The Moai Murders

4

ANA KAI TANGATA—"Trampled by a horse?!" Moira said. Her tone was skeptical, something for which I could hardly blame her.

"That's what they're saying," I replied. "They" were the people charged with the responsibility of enforcing the law on Rapa Nui, the Carabineros de Chile, and it was in their headquarters on a dirt road out by the airport that I found myself.

"I don't believe it!" Moira said.

"I did hear a horse," I said. "And we might have been trampled ourselves, if you will recall, when we were out at the ahu near the cemetery. More to the point, however, the police say there are all kinds of hoof prints around where I found him."

"Horses are a big problem here," Rory said. He and Moira had come to lend their support, which was nice of them. I noticed they were holding hands. "There are way too many of them. They're everywhere. A lot of them are wild, or at least semi-wild. You could get rid of half the horses on the island and there would still be too many."

"They say he may have tried riding the horse. One of his shoes was found several yards away," I said.

"He decided to go riding in the middle of the night?"

"It wasn't exactly the middle of the night," I said. "It was dark, but it was close to six."

"Rapa Nui is on entirely artificial time," Rory said. "Because it belongs to Chile, even though it is 2,400 miles out from Santiago, the island tries to stay close to Chile time here. It's way darker than it should be in the morning and stays light well into the evening."

"He must have been drunk as a skunk," Moira said.

"He was well on his way when I last saw him," Rory said. "He purchased a bottle of pisco in the bar and was heading off to his room. Notice I said a bottle, not a glass."

"He said he was taking it home to the States with him," Moira said. "But I suppose that is what people who are trying to hide their drinking say. Perhaps he had a problem."

"I don't know, but would he drink so much that he'd go out and try to ride a horse in the dark?" I said. "His paper was supposed to be today, and he was so excited about it. He was nervous, yes, but despite that I am certain he had every intention of showing up. You think he'd stay sober long enough to deliver it."

"Maybe he just wasn't used to pisco," Rory said. "It's very pleasant to drink with a little whipped egg white and lime juice in a pisco sour, but it is distilled liquor and can be pretty lethal if you drink it straight."

"You are free to go now," a not unpleasant police officer by the name of Pablo Fuentes said. "We thank you, Senora, for helping us with the investigation. It all seems very straightforward. I will have someone drive you back to your hotel."

"I'll do that," Rory said. I was grateful for the ride. I was tired after a couple of hours conversing only in Spanish, which I hadn't used much for a year or two, and three rather wild- and ferocious-looking dogs evidently considered the road just outside the headquarters of the carabineros their personal turf.

When we got back to the hotel, Moira approached with a glass of water in one hand and a pill in the other. "Sleep," she said. "I got these after my operation. You will be out for about six hours, and you will feel better."

For some reason, I am uncomfortable with sleeping pills. I knew Moira took them. I'd seen her do so on more than one occasion since we'd set off together on this trip. I don't like the way I feel when I wake up, I don't like the dreams I have when I'm out, and I have a rather irrational fear of something bad happening while I sleep. Given a choice between that and spending six hours thinking about the pulp that was once the left side of Dave Maddox's face, however, I opted for the pill.

Soon I was dreaming away, unfortunately about horses. There were horses in my house, in the shop, in the backyard. They were everywhere. At some point, they galloped into a row, and I realized I was watching the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Leading the group, to my surprise, was Rob. He was in dress uniform, red jacket and all, and he looked, I must say, rather fetching.

Now, it is true Rob is a Mountie. I suppose he must know how to ride a horse. I, however, in all the years I've known him, have never seen him do it.

In any event, Rob rode right up to where I stood, and towering over me from the vantage point of the saddle, said, "Remember what I told you about horses." He then rode off to join the others. The ranks divided as they came up to me, swung around on either side, and in a moment or two they were gone. It was then that I woke up.

"Good, you're awake," Moira said. "I've brought you something to eat. Then you're going to have a shower and get dressed. You have forty-five minutes until Jasper Robinson begins to speak."

Stickler for the social niceties that I am, I would have thought that the trampling death of a delegate to a conference as small as this would have brought the proceedings to a halt, at least for a day. But I had forgotten that this wasn't a real conference, at least not as far as Gordon Fairweather was concerned, and it was the documentary that was driving it. The show, as they say, must go on.

