At ten that night I went back to the police station to pick up Moira, who was being permitted to go back to the hotel. I found her sitting with Rory in a room with bars on the windows.
"I'm going to wait with Rory," she said.
"No, you aren't," he said gently. "You are going with Lara. You're going to have a good night's sleep. I will be out of here in no time."
"I don't want to leave you here all by yourself," she said.
"I'll be fine. Get her out of here," Rory said to me.
"You can come back tomorrow, Moira," I said. "Right now, you're coming with me."
I wanted to ask Rory about the rongorongo tablet, but I knew doing so here was a very bad idea, and I also knew Moira needed some rest. I decided I was going to get her something to eat, then into bed, feed her one of those sleeping pills of hers, and get on with my job. I tried not to watch as they kissed each other good night.
11
THERE WAS NO KISSING going on in the Fairweather household. In fact, Gordon and Victoria were in the midst of a rather heated discussion, by which I mean a rip-roaring argument, part of which I witnessed before they noticed me lurking on the porch outside their living room.
"I insist, Victoria," Gordon was saying as I walked up the steps. I was not eavesdropping. You could hear him in Alaska.
"I am staying here with you," she replied.
"Have I ever insisted on anything in our relationship?" he demanded. "I am asking now just once, please."
"I don't believe I'm in the habit of insisting either, Gordon," she said. "But I am now. I will not pack Edith up and take her to Melbourne. I will not leave Gabriela in hospital. That's that. When Gabriela's well and you can go to Melbourne, we'll all go to Melbourne. Not a minute before!"
"You must go," he said.
"This is my house, Gordon, my home. Have you forgotten? We live in my house here, your house in Melbourne. I will not leave my home."
"Victoria!" he said. "If I could leave this island, I would. I can't, so you must." My eye was caught by some movement over to one side of the room. It was Edith. She was sucking on her fist, and tears were running down her face. I don't think her parents realized she was there.
"I will not leave without you," Victoria said.
"Victoria, please," he said again. It was an anguished cry. "I am trying to tell you that you and Edith and Gabriela are not safe with me. You are both in danger as long as you are with me. We cannot stay together."
I stood rooted to the floor of the deck. He knows, I thought. He knows the same way that Seth did, that Dave did, maybe even Jasper. He knows where the danger lies, maybe not the specifics, but he knows what this is about. It wasn't about Gabriela. It was about him. That realization hit me so hard, I think I spoke aloud. The room inside went silent, and Gordon turned on the light and came to the door.
"It's you," he said.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
"We'll call this round a draw, shall we, Gordon?" Victoria said. "I think you want to speak to my husband, Lara. I'm not sure how much you heard, but we have a difference of opinion here. Gordon wants me to take Edith and go to Australia. I don't want to go until we get this mess straightened out. I'm going to check on Edith, and then I'm going to see how Gabriela is doing, Gordon. You talk to Lara."
"Edith was watching," I said.
"Oh, no!" Gordon said. He slumped into a chair as Victoria went to find and comfort the little girl.
I waited until he'd composed himself, and then I asked about the rongorongo tablet. "I hear that you had it," I said.
"Yes," he said.
"You got it from Jasper," I said.
"Yes," he said.
"Did you steal it from him?"
"No," he said.
"Look, Gordon, my friend Moira spent all day in jail I cause she was caught trying to get the rongorongo tablet out of Rory's place. I could use a little more than yes and no.'
"Jasper asked me to take a look at it, to see if it was what he thought it was. I said I'd need to take it home with r and he agreed. It's as simple as that. I had a look at it, a then I asked Rory to also look at it. I'm not entirely sure what happened to it after that. If you will recall, I was hiding out in a cave."
"So is it authentic?"
"Yes, it is," he said. "It just isn't from Chile, that's all.
"So where was it from?"
"Here, of course. Despite what Jasper tried to show, t is the only place you find rongorongo. If he'd thought about it, he'd have known that, too."
"Did Rory agree?"
"He thought it would need more testing," he said.
"You didn't?"
"No," he said. "It's real."
"How could you say that, just by looking at it?"
"I just know that it is," he replied.
"And you aren't going to tell me why," I said.
"No, I'm not," he said.
"I'm sitting here wondering why Jasper would consult you on this, Gordon. It seemed to me you weren't the best of friends."
"He had his reasons," Gordon said.
"Are you going to tell me what this is about, Gordon? said softly. He shook his head. At this moment Victoria arrived with a sobbing Edith. Gordon gathered the little girl up in his arms and sat down in a rocking chair, wincing as she grabbed his sore arm. "Go and see Gabriela, Victoria," he said quietly. "I'll stay here with Edith. We'll talk later. If you don't mind, Lara, I would like to spend some time alone with my daughter."
I turned back on the darkened porch and looked at him. He was sitting with his head back, eyes closed, stroking Edith's hair, and swaying slightly. Edith had wrapped her arms around his neck and was already falling asleep. I thought then how much I liked these people, Gordon and Victoria, but also Dave and Seth. I thought of the evening I'd spent with Seth while he told me all about rongorongo, how his enthusiasm for his subject had fired my imagination. Poor Dave had the social skills of a gnat, but he had a good heart, and I had liked him, too. Even Jasper, while I hadn't known him, had earned my grudging admiration for the way he had defied the established way of thinking and done some groundbreaking work. Somewhere out there, someone was destroying them. They were going down, one at a time, without uttering a word. Worse yet, they were taking others, like Gabriela, and even in some respects, Moira, with them.
So now I knew it was about the four men, Gordon, Jasper, Dave, and Seth. They must have had something in common, something they weren't talking about, something that had come to haunt them. What had Seth said? We should never have come back. If they had come back, when had they been here before? It was a question I realized I should have asked myself much sooner, but events, and a certain skepticism on my part where Seth's seemingly incoherent ramblings were concerned, had gotten in the way.
I thought it might be difficult, but it wasn't—just a few hours staring at a computer screen in a little Internet cafe in Hanga Roa the next day. Jasper was particularly easy to find. He had a very impressive Web site, music and all, had I been able to listen to it where I was. I chose the low-tech version from the home page and clicked on something that said All about Jasper.
Jasper's resume went on and on about his great prowess, his huge discoveries, the immense contribution he'd made to our understanding of the history of the Americas, and so on. It was all a bit over the top. By contrast, the section on his education was a little sparse, as I suppose Gordon Fairweather could have told me. Indeed, he'd made the point rather loudly up at Rano Raraku. Jasper's resume did say he attended college, but the word graduate did not come into it. It said he'd studied anthropology at Veritas College in Wisconsin. At least he hadn't faked a degree.