"Is there a Plan B?" I asked.
"Does there need to be? I mean if Seth is the murderer… ?"
"I'm not sure, but let's assume we do need one," I said. It was just as well we did, because Saturday evening poor Seth was brought back to the hotel, but now confined to a room in the old part of the hotel, with no air-conditioning and no sliding doors at the back, with a guard on his room day and night. Meals were to be delivered to him at Fuentes' discretion and delivered under police escort. It seemed rather churlish to be sorry he wasn't arrested and charged, but I'm sure I was not the only person who would have been relieved if he had been.
The next day was Sunday. Moira and I were up really early and in the dining room stocking up on meat and cheese. At 8:15, we went out to Reception and asked them to call us a taxi. Fuentes appeared instantly. There must have been a little bell at the desk, or he had very good ears.
"You cannot leave the hotel, ladies," he said.
"We are going to church," Moira said. "We never miss Mass on Sundays. You cannot prevent us, surely, from participating in our worship." Have I mentioned Moira is Jewish?
Fuentes looked us over. We had each packed one dress for the trip, thinking we might have a fancy dinner out in Santiago, and we were wearing them, along with our sun hats. We also had our good sandals on. My dress, which fortunately was of the loose variety, covered a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. My running shoes were in my bag. The food was in Moira's.
"My officers would be happy to take you to the church,"
Fuentes said at last. "They will wait for you and bring you back."
"Thank you," we said.
The church was already filling up when we got there. The police dropped us right at the door and watched us walk in. I stood in the doorway long enough to see that they had shut off the engine very close to the door. They'd already put the seats back and were settling in. Within a few minutes, the church was packed with both worshipers and tourists. The front door was blocked by a group of people who had congregated there just to listen. It was standing room only.
As the singing began, Moira slipped the bag of groceries over to me, looked over her shoulder, and said, "Go!"
In a couple of seconds, I was out the side door. Plan A, and now Plan B, hinged on one thing: not one but two identical white Suzukis that we'd rented the previous day, initially intending to do a switch kind of operation, a plan scuppered by Seth's dash for freedom. One car was now at the hotel, under the watchful eye of the carabineros. The second was on a side street in town. While I'd been sitting in the window of the restaurant we'd entered shortly after we left the rental agency, pretending to talk to her, Moira had slipped out the back, picked up the second car, and parked it on the side street where I now headed. It was possible, of course, that the carabineros, who'd watched us go into the rental agency, would go in and find out we'd actually rented two. I didn't think they would. We'd gone into a rental agency and come out with a car. In five minutes, I was in the second car and on my way.
The rental agency was going to be none too thrilled with the state of the suspension on one of their vehicles, but I didn't care. I blasted up the road by the airport, turned inland at a trail, and bounced along for several minutes. I knew I had less than an hour to get to Gordon and get back to the church. The trouble was, I wasn't sure if I was on the right trail. Several cut off in different directions. I took one I was sure was it, but it just ended, not at the rock face I expected, but at a small copse of trees. After half an hour of this, I knew I was defeated. I was afraid I wouldn't even be able to find the main road again. Moira would be caught in the church without me, and we'd both be locked in our room. It wasn't in any of our interests to let that happen. I headed downward, hoping to pick up the main road, which I figured I had to come to eventually, looking left and right as often as I could without getting completely bogged down, to see if I could see the rock outcrop that contained the family cave. At last, when I was about to despair completely, I found the paved road, and headed back to town. It was the best I could do.
The last stragglers were leaving the church as I slipped in the side door and then walked out the front with Moira. "Wasn't the singing just marvelous?" Moira said as we climbed into our police escort's van.
"Lovely," I said. Someday I'd like to hear it. "I enjoyed it so much, I might like to go to Mass again tomorrow morning."
Moira paused for a moment. "Good idea," she said. "I'll speak to Corporal Fuentes about it."
"Tell me you found him and he's all right," she said, as we sauntered across the lawn to our room once the police dropped us off.
"I couldn't find the place," I said. "All the trails looked the same." There was a catch in my voice, and she put her arm through mine.
"Let's get into our bathing suits, go out to our favorite spot, and devise Plan C," she said.
"I've got to find a way to contact Victoria," I said, as we were back in our customary spots near the edge of the cliff. "Get her to draw a map to the cave. I know I started off right, but when I was with Gordon, he was giving me directions and I was just concentrating on not hitting a pothole so hard that I destroyed the truck. I didn't realize how many side trails there are. Some of them were pretty well traveled, so I figured it couldn't be one of those, but maybe it could. Maybe the carabineros have already been up to the cave, and it was their tracks I saw."
"But they would have found him if they'd gone up there," she said.
"Not according to Rory and Christian," I said. "And Gordon for that matter. They all claim he wouldn't be found."
"Victoria was not at Mass," she said. "I looked for her as planned, and I had the note ready to try to slip to her some way if I could catch her eye, but if she was there I couldn't find her."
"Did you manage the service all right?" I said.
"Sure," she said. "I did what you told me. I watched what everybody else did. I stood when they stood, I kneeled when they kneeled, and when they sang I just hummed along. It was gorgeous music by the way. They had a band even, with drums and guitars, and the hymns were in Rapanui. I loved it. Is it too late for me to convert?"
I smiled dutifully. I knew she was trying to cheer me up. "I guess the carabineros won't even let Victoria go to Mass. Do you remember that Gordon said she hadn't missed Sunday Mass in the five years he'd known her? I screwed up, Moira."
"Don't think that way," she said. "We'll come up with something."
After dinner, we went back to our room and at a reasonable hour turned out the light. By one AM, I was out the sliding door at the back, over the fence, and out on the road. Plan C was underway. I got past the guard without any trouble and then jogged into town. I found Gordon's house and slipped into the neighbor's yard. I knew there was a clothesline out back—indeed the clothes on it had lent Gordon and me some cover when we made our hasty exit. It was, as I'd hoped, the kind on a pulley. As quickly and quietly as possible, I pinned a note, in a plastic bag, to the line, and reeled it up to the house before slipping away. By 1:45 I was back in my bed.
The storm hit the next morning. Lightning streaked across the sky, and the rain came down in torrents. The airport was closed. The lawn where Moira and I had held our planning sessions was a sea of mud. We took to writing each other notes in our room while we talked about something else. I was sure Gordon was dead, that the day before had been my last chance to save him, even when Moira passed a note across to me that said all Gordon had to do to get water was to stand outside, look up, and open his mouth. The trouble was there was no reason for there to be clothes on a clothesline in this weather. We agreed, however, that I would head out again that night.
I was soaking wet by the time I got there, having had to slide past the carabineros to get to our second rental car once again. The clothesline was absolutely bare. I was debating whether to try to get into the house when I heard a creak, and the line started to move. A note in a plastic bag slid silently over to me. I looked at the window close to where the line attached to the house and thought I saw something move, but I didn't hang around. It was still dark when I got to the car, but dawn would be coming soon enough. The terrible weather, I hoped, would give me some cover. I headed out of town on to the main road, and when the coast seemed to be clear, I switched on Moira's penlight and had a look at the map. I tried to do the route without headlights, but eventually had to switch them on.