I knew I'd had some weird dreams, and I had a feeling there was something I was supposed to remember, but whatever it was, it was gone. I felt groggy and stupid, and I didn't want to go anywhere, but Moira was insistent. I knew she was right, but it all seemed way too difficult.

The meeting room was full when we got there, with standing room only at the back. For a minute I thought maybe I could crawl back into bed, but Rory had saved us seats. Moira sat beside Rory, and I was seated between Gordon Fairweather, who had evidently decided to attend, and Seth Connelly, the rongorongo expert. Albert Morris, Lewis and Judith Hood, Edwina, Enrique, and Yvonne sat immediately behind us. I hoped Gordon wouldn't start yelling during Robinson's talk, because I'd had more than enough drama for one day and my head was starting to hurt. There was a spot just over my left eye that was throbbing, and as the camera with its accompanying spotlight swept the crowd, I had to cover my eyes. I was also feeling slightly claustrophobic in the middle of the row. There was a larger meeting room in another building, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why they wouldn't have used it. Silly me. Clearly I would never have a career in publicity and public relations, because when I mentioned it to Moira she pointed out that they wanted the room to look really crowded for the cameras.

About fifteen minutes past the appointed starting time, the lights in the room dimmed, which came as a relief, if only a temporary one, and Jasper Robinson jogged out from behind a curtain accompanied by music that sounded somewhat anthem-like. I idly wondered if I had wandered into a religious revival meeting by mistake. Robinson bounded up the steps and thence to the microphone, smiling and waving like an evangelist—or was it a candidate for president he most resembled? I couldn't decide. Moira started to giggle, Gordon Fairweather looked heavenward for support, and Rory, staring at his shoes, shook his head in amazement. I wanted to throw up.

The room may have been small, but the screen to one side of it was large, as was Jasper Robinson's head on it. Rock concert, I decided. Not a campaign stump, not a religious meeting. A rock concert. I was right, too, because just then a group of dancers dressed in traditional Rapa Nui attire came out to perform, accompanied by a group of musicians and two women who sang. Jasper swayed and clapped in time to the music. I looked around the room. Everyone, with the exception of Rory, Fairweather, and I, seemed to be lapping it up. Even Moira was smiling, but she may have just been laughing at the absurdity of it all.

Then as quickly as it had started, the warm-up act was finished, and the dancers, who had actually done an excellent job even if the context was a little odd, dispersed. I can remember thinking that when I felt better, I might like to see them perform again. On the large screen a photograph of a moai appeared, and across it the words Rapa Nui: The Mystery Solved appeared. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, and all those who love knowledge," Robinson said. There was applause. I guess nobody in the room was prepared to admit they hated knowledge. "I am here tonight to present for your consideration my latest work on the mystery of the moai of Rapa Nui." He paused and there was a smattering of applause again. "I'd like to begin, if I may, with a personal note."

A photo of an older man in a blue shirt and sun hat, smiling, appeared on the screen. "It was my privilege to spend some time with the late Thor Heyerdahl," Jasper said. "Heyerdahl has been an inspiration throughout my life. He was not an archaeologist, as some of you in this room like to point out, but he was driven by a fierce commitment to his work, and his death is a tremendous loss. Easter Island, I know, was very dear to his heart. He believed, as most of you know, that the moai of Easter Island were carved by people from the South American mainland, people with highly evolved skills at stonework and from a sophisticated culture that was responsible for the great cities of Peru and Bolivia.

"For fifty years, the experts, some of whom are in this room," Robinson said, with a touch of sarcasm in his tone when he said the word experts, "have been trying to prove that settlement of Rapa Nui from the east, from the mainland, is not possible. My question for all of us this evening is what if the experts are wrong?"

"Not again," Rory sighed.

A new slide appeared: There is extensive archaeological evidence for the early settlement of Rapa Nui by Polynesians. If South Americans settled on Rapa Nui, where is the evidence?—Rory Carlyle. Rory and Gordon exchanged glances, Rory's rather pained.

