"So it's possible to do tattoos without this machine?" I said.
"Of course. Even now people use an empty pen into which they put a sharp wire of some kind, and they just use the ink you'd use in a fountain pen. I shouldn't have told you that," she said. "I've probably put you off. Really, people have been getting tattoos for thousands of years, and they are now very trendy. It's quite safe, and it hardly hurts at all. If you want something small and not too fancy, I can do it right now. You know what I'd suggest for you? I don't know if you've been to Ana Kai Tangata, the cave…"
"I have," I said. I was trying to remember to breathe and not have a complete nervous collapse at the thought of this tattoo.
"Then I'm sure you recall the wall paintings. There is a bird motif there that relates to the cult of the bird man. I could do that. It's pretty and it's discreet. It would be a good souvenir of your trip; and you never know, maybe having a little tattoo would make your life more exciting. Why don't you go for it?"
I managed to stop myself from commenting that finding three bodies so far on this trip was more excitement that I could stand and that right now a bird tattoo was out of the question.
"I guess if these tattoos were done in such a primitive fashion, it is difficult for the police to narrow down their search," I said.
"It is," she said. "I was able to tell them one thing, though. I'm almost certain the person who did this was left-handed."
"How would you know that?" I said.
"You draw an outline of the design you want on the skin first, so you start at a point, and go in a direction, that prevents you from smudging the design. If you're right-handed, as I am, you will tend to start at the top and go around the design counterclockwise, and if you're left-handed you go clockwise."
"But if they're finished you can't tell. You're talking about Gabriela's, then."
"Yes," she said. "It wasn't finished, and the person who did it stopped in the middle of piercing the skin. I'm almost certain I'm right," she said. "Now, how about it? Maybe just a little bird?"
"Could I think about this overnight?" I said. "Maybe email my partner, Rob, for his opinion on this subject?"
"I'll bet he'd find something small and strategically placed rather interesting," she said.
"I suppose," I said. Apparently all that is necessary to make life both interesting and exciting is a little tattoo. I wondered if that is what Moira thought, a tattoo and a little fling with Rory.
Nonetheless, I was feeling positively euphoric that I had managed to get that much information without actually having to get a tattoo, even if I had proven to myself without a shadow of a doubt that I was the most boring person on the planet. No guts, either. Never mind: I now knew it was possible for someone to use something as simple as a ballpoint pen and a sharp piece of wire to do a tattoo. It was possible I was the only person in the world up until that moment who hadn't known this. The point was, now I did.
My second visit of the afternoon was to the hotel manager, one Celestino, by name. I managed to corner him in the garden, so that it would look like a chance meeting rather than my having to make an appointment. I casually introduced myself and commiserated with him about the events unfolding at the hotel he managed. I told him I'd been to see Gabriela in the hospital because I knew her father and stepmother and how appalled I'd been to hear about the poison.
"I found her," he said. "Right over there. It was dreadful. I live just down the street with my family, and I was doing a last-minute check of the property before I left for the night. I heard a moan, and there was some shuffling around. Her body seemed to fall out of the hedge, although I must have been imagining it. I thought at first someone had tossed her there, but that couldn't be the case, could it?"
"I certainly hope not," I said, but of course it could. This was probably the person who had inadvertently saved Gabriela from instant death.
"I thought at first she was drunk, you know, so I didn't call the police right away. But then, when I couldn't wake her … I'll be glad when this is all over," he said. "I've never seen anything like this in the ten years I've been here."
"I'm sure we'll all be on our way very soon," I said. I sure hoped I was right.
Cassandra proved more elusive. In fact I was beginning to wonder if she was hiding out somewhere, but she did like her food, and I eventually found her in the dining room. "I need to talk to you," I said pulling up a chair without being asked.
"I don't need to talk to you," she said.
"Fine," I said. "I was just coming to warn you. Have the carabineros interviewed you yet?"
"Why would they want to do that?" she said, giving me the evil eye.
"I guess you haven't heard," I said. "Gabriela, the young woman from the hotel, was poisoned, deliberately, by someone. The police are treating it as attempted murder now."
The gypsy turned green. "Oh," she gasped.
"Yes," I said. "It would probably be best if you talked to them about that night before I do. What is your real name by the way? I'm sure they'll want to know that."
"Muriel," she said. "Muriel Jones. My friends call me Mu. That's how I got interested in the goddess Mu and Lemuria." She had completely dropped her pseudo-Hungarian gypsy accent. I'd say she was from the Midwest somewhere.
"Have you got any other names, like Anakena, maybe?"
"Anakena? No," she said. She looked as if she were going to throw up.
"Have you ever met this Anakena?" I said.
"I suppose I must have," she said. "Anakena is here."
"But you don't know Anakena for sure," I said.
"No. I don't know why all these questions about Anakena," she said. "It wasn't what you thought, you know, that night."
"How was it then, Muriel?" At least she wasn't trying to stick to her story that I was mistaken about seeing her with Gabriela.
"It was the cards. They predicted this."
"Oh, please," I said.
"It's true," she said. "I read her cards. It cost me a lot to get here, but given my years of study of Lemuria, I felt I couldn't pass up the opportunity to come. I rather needed a little spending money while I was here, though, so I started reading cards in my room for anyone who cared to pay me. A lot of the girls on staff came. There's nothing illegal in that."
"I'm not sufficiently familiar with the laws of Chile to comment," I said, rather acidly. She turned even greener, if that was possible.
"The thing about Gabriela was that bad news kept coming up. She came two or three times. Do you know the tarot cards?" Cassandra asked me. I shook my head. "I won't get into the technicalities, but Gabriela's cards were not good.
Death, number 13, showed its face every time I did them. That is not necessarily bad in the tarot, but it was in the context of the other cards. She got absolutely hysterical about it. I mean truly hysterical. It was during the filming of my interview. They were adjusting something or other, and so I went back to my room for a bathroom break. Gabriela was there, insisting I read her cards again. At this point, I wasn't charging her or anything. Then the tower, reversed, turned up, signifying unavoidable calamity. I tried to soft pedal it, but essentially the cards said that her chosen course would lead to someone's death. She went crazy. I think they are very superstitious people here."
And Cassandra, nee Muriel, wasn't? "Go on," I said.
"She went out the back door, and I followed her. I was afraid she was going to pass out or something. I remembered hearing you should slap a person to bring them around. That's what I was doing when you saw me. Honest. You do believe me, don't you?"
"I'm not sure," I said. "Perhaps you should tell this story to the police rather than to me." Cassandra looked as if she was about to faint dead away. I didn't care. I did, however, believe her story, pathetic though it might be.