"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.