"Heyerdahl knew perfectly well that Polynesians had settled Rapa Nui, Dr. Carlyle," Robinson said. "But he believed very strongly that there had been two waves of settlement of the island, one from South America that brought the great stonemasons to Rapa Nui, the second from central Polynesia. What evidence did he produce that would support that? First this." A slide showing Felipe Tepano sitting on a rock surrounded by a number of children, all apparently listening intently, came up on the screen. Behind them were a couple of horses, and for a few seconds I was drawn back into my dream. In this particular fragment of memory, there was a horse in the showroom at McClintoch and Swain. In the dream I had thought this was highly unusual and not a good idea, but it didn't seem to bother Clive at all. Pity he wasn't so reasonable in real life. I had this overwhelming sense that there was something I had to do, or remember, and whatever it was, it hovered somewhere near my conscious mind, but it wouldn't reveal itself. I turned my attention back to Jasper Robinson.

"Rapa Nui oral tradition tells of two waves of settlement of the island. One, of course, is the story of Hotu Matu'a, the first king, or Ariki Mau. But there is a story of seven others who came ahead of Hotu Matu'a, and there are stories of pale, redheaded men on the island. It is even possible that Hotu Matu'a was pale-skinned. We know how valued pale skin has been over the centuries here; witness the practice of placing people in caves to whiten their skin. Those who do not accept Heyerdahl's theories are happy enough to believe the folk tales about the arrival of Hotu Matu'a, but ignore the stories that suggest the arrival of a different people. This is hardly good science.

"But is oral tradition, suspect at the best of times, the only discussion point this evening? It is not." A photo of a potato appeared on the screen.

"Not that potato business again," I heard Lewis Hood say in the row behind.

"Get to the point, man," Albert Morris said.

"Ipomoea batatas," Robinson said. "A type of sweet potato. This has been the spanner in the works, as we would say in England, the monkey wrench, where discussions of the original inhabitants of Rapa Nui are concerned. It sticks in the craw of our so-called experts, believe me."

"Since when was he English?" Fairweather muttered. He must have seen the look I sent his way because he leaned over and said, "Don't worry. I'll behave."

"Ipomoea batatas is, I'm certain we will all agree, indigenous to the Americas, not to Polynesia. Yet it has been on Easter Island for a very long time and may indeed predate the arrival of the ancestors of the people who now live here. It is easily transported by people, that we know. Recent work shows us that it was in Polynesia by about 700 AD. How did it get there? At this time, we simply do not know."

"Is that true?" Moira asked Rory.

"Sort of," he replied.

"I still don't get it," Yvonne said. "Even though Jasper already explained it to me."

"Shush," Edwina said. "Why are you here if you won't pay attention?"

"Heyerdahl believed it came direct to Easter Island from the source in South America," Jasper said. "Given that we don't know how it got here, is this any more improbable than saying Polynesians got to South America and took it back with them? I do not believe so. Those who support transfer from Polynesia point to the fact that they can find no evidence for the sweet potato on Rapa Nui before 1600 AD, but surely this is not entirely fair, given that ipomoea batatas does not preserve well in sediment. This one fact alone should force us to at least revisit the possibility that people like Thor Heyerdahl were right and that the first settlers on Rapa Nui were from South America. But no. The orthodox view now is that Heyerdahl was completely incorrect, and the search for the moai builders has moved on."

Up on the screen there appeared what looked like a reed of some kind—bulrushes, we'd call them at home. "The tortora reed," Robinson said. "Also indigenous to South America." The slide disappeared quickly to be replaced with another, this one showing two men astride a boat, paddling out to sea. "This slide shows us small boats made of this same tortora reed," Robinson continued. "The photograph was taken just off the coast of northern Peru, where boats of this type are common. The tortora reed is found in the crater lakes of Rapa Nui, and we have drawings of Rapa Nui people on craft like this. What would the self-proclaimed experts have to say about this?"

"What does he mean self-proclaimed?" Seth Connelly muttered. "If anybody is a self-proclaimed expert, it's Robinson."

Another slide appeared: The transfer of plants cannot be used as proof of the transfer of culture.—Gordon Fairweather.

"Your turn," Rory said to Fairweather.

"That is most excellent statement," Enrique said. "I will use it for my tourists."

