"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."