotten rather hungry and thirsty if he was there the whole time. Personally, I think this is a complete fabrication, but we will have to deal with it."

"You know an academic argument, no matter how heated, does not seem to me to be a motive for murder," I said.

"Professional jealousy," Fuentes said. "I'm sure Dr. Fairweather does a fine job, but it is Jasper who was the great success. And Robinson humiliated Fairweather didn't he, that night when he made his presentation?"

"I'm told Gordon took it very well, that he was a gentleman," I said. "He didn't yell or anything."

"Perhaps because he had other plans for revenge," Fuentes said. "I saw the tape of the presentation, how Jasper first quoted Fairweather and then flung his new discovery in Fairweather's face. And showing a photograph of a potato! I do not pretend to understand the arguments, but I have some sense of how galling that must have been. It may seem, to people like you and me, to be a tempest in an academic teapot, but I believe it was a lifetime of work and a sterling academic career down the drain. Perhaps Fairweather lost all sense of perspective and in a fit of rage killed the man. Perhaps he will get off with manslaughter. I do not presume to speculate."

"Robinson also quoted Dr. Carlyle," I said. "You aren't charging him, too, are you?"

"No, not yet, although he may be charged for helping Fairweather escape if I can prove it," Fuentes said. "I do understand what you are saying though, and I agree with you that academic disagreements in and of themselves do not constitute motive. But my sense of it is that the disagreement between Fairweather and Robinson was very, very personal."

The trouble was, he was right. Fairweather might say it wasn't, but it seemed to me it was. The animosity between the two men was palpable. Robinson had really rubbed Fairweather's nose in it. Academic careers could be fickle things. If you were hot, then grant money came your way. If you weren't, if you were considered a has-been, or just plain wrong about something, then you could languish for years in some remote corner of academia. Even the cave might seem preferable. Fairweather liked to be on Rapa Nui. He liked living here and working here. But his income came from a university in Australia, and it was that university and the grants he got from various sources that enabled him to be here.

"I still think an argument at the quarry is not enough evidence to convict Fairweather," I said.

"Why would you think that is the only evidence I have?" Fuentes said. "And don't bother asking me what the other evidence is."

It wasn't ten, but it was only about twenty minutes later that the group was once again assembled, and indeed, as Fuentes had predicted, I was much more popular with the audience this time around. People even offered to treat me to pisco sours. I could have had as many as I wanted, all for free, and indeed I went and had a couple, just to get a sense; of how the wind was blowing, as it were.

I was actually a bit surprised. I expected that the talk would be all about Fairweather and the fact he'd bee charged, and there was some of that. Primarily, however everyone was talking about how to get home. LanChile lines were inundated by calls from all of us, and Albert did: appeared immediately. He apparently grabbed a cab an went to the airport, but could find no one to talk to because; the day's flight had already left. When the subject came u| the group was inclined to think Gordon was guilty, but thought that was because they had never really met him or talked to him at any length.

What I did learn was that while I'd been languishing with a migraine, Robinson and Gordon had had anotherheated discussion, witnessed by Brian and Yvonne, that had ended with an actual scuffle: some pushing and shoving by the way Yvonne characterized it. I wondered if that was the additional evidence to which Fuentes had referred.

After two pisco sours, I realized I wasn't really in the mood for a celebration, and so I thought I'd just go to m room. Moira had taken it upon herself to deal with LanChil on our reservation. It would be a few days, actually, before everyone got out of there, given the limited availability of seats on the planes that time of year.

It occurred to me that from my vantage point on the stage as Fuentes' translator, I had not seen Seth at the meeting. If anyone would be thrilled at the prospect of getting out of here, that person would be Seth. He'd have his bags packed in nanoseconds, I was sure. Given he intended to go on to Tahiti, he might be more successful getting a seat on the next flight, although when that was, exactly, I didn't know. Remembering my promise to bring him something to eat, I asked the dining room to package up some dinner for Seth, then took it over to his room. The door was closed, and the guard, presumably no longer required, was gone. I knocked, then knocked again. I tried the door and found it locked.

"I have some good news for you," I said, through the door. "You can go home." Still nothing. "I'm getting the key, Seth," I said, loudly. "You might as well get up and let me in."

Getting the key took some doing. Hotel desks do not generally hand keys to people other than those who are paying for the room. I finally persuaded my friend Celia at reception that I was really worried about Seth and that she could come with me, to make sure I didn't steal anything. At last, she agreed.

The room was dark, and it took me a moment or two to get used to the gloom. I tried to turn the light on, but it didn't work. The room had been rearranged, the bed pushed against the far wall. At first I thought Seth was asleep in it, but when I went to shake him awake, I found only a jumble of blankets and pillows. I looked around. The bathroom door was closed and, like the outer door, locked. I knocked there, too, and called Seth's name, then put my ear to the door. I couldn't hear a sound, no water running, no sense of a presence behind the door. With a grave sense of foreboding, I threw my weight against the door. The lock immediately gave way.

Celia screamed and screamed. I just stood there for a second, stunned. Seth was hanging from the ceiling. I struggled to lift him, to ease the pressure on his neck, yelling at Celia to stop screaming and help me. There was no question it was too late. He'd pinned a note to his shirt: I'm sorry for what I did. I hope this will make amends. In a gesture that struck me as incongruous, the note was actually signed: Seth Connelly.