"Quite right, Fairweather," Robinson said. Gordon looked wary. "But these are arguments we've been having for decades. What would it take to prove to you that a transfer of culture had taken place between South America and Rapa Nui, a transfer originating on the mainland, I might add. What if there were new evidence of a cultural transfer from South America to Rapa Nui?"

Another slide appeared. I held my hand over my left eye to see it better, but it didn't help much. I had no idea what I was looking at. It was a series of figures carved into something, most likely a piece of wood. "This is a photograph of the large Santiago tablet, now in the Museo Nacional de Historia Naturel. On it, of course, is carved the writing system we call rongorongo."

As Jasper spoke, another slide appeared: Rongorongo, while an extraordinary achievement for which there are no known antecedents anywhere in Polynesia, was essentially a short-lived phenomenon, beginning shortly after the acquisition of the island for Spain and ending in 1864 when the men called maori rongorongo were either captured in slave raids or felled by smallpox. With them the knowledge of how to read rongorongo was lost.—Gordon Fairweather.

"Is he going to try to tell us something different?" Connelly said.

"Both Gordon Fairweather and Rory Carlyle, whose views I have tried to make sure you understand in the interests of a full airing of opinion, are with us tonight," Robinson said. Something akin to the sound of a small animal being strangled emanated from the general direction of Gordon's throat. "Fairweather," Robinson repeated, "makes three points here. The first is that there is no precedent for rongorongo in Polynesia. He is quite right, and I will ask you to remember that fact."

"Why do I think your words are about to be twisted into something unrecognizable?" Rory said.

"His second point I will return to, but his third, that the ability to read rongorongo disappeared with the capture and deaths of the Maori rongorongo is also correct. Certainly there was no one in the early part of the twentieth century who could read it. But to continue with Dr. Connelly's interesting point of view—"

"Interesting?" Fairweather said. "Is that what you call it?"

"Gordon," Moira said, in a warning tone.

"It is Fairweather's second point that I am most interested in tonight and that is that rongorongo dates to the annexation of this island and its subsequent renaming as San Carlos by the Spanish in 1770. I realize I am repeating what a lot of you already know, but I want to make sure everyone understands this because it is key to what I am going to show you later. According to that theory, the inhabitants of Rapa Nui watched the Spanish in all their imperial finery claim the island and were consequently asked to sign a document that sealed the acquisition. The Rapa Nui elders put some marks on the document, drawings of what they knew—a bird for example—and the Spanish left never to return. That document has survived.

"Then, so the story goes, the people of Rapa Nui, realizing that what the Spanish wrote represented in some way the spoken word, came up with their own writing system, the one we now know as rongorongo. If true, this is an extraordinary achievement—to design a writing system on the spot as it were, as opposed to the way most writing systems evolve, over centuries."

"What does he mean, if true?" Connelly said.

"I have a feeling we are about to find out," Rory said.

"My question to you all, and specifically to Dr. Fairweather, is what if rongorongo is much, much older than that, and what if its origins can be found elsewhere? We already know it doesn't come from Polynesia. Would a more ancient form of rongorongo qualify as evidence of cultural transfer, Dr. Fairweather?"

Robinson paused dramatically. I looked over at Rory and Gordon, then back to Seth. All three, as if attached together with string, slowly leaned forward in their seats.

After a few seconds in which you could hear the proverbial pin drop, a slide appeared on the screen. The slide was relatively dark, which was a merciful relief for me as my head was really throbbing now, and strange lights kept jumping about in front of my eyes. There was no way, though, that I was going to leave until I knew what Robinson had to say. The photograph on the slide was definitely not taken on Rapa Nui, but I had no idea where it had been. It was a desolate place, an earthly lunar landscape in a way, without so much as a blade of grass to be seen, just sand and rock. Nonetheless it was very beautiful. The picture must have been taken at either dawn or dusk, because mountains in the background had a pink tinge, as did the sand.

