Twenty-Seven Bones

3

The headrest and seat back of the Rover were wet with Apgard’s blood. Apgard himself seemed to lapse in and out of consciousness. Just before he was loaded into the ambulance, his breathing grew labored, sporadic. The paramedics hooked him up to an oxygen tank and rushed him to the hospital.

That left Dawn. They wanted to take her to the hospital, too, but Holly put her foot down. Julian debriefed the child personally, with Holly present. Warm and dry, wreathed and turbaned in towels, sitting in her auntie’s lap in her auntie’s bed, Dawn felt a little like Madeline in the storybook, after she’d had her appendix out. She remembered almost everything except how terribly, terribly afraid she’d been. (In that respect at least-the way the memory lets go of fear and pain-somebody had done a nice job of programming the human mind.)

She told them how Mr. Pender had rushed the Japanese guy. When she described the beating Pender had taken, and how she hadn’t seen him move afterward, Julian pursed his lips, bent his head to his notebook, and scribbled furiously, channeling all the emotions he would not allow himself to feel down his arm to his writing hand, breaking the point of his stubby silver mechanical pencil again and again.

“And then the lady and the old guy left,” Dawn continued, “and Mr. Apgard told me to run, and there was a big explosion, and we were the only ones who got out. And Mr. Apgard said he had to blow up the tunnel because they were coming after us. He gave me the flashlight and told me to hide behind the elephant’s ear tree, and there was another big explosion and then we ran back to the car and he brought me home but it took such a long time because Mr. Apgard kept falling asleep.”

When he left the cabin, Julian had five pages of notes and two pages of questions-what was Apgard’s involvement? was he a hostage or a perp who’d had a change of heart? what caused the explosion? — including the biggest question of all: where was the cave? Somewhere on the north end, was about all Dawn could tell them.

But St. Luke wasn’t that large an island, and the part they called the rain forest was smaller yet. And at one time or another every inch of it had been explored-somebody had to know about a cave that size.

Julian started making mental lists: old-timers, geologists, pot growers, old Mr. Wicker at the Historical Society. Have to roust some people out of bed. Tough titi. The girl hadn’t seen Pender move, but she couldn’t say for certain he was dead. And Julian of all people knew what a thick skull his old friend had. So if he had to wake up every person on the island, one by one, until he found somebody who could lead him to the cave, then that’s what-

“Chief Coffee?”

He turned, saw a woman he failed to recognize-a rarity for him, outside of tourist season. “Yes?”

“I know where the cave is.”