"Some of you will know that I have been working with some success in northern Chile," Robinson said, with a self-satisfied little laugh. "And it is in Northern Chile that I found something that will interest you all. This is the Valle de la Muerte, Death Valley, in other words, in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile, near the border with Bolivia. The valley, not far from San Pedro de Atacama, was discovered by a priest by the name of padre Gustavo Le Paige. It is now a popular tourist attraction. This part of the world is best known perhaps for salt flats, flamingo habitats, the highest geysers in the world at a startling fourteen thousand feet plus."

"Flamingos? Is he ever going to get to the point?" Albert asked. "I have discovered a rather delectable wine from the Maipo region and it is waiting for me in my room." Brenda Butters, in the row in front of us, turned around and glared. I sympathized with Albert. I was sure Moira had a bottle of painkillers in the room, and I wanted to have at it as well.

"You supply the wine. I'll bring the cola," Lewis chortled, ignoring Brenda's stare.

"It is interesting for another reason, which is that it may well be the driest place on the planet. That means, of course, that we are able to find ancient objects that in another climate would have long since decayed. So it is here that we find extraordinarily well-preserved mummies, for example, and an ancient mud brick pueblo, Aldea de Tulor, that dates to about 800 BC. In other words, the region is home to a very ancient culture.

"Just a mile or two from Death Valley there is a side slip off a similar canyon, and it is here that I discovered something that is going to rewrite the history of Rapa Nui." He paused dramatically. There was a hush. No one moved. It was as if the whole room was holding its breath. Several seconds ticked by.

A new slide appeared on the screen. It looked like a burlap bag filled out into a round ball with a rather small and desiccated head that stuck out of the top of it.

"Eeeww," Yvonne said. "What is that?!"

"Some of you will recognize this as a mummy bundle," Jasper said. "It was found in a tomb that I excavated in the canyon. Notice, please, an object with the bundle. I will show you a closer view of that object now."

Another slide appeared. To me it just looked like a holiday snapshot, the kind I was taking with my fancy new camera, only I hoped mine would be better. Two people were standing in the same kind of desert landscape we'd seen a minute earlier.

"You will perhaps recognize the two people in the photograph. On the right is Edwina Rasmussen, my esteemed colleague, and I am, of course, on the left." Both were smiling, and Jasper was holding something in his hand.

"You are all probably wondering what I'm holding," he said.

"Tell us," several in the audience called out. Jasper paused for more effect. He had everyone in the room's attention.

"Next slide, please," he said, and a close-up of his hands holding what looked to be a piece of wood with something carved on it appeared. I had to cover my left eye again to make it out at all. I still didn't know what it was, but it resembled the Santiago tablet Robinson had just shown. In other words, this carving had to be rongorongo.

"In case you're wondering," Robinson said. "This was found near San Pedro de Atacama in Northern Chile as I have just said, in a grave that has been dated to 200 CE, almost fifteen hundred years before rongorongo is supposed to have been invented on Rapa Nui. It has survived because of the exceptionally dry climate."

He paused dramatically. "The inescapable conclusion is that rongorongo originated on the mainland and was carried to Rapa Nui. Not the other way around." The room burst into applause.

The lights came up, and shooting pains stabbed my eyes. Two members of the warmup act rolled a glass case on a trolley out on to the stage. Flashbulbs started popping immediately, and soon the audience was on its feet, clapping rhythmically. At that moment I would have preferred to hear howling hounds of hell over that noise. Rongorongo was going to have to wait. I stood up, crawled over everyone between me and the aisle, and then bolted out the door. I made it as far as a hibiscus bush before I threw up. I staggered back to the room, crawled into bed, and pulled the blanket over my head to make the lights stop strobing.

"Migraine," the Chilean doctor said, in English for Moira's benefit, an hour or so later. I suppose that was something of a relief. I was sure I was having a stroke and would die, which didn't seem such a bad idea. "Have you had one before?"

"No," I mumbled.

"I'm told they are very unpleasant," he said. I could have told him that, too. I'd never had a headache even remotely like it. I wanted them to turn out the light and go away so I could die in peace.

"Unfortunately, once you have one, the likelihood of more is rather high," he said. If I could have managed to sit up without vomiting, I would have scratched his eyes out. Alas, I couldn't move.

"Perhaps that is a detail she doesn't need right at this moment," Moira, bless her heart, said.

"I'm going to give her something for the pain," the doctor said, as if I wasn't there.

I've tried taking something for the pain, you idiot. I can't keep it down.

"I understand she had an unpleasant experience earlier today, and that may well have set this off," he said.

No kidding! The guy was a genius. I decided that before I joined Dave Maddox in the netherworld I had to ask Moira what Seth, Rory, and Gordon had said about Jasper's rongorongo revelation, if that's what it was, and to request that she tell Rob that I loved him, or something equally touching. Instead, a few seconds later I'd been jabbed in the posterior and was out cold again, dreaming of horses. This time it was I who was lying on the pile of dirt known as Tepano's tomb. Felipe Tepano was there, on the patio, telling anyone who would listen that someone else was going to die on the same spot. I knew I was that someone because I was certain I'd had been kicked in the head by a horse. I tried to cry out for help, but couldn't make a sound. The only person who noticed me was Cassandra, who not only came over, but pulled me up and started shaking me. "I have put a curse on you," she said. "You insulted me. I have put a curse on you just as I did on Dave. I have the power. My aku-aku is very strong."

But then, suddenly there were Rob and the Mounties to the rescue. I've had this dream before, I thought.

"It's just a migraine. You'll be fine," Rob said. "Remember what I told you about horses." I promised him that this time I would, no matter what. As he wheeled his horse to the left to leave, he said, over his shoulder, "There's something else you've missed, by the way."

When I came to, the room was dark, and Moira was snoring slightly. I glanced around. A tiny fringe of light showed under the curtain, but I could look at it without flinching. Furthermore, the pain in the head had stopped, and I could sit up—I tried this very gingerly—without throwing up. Apparently the worst was over. I lay there quietly grateful, feeling much more kindly toward the doctor, and thinking about my dream. This time I could recall it all very well. The trouble was, I couldn't remember what Rob had told me about horses. Then it came to me. Rob said that horses will always go around you. Even if you were lying unconscious on the ground, he said, they would not trample you. If Rob was right, and I had no reason to think he wasn't, then what exactly had happened to Dave Maddox? And what was it I'd missed?

So there I was once again, creeping out of the room in an effort not to wake Moira. This time I took my new camera. The sky was soft gray tinged with pink this time, and there were angry dark clouds off in the distance. It was possible this was going to be a stormy day, which made what I was going to do all the more urgent.

I went directly to Tepano's tomb, which had a pathetic piece of yellow plastic fluttering away in its general location. No one had made any effort to cover up the scene of death, to protect it from the wind and what looked to be an approaching downpour. There were lots of footprints in the dirt, but also hoof prints as well. I could see why the carabineros had reached the conclusion they had. I took a picture of the spot, and also the gate, the one I'd found unhinged. Then I walked the full length of the fence until it reached the sea in one direction and a rock face in the other.

When I had completed the circuit, I was startled to see the Chilean policeman Pablo Fuentes watching me from the vantage point of the terrace. "Sometimes it is not a good idea to revisit the site of an unpleasant experience, Senora," he said, walking down to me.

"And sometimes it is," I said.

"How so?" he said.

"He wasn't killed by a horse," I said.

"Why would you say that, Senora?"

"My spouse is a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police," I said.

"A Mountie," he exclaimed. "Most excellent."

"He told me that horses would go around you even if you were lying on the ground unconscious."

"I am not a Mountie and know nothing about horses, but if he says so, then it must be true." I couldn't tell whether he was being facetious or not. "Other than what the Mountie has told you, can you find any support for your point of view?" he asked. Now I knew he was humoring me.

"Do you see any horse poop on this side of the fence?" I said.

Fuentes looked amused, but at least he looked around for a minute before he pronounced, "No."

"There's lots of horse poop on this island, at Rano Raraku, on the road to Orongo, and even on the main street of Hanga Roa. And there is lots of horse poop out there," I said, pointing to the area beyond the fence. "But never in the three days I've been here have I ever seen horse poop on the hotel grounds."

"But there are horses just outside the fence, Sefiora," he said. He looked as if he was having great difficulty not laughing.

"There certainly are," I agreed. "So how did the horse get into the hotel grounds."

"It jumped the fence, I suppose," he said.

"Okay," I said. "Show me where. Show me one hoof print anywhere near the fence on either side of it." He was sufficiently interested in what I had to say to walk the length of the fence as I had.

"Where did you find Maddox's shoe?" I asked. "This side or the other side?"

"This side," he said.

"So what happened here? Maddox lost a shoe climbing the fence to get to a horse on the other side, went out to the road, along it, down the hotel lane, through the lounge, and across the terrace?"

Fuentes was beginning to look annoyed. "What happened here was a bad accident," he said.

"I don't think so," I said. I went through the gate now, being careful not to step on any hoof print as I did so, and walked up to the edge of the cliff, peering over the side very cautiously. I do not like heights. "There's a dead horse down there," I said after a moment or two.

"There is?" Fuentes said, stepping as carefully as I had through the gate and joining me at the edge. The horse lay on its side on the rocks below. From time to time a wave washed over it. The poor horse was very definitely dead.

"I suppose that must be the horse," he said. "You may have inadvertently disproved your own hypothesis."

"I don't think so," I said. "How did the horse get down there and Maddox end up here? Please don't tell me the horse felt so bad after trampling Maddox that it threw itself off the cliff."

"Senora," he said, in a pained tone. "It is too bad about the horse. I suppose I will have to send someone down there to have a look. I think you are hinting that Sefior Maddox may have been murdered. I do not agree with you. Murder is almost unheard of on Rapa Nui. I think the only one in living memory occurred when a man killed his wife some time back."

"I'm glad to hear murderers do not run rampant on the island, but the people we are talking about are not from Rapa Nui," I said.

"As far as I know, tourists do not regularly murder each other here, either," he said. "However, lest you think I am being derelict in my duty, I will tell you that I have asked that a pathologist be sent out from Santiago. The doctors who examined the victim and pronounced on his death are somewhat divided in their opinion, shall we say, and so I have asked for an expert to settle this. Unfortunately the pathologist is not going to make today's flight. He will come in tomorrow."

"What do you mean divided in their opinion?" I said. "Could one of their opinions coincide with mine?"

"No, Senora," he said. "One of them thinks Senor Maddox may have hit his head on a stone."

"Which stone?" I said.

"The one his head was resting on. You have perhaps not noticed that there is a lot of rock on Rapa Nui?" he said. He was getting a bit testy. "There was alcohol and barbiturates in his blood. That much we have been able to ascertain here," he said.

"Enough to kill him?" I asked.

"Perhaps not," he conceded. "But maybe enough to make him sufficiently loco to go out and try to ride a horse."

"Everyone is leaving today or tomorrow," I said. "Before the pathologist gets here."

"Not today, Senora. There is an inbound flight from Santiago, but no return. The flight goes on to Tahiti today. It will not be back until tomorrow."

"So nobody from the congress is going to Tahiti?"

Fuentes pulled a small notebook out of his pocket. "Two of you: Senora Susan Scace, Senor Seth Connelly. I am here early in order to take their statements before they leave."

"Maybe you should take their passports until the pathologist gets here."

"I am having some difficulty thinking how I would explain to my superiors in Valparaiso why I impounded the passports of two foreign nationals on the basis of horse poop."

He had a point, I suppose. "What else is down there?" I asked. "There seems to be a path leading down to the water across the way, on the other side of the cove."

"Ana Kai Tangata," he said. "Ana means cave in Rapanui.

That is Eat Man Cave. There are two possible interpretations of the name. One is that this is where Rapa males came for picnics. The other is—"

"I know what the other one is," I said. "Maybe they were starving. Their children were starving. Perhaps in desperate circumstances people do the unthinkable."

"Perhaps," he said. "You should go and see the cave. I do not go sightseeing myself, but I understand there are paintings of birds on the walls."

Fuentes waved goodbye and started back toward the hotel. I was tempted to follow. I realized I was hungry, which, given the state of my insides the previous evening, was a very good sign. I could hear the clink of dishes in the dining room, and while it was still a bit early, I wondered if I might persuade them to make me a large breakfast.

Instead, I followed the path along the edge of the cliff until I came to a rocky path heading down toward the sea. The path wasn't exactly an easy one, nor was it particularly difficult as long as you watched where you put your feet. Soon I was down at the water level, with the waves crashing against stone just a few yards away. In a few strides I was up in the cave. A section of the upper wall of the cave was, as Fuentes had said, painted. You could make out birds in blue and red and white. The paintings were sufficiently high on the wall that some sort of scaffolding would have been required—wood supports, I supposed, if wood were then available, a pile of stones if it wasn't. Fuentes was right about one thing: One commodity this island would never run out of is rock.

I sat there for a while thinking about both the cave and my conversation with Fuentes. If Ana Kai Tangata was haunted by evil spirits emanating from either the victims or the perpetrators of the cannibalism implied in the cave's name, I couldn't feel them. The danger seemed much more imminent than that. I felt trapped in some kind of web with whatever evil was out there, on an island where there are only a few flights a week, some of which went somewhere I didn't intend to go. What was it like, I wondered, to live on an island so far from everything else? Everything you need, or just want, from a lot of your food to the smallest part for your car engine to a grand piano, had to come from somewhere else, by and large, and travel great distances to get to you.

All I could see through the cave entrance was water, the gray of the sky and the gray of the water meeting at a horizon that seemed very far off. I knew once I stepped out of the cave, the horizon would seem limitless. Pablo Fuentes didn't believe me. I wasn't even sure Moira would. Te-Pito-Te-Henua, they called it—the navel of the world. As stunning as this island might be, when it came right down to it, at this moment at least, there was not a lot to be said for being alone at the center of the world.

With those morbid thoughts, I picked my way carefully across the rocks to the dead horse. I wondered if Fuentes would feel differently about the passports of foreign nationals when he saw the poor horse had been killed by a bullet through its brain.

That is Eat Man Cave. There are two possible interpretations of the name. One is that this is where Rapa males came for picnics. The other is—"

"I know what the other one is," I said. "Maybe they were starving. Their children were starving. Perhaps in desperate circumstances people do the unthinkable."

"Perhaps," he said. "You should go and see the cave. I do not go sightseeing myself, but I understand there are paintings of birds on the walls."

Fuentes waved goodbye and started back toward the hotel. I was tempted to follow. I realized I was hungry, which, given the state of my insides the previous evening, was a very good sign. I could hear the clink of dishes in the dining room, and while it was still a bit early, I wondered if I might persuade them to make me a large breakfast.

Instead, I followed the path along the edge of the cliff until I came to a rocky path heading down toward the sea. The path wasn't exactly an easy one, nor was it particularly difficult as long as you watched where you put your feet. Soon I was down at the water level, with the waves crashing against stone just a few yards away. In a few strides I was up in the cave. A section of the upper wall of the cave was, as Fuentes had said, painted. You could make out birds in blue and red and white. The paintings were sufficiently high on the wall that some sort of scaffolding would have been required—wood supports, I supposed, if wood were then available, a pile of stones if it wasn't. Fuentes was right about one thing: One commodity this island would never run out of is rock.

I sat there for a while thinking about both the cave and my conversation with Fuentes. If Ana Kai Tangata was haunted by evil spirits emanating from either the victims or the perpetrators of the cannibalism implied in the cave's name, I couldn't feel them. The danger seemed much more imminent than that. I felt trapped in some kind of web with whatever evil was out there, on an island where there are only a few flights a week, some of which went somewhere I didn't intend to go. What was it like, I wondered, to live on an island so far from everything else? Everything you need, or just want, from a lot of your food to the smallest part for your car engine to a grand piano, had to come from somewhere else, by and large, and travel great distances to get to you.

All I could see through the cave entrance was water, the gray of the sky and the gray of the water meeting at a horizon that seemed very far off. I knew once I stepped out of the cave, the horizon would seem limitless. Pablo Fuentes didn't believe me. I wasn't even sure Moira would. Te-Pito-Te-Henua, they called it—the navel of the world. As stunning as this island might be, when it came right down to it, at this moment at least, there was not a lot to be said for being alone at the center of the world.

With those morbid thoughts, I picked my way carefully across the rocks to the dead horse. I wondered if Fuentes would feel differently about the passports of foreign nationals when he saw the poor horse had been killed by a bullet through